Public Mix Contest #2!!

[NL5]

Raw tracks -

Thanks for explaining what you did. Hepled me a lot. I did a lot of what you did, but the areas I struggled with, you handled quite differently.

BTW - Great Mix. I agree 100% yours was the best mix.

NL5

 

[SuperSkyrocket]

Raw-Tracks,
I would like to know what equipment and software you are using.

Blue Bear Sound,
Is the approach taken by Raw-Tracks anything like how you would have done this?
Would you start with the drum kit and move to the rhythm tracks or start at the low end and move up the eq scale or ?
Are there any standard techniques or guidelines for placing each element in its own eq space?



And for anyone who is interested:

I approached my mix much like Raw-Tracks. And I overlooked a few things.

I imported kick and snare to Sound Forge and simply muted the bleed (along with some of the hits to get more of a rock beat). Then I gated and compressed them for punch. I didn't like the toms either so I just turned them down a little and spread 'em out for effect.

I didn't do any eq on the overheads - probably why I lost points on "air."

Like Raw-Tracks, I added a high shelf boost, compression, and reverb on the vocals. Then I copied to another track for summation (I got a better level without clipping) and added a slight detune and delay on the copy for the Benatar sound. I think I spread them just a little.

All my added tracks were stereo and I didn't really place them but did move some around (synth and lead guitar floated & crossed). Got an honorary 3 for imaging.

I did a little "eq carving" but not on everything. This really hurt. The guitar dominates most of the eq spectrum as well as time spectrum explaining the "yikes" for "depth/space/ambience."

I wanted it to sound powerful but low end is not easy to estimate with my 2.1 computer speakers or headphones. Another 2.

For the mix I just made sure everything could be heard except for a couple of subliminal tracks - a rock organ and a repeating message "... this is the winning mix ... this is the winning mix ..." I think it helped a little with my imaging score.

 

[Blue Bear Sound]

Blue Bear Sound,
Is the approach taken by Raw-Tracks anything like how you would have done this?
Would you start with the drum kit and move to the rhythm tracks or start at the low end and move up the eq scale or ?

The drums make up a large percentage of the ambience of the entire track, so it is worthwhile paying a lot of attention to making them sound correct. Fixing sonic issues (excessive bleed, bad balances, etc...) can usually be rectified first by isolating the problem area (using gates, vol curves, whatevere works), then shaping it to get - or get closer to - the way it should have sounded in the first place! Don't forget -- if the tracking's not done properly, then you have a rescue operation on your hands at mix-time.....

Are there any standard techniques or guidelines for placing each element in its own eq space?

Many techniques involve using EQ, gating, and compression -- compression especially is not simply a tool to control dynamics, it can also be used to change the envelope of a sound - thereby shaping the sound also.

The guitar dominates most of the eq spectrum as well as time spectrum explaining the "yikes" for "depth/space/ambience."

Incidently, my rating levels at the time I was going over the entries were VERY POOR --> POOR --> FAIR --> GOOD --> VERY GOOD

It wasn't until I posted the results that I changed the naming a little bit, for some color...!

For the mix I just made sure everything could be heard except for a couple of subliminal tracks - a rock organ and a repeating message "... this is the winning mix ... this is the winning mix ..." I think it helped a little with my imaging score.

ROFLMAO

That was very funny, SS!

 

[Tekker]

Wow! I actually came in 7th out of 28?..... Now I really wish I would have had more time to spend on it!

I'm going to need to check back more often, so I can get in sooner on the next mix contest and hopefully have more time to work on it.

I think blue bear should post that scoring guide for every mix he critiques!

-tkr

 

[Raw-Tracks]

I need to learn how to do that bleed-cutting stuff you were talking about there raw-tracks..

I just used the volume curve in Cubase. I zoom in a little and basically mute the track until the attack of the drum. At the very split second before the attack, I fade the volume all the way up, then start fading out during the decay of the kick. I make sure to be faded down far enough before the next snare hit. This works much better than gating because, in this case, some of the snare hits were just about as loud as the kick attack. There wasn't enough difference between the snare and kick levels to allow for a decent threshold setting on the gate.

 

[Raw-Tracks]

Raw-Tracks,
I would like to know what equipment and software you are using.

Blue Bear Sound,
Is the approach taken by Raw-Tracks anything like how you would have done this?
Would you start with the drum kit and move to the rhythm tracks or start at the low end and move up the eq scale or ?
Are there any standard techniques or guidelines for placing each element in its own eq space?

SuperSkyrocket,

I hope you didn't interpret the order in which I listed what I did to the mix, as the order I did things to the mix. I don't necessarily approach the mix as drums first, then bass guitar, etc. I started with all of the faders up to get a feel for the song and arrangement and how things would or should fit together. Then I start piecing it together. In the case of this song, I really tried to get the acoustic guitar and the bass to fit together before I started to fit the drums into the picture.

As for my equipment used:

P III 933mHz
448mb RAM
Cubase VST 5.1
Sound Forge 5.0
UAD-1 Card
Waves Plugins
Antares Auto-Tune and Tube Plugins

 

[SEDstar]

wow...thanks guys...

since i havent been mixing all that longand i'm a home hobbyist, i felt that my placing 11 out of 28 was was a really great thing...you wont hear any bitching from me about the scoring. I got a "yikes" on my bass/low end? yah, fer sure, i need to get better working with it. how in the hell i got a 3.5 in air and ambience is beyond me, but i takes what i gets. this tells me my bass and low enbd needs the most work...are there any tutorials on working the low end? if i'd gotten say a 3 instead of a 1 in the bass, i woulda hit 6th or 7th. Sadly, my library has no section on "bass" lmao...

 

[Doug H]

Notes on how to finish (almost) last...

drums
I love mixing real drums, but I don't have a clue where to start. Not having any kick-fu to speak of I left it pretty much alone. I think I blindly threw some low pass on it to try and suppress the snare bleed, robbing it of any snap in the process. I managed to high pass the snare to close to where I think it should be. The splashes sounded way too far back to me and the ride was really loud. This is personal pref for me, bit I tried to take a bite out of the ride spectrum and compressed the overheads pretty good. Looking back, aside from the kick, I'm happy enough with how the kit turned out.

vocals
I really liked this girl's singing, but thought the track was pretty dark. I had reservations about eq'ing it too much so I just took a bit off of the bottom, and did a bit of tweaking. I liked the vocal sound on the mixes that brought out the top end. Aside from that I just "compression 101"'d it to keep it inline.

bass
I really liked this track, but the playing was way more dynamic than I knew what to do with. Aside from twiddling compression knobs, I decided to take the bottom out of it with the hopes it would even things out for the track and the mix as a whole. I was afraid to get too agressive with the compressor and cause the bass to distort. It was still pretty jumpy when I was done.

guitar
This was a nightmare for me. I couldn't stand the dynamic jabs on the treble strings. Leaving out most of the grisly details, in the end I ended up with two guitar tracks low and high passed in an attempt to do a multiband compressor type thing. The result was almost no top end at all with a lot of mid range mud. I did end up getting sort of the "strum" factor I was looking for. The only good thing I did was take a notch out of the eq range as near as I could figure that low end boom was coming from.

Didn't do anything special accoustics/reverb. The drums seemed ot have more depth than everything else so I gave the other tracks a bit of reverb.

Somewhere near the end of the mixing my final entry I decided to narrow the stereo field and tweaked the odd level (doh). I think I ended up with a worse second mix than my first, and fell a bit short of what I had in mind. I did bring the overheads up ok in the second mix which was all I planned on doing in the first place lol.

Aside from one or two things that got away from me at the last minute, I'm strangly happy enough with how it turned out. I managed to get some of the "sound" I was going for.

I think most of the tracks needed a pretty heavy hand in one area or another, but some simple broad strokes was all that was needed to get this sounding really good. This has broadenned my perspective on mixing somewhat. Looking forward to the next one.

edit: and again, tx to the guys that went the extra mile to make this happen.

 

[ocnor]

If I came off as complaining then I apologize. That really was not my intention. I have no problem with the way that Blue Bear scored the mixes. Here is my dillemma. I entered the contest so that I could compare my mix to the mixes of the other entrants. That way I could learn something from the people that scored higher than I did. The problem is that of the people that scored higher only one of them {Raw Tracks} actually mixed the same tracks that I did. How can I compare my mix of an acoustic folk song to a mix of electric guitars. synth,and drum machines. I do understand why some people replaced the tracks rather than take the time to fix them. I actually liked some of the alternate mixes but it really wasn't helpful from a learning stand point. I guess my point is that Blue Bears chart would be much more relevant to me if everyone had mixed the same song. Again I'm not downing anyones mixes. I'm just here to learn like everyone else. On that note I would like to thank Raw Tracks for posting his mixing methods.

 

[Pro Tools User]

If I came off as complaining then I apologize. That really was not my intention. I have no problem with the way that Blue Bear scored the mixes. Here is my dillemma. I entered the contest so that I could compare my mix to the mixes of the other entrants. That way I could learn something from the people that scored higher than I did. The problem is that of the people that scored higher only one of them {Raw Tracks} actually mixed the same tracks that I did. How can I compare my mix of an acoustic folk song to a mix of electric guitars. synth,and drum machines. I do understand why some people replaced the tracks rather than take the time to fix them. I actually liked some of the alternate mixes but it really wasn't helpful from a learning stand point. I guess my point is that Blue Bears chart would be much more relevant to me if everyone had mixed the same song. Again I'm not downing anyones mixes. I'm just here to learn like everyone else. On that note I would like to thank Raw Tracks for posting his mixing methods.

Before I even start,,,,,, I want to give a big thanks to fin for hosting and providing the tracks, Giles for uploading and use of his storage, and Blue Bear who did a great job of organizing the categories of judging and putting them into perspective so we could all understand what we need to work on.

With understanding what we need to work on doesnt mean that every song is the same and requires the same low end or what ever category someone scored low in. I havent been mixing more then a yr and have learned that you cant be taught how to mix a song. Techniques maybe, but experimenting has worked well for me and basically thats what I do for every song I mix. I try different things and if it sounds good it just sounds good (leave it alone) you have to use your own ears and trust them. What one person does to win a contest and make a song sound great is not what he may do for the next song, and again some songs are easier to mix then others and require very little if recorded properly. Aot of people make the mistake of over processing thinking because they have to follow the same steps as the last song that they made sound great.

I do agree that remixing sorta took away from the learning experience but practicing your own mixes and experimenting is the best learning experience for me at least.

I finished tied for 3rd and that is awesome with all the entries. I just wanted to clarify I didnt replace any tracks, all original tracks. I had a ton of fun with this and I learned a bit about Eq'ing on my own from this. I learned how to use a gate more effectively, but what you can take away from this contest is not really what someone did to their mix but what you see what didnt work well while you were mixing and replaying it back a tryin something you felt that did work. After practicing this your mixes have no choice but to get better, and trust me they do (really quick).

 

[SuperSkyrocket]

I hope you didn't interpret the order in which I listed what I did to the mix, as the order I did things to the mix.

Hey Eric!

Yeah I did make that assumption. And I did approach the mix that way however I still find it interesting that our techniques on the drums and vocals were very much the same.

A top mix on a P III! Are you tech junkies paying attention here?

Thanks Blue Bear for the feedback, I'll work with the compressor more next time.