GearFest Mixing Contest

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What do you guys think of my mix?

Grtz,

Jec

soundcloud.com/jeconiamaasbach/jeconiam_lizacolbysound_gearfe
 
Hey guys new to the forum but excited to stick around! Here's a link to my entry, wish i could have finished polishing it but realized the 11:59 pm deadline was central European time not pacific(im in CA). But any feedback is greatly appreciated. Good Luck to all!
soundcloud.com/otherexacerbater/liza-colbly
 
Hi, i´m mixing since 10 years different music styles in several projects. This mixing project was an outstanding challange to demonstrate my skills. When I first heard the raw material, it was clear to shape a modern and punchy sound. Vintage and retro style wasn´t really suitable in my opinion.

Mix
The mix was done in two stages. The first session was for basic tweaking. The second was some kinda stem mastering mixing thingy.

Details:

Kick: Easy to handle, it sounded fine to me. Just blended a sample slightly to give it a tad more consistence. No compression, slightly equalised.

Snare: Was the hardest part, it sounded more like a hi-hat track than a snare track;) Gating and stuff didn´t work for me. Therefore I searched on my drive for a natural sample with the same character than the original one and blended it about 20%. Now the signal passed the Sonnox Transmod and SPL Attacker to get a natural sounding snare that cuts through the mix. Additionally I used UAD Pultech for boosting topend. Again no compressor was used.

OH: Since the OH´s were miced like tom´s, I aligned them in the way i would do it on tom´s. I boosted a lot of lowend (13dB around 100Hz!) and decreased -10 at 200Hz. Crazy, but worked fine for me. After that I automated the OH track to make the tom´s cut through (+8db). I inserted the CL1B with fast attack for compression and UAD Pultech for boosting topend.

Drumbus: I used The Glue for comp., Lexicon PCM for Room Verb.

Bass: Noveltech Character from TC powercore to emphasis the presence. MaxxBass for bossting lowend CL1B, La2A and L1 for compression and UAD Pultech for boosting topend.

Guitars: I used the Haas-Effect to make´em stereo, Sonnox EQ and a tad 1176 to give em more bite. UAD Pultech for boosting topend.

Vox: The vocals were sent into three compressors in parallel (Michael Brauer technique I think), LA3A, Sonnox D3 and 1176. The output oft the three compressors were passed to fed a bus with C4, Sonnox EQ, CDSoundMaster - Nice EQ and Decapitator for saturation. RS-1 and LX480 for Reverb.

2Bus: VTMM2, The Glue, Inflator, Nice-EQ and Pro-L.

Thanks to Fabrice Dupont and the Liza Colby Sound for sharing this great piece of music. Feel embraced ;)

soundcloud.com/bennymuellermixing/benjamin-m-ller
 
I submitted mine about a couple of hours before midnight yesterday, UK time (1st June) - was this actually in time? I'm surprised there hasn't been an official message about the end of the contest yet!

 
Hey guys new to the forum but excited to stick around! Here's a link to my entry, wish i could have finished polishing it but realized the 11:59 pm deadline was central European time not pacific(im in CA). But any feedback is greatly appreciated. Good Luck to all!
soundcloud.com/otherexacerbater/liza-colbly

Where did you see the deadline was 11:59pm Central Europe Time ? Cause mine was posted 2 hours after that. And imagine all the people in USA for whom 11:59pm CET is something like 5 or 6pm and less!
 
What's been cool is that people are listening to some of my other stuff.
 
It appears that people are still uploading...since there are entires right now showing "2 hours ago"...etc.
It's kinda' odd that there has been no official closing announcement on the Soundcloud group page.

It's also odd that some mixes that were uploaded days ago....are popping up on Page 1....unless Soundcloud randomly rotates them???

Anyway...even it was still open for another week, I have no desire to do 5 more remixes like a lot of folks were doing.
If you start second guessing yourself, it's all over...and if you are just not sure of your mixes, then you might never be.
Go with your initial feeling...and let it lay as it falls. :)
 
Here is my entry... I'll give a bit more of background oriented post than my entry description since this is one of my first posts here.

I've always been interested in recording and mixing, but I was never around anything other than home based thinkings of the 90s. I remember when digital came out, we assumed that we'd be able to make pro sounding mixes now because we wouldn't have our kick get lost in what we had previously thought was always in tape saturation on a cassette (wow has home recording come a long way lol), when bouncing, or maybe that it was something magical and maybe even a little bit satanic that happened during the mastering stage. LOL I don't know of anyone who knew a thing about hi and low pass filters, really using compression effectively, or who realized that you really needed fully parametric eqs on each channel, let alone anyone who knew what 2 bus compression was or who knew anything about the haas effect. lol

Of course, digital recording did little to change our woes because the real issues were in the fact that we didn't really understand that bass guitar can cover the kick, but that there were ways around it. Sure, bouncing was now not a degrading prospect, but now we really thought there was just some weird magic in the mastering stage. With computer and approaching limitless tracks recording we learned that more tracks wasn't the answer either. In fact, wow, the more tracks, the harder it is to mix. "But I thought all those tracks would sound bigger because there is more..." LOL Oh yeah, there's only so much sonic room between 20 and 20. lol

Not too long ago Beau Hill offered to mix my band's ep, and not only did I have a recording that sounded like I never dreamed I'd have, but I got to build a relationship with a really great producer. But I also learned that a great mix can pretty much sound mastered in the preview stage if a guy really knows what he's doing. Sure, it does great things, but it isn't likely to cure all that lifelessness in the mixes we had been doing.

So, with that, Beau hugely inspired me to a. ask a zillion questions, and b. to read read read. I never knew how to really use the logic stock plugins to know if they were good or not. Who knew that the logic compressor had a pretty darn decent G series VCA compressor mode in it? I wouldn't have known how to use it in that manner anyway.

Some time later, I've gotten to the point where I'd like to start seeing what people think of what I'm doing now. Am I learning anything? Do I have any decent ideas?

Which brings me to this contest and thread.

I used Reaper for the mix because I'm more used to its workflow when mixing. (I still can't really figure out exactly how to set up an aux or bus right in Logic (I know, I'm a little dense. lol)

Plugins were mostly Waves H-EQ, CLA Compressors (I think I only used the 1176 in black mode), Slate VCC, CLA effects (I love the John Lennon slap delay, and I think I used CLA Bass because of the sub control as I don't have any other sub processing plugin), sonox eq, and I used the Molot compressor on the drum bus and the 2 bus just for glue glue glue.

I wanted a mix of everything I heard in the track, which was like a rockin almost 80s rock (not hair metal lol) track, but with that Motown vibe too. I also wanted a slight hint of the overall eq on something like a Pink record. I found that goal to be the hardest to achieve because you can't force it if the singer's voice doesn't fit that want. It will be good to see the feedback and see if I got anywhere close to my goals.


 
Could the pureMix team clarify on that btw, please?

I just found a message from puremix over on the gearslutz board, posted 12 hours ago:

"2800 mixes submitted.
Judges are going to have fun!"

So judging from the soundcloud page, 67 mixes were too late
 
I just found a message from puremix over on the gearslutz board, posted 12 hours ago:

"2800 mixes submitted.
Judges are going to have fun!"

So judging from the soundcloud page, 67 mixes were too late

That could just have been a general comment....."2800 mixes"...I wouldn't read that as an official count.
 
Guys,

I wanted to share a thought with you.

Have you noticed that 99% of the participants have first described their gear before their musical intentions?

It shows that when they think about their mix, they think technical rather than musical first. Why? Ask yourself and you'll get the answer.
As for me I don't care about the gear; I'm not thinking what plugin I'll use on this or that track, I'm just trying to have a vision of what I want to hear, and then I try to pick something that can lead to that result. That's one of the toughest things about mixing: having a clear vision of the result based on what you've been given, BEFORE starting mixing.

Vision first, gear next.
 
Man, I can FEEL your mix. I dig the atmosphere, everything's consistent and go towards your goal. Very punch and expressive. Then only regret I have is the snare, I think it's too snappy and was EQ'ed too high frequency wise, and thus it blends not well the rest of the mix. Also I have felt the third verse has lost a bit of the vibe you get in the first verse, we feel you have lost something that we had before; I think it's just a question a balance between vocals, guitar and bass. I know you did that in purpose to create a quiet moment before the finish, mais quand même... :)

Good overall job, good luck to you! And good luck to all of you mixers hidden in the shadow.

Hello mon ami!! Merci pour ton commentaire et ton honnete impression sur le mixe :D Actually I wanted the snare to stick out so that people can feel the excitement and the snap(like a stick hitting their ass lol), like the verses of "LimpBizkit-My way", cause in the chorus I can feel that the limiter kills all that snap, so I wanted my track to keep the snap even in the chorus, but yes you are not the first person who complains about the snare being annoying, my girlfriend did too(I think i'll trust her ears more next time lol). You are spot on about the third voice, it gets lost a bit in the chaos and the vocal doesn't sound as pretty as in the first 2 choruses, you know I wanted to keep the 3rs chorus vocal without much processing(removing the poking resonances) to maybe let her express her self more ... but I think it was a wrong decision :(

Anyways thanks again for your feedback!! :) Your critics are very constructive ... and very well observed!! :)

If I may ask, are there more annoying things that you found in the mix ? I am willing to improve and don't like mistakes lol ... so please tell me so next time I don't mess anything up :D

By the way have you got facebook ?
 
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Where did you see the deadline was 11:59pm Central Europe Time ? Cause mine was posted 2 hours after that. And imagine all the people in USA for whom 11:59pm CET is something like 5 or 6pm and less!

I was rereading the rules just for the hell of it and realized
"5. Mixing contest ends on June 1st 2013. The closing date for entries is June 1st 2013, 11:59pm Central European Time (CET)"
 
Guys,

I wanted to share a thought with you.

Have you noticed that 99% of the participants have first described their gear before their musical intentions?

It shows that when they think about their mix, they think technical rather than musical first. Why? Ask yourself and you'll get the answer.
As for me I don't care about the gear; I'm not thinking what plugin I'll use on this or that track, I'm just trying to have a vision of what I want to hear, and then I try to pick something that can lead to that result. That's one of the toughest things about mixing: having a clear vision of the result based on what you've been given, BEFORE starting mixing.

Vision first, gear next.

Absolutely!! There is also another trick though, to remove all distraction and being concentrated in the music, then you get in a strange state where sometimes you don't really control what you are doing, but magic happens and you can hear the song communicating with you about what it needs or not, and finally you don't know what you did but the result becomes good lol.

You maybe think i'm crazy or on drugs, but no I don't do drugs, being into the mix and music IS the drug lol
 
I was rereading the rules just for the hell of it and realized
"5. Mixing contest ends on June 1st 2013. The closing date for entries is June 1st 2013, 11:59pm Central European Time (CET)"

Maybe they forgot about the deadline ? :D Hey it's the week end lol
 
Guys,

I wanted to share a thought with you.

Have you noticed that 99% of the participants have first described their gear before their musical intentions?

It shows that when they think about their mix, they think technical rather than musical first. Why? Ask yourself and you'll get the answer.
As for me I don't care about the gear; I'm not thinking what plugin I'll use on this or that track, I'm just trying to have a vision of what I want to hear, and then I try to pick something that can lead to that result. That's one of the toughest things about mixing: having a clear vision of the result based on what you've been given, BEFORE starting mixing.

Vision first, gear next.

I beg to differ about your conclusions - Personally, the only reason I posted my gear was because we were requested to do it. In fact, originally, I forgot to mention what monitors & interface I used, so I inserted that in my post later when I realized that it might have been required. The position it holds in my mix description has absolutely not a shred of relevance to the importance I place on gear. Personally, I don't give a damn what DAW, monitors, interface, hardware or software anybody used. The proof is in the pudding - a good mix is a good mix whether it was mixed on $200 worth of equipment or $200,000 worth.

Once I got the most basic of gear, I never felt restricted by any limitations being imposed by equipment, only by my own inexperience/lack of skill.

Let's face it - the thing is called "Gearfest" - is it any wonder why importance is being placed on equipment? It's all about sell, sell, sell - & with close to 3000 prospective customers, it's possibly a very lucrative market for the sponsors.
 
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