KVR MIX CHALLENGE - MC03 August 2014 - Voting period has ended, Winners announced (pg 17)

[Compyfox]

Final Edit (15-06-2014):

The voting results are in. Please follow this link to jump directly to them:

Voting results - winners announced



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Major edit (30-08-2014):

Due to the nature of the "all-purpose thread" route we're currently going, we now handle everything in one thread. Meaning: submissions, voting, feedback.

The voting process just started and will last until 13-09-2014 (midnight to 14-09-2014, PDT).
Want to be kept up to date, please click on the link below to jump to the beginning of the voting.

Voting Period - SoundCloud folder, voting rules, statistics



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We're back with a vocal track, time to start MC03!


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CURRENT CHALLENGE - GENERAL INFORMATION

Time Frame: Friday, 1st August to Sunday, 21th August (21 days)
Challenge will end on Midnight to Friday, 22nd August, PDT (Pacific Daylight Time) - if you want to find out when that is the case at your place, please use the following tool and and select "Los Angeleas" as location 1, and your location as location 2:
http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/meeting.html


Song Provider: Eric "Uncle E" Dahlberg
Song Name and Length: "If I get lost" feat. Michelle Mai, 6:21min
Song Information: 122bpm, 4/4, in key of F Minor / Db Major (harmony)
File Format: WAV, 44kHz, 24bit

GENRE: Deep Tech House

Preview of the Song:
https://soundcloud.com/jrrshop/eric-dah ... chelle-mai



A word from the song provider:

It's meant to be a club track.
The focus is on: vocals and drums. Add reverb to almost everything but use them subtly.

In order to line up the files properly, the Michelle Hook & Oohs file must start at Bar 1, all other files must start at Bar 5

"Michelle Extras" are there only for creative use (read: adding "natural" chorus/doubling) or to fix problems (comping). They are not necessary and they will need to be moved around significantly if you do use them.

Please take note of the guide track on SoundCloud - the extra phrase "speak to me" could be used around the 5:10min track mark (where it was originally). But I took it out because I thought having space there was better.

Special Add-On Rules:
- no rearrangement allowed (exception: see below)
- vocals: nothing else other than "vocal comping" and "vocal doubling" (if desired) should be done - read: no additional harmony creation with tools like Melodyne
- no drum replacement allowed


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Source Files:
Since this is a track with vocals by a professional (Michelle Mai sings with The Pussycat Dolls and Ashley Simpson amongst others), song provider Eric Dahlberg is very(!) reserved on offering the files to the mass public (read: freely accessible links). We make them available through a password protected access only!

In order to get access, we need you to contact user Uncle E through PM with the subject "KVR Mix Challenge 03 - Song Access". Eric will then get back to you ASAP and will both provide a link and the corresponding login data.

We do this to actually monitor who's trying to access the files. The login data will be changed on a random basis. We're sorry for the inconvenience for everyone that is not a member on KVRaudio, but we try to keep the illegal distribution on bootleg pages to a bar minimum. And since the files are only accessible through us, we can narrow down who might have spread those files. So do yourself a favor... be fair, please stick to the rules, only use the track for this Mix Challenge and don't mass-share the login. Because if that doesn't work out, chances are that future access to similar multi-track productions for the Mix Challenge might be in jeopardy.

User Compyfox was kind enough to provide the webspace.
The server is residing in Germany, with very fast connectivity. Downloading the files with a Download Manager (including resume) is possible.

The provided files were packed as ZIP with LZMA compression.
File size extracted: 2,3GB, packed 444,50MB
In order to extract the files, we can recommend these programs:

Macintosh:
The Unarchiver - get it here

Windows:
7zip - Installation, Portable


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Please take note of the official rules - they can be found at the following thread:
KVR Mix Challenge - Official Rules and Guidelines

Please address any question in the official Gossip thread:
KVR Mix Challenge - Gossip and Discussion

Please also take note of certain comments on the provided source material:
http://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic ... 1#p5798831


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SPONSORS (Prices):

Prices for mix participants:



JRR Shop will give away either one of the following plugins:
SONiVOX Wobble, Pulse, Vocalizer, or Twist (until further notice)
More info about the plugins on SONiVOX: http://www.sonivoxmi.com
More info about the sponsor: http://www.jrrshop.com/



Camel Audio is kind enough to donate either Camel Space or CamelPhat to the winner (until further notice)
License will turn into NFR
More info on Camel Audio: http://www.camelaudio.com



Tone2 is kind enough to donate a bundle consisting of AkustiX Enhancer and WarmVerb to the winner (until further notice)
License will turn into NFR
More info on Tone2: https://tone2.com



KVR user Karten (CEO of Ghostwave Audio) is kind enough to donate MixRight (a Reaktor Ensemble) to the winner (until further notice)
License won't turn into NFR, you need Native Instruments Reaktor 5.8+ for this
More info on Ghostwave Audio: http://ghostwaveaudio.com/


Month Exclusive Sponsor (August 2014):

U-HE is kind enough to donate any 1 plugin out of their plugin or instrument range
License will turn into NFR
More infor on U-HE: http://www.u-he.com



Prices for one random drawn voter:

JRR Shop themselves, and JRR Shop in cooperation with UVI, will give away either one of the following plugins:
SONiVOX Wobble, Pulse, Vocalizer, or Twist (until further notice)
or
UVI Mello or Digital Synsations (for this month, License will turn into NFR)
More info about the plugins on SONiVOX: http://www.sonivoxmi.com
More info about the plugins on UVI: http://www.uvi.net/
More info about the sponsor: http://www.jrrshop.com/



THANKS FOR THE DONATIONS!
And also a thank you to all former contributor as well.

If you want to sponsor content (please have a focus on mix plugins, bundles and the likes), please get in touch with the headmaster of the competition.


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Good luck to all participants.
And most importantly, have fun!



EDIT 01 - 05-08-2014:
- changes to the "Month Exclusive" sponsor

EDIT 02 - 12-08-2014:
- extended submission period

EDIT 03 - 17-08-2014:
- once more extended submission period

EDIT 04 - 22-08-2014:
- submission period has ended, we're now in preparation to the voting process

[Compyfox]

Pro Tip 01:
- such a track can benefit from using the pre-delay on a reverb as groove element, especially if a delay doesn't suite the job

Pro Tip 02:
- if you think that your reverb drowns instruments too much, why not sidechain "duck" them (doesn't mean that you have to - personally I barely use this technique, but it's often used in that genre)

Pro Tip 03:
- FX automation could be key. It's not easy to pull of in an "out the box" environment, but ITB it's just a couple of mouse clicks and dragging

Pro Tip 04:
- Low Cut can clean up a lot of things. Sometimes it's actually good to be more risky. Maybe subjective felt "thin sounds" actually work better in the context of the arrangement

Pro Tip 05:
- don't listen to me - be creative - do whatever the funk you want and create something awesome

[photonic]

Hi,

Today I started with this new track for MC03. And I am really confused about Eric's instruction "Michelle Hook & Oohs file must start at Bar 1, all other files must start at Bar 5".

In the JJRShop-mix on soundcloud the instruments, including snare, are starting with the first word "lost". So the vocals are just a half note before the other tracks start. And not 4 bars alone before everything else comes in.
In the WAV-files we got, snare, kick and more are starting after bar 16 or somewhere there.
"no rearrangement allowed" would mean, we can not make the song like it is on soundcloud. Because for this we would have to copy the snare to the begin.

So I see three different scenario:
1) make it same as it is in the soundcloud preview. Easy!
2) keep all tracks where the are when you imort them into your DAW
3) Voice at bar 1, everything else must start at bar 5. I am not sure, that this will fit to the harmonies.

What shall we do?
Thanks

[Compyfox]

The Harmony Tracks (extras) are NOT at the right position anyway.
Eric was working with "Machine" on that track, and later with Studio One. Maybe we misinterpret Beat/Bar.


Thing is - yes, the endresult SHOULD sound like the track on SoundCloud - arranging the vocals accordingly would not count as "rearrangement" as in form of (like it happened with MC01 and MC02) removing instruments from the arrangement, or adding new ones that were not previously there.

Eric might give more insight than me.

[Uncle E]

Today I started with this new track for MC03. And I am really confused about Eric's instruction "Michelle Hook & Oohs file must start at Bar 1, all other files must start at Bar 5".

In the JJRShop-mix on soundcloud the instruments, including snare, are starting with the first word "lost". So the vocals are just a half note before the other tracks start. And not 4 bars alone before everything else comes in.

The Michelle Hook & Oohs file has 3 and a half bars of empty space before the vocal comes in. If you start it at bar 1 and everything else at bar 5, everything will line up.

This excludes the Michelle Extras files, of course, since those aren't lined up to begin with.

[photonic]

OK, understood!
Thanx

[FrankT]

Guys, only recently came across this thread. Great stuff! I am currently travelling to a Scottish island with very limited network access and only with a very basic DAW setup on my laptop. Will nonetheless try to get something done. Have sent PM to Uncle E.

Cheers
Frank

[Uncle E]

Guys, only recently came across this thread. Great stuff! I am currently travelling to a Scottish island with very limited network access and only with a very basic DAW setup on my laptop. Will nonetheless try to get something done. Have sent PM to Uncle E.

Compyfox did a very good job of getting the files down to a manageable size by using LZMA. If that single LZMA file is still too large for you, though, I can give you access to the individual files on my Google Drive.

[Compyfox]

Individual files are still around 100MB each. The whole project is eating up about 2,3GB of HDD space. So grabbing the whole bundle with "merely" 445MB is the best way to go.

You only need a ZIP extractor that is capable of extracting LZMA. Which pretty much all compression/extraction tools should have by now.

[camsr]

Windows ZIP does not like it. 7z was required to extract them without error.

[Compyfox]

7zip is free, available as portable software and is just more compatible these days. At least IMO.

Using it as "portable version" myself.

[FrankT]

Thanks! See PM.

Cheers
Frank

Guys, only recently came across this thread. Great stuff! I am currently travelling to a Scottish island with very limited network access and only with a very basic DAW setup on my laptop. Will nonetheless try to get something done. Have sent PM to Uncle E.

Compyfox did a very good job of getting the files down to a manageable size by using LZMA. If that single LZMA file is still too large for you, though, I can give you access to the individual files on my Google Drive.

[Compyfox]

I have to bring that up again.

Thing is - yes, the endresult SHOULD sound like the track on SoundCloud - arranging the vocals accordingly would not count as "rearrangement" as in form of (like it happened with MC01 and MC02) removing instruments from the arrangement, or adding new ones that were not previously there.

I do need to emphasize on that.

While working on edits myself, I realized that there might or might not be one or two slight timing issues with the vocals. Fixing them are of course allowed (especially if we talk about a B2C scenario, after you gave feedback to the client) and does show if you pay attention to detail, can weight in what might need a fix, and what not.



Personally I'm really curious what type of vocal edits we will hear in this challenge.

[FrankT]

I tried to download the files with the username + pw provided through PM. Unfortunately it doesnt work.
I am constantly getting the following error message: "This server could not verify that you are authorized to access the document requested. Either you supplied the wrong credentials (e.g., bad password), or your browser doesn't understand how to supply the credentials required."

I am on the latest Version of IE and I have used copy and paste for username and Password to avoid any mistakes.

If you have any immediate advice I'd much appreciate it!

thanks
Frank

[Uncle E]

Hi Frank,

We change the password every couple days (I'm paranoid about these vocals ). I'll PM you with the new password.