MIX CHALLENGE - MC21 May 2016 - Winners announced

[Compyfox]

We're now having the 22nd May, about 3:45pm (a generous time window to still sneak in a mix) - the first Mix Round has officially ended.



Sadly, we only have 8 mixes this time around.


And I'd like to talk about this... also as general feedback for the Challenge and future song providers. Was the track uninteresting? Was it too difficult to mix? Is the Genre not your cup of tea? What should we look out for in the future?

Because this pretty much determins our "song requests" in the future. However - if nobody is providing new material, ideally in the genre you'd like to see the most - the challenge is over.


So yeah... while M4M is listening to all the content and selecting 4-5 people for Round 2 (happy B-Day btw), let's talk about that.

[Kolyev]

The track was quite difficult to mix and the style is probably not very popular. I have to admit, when I first heard the track my initial thoughts were "ok, this is not my thing", but then I downloaded the files anyway, got into it during the mixing process and even found myself grooving along by the end

Mixing wise it was pretty tough to keep the balance and the stereo image intact throughout the whole mix. The largest part of my mixing process was volume and EQ automation. So yeah, this one definetely deserved the tag "challenge".

[kevin gobin]

Hi!

This one was very special and quite difficult to mix. Lot of time to spend into noisy stuff, lot of automation to make the thing breath and evolve. I agree with Kolyev: that was a "challenge".

But thanks KVR and Milfshakers: you allowed us to practice on a rare material.

You wonder why there are few people and I have my theory.
There have been famous contests the 2 last month, with expensive stuff to win, so maybe people chose to concentrate on a single contest or two, but didn't find the time for the MC21.

Please go on the MCs, i'll be there!

[thiagoam88]

Hi, everyone.

I actually prefer "live" music, so I liked working on this song although I'm not completely familiar with the genre. As I'm not a pro, having different production styles to mix is very enriching for me. So regardless of those, I'll always try to participate in every MC (maybe with some crappy results from time to time )

For me, this song was indeed particularly hard to mix for 2 reasons. 1) All instruments are very "busy" during the whole song so if you don't refer back to the rough mix all the time, you might get the arrangement wrong. Maybe we could have a mixing prep Q&A for 2-3 days before mixing? 2) The song structure is not very traditional (intro - verse - chorus etc) making it pretty hard to navigate. It took me a while to get familiar with it.

Honestly, a hard song to mix actually makes us learn more, so I don't mind them. Having different genres brings a very insteresting variety of mixing styles from the participants. And finding the track interesting shouldn't be the mixing engineers job. I wish I could only mix the next The Beatles everytime!!!

So, no restrictions from my end. Had and will always have a good time doing this.

[erictracks]

I thought the song was too long, and needed further arrangement work (provider plz don't take that personally, I totally respect the effort and the time put in to record it), so I worked on external mix comps and currently the music cafe challenge. That said, I'm too old and out of touch to understand the genre I guess.

[Muzik 4 Machines]

so, should i onl post the choosen ones or should i post all mix notes (since there is only 8 entries)?

[Muzik 4 Machines]

ok, no choices yet i need to clean my ears, but here are the first/second listen raw, UNEDITED notes as i wrote them while listening so it might sound like i,m a big negative asshole, but that's how i judge my own mixes too, i write everything that catches attention needs work, i tend not to highlight the good parts, sorry for that, i'll be more positive in the round 1 results post


Photonic:

nice stereo image

more mod synth round 4 minutes needed

arpegio on the right in the intro : lower, a bit too snappy

great bang after the 1st "smooth" part

best toms, but needs to be louder a bit (lie 1, 1.5dB)

2:30 the clean guitar on the right , either lower, fuzzier or washed in fx, sounds too "small" ice pick in the ear compared to the reat of the wall of sound

more delay

delay on the right guitar round 3:15 (when it starts to dominate (and a tad lower too)

feedback wall towards the end could be even thicker

Garynorthants

weird phasing sound, great image, tight toms, a bit too much attack on the drums

nice processing of the wall of sound

distortion is to transistor like on the left guitar, sounds like no speaker sim on the FZ2 (which could be great for NIN, but in the first "smooth" part it clashes a bit, fine when everyone is at it tho )

snare snaps a lot, causing hearing fatigue towards the end

great ending wit the verb


Kevin Gobin

mastered, great bass sound, hats

great space on the synth round 2:10-2:30

did i really play that round 3:30 or it is a delay wall?

lacks a bit of low and the mod synth is a bit lost around the tape stop but grat tape stop!

best ending


Thiagoam88

a bit dark, softer on the ear

great center synth

3:45 the ascending descending out of tune guitar is too loud but it sounds really rad!

drums at the end snaps a bit too much
Koliev

nice arena live drums, nice build of the energy from 0 to 1:30

"solo round 2:15-2:45 either hide it lower or put loads of delay/verb

3:45 a bit of confusion

lacks a bit of bass (the instrument) or lack of low in the bass track
low end is really tight, nice bright hats and crashes

the ends is not long enough, the crash is cut short



Vasdim

some kind of exciter on the drums?
LOTS of deep lows
great tape stop

gated synth should be panned center, inda distracting and even tho its loud there is some low rumble oppisite side that makes the vu say that the left is still louder

synth round 2:45, hide the mistakes with automation or delay and cuts

too much lows, causing ear fatigue towards the end


NukeArts

snare too loud (or too "attack-y"
could use more reverb, especially the sidestick part

the drums are too punchy, in your face for me


Davias

mid heavy, sounds boxy when played side by side others, stands goo on it's own tho

violent drums

intro noise too loud

great wall of sound, well balanced stereo image

pad could use some automation to lower it in the "verses"

end was cut too short

[Ichad.c]

Sadly, we only have 8 mixes this time around.

And I'd like to talk about this... also as general feedback for the Challenge and future song providers. Was the track uninteresting? Was it too difficult to mix?

Sorry I missed this one, only had 1 free day in my schedule and Iron Maiden was playing that day No problem with the song choice.

Hi, everyone.

I actually prefer "live" music...

Ditto, but I wonder how people who are used to dealing with perfectly separated and pre-processed drums and other instruments would react to a completely all live instrument track...?

I've actually heard some fresh recorded songs from Queen and The Killers and it was well, a bit meh. The Killers sounds just like any other high-school band, nothing special, and Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody has probably one of the worst recorded guitars that I've ever heard - overloaded amp, overloaded mic-pre - slammed super hot onto tape, super noisy, that mix engineer was a genius to get that to sound good. Though the one thing I do consider and realize is that good/pro musicians always have good/better timing compared to hobbyists. Timing is an issue for me, but the rest I can work around.

I'm cool with the Mix Challenge as is.

[Davias]

I think the challenge is a challenge, and I like to try to mix tracks that are out of my comfort zone
It is very good to learn to handle every problem and situations, and teaches me new technique that I can then apply to my genres of predilection (mostly electro) so it is very good. In real life I guess engineers have to deal with all kind of crappy records, and it is an art to make them sound good as Ichad.c says...
For this particular mix the records were ok, but many instruments shared the same space and that is what I found hard to deal with ^^

When I'll find some time I'll dig an old track of mine to provide for the challenge since it seems there is need for tracks, but I need to restore that old comp where the track is to render the stems...

I hope the challenge will go on because it is a bit unique on the internet I feel and since I lost inspiration for composing, I need the mix challenge !

[Compyfox]

Okay, so the overall feedback so far was:
"It's a challenge, but a good challenge - please continue"

But we sadly can't continue, if you don't get new content to mix. Only once the pool has been used up (which is at most only a 2 months buffer), and the cry for help was loud enough. I / we can do nothing more than bump threads, spread the word on social media, etc. We have a dedicated thread in the Music Cafe that I usually bump every other day... yet barely any response. Why - I can't explain it.

Maybe we should have a dedicated homepage for that purpose? A more global area to head to for general information, checking the rules, former challenges, etc? Would this result in more traffic, and therefore more interaction? We're sadly not like the OSC or MCC - where we're not in need for anything to mix, because part of these challenges is to write songs within given limitation (OSC: one particular synth, MCC: a particular theme per month).



A Q&A 3-days prep period is not easy to pull off, as the last 3 challenges alone were all "last minute" decisions / offerings. And this would change the schedule drastically.

But then again, and this is my counter argument, isn't this what the thread is for already? Why we insist that the song provider is an active part of the challenge? He/She does the Q&A during the mixing process - no extra schedule needed, no 2-3 days in advance. It#s part of the challenge right from the start - however barely anybody goes that route. Still, we do recommend not(!) to submit a mix within the first 24-48hours after the start of the challenge. So that is actually covered already.



Thanks for the input so far - and please keep having an eye on this thread for M4M's evaluation of the challenge incl the announcement of the participants for Round 2. And I'll update the thread ASAP...

[thiagoam88]

Ditto, but I wonder how people who are used to dealing with perfectly separated and pre-processed drums and other instruments would react to a completely all live instrument track...?

I actually meant live as not electronic (mostly samples, loops and synths). A whole different game, indeed.

But then again, and this is my counter argument, isn't this what the thread is for already? Why we insist that the song provider is an active part of the challenge? He/She does the Q&A during the mixing process - no extra schedule needed, no 2-3 days in advance. It#s part of the challenge right from the start - however barely anybody goes that route. Still, we do recommend not(!) to submit a mix within the first 24-48hours after the start of the challenge. So that is actually covered already.

And I agree with you. Since I haven't participated in the first MCs, I wasn't aware I could ask the song provider questions to better understand his/her expectation. As you said, nobody went that route for as long as I've participated so I just assumed, as it's not explicit in the rules, it wasn't a "good practice". Not sure how that would have contritbuted to more entries though.

Anyhow, we certainly appreciate the staff's effort to make the MC go on!

[Muzik 4 Machines]

Ok, so I need to pick to top 8 for round 2, so you all go to round 2; I will do a post per participant, less of a mess to manage

here's some better written feedback and requests for round 2

Photonic

nice stereo image, but seems to pull a bit on the left in the second " verse" (mostly the synth)

Right guitar, intro; could be lower a bit since the notes are wrong and the sound kind of "snaps" too much
nice energy build entering the chorus with the swooshing pad

more mod synth round 4 minutes needed, what it play is better than whet the guitar do
great bang after the 1st "smooth" part

around 3 minutes the guitars are out of tune, i'd try to mask that a bit (bar 74-75)
toms, but needs to be louder a bit (like 1, 1.5dB)

2:30 the clean guitar on the right , either lower, fuzzier or washed in fx, sounds too "small" ice pick in the ear compared to the rest of the wall of sound

more delay on the right guitar starting around 3 minutes, lower the part too

feedback wall towards the end could be even thicker, with delay on the left guitar (could go as far as self oscillation)

[Muzik 4 Machines]

Ok, so I need to pick to top 8 for round 2, so you all go to round 2; I will do a post per participant, less of a mess to manage

here's some better written feedback and requests for round 2

Garynorthants

i really like the "auto" pan wha in the intro

great image, well balanced

tight toms, a bit too much attack on the drums in general causing hearing fatigue towards the end
could use a bit more hats

nice processing of the wall of sound

distortion is too transistor-like on the left guitar, sounds like no speaker sim on the FZ2 (which could be great for NIN, but in the first "smooth" part it clashes a bit, fine when everyone is at it tho ) (actually on 12th or so listen, it fits just right, makes it even grungier) (is there a way to make text "strike-through" on KvR?)

really great tape stop, really clear

right guitar in the end could be lowered, filtered and drenched in modulated delay or something, my notes are SO wrong





great ending wit the verb

[Muzik 4 Machines]

Kevin Gobin

this one was either mastered or abusively hot compared to others (i had to lower it 12dB to do the comparative part of the judging)
great drum sound, really natural in the intro

i really like the processing starting at 2 minutes, on the right side (i can't even tell if it's guitar or synth) keep that

great bass(instrument) sound

did i really play that round 3:30 or it is a delay wall (or the processing i love at 2 minutes) ?

lacks a bit of low end

the mod synth is a bit lost around the tape stop but great tape stop!

i really love the ending with the delay washing over everything and decaying a loooong time

[Muzik 4 Machines]

Thiagoam88


the sfx is too loud once the song starts, just perfect before, maybe automate it to lower it 3-4 dB when the music starts

overall mix sounds a bit dark, softer on the ear, needs a bit more bite (4-5K) on the hats, but i like the "retro" vibe it gives

try to mask my mistakes in the synth a bit before 2 minutes, maybe even copy it from somewhere else in the track (should have mentioned I allow that lol) (same before 3 minutes, i f**k up really good)

i'd lower the whole synth track a bit to make it glue more with the guitars, it sounds kind of disconnected from the rest

the bend at mesure 100 could go away in a delay wash instead of the bend itself