GearFest Mixing Contest

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hueseph said:
The vocals ARE clipping. In the loud parts they compress quite a bit. Even keeping the vox well under -20dB they are still clipped. It's nothing I or anyone else is doing, it's the proximity to the mic.
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Yup, there is definitely some overdriving of the mic happening - listen to an old Joe Cocker record ("The Letter" for example) and you'll hear the same sound.

It's part of what I love about those old tracks...It's the sound of rock'n'roll, dude! Amps on the edge of meltdown, speakers breakin' up...Dirt and and sweat - It ain't always pretty, but it sure does rock - deal with it!
 
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Phew, finally done with my entry! I cut this a little close as I've been a bit busy lately. Hope you guys enjoy it!



This was fun, the entries I heard so far have been great! I'll listen more tonight.
 
Leszek said:
Hello.

I'm new here and this is my mix for contest:

soundcloud.com/leszekjakubczak/oh-baby-liza-colby

I really enjoy making this :). Great contest - it would be great to here same words from you guys and after ending same words from jury (it's gonna be difficult, I know).

Good luck everyone.
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I've forgotten to write that it's my first mix that I've ever done so it would be great to hear same opinions about it :).
 
sawing and cutting height range

Hi, I just mix this song and it strucks me that some tracks have a strong/resonating treble range wich is very sawing and cutting into my ears. Particularly noticeable is this at the voice and at the drums. If I'm taking off the sawing and cutting treble range with the EQ, then the mix is ​​too dull for me. What can I do to solve this problem? :confused:
 
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To do or not to do, that is the question

Luc Gabriel said:
Thank You Dave. Your mix is very good also. On your mix the guitar is right panned till 0.26, then it goes back to center, is this how it's suppose to be ?. My mixbuss is empty, trust me that may hands are itching to insert something in there but Fab says that they will normalize the levels and I want the best possible dynamics I can provide in this respect.
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Yes, some itching issue by my side also
Guitars is one of those
The reason for that is to give to the voice all of the space in the first verse part
a kind of "ladies and gentleman ... "
I would have liked to adds audience noises and claps after the first word, but I fear this kind of editing isn't allowed with the contest
so it remain just a pale idea of that

About mixbuss, since the dynamics is a relation between louder peak to the softer noise (or rms music), I was consider just a very slow attach (to maintain peaks) and very quick release (to evoid pumping effect on softer sounds) preserving the dynamics and tighting up the overall

For me time is over, it's to late for changes, I'ld never submitt one only day from the deadline
I listen to your new one, great !!!
 
fHumble fHingaz said:
Yup, there is definitely some overdriving of the mic happening - listen to an old Joe Cocker record ("The Letter" for example) and you'll hear the same sound.

It's part of what I love about those old tracks...It's the sound of rock'n'roll, dude! Amps on the edge of meltdown, speakers breakin' up...Dirt and and sweat - It ain't always pretty, but it sure does rock - deal with it!
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Dude. How old do you think I am? I know what tape saturation sounds like. It's nothing like a mic bottoming out, which this is. The problem I have with it is that(although it has been stated otherwise) it seems to me that the mic definitely has a bit of a hyped top end. As another poster put it, its "cutting". Painful to listen to for an extended period of time.

At any rate, I'm accepting it. I don't like it but I've accepted it. I just thought I'd bring it up as an issue to see if anyone has a way of dealing with it.
 
m.w.a.p. said:
Hi, I just mix this song and it strucks me that some tracks have a strong/resonating treble range wich is very sawing and cutting into my ears. Particularly noticeable is this at the voice and at the drums. If I'm taking off the sawing and cutting treble range with the EQ, then the mix is ​​too dull for me. What can I do to solve this problem? :confused:
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That's the essence of the challenge
Most of us usually remix premixed stems (pretty good sounding)
Working on raw tracks is another thing
There isn't magic tricks, just eq and compression
 
PureMix Contest

Hi there ...

How long (really :listeningmusic: ) did it take you to mix this song?
I found a free stopwatch plugin for Daw session ( hofa-plugins.de/pages/start_en/4u_en.php ), and the worst thing is realize it's installed just 10mn before the end of the project ...

Listen my track & have a fun ! :guitar:
 
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hueseph said:
Dude. How old do you think I am? I know what tape saturation sounds like. It's nothing like a mic bottoming out, which this is. The problem I have with it is that(although it has been stated otherwise) it seems to me that the mic definitely has a bit of a hyped top end. As another poster put it, its "cutting". Painful to listen to for an extended period of time.

At any rate, I'm accepting it. I don't like it but I've accepted it. I just thought I'd bring it up as an issue to see if anyone has a way of dealing with it.
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It's cool mate, I wasn't trying to pick a fight or anything - just expressing my personal view of obstacles like this...I have no idea how old you are, & my comment was certainly not meant to belittle or be condescending... Age is totally beside the point...I wasn't talking about tape saturation, I was talking about a mic overloading, which is the sound you hear on a lot of old recordings with powerful, dynamic singers and tube condenser mics.

However, I agree that there definitely are some rogue resonances in the high mids that jump out. Whether that is the mics fault, the singers voice, or a combination of both, I'm not sure. A lot are using multi-band compression, or frequency-specific compression of some kind to deal with that.

Then there is always the "if it's already distorted, then distort it some more" approach - perhaps tape-style saturation is the answer?
 
fHumble fHingaz said:
However, I agree that there definitely are some rogue resonances in the high mids that jump out. ... A lot are using multi-band compression, or frequency-specific compression of some kind to deal with that.

Then there is always the "if it's already distorted, then distort it some more" approach - perhaps tape-style saturation is the answer?
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I used EQ and an LA2A style compressor to try and smooth out some of that harshness. And ironically, I also intentionally added distortion to some of the more exposed vocal lines. :)

Meanwhile, I'm still llistening to a small fraction of the many mixes posted, but there is just so much there... I do hear a lot similarities in many of the mixes, but there are a few that are more "unique". I need to go back and find them so I can add a few comments. One thing for sure though... there are some very talented mixers in this group.
 
fHumble fHingaz said:
It's cool mate, I wasn't trying to pick a fight or anything - just expressing my personal view of obstacles like this...I have no idea how old you are, & my comment was certainly not meant to belittle or be condescending... Age is totally beside the point...I wasn't talking about tape saturation, I was talking about a mic overloading, which is the sound you hear on a lot of old recordings with powerful, dynamic singers and tube condenser mics.

However, I agree that there definitely are some rogue resonances in the high mids that jump out. Whether that is the mics fault, the singers voice, or a combination of both, I'm not sure. A lot are using multi-band compression, or frequency-specific compression of some kind to deal with that.

Then there is always the "if it's already distorted, then distort it some more" approach - perhaps tape-style saturation is the answer?
Click to expand...

Good point: if it's already tangent, just exaggerate the problem instead of trying masking it. As for me, to deal with the saturation problem, I added a dose of *digital* saturation, which is not that ugly I think and makes the vocal sound both analog And digital. That's a new concept!
 
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Ch33rs
Saga
 


Lets try this!

Please leave your comments!
 
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Another newbie mix. Comments would be sincerly appreciated. Straight in-the-box effort, nothing fancy. I've had it posted to the contest site for a while.
 
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