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

[Marando]

So yeah, I have been pretty negative and I hope you are not going to kill me for it, I'm just expressing my honest opinion, based on listening to the tracks in an environment that I believe makes it possible to judge it correctly. I'm sincerely afraid that a pretty high amount of the people that competed this mixing contest have some serious problems in their monitoring/room setup. I'm also afraid that this, in turn, makes it impossible for them to judge the mixes correctly. How are you able to say if a certain track is good or bad, when you can not hear what is actually going on in the music in the first place.

Thanks for your feedback. I listened the tracks yesterday and couldn't agree more with your comments.

I totally agree! I listened to the tracks yesterday too and came to very similar conclusion. Instead of asking you for you opinion in a PM I would like to see your voting of all tracks. So please take the chance and participate the voting.

I have send my votes to Uncle E and I'm more than happy to disclose them once the voting is over.

I'm happy to read that people don't feel attacked by my comments. And I forgot to say that I believe some tracks have been mixed very good! And it is nice to see how people mix. For some, it's all about the vocals, for others, it's about the drums... Yeah, some very nice and interesting mixing approaches I have listened to! Thanks people! And yes, I'm looking forward to compete next time!

[Compyfox]

If things go well, you won't have to wait long for that.

[camsr]

After listening to the tracks, I found a lot of them lacked transients, some of the songs had barely any transient throughout most of the spectrum, except the kick drum. An easy way to hear this is to sweep an EQ and listen to the dynamic of the raised band. Is this part of the style in your guys' opinions?

[blind]

Honestly I feel the drum sources need more work, as well as the bass. I added lots of transients to the drums and bass, as well as fattened them as much as possible but they are just 909 sounds raw pretty much. I spent a lot of time clearing up the vocals and compressing them and filling out the gaps with diffused delays (that sounds reverb-like) Not much reverb at all actually and added some sidechaining to the pads for style (apparently this was a no-no, since its a creative decision)

If I had 3 or 4 more days to work on it I could have taken it up a few notches but I did this in my limited free time. IMO there are only 3 or 4 really solid mixes that I would want to use if it were me.

and even then, id probably ask for changes.

when I went thru listens on all of them, I immediately cancelled out any submissions that had leveling issues. If the stems weren't balanced then I just cut it from my vote. That's honestly the biggest part of the mixing process (using eq and compression to help get a balanced mix?) Everything else is stylistic tastes..

And I agree about the over saturation bit, some mixes sounded really flat, squashed, or over-colored. In a track thats rhythm focused, the drums and vocals really need to take a clear forefront with everything else being carefully blended.

Anyway, everyone made solid efforts. This was for fun anyway. Good luck to all the entrants!

[camsr]

I know that my track has EQ issues, it was easier to mix it like that. A boost around 4-8khz and some MB compression on the kick is what is needed to translate, at the minimum I would have done it myself on the master bus, but I ran out of time and my ears were tired. Maybe I will upload my corrected file after the voting.

[Grant S]

Well to be honest, I do agree with most of Marando assessment of all the mixes. I'm going to vote, but I'm dubious that I'm qualified to cast those votes.

I have listened to all of the tracks first with no correction, second few passes I used the VRM box with different monitor emu's

I feel unqualified to vote mostly because the song is not in a genre that I'm intimately familiar with and my age. The biggest problem I have with the mixes is the kick drum. There are quite a few mixes that I have to turn way down because the lows in the kick is like a sonic weapon to my old ears. I also think we should not be the ones voting because our objectivity has already been compromised.

I will be voting down those extreme low end kicks but acknowledge, it may be more due to my age and lack of knowledge about this specific genre.

As is probably my handicap in my mix, I will be voting mostly on vocal presence and correction.

I'm certainly not under any illusion I have a stellar mix here BTW, if I understand the specs, mine's the quietist. That's not a good thing me thinks. I guess I get the geriatric mix award

[Compyfox]

Well electronic music usually has a focus on low frequency in terms of the kick drum, since it's the main groove element. In my case, I overdid it a bit, which in turn might sound "strange" or overpowered on systems like VRM.


In the end, you should vote regardless. Vote for what sounds best to you. Even if you say "this track get's no vote since the kick is too intensive in terms of bass". This is a valid point for you. Others might think different.


It's also not about who had the loudest track, still. It's about an overall great and balanced mix.
Pick up from this, improve on it. This is adding to the learning factor.

[blind]

yea kick drums are a weird one for electronic. In general the average eq curve that is acceptable for club music is a slight eq curve slope from low end to high end, low end being more dominant from kick drums and bass. Mine probably has one of the loudest kicks, but that's out of habit since I produce this type of music :X

[Grant S]

Well electronic music usually has a focus on low frequency in terms of the kick drum, since it's the main groove element. In my case, I overdid it a bit, which in turn might sound "strange" or overpowered on systems like VRM.


In the end, you should vote regardless. Vote for what sounds best to you. Even if you say "this track get's no vote since the kick is too intensive in terms of bass". This is a valid point for you. Others might think different.


It's also not about who had the loudest track, still. It's about an overall great and balanced mix.
Pick up from this, improve on it. This is adding to the learning factor.

I guess you're right, everyone's opinion is going to vary and that diversity of opinion helps us grow better than a single voice or perspective can.

I do understand about the contest being about what sounds best and well balanced, but I also understand most folks equate louder as better. I know I've fallen for it more than once when buying magical plugs that in actuality just made things louder.

[Compyfox]

Mine probably has one of the loudest kicks, but that's out of habit since I produce this type of music :X

You're sure on that, blind?
I think with +8dB boost on the LF shelf alone (I think I boosted around 120Hz) this should should speak for itself.

[Grant S]

You guys swinging your low ends around?

[Uncle E]

I need a download package with wav files. SoundCloud has poor audio quality.

The files on SoundCloud will download as wav's.

[Uncle E]

Soundcloud seemed to add a slight glitch to mine on 2:33, I hope that doesn't show up in the downsampling!

Thank you for pointing that out, I'll upload it again.

[Uncle E]

DC offset: Not something I thought was an issue now days, I was under the impression that my DAW took care of that as a normal process. Does this data show that only 6 tracks had no DC offset issues? Is this a matter for the engineer to address or should it be corrected by the mastering engineer?

Personally, my rule of thumb is to high pass at 30Hz, which will simultaneously get rid of useless junk and prevent DC offset.

[Uncle E]

In the mix statistics it says that my track is probably pre-mastered. I think I said it two times already that I did not. What I also said is that I think I used a bit to much mix bus compression. See what I did there? MIX bus compression.. That's right, having a compressor on the mix is not by default pre-mastering, it's for many mixer engineers a tool to reach a specific sound.

Yes, we determined a similar thing with Satya's mix, which also showed up very loud according to the stats and he also did not pre-master. Take it as a compliment, your mixes sound pre-mastered even when you don't pre-master them.