GearFest Mixing Contest

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No Idea how to navigate forums but I just wanted to comment to jasperhb. Very Tight mix, Made me think twice about my own mix decisions. i have heard so many wacky effects on mixes in this contest, so it's good to hear a tight well balanced mix from time to time. If you get a chance listen to my track and let me know what you think. Good Luck. By the way how do you reply directly to on element in a thread like this. Like I said no idea oh how this works.



soundcloud.com/chezaroo/oh-baby-liza-colby-gearfest
 
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reference mixes

Hi all. First post here.

Which song or songs did you guys take as reference to do your mix?

I'm not that much used to listening to rock music, I pretty much don't know what to listen for except maybe Liza's previous songs.

Thank you for you help and good luck to everyone!
 
soupiraille said:
Hi all. First post here.

Which song or songs did you guys take as reference to do your mix?

I'm not that much used to listening to rock music, I pretty much don't know what to listen for except maybe Liza's previous songs.

Thank you for you help and good luck to everyone!
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I understand the question, but honestly I've never listened to something else for reference - maybe it's something I should be doing.

I mix mostly live FOH audio, and I will often mix songs that I've never heard before without having the luxury of being able to listen, stop and rewind and listen again and make changes. That being said, all of my mix decisions are done by feel in the heat of the moment and there isn't any real thought or planning that goes into it.

As soon as I heard this track, I liked it as a whole, but I hated the drum sound. I took a bit of time and sampled his kick drum and mixed that back in with the track and started doing the same for the snare drum - I gave up there and I think that shows. I would have liked to have spent the time getting the toms sounding nice using the same method, but to be honest I find that there is so little difference in tonality between the toms that it would have taken me all day to get that to work.
 
Hi, I haven't posted here for a while, but I thought I'd join in the fun with this contest -

I noticed some who were worried about competing against pros with tons of high end gear. While experience & know-how is a very big factor in mixing ability, I wouldn't place too much importance on an impressive gear list. Having listened to quite a few mixes so far, I've come across mixes that don't sound that great from those who are apparently professional & have mountains of gear. Similarly, I've heard mixes done with very simple setups that sound great.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm guessing it is permissible to place a preliminary mix here & get feedback on it before submitting it officially to the contest? I think that might be a good way to approach it...

In any case, I've already submitted my mix to the comp, so for me, that's a moot point. Here it is anyway...



Edit - Sorry, I just realized I repeated sentiments that were already expressed very well by puremix:

The beauty about mixing is that you can actually make great sounding mixes with very little equipment. We have some experience in organizing such contest and we are always amazed to see that youngsters with very cheap gear (if at all) somehow manage to create great sounding and tasteful mixes whereas some "pros" are completely off. Anything can happen.

Gear helps if you know how to use it. But it does not do it all.
Mixing is a art form and anybody with taste and a set of ears can do it => everybody can win.
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Allrighty I did a mix of this song as well.
Great song and performance, thx to puremix and gearfest for hosting this competition!.

This is mixed ITB then summed to my little 6 channel broadcast console with an aphex 320 compellor across the 2 buss.
Was going for a hybrid sound between the 60s and the present.
Tryed to make the gtr a little bigger in the chorus, to get a bit more excitement into the chorus.

Hope you like it :^)

 
Hi everybody,

This is my first post in this forum. I join it to discuss about the contest and share my mix with you :)

Have a nice day !

 
chezaroo said:
No Idea how to navigate forums but I just wanted to comment to jasperhb. Very Tight mix, Made me think twice about my own mix decisions. i have heard so many wacky effects on mixes in this contest, so it's good to hear a tight well balanced mix from time to time. If you get a chance listen to my track and let me know what you think. Good Luck. By the way how do you reply directly to on element in a thread like this. Like I said no idea oh how this works.
Click to expand...

Hi Charzaroo,

Thanks. I'm glad you like my mix :-)

I've listened to you mix and here are more immidiate observations:

I like the vocal. It's clear and sound natural. Same goes for the guitar.

The Bass sound is in probably too loud and sounds a little bit like rubber to my ears - i.e. springly in rubber kind of way if that makes any sense.

The snare sounds a bit out of place and is also rather loud compared to the rest of the mix. Did you layer it with another snare sound?

Cheers,
Jasper

P.s.
I've updated my mix:
 
Poll - what is/are the most difficult element/s in this mix?

What is (are) according to you the most challenging element(s) of this mix?

To me vocals is the most difficult part, Liza has such such (such) a big dynamic range, you cannot not solve this problem with a single compressor (otherwise you'll get everything squashed) -- at least it's my opinion. It's very tricky, I find it hard to keep the voice upfront while keeping some dynamics.

Of course there are some other difficulties but vocals are by far the trickiest for me. What about you?
 
Here's one from someone who has very little stuff but I'm proud of my ears

Any feedback welcome-------even if yer slammin' me. I have thick skin. soundcloud.com/jackketch/mixinggearfestpuremixcontes
 
I have to say: this is a great contest. I've entered and won a lot of remix contests, and when I saw this one I thought it wouldn't be any fun. But I learned so much from this experience that I feel I won something in the end. At first I thought the drums were the hardest to mix until I stopped trying to perfect every 'single' piece. Listen to the whole package--then listen to all the pieces, together. I believe the best mix will come from just minor tweaks, and not major hammering.
 
In what audio format must submit the proposals. In Soundcloud seeing as mp3 and various formats wav.
 
jasperhb said:
Nice Tazzy.

I think the snare might need a little work. It sounds a bit weak in my ears. A little more beaf/crack might do the trick. The Kick sounds nice to me :-)

Also, try bringing up the top end of the vocal - i.e. above 10 -12 kHz with a good EQ. I think that this might make the vocal come through some more.

Nice mix over all :-)
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Hi jasperhb

THX for your feedback
I agree with you an the snar and will try to give it a little more crack.
 
I submitted in mp3 not realizing I could have use wav. Is it ok to delete the original and resubmit the same mix in wav format? Thanks.
 
Will the entries be listened to on Soundcloud or downloaded from Soundcloud and listened to elsewhere? Not sure whether to mix to Soundcloud...
 
mdutcher said:
Will the entries be listened to on Soundcloud or downloaded from Soundcloud and listened to elsewhere? Not sure whether to mix to Soundcloud...
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I'm guessing both - Make sure you make your Soundcloud file downloadable. You can select this option when you upload you file to Soundcloud.

You can upload a 24 bit file direct to Soundcloud & it will transcode it to be able to be streamed as a 128kb/sec .mp3. As with any form of music produced now, the trick is to make it sound great no matter what format it is being replayed in.
 
tazzy said:
Hi jasperhb

THX for your feedback
I agree with you an the snar and will try to give it a little more crack.
Click to expand...

You're welcome. I did a few updates to my mix as well. Here is the latest version:

 
Zabrilla Mix

hey All, first post here. I have done a mix for the contest. After listening to lots of other versions, I can tell my mix is a little too much "Vintage"...or missing to much presence in other words!
Still, nevermind, tis done now. Any comments would be welcome. :D

 
GearFest Mixing Contest - DR Mix -

Hello All,
Here's my spin at it - I used Logic 8 on a MacBook - all built-in Plugs - Audio Technica ATH-M50 cans.
 
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http://snd.sc/10cDPHx

Almost 600 plays now. I am very excited. Please leave comment if you feel like it.

But what I can't figure out, is how you guys embed the sound cloud player into your posts.

The link to my mix, is in the title.
 
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