GearFest Mixing Contest

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japancakes said:
I greatly disagree with the playback normalization that will be used to judge the submissions. RMS is a horrible way to calibrate loudness. Why should we be penalized for working hard to get a big sound, especially if we artistically think it sounds good with a steady average level? Highlighting the vocal which of course leans towards steady state level will bring up the RMS. This was a vocal centric performance. I also didn't read about the normalization till after submission. That should be in BOLD LETTERING at sign up.

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I think every client I have worked with sticks a mix I send into iTunes, which without modification "Normalizes" everything...its standard practice.
 
Here is my mix. It took a couple of times to download the original files, but eventually went through. We uploaded a wav file. We do not use mp3's either in getting tracks or uploading files except for someone to listen to it. I really liked the band and especially the vocals. What a great voice to work with. Not like the autotune vocals of pop music today. A true pleasure.

We also used beat detective to get the tempos. It did vary a bit in the song. I am not sure about the Logic number above. Also minimum compression and buss mastering were used.

soundcloud.com/digimaxx/digimaxx_mix_lizacolbyband_oh
 
just uploaded by submission. I def think it sounds different from the other submissions. Had a blast doing this. s/o to puremix and gearfest2012 for putting together an awesome contest. Engineers dont get to compete against eachother too often lol.

BTW, if your on soundcloud add me!! Im also on twitter and reverbnation! all of them are @BiggCuzBeats


it wont let me post a link because Im new... smh
 
BiggCuzBeats said:
Engineers dont get to compete against eachother too often lol.
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Huh? We compete against each other for business in a limited market all the time!? I'm most often paid to do a mix that's a competition between myself and other engineers for the best mix, the one the artist picks to go on their record.

:wtf:
 
I'm not sure but here is mine though...

soundcloud.com/eqelify/lisa-colby-band-oh-baby

Some mix are sound great as far as i can hear them on soundcloud... Great Job!
 
At the moment of posting this, 417 tracks have been uploaded. Yes, that is right: 417!

That is an amazing lot of tracks. There is still approx. one month to go. Consequently, the number of final tracks that will needs to be evaluate by the judges of this competition will likely be near 1.000! In other words, approx. 3800 minutes or 64 hours’ worth of listening.

That is not going to happen of course. The team will not listen through each and every track from start to finish. They will do a quick skimming of the track. Most likely they will pick out some specific points of interest in the arrangement and use those points for quick comparison (I’d love to know what those points are by the way). The purpose of this initial sorting process will be to shorten the list down to max 100 tracks and more likely just 30-50 tracks. Only this shortlist will make it for the second rounds of more intense listening by the judging team.

This is by the way only fair, as this amount of attention given here is still be much higher than the amount of attention given by the average consumer in the real-world! Hence, this analysis is by no means to be understood as complaining. This is just stating the obvious regarding the frame and set-up for this competition as it evolves and obviously is turning out to be massively popular from a participation perspective.

Also; if others like me want to learn from this exercise, we must do the critiquing ourselves. Giving each other feedback about what works and what does not etc. Sure, we all think that we have the golden key to winning the grand price, just like 80 % of all car drivers think they drive better than everyone else does. I real life we are probably better of helping each other out in the learning proces.

Anyway, here is my track. Feedback is welcome ;-)

 
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Here's my submission.



I tried to keep the mix minimal as well. A lot of the other mixes i heard were very modern, very 2013. Everything sounded perfectly mic'd and recorded. This song, at least to me, begs a very vintage style mix though.

I kept the number of tracks minimal (8), without much layering and whatnot.

The most interesting part to me was how i made the vocals sound vintage, by panning one hard left and one hard right. The right pan i nudged over to be just behind the other one, giving a sense of size without sounding "off". I added a bit of delay to each as well, increasing the size of the vocals even more.

The kick drum is quiet, because like many songs and albums recorded in the 60s, i wanted to pretend they weren't mic'd perfectly. The important parts of the kit (the cymbals and snare) stand out, while the kick is really just there for support.

Hope you like it. I had a blast.
 
jasperhb Your cymbals are borderline more present than your vocals. I do like the dynamics between the verse and chorus.

ryleestrange Your vocal delay is pretty obnoxious. She sounds like she's singing inside a metal tube. It could work if the vocal was mixed into the instruments better and the effect was about 60% less audible.
 
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