GearFest Mixing Contest

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Hello,

maybe my question may look stupid and has already been treated, all my apologies in this case, but is the deadline 31May at midnight (or say 23:59 to avoid confusion) or June 1st at 23:59 ? I want to ear my mix again before posting but must quit for a rehearsal :)
 
jwang said:
Hey Propman!

I just listened to your mix and overall it sounds great! If you wanted to try making one more quick tweak you could try a bandpass filter on the hat and overs at somewhere around 8k depending on your tame to take out some of that aggressive edge without loosing the air of the high end as much. Or maybe just add that on top of your shelf because it's really close but I agree it's still a little too prominent in the mix. -- if you were worried about the rumbly bass I think it's coming from the DI low mid range which sounded a little flubby to me on the original stems - I could be off there though as I'm listening in headphones right now because it's early in my apt. building =).
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I wish there were something I could do about that, as apparently it's unpleasant... but the drums (for the most part) are bounced together and I didn't save the pre-bounce configuration. I would have to try and re-do what I wound up with (which I really dig) and I'm afraid I wouldn't be able to.

jwang said:
Another thing that jumps out at me is your panning at the end of the guitar solo. You might try either panning it less, panning it slower or another approach to make the shift back to the right a little less in your face. It took me out of the moment for a second there but that's just my opinion too =).
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I hope that's just subjective on your part because I really dig that...

jwang said:
Lastly, if you have time you could try doing a little bit of automation to try and help her vocals when she sings long notes like "ohhhhhhhhhh" quite a few times. When she slams your compressor like that the flat level after a while makes it sound a little lifeless. It'll also help hide her pitchy-ness on some of those that compression tends to make stand out. -- again, optional and super picky on my part. Overall I think it sounds great! Your toms and kick sound way better than mine in my opinion, I'd love to know your approach. Thanks and good luck
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It's actually not a compressor that caused that artifact. If you can believe it, I actually chopped the vocal track into syllables and manipulated the volume by hand before sending it through a mild compressor. I wanted to be able to hear everything. Perhaps that was a bad choice... However, I already submitted my track and I don't know if you're allowed to re-submit.

As for my drums, I didn't do anything special to the kick. I just used the old trick where you duplicate the track and cut all frequencies except the ones around 1k where the 'click' is and mix to taste with the regular kick track. As for the toms (which I'm quite proud of), I cut and copied the individual hits out of the overheads track, added some reverb to even out the abrupt fades (to keep the snare hits out) and added Cockos' Thunder Kick plugin to the mix to give the toms some body. Then I just adjusted the level against the regular overheads track until it sounded good to me.

Thank you for you kind words! I'm sorry I can't give your mix a listen right now (I'm dead tired) but I'll be sure to get around to it and let you know what I think. Good luck to you too!
 
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More great mixes today. One thing I can say for sure though is that we shouldn't allow ourselves to get caught up running to another extreme just because the loudness war seems to be ending. Sure brick walled mixes are terrible and the waves L2 should be burned and buried but I don't think it's such a good idea to completely abandon dynamics control, or worse yet to start creating artificial dynamic range as is the case with some of the mixes I've heard. Cranking up the choruses 9dB above the verses doesn't sound any better than pumping a mix through a comp at 12:1 with 10dB of GR and then blasting it through an L2! Control is a wonderful thing! We don't want our listeners in traffic having to ride their volume pots to hear their music. Music listening is a HANDS OFF experience for most listeners and rightfully so! We shouldn't allow our audio nerd elitism keep us from delivering a product that's user friendly to the intended consumer. That just isn't good business and in the end doesn't accomplish anything.
 
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I think Daft Punk made their new single especially for this Gearfest contest. "We're up on night to get lucky", is the case for many of us! :) ;)
 
OldCurtP said:
More great mixes today. One thing I can say for sure though is that we shouldn't allow ourselves to get caught up running to another extreme just because the loudness war seems to be ending. Sure brick walled mixes are terrible and the waves L2 should be burned and buried but I don't think it's such a good idea to completely abandon dynamics control, or worse yet to start creating artificial dynamic range as is the case with some of the mixes I've heard. Cranking up the choruses 9dB above the verses doesn't sound any better than pumping a mix through a comp at 12:1 with 10dB of GR and then blasting it through an L2! Control is a wonderful thing! We don't want our listeners in traffic having to ride their volume pots to hear their music. Music listening is a HANDS OFF experience for most listeners and rightfully so! We shouldn't allow our audio nerd elitism keep us from delivering a product that's user friendly to the intended consumer. That just isn't good business and in the end doesn't accomplish anything.
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:eek:

Hey, I used a L2 plus I pushed the dynamic on some elements.
 
I haven't posted for years. I've been mixing on and off, doing a lot of writing. This was a fun break, and a hell of a challenge. I finished this on Wed. night and sent it to my voice coach to hear. She gave it the go. So I posted it early Thursday morning. I call this contest "The Drum Drama." The vox were well recorded. The guitar was fine, and the bass needed just a little tweaking. The OH were the challenge. I found the tracks exceptionally dry. But you go into the mixing room with what you've got, at least some of us did. I really liked AndyGallas' track. I listened to quite a few of them. A lot of people have a lot of really expensive stuff, and it's quite easy to get intimidated. I decided to go for a "vintage" sound with Liza and her band. When I say vintage, it's in the "get out of my flower bed" cranky old lady vintage. I felt it suited her voice, and her band. You can read more details on my track page. There are so many different takes on this song that you forget what you're listening to after a while. I pity the judges. 2000+ tracks. How many of us stand a chance?

 
I think the answer is that none of us really stand a chance. Through no fault of the contest sponsors there will certainly be a lottery-ish aspect to it. I'm assuming that they will divide the submissions up between 20 or so people who will sort them into two piles "have a chance" and "don't even bother." This will probably be accomplished within the first 20 seconds of every track even though you'd like to think they will listen longer. It depends on how the listeners ears are feeling that day, their mood and all sorts of other objectivity squashing variables. I have a feeling once the initial narrowing down is done those left will have a far better chance at having their mixes critically listened to, this is why I chose to avoid any standout effects per say. I erred on the side of being a bit vanilla but I hope it gives me a chance to at least make it to the last few hundred that are likely to actually be thoroughly judged. No matter what though, puremix and all of the companies involved have a hit on their hands. This is only going to grow and in the end it will be good for the audio industry at large, more great folks coming together, sharing ideas and making beautiful music for the masses!
 
Julia_B said:
I pity the judges. 2000+ tracks. How many of us stand a chance?
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That's the point !!! Who can can listen to 2500 times the same song and have a cool judgement ? Or there are 1000 judges ! So... I just hope the winners will have done an incredible work.

 
Gearfest Remix entry

I deleted my original submission and am resubmitting my latest and last mix.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Gearfest - Very cool contest - As a novice to mixing I have been consumed by "mixing'.

As a part time musician and, recently written my first song and can now add the experience gained from your contest.

Over the past year I have jointly explored with a very good friend, recording using SONAR Cakewalk Producer on my ACER 55560-8431 Notebook. I received a copy of SOAR LE when I purchased a Juno-Gi keyboard. Our opportunity to record and develop our skills has been limited by recording equipment.

We independently submitted our own mixes. We have spent a lot of time discussing and I have tried to develop my listening and recognition skills. My abilities, I feel have improved directly as a result of applying on this contest.

Whether I am playing, recording, performing or listening to others I am gaining another inner vision skill. - "Hearing"

Will trying to capture my efforts in work processes I failed miserably. Every time I would record my actions, I would jump to trying this or that to address what I just heard while replaying the mix. The discipline of tracking actions and recording my changes proved to be very difficult.

I eventually focused on each instrument and, played, EQ'd, Gain adjust, plugin chose and adjusted. Then added combinations to listen for interaction (impact)

The stages of mixing, mastering, producing or not very clear to me so I limited my work on this project to address the sounds and combining the instrument and vocal.

Thank you
Peter Reath


 
Re submitted

New submision

Gearfest - Very cool contest - As a novice to mixing I have been consumed by "mixing'.

As a part time musician and, recently written my first song and can now add the experience gained from your contest.

Over the past year I have jointly explored with a very good friend, recording using SONAR Cakewalk Producer on my ACER 55560-8431 Notebook. I received a copy of SOAR LE when I purchased a Juno-Gi keyboard. Our opportunity to record and develop our skills has been limited by recording equipment.

We independently submitted our own mixes. We have spent a lot of time discussing and I have tried to develop my listening and recognition skills. My abilities, I feel have improved directly as a result of applying on this contest.

Whether I am playing, recording, performing or listening to others I am gaining another inner vision skill. - "Hearing"

Will trying to capture my efforts in work processes I failed miserably. Every time I would record my actions, I would jump to trying this or that to address what I just heard while replaying the mix. The discipline of tracking actions and recording my changes proved to be very difficult.

I eventually focused on each instrument and, played, EQ'd, Gain adjust, plugin chose and adjusted. Then added combinations to listen for interaction (impact)

The stages of mixing, mastering, producing or not very clear to me so I limited my work on this project to address the sounds and combining the instrument and vocal.

Thank you
Peter Reath
 
Note: I have a sarcastic sense of humor. I'm thinking they're going to be so sick of hearing the song by the time they're done. I know I am. I think it'll be done like triage and how the planets are aligned for your birth sign vs. the person's listening. First it'll be Intro, and the where the snare comes in at the first chorus. If your mix doesn't sound good there, you're done. > Else you get passed to the next, group who will check the guitar solo and tamborine. At this point the greatest guitar mixing will get interrupted by a cell phone call and crisis from home :facepalm:, and that one will get tossed. > those remaining will go onto the ka coo coo and chorus/coda. This will leave about 500. Now the process starts over. They will get down to about 100 that sound almost the same and everything will start sounding the same anyway. Then it gets to personal taste. What do you do? Draw lots? They could do something similar to what a prof of mine did. Print out every ones' name on a sheet of paper and throw them down the stairs. What step they land on determines what prize they get. A prof of mine did that with grades. This was in the 70s. Seriously. The guy did that. Fortunately I took the class pass/no credit.
 
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