Public Mix Contest #2!!
- Thread starter xfinsterx
- Start date
cool
Wow. I was SO excited to have a mixing competition. Trying to learn how to mix, recognize clashing freqs, carving out for trax, etc. This is what i want to learn. By the by, the LAST site I was at was a really cool production site, but the emphasis was on mostly hiphop/rap production. I ebtered a contest where you take an acapella rap and have to make your own track for it. I thot "hell, thatll be easy...I've heard music to rap that was only like a cowbell and a tambourine. Thisll be easy." ....and, it wasn't. Mine reeked (THATS putting it midly, and they were kind) Its harder than it looks. So when i joined a mix competition, and people started making their own tracks, I was, like, getting a strange sense of deja vu, and a queasy feeling...lmao
But seriusly...if you would enjoy taking a rap/hiphop acapella: "long as i put it back, deep down, deep down, in the puddy tat..." and making all original trax for it, and competing with people who are good at the same:
www.yourbeats.com
they could use the membership. Out of maybe 1000 peeps member, most dont "give anything back"...and more people making serious entries in the acapella production contests would make it much more interesting. Theres like maybe 20 peope posting regularly and entering contests. And...as if THAT aint enough, SOMEtimes, the prize for a contest is a spot on a real CD! (no sh!at, dude). Anyhoo, the RUMOR is that a few of the dudes MIGHT be famous DJ's in big cities people have heard their stuff before?
ps - if petey pablo ever hears what i did to his song, I'm in big trouble! lmao
Wow. I was SO excited to have a mixing competition. Trying to learn how to mix, recognize clashing freqs, carving out for trax, etc. This is what i want to learn. By the by, the LAST site I was at was a really cool production site, but the emphasis was on mostly hiphop/rap production. I ebtered a contest where you take an acapella rap and have to make your own track for it. I thot "hell, thatll be easy...I've heard music to rap that was only like a cowbell and a tambourine. Thisll be easy." ....and, it wasn't. Mine reeked (THATS putting it midly, and they were kind) Its harder than it looks. So when i joined a mix competition, and people started making their own tracks, I was, like, getting a strange sense of deja vu, and a queasy feeling...lmao
But seriusly...if you would enjoy taking a rap/hiphop acapella: "long as i put it back, deep down, deep down, in the puddy tat..." and making all original trax for it, and competing with people who are good at the same:
www.yourbeats.com
they could use the membership. Out of maybe 1000 peeps member, most dont "give anything back"...and more people making serious entries in the acapella production contests would make it much more interesting. Theres like maybe 20 peope posting regularly and entering contests. And...as if THAT aint enough, SOMEtimes, the prize for a contest is a spot on a real CD! (no sh!at, dude). Anyhoo, the RUMOR is that a few of the dudes MIGHT be famous DJ's in big cities people have heard their stuff before?
ps - if petey pablo ever hears what i did to his song, I'm in big trouble! lmao
ds21 said:Here's My entery, All natural!
Sonar and Waves, pretty basic straight forward mix, nothing special.
The fade-in was a mistake but I like it now, I know the final mix is overcompressed but don't have time to go back and lessen it, Oh well
Good balance ds.
There was something different about the way your cymbals sounded than some of the other mixes....
Cant put my finger on it, but i liked it.
Only constructive thing about your mix is id say a little more sub in the bass guitar would have filled up it up better.
A good effort/entry ds21.
Pro Tools User
New member
Hiya all,
My girl did a mix and has been tryin to register for the last 4 days but hasnt got an email to be able to post on here. So Im giving the link to her song.
thanks peeps
LisaLisa is the name she has been tryin to register.
here is the link http://f2.pg.briefcase.yahoo.com/bc/sportzzz2003/lst?.dir=/Mix+Contest&.view=l
My girl did a mix and has been tryin to register for the last 4 days but hasnt got an email to be able to post on here. So Im giving the link to her song.
thanks peeps
LisaLisa is the name she has been tryin to register.
here is the link http://f2.pg.briefcase.yahoo.com/bc/sportzzz2003/lst?.dir=/Mix+Contest&.view=l
Blue Bear Sound
New member
Just in the nick of time with 4 minutes to spare, eh Protools User? 
I'm downloading the entries now and will be reviewing them in the morning....
I'm downloading the entries now and will be reviewing them in the morning....
Pro Tools User
New member
Yeah the story of my life, lol always running late. Anyways thanks for letting my girlfriend submit her mix.Blue Bear Sound said:Just in the nick of time with 4 minutes to spare, eh Protools User?
I'm downloading the entries now and will be reviewing them in the morning....
Very cool
thanks again
Tekker
New member
But I've still got 1/2 hour before today is up. I was out of town for the past couple days (and worked all day today) and haven't had much time to work on it, but I wanted to put something up for the contest.... I'm trying to do a mixdown of it now, can I still submit mine? I've got a site I can post it up on (when this thing finally finishesBlue Bear Sound said:Just in the nick of time with 4 minutes to spare, eh Protools User?
I'm downloading the entries now and will be reviewing them in the morning....
).-tkr
Tekker
New member
Geesh! It's finally uploaded!
For some reason whenever I did a mixdown it has been trying to add an hour or more to the mix... I've been having to select a range and then tell it to mixdown only the selected range, but I can't do that when I mixdown to an mp3, so it was trying to make over an hour mp3 (no wonder it was taking so long)... So I had to make a two track mixdown and move it to a new project in order to do the mp3 mixdown. That's the first time in over two years that I've been using Samplitude that this has happened, I really need to find out why it was doing that.... But anyways, here it is (hopefully you'll still take it)!
-tkr
For some reason whenever I did a mixdown it has been trying to add an hour or more to the mix... I've been having to select a range and then tell it to mixdown only the selected range, but I can't do that when I mixdown to an mp3, so it was trying to make over an hour mp3 (no wonder it was taking so long)... So I had to make a two track mixdown and move it to a new project in order to do the mp3 mixdown. That's the first time in over two years that I've been using Samplitude that this has happened, I really need to find out why it was doing that.... But anyways, here it is (hopefully you'll still take it)!
-tkr
giles117
New member
Blue Bear. I mentally decided to go with the international clock and went with the Official Midnight as a lot of people are not in the Americas.
Hawaii for instance is 5 hours behind ESTso 5am EST is Hawaii's Midnight.
So on my site are all the entries that made it within that time frame.
As a final reminder. ALL entires are located at
www.mcmrecording.com/pd/contest2
Hawaii for instance is 5 hours behind ESTso 5am EST is Hawaii's Midnight.
So on my site are all the entries that made it within that time frame.
As a final reminder. ALL entires are located at
www.mcmrecording.com/pd/contest2
Blue Bear Sound
New member
AM I posting results here directly? Or should I send them to Finster or Bryan?
Last edited:
Tekker
New member
Awesome! I guess I made it just in time! lolgiles117 said:So on my site are all the entries that made it within that time frame.
I was going to do another joke mix and turn it into a punk rock song (since other people had been doing some weird stuff with it), but I didn't have the time to get to it.... I barely got my some-what/half-finished mix in!
-tkr
mixmkr
we don't need rest!!
Blue Bear Sound said:
I think it would be interesting to hear your comments/opinions on the individual mixes(if you had any) and we could listen to the mixes off of Giles' site while reading them.
As far as your results, wouldn't it figure that eventually they will be known, so why not post them here?
At this point, special thanks to xfinsterx for providing the tracks and for giles117 in his contributions. Highly appreciated!!
lascalaboy
New member
when are the results and stuff due?
Blue Bear Sound
New member
OK.... before the results - a few comments.......
This was an interesting exercise for me. Because of the number of entries, I had to come up with a way of quantifying mix sonic characteristics based on my subjective experience of what I think constitutes a good mix. This way, all entries were evaluated by the same identifiable qualities (from my perspective.)
The 6 properties were:
LOW END -- how well the low-end was balanced and sat in the mix.
AIR/TOP END -- how well the high-end was balanced and sat in the mix.
DEPTH/SPACE/AMBIENCE -- how well the tracks sat together... was each individual track clearly sitting in its own space relative to the other tracks?
MIX BALANCE/LEVELS -- how the tracks were blended... were mix elements blurred, jumping out uncontrollably, or just right.
IMAGING -- how well the soundstage of the mix was laid out between the speakers.
OVERALL MIX -- this was a bit of a catch-all -- very subjective - did something in the mix speak to me or not.
I D/L'd all the songs and burned them to a CD. I set-up the rating grid, but DID NOT KNOW whose entry I was listening to as I went through the evaluation. All I knew were the CD tracks numbers at the time. I only put the filenames into the grid AFTER I made my evaluations.
All entries were heard in my control room - first on my ADAM S2A monitors, then a second time on my B&W 601s (I came up with the same results each time).........
I'll also warn that I judged the mixes to a professional standard, so I expect a number of you will be equating me to Simon Cowell after this...... I'll be honest, I was disappointed..... I was surprised that overall, the sound quality of the mixes was not very high -- I'm familiar with the skills of some of the entrants, so I can only guess that maybe the original tracks were not great-sounding. No one really brought out the fidelity of the tracks (marginal or not) to what I would call a professionally-acceptable level. I know, I know, this is home-recording, so maybe I'm judging too stringently, but then again, Finster told you who was judging, so you all knew what you were getting into!!
One more point, and actually, I'm guessing this may generate some groans. You all know from my critiques in the MP3 Clinic that I never judge on the subjective creative merits of a song, only on the sound quality itself. So in this case, you'll notice that other than the catch-all OVERALL SOUND QUALITY property, I did not specifically take into account whether more tracks were added or changed compared to the original tracks. All mixes were eval'd strictly on the sound qualities listed above, so any "enhancements/changes" would still fall under those characteristics.
So without further ado, here are my ratings (attached)................
This was an interesting exercise for me. Because of the number of entries, I had to come up with a way of quantifying mix sonic characteristics based on my subjective experience of what I think constitutes a good mix. This way, all entries were evaluated by the same identifiable qualities (from my perspective.)
The 6 properties were:
LOW END -- how well the low-end was balanced and sat in the mix.
AIR/TOP END -- how well the high-end was balanced and sat in the mix.
DEPTH/SPACE/AMBIENCE -- how well the tracks sat together... was each individual track clearly sitting in its own space relative to the other tracks?
MIX BALANCE/LEVELS -- how the tracks were blended... were mix elements blurred, jumping out uncontrollably, or just right.
IMAGING -- how well the soundstage of the mix was laid out between the speakers.
OVERALL MIX -- this was a bit of a catch-all -- very subjective - did something in the mix speak to me or not.
I D/L'd all the songs and burned them to a CD. I set-up the rating grid, but DID NOT KNOW whose entry I was listening to as I went through the evaluation. All I knew were the CD tracks numbers at the time. I only put the filenames into the grid AFTER I made my evaluations.
All entries were heard in my control room - first on my ADAM S2A monitors, then a second time on my B&W 601s (I came up with the same results each time).........
I'll also warn that I judged the mixes to a professional standard, so I expect a number of you will be equating me to Simon Cowell after this...... I'll be honest, I was disappointed..... I was surprised that overall, the sound quality of the mixes was not very high -- I'm familiar with the skills of some of the entrants, so I can only guess that maybe the original tracks were not great-sounding. No one really brought out the fidelity of the tracks (marginal or not) to what I would call a professionally-acceptable level. I know, I know, this is home-recording, so maybe I'm judging too stringently, but then again, Finster told you who was judging, so you all knew what you were getting into!!
One more point, and actually, I'm guessing this may generate some groans. You all know from my critiques in the MP3 Clinic that I never judge on the subjective creative merits of a song, only on the sound quality itself. So in this case, you'll notice that other than the catch-all OVERALL SOUND QUALITY property, I did not specifically take into account whether more tracks were added or changed compared to the original tracks. All mixes were eval'd strictly on the sound qualities listed above, so any "enhancements/changes" would still fall under those characteristics.
So without further ado, here are my ratings (attached)................
Attachments
Last edited:
congrats!!!!
Congratulations raw tracks!
To Raw tracks' credit he runs a little company that gave me the initial idea to do these contests check it out>>www.Raw-Tracks.com
Funny how no one got the "Massenburg" rating.
hahahaha.
Thanx to Brian and Bruce for the help and support.
The new contest will be up on the 7th!!!!!
Thanx to all who entered.
See you on the 7th.
Congratulations raw tracks!
To Raw tracks' credit he runs a little company that gave me the initial idea to do these contests check it out>>www.Raw-Tracks.com
Funny how no one got the "Massenburg" rating.
hahahaha.
Thanx to Brian and Bruce for the help and support.
The new contest will be up on the 7th!!!!!
Thanx to all who entered.
See you on the 7th.