GearFest Mixing Contest

[fHumble fHingaz]

I think I finally worked out how to get the link to Soundcloud...I'm gettin' better at this! Thanks for the reviews, I will now go and try to get mine onto the pages I intended!

Just a bit about myself... I am an old school 61 years old sound engineer from Australia. My ears still work and I'm not really sure why! I lived through the years of very very loud bands and I'm still here. As an offering to young folk starting out, if your serious...protect your ears!
I started work in 1978 working with 2" tape and an SSL console. Everything was outboard and we had some of the most incredible boxes ever made. Many of them I now use 'out of the box' and having actually worked with the real SSL channel..the Waves software version is pretty damn awesome.Its not the same...but it is awesome.
The transition to digital was a lot harder than you might expect. It is a very different approach to capturing and then retaining the integrity of your sounds over the lengthy record/mix process. A brand new reel of tape does NOT sound the same after 2000 passes! What is digital recording's main attraction to me...it never degrades, I'm not having to deal with tape noise and I can do edits and drop ins that are seamless and a very cool tool. There are some very good mixes from some of you fellows. I'm glad I found my way here!

Well from a fellow Aussie, it's really geat to hear your perspective, Dave!

Your experience in Audio engineering is really evident in the high quality of your mix.

I guess it's no news to you, but for the uninitiated, Aussie Pub Rock was notoriously, blisteringly LOUD during the '70's and '80's. Bands like The Coloured Balls, The Aztecs, Rose Tattoo, The Angels, Cold Chisel, Midnight Oil and The Hoodoo Gurus were probably responsible for a LOT of permanent hearing damage during that era.

...but I digress... What I found interesting was your perspective on digital. As someone who started recording with analogue portastudios in the '80's, I hold no fondness for the limitations that format imposed. Admittedly, I've never worked with truly professional level analogue equipment like yourself. I'm just thankful that it's possible to produce release-quality sounds from home for a fraction of what it used to cost.

At home now, the only real limitation is our own talent, experience and skills (or the lack thereof).

 

[fHumble fHingaz]

Hi, I´d like you to check my mix and if you like it (or not) give me some feedback.
Thanks.
Ed.

Nice mix, Eduardo! I like your punchy kick & snare drum & the low end in general on the mix is nice. Full-sounding bass guitar -lovely.

The guitar sounds ever-so-slightly "out front of" the vocal. That is probably to do with the use of reverb on each respective element. I find, if I'm using an up-front guitar sound, I have to use +70-80ms of pre-delay on the vocal reverb to keep the vocalist from sounding like they are "behind" the guitarist in the sound stage.

The vocal sounds well nested within the mix - really well controlled dynamically, with a pleasing tone overall.

Interesting decision to go with some generated harmonies on the vocal... It's a technique I've had a fair bit of experience with, so I've picked up a few tips on how to do it more transparently... I think you got the level of it right - it's subtle enough not to unduly draw too much attention to itself. However, I think you need to be careful with the intervals - keeping a fixed interval can mean that some notes clash with the underlying chord structure, so it's important to really listen for those & make adjustments accordingly. Usually the right note is only one interval either way. Another thing that may have sounded better in this case was to make the harmony line lower than the main vocal - sometimes it's easier to blend that way. Another thing to watch for is to adjust the formant control on your pitch shifting vst. If you're shifting the vocal up, you probably find that it sounds a bit "chipmonk-like". Shifting the formant control down can counteract this & make it sound more natural. Vice-versa if you are shifting the line down.

Overall a very solid mix - nice work!

 

[SonicSculptor]

Well from a fellow Aussie, it's really geat to hear your perspective, Dave!

Your experience in Audio engineering is really evident in the high quality of your mix.

I guess it's no news to you, but for the uninitiated, Aussie Pub Rock was notoriously, blisteringly LOUD during the '70's and '80's. Bands like The Coloured Balls, The Aztecs, Rose Tatto, The Angels, Cold Chisel, Midnight Oil and The Hudu Gurus were probably responsible for a LOT of permanent hearing damage during that era.

...but I digress... What I found interesting was your perspective on digital. As someone who started recording with analogue portastudios in the '80's, I hold no fondness for the limitations that format imposed. Admittedly, I've never worked with truly professional level analogue equipment like yourself. I'm just thankful that it's possible to produce release-quality sounds from home for a fraction of what it used to cost.

At home now, the only real limitation is our own talent, experience and skills (or the lack thereof).

Though somewhat off-topic, thought i'd chime in here and post/repost my perspective on this:

When I finished up audio school(s) (we started with a 4track cassette & ended w/the first Pro Tools release)& dreamt of owning a studio someday(circa 1993). The first thing I needed was $20+K to buy a 24 track reel to reel tape machine...(ADAT had just been recently released, not that reliable & I had a Vextax Mr66 -6Track) Most studios had only a DAT machine as digital recording gear. Today, I'm guessing, the vast majority of the mixes submitted to this contest were likely mixed with WAY less money invested. I think everything I used cost maybe $1200. That is simply awesome! I've even heard a good mix in the group done on an Ipad!

Well, I've still got my ADAT, DAT, Reels, DCC(Digital Compact Cassette) & even my Echoplex. But I'm so glad that I've always had a PC, my first hobby, since the early 80's. Computers then could only barely do crappy MIDI & now it's the heart of my 'studio'. ...and I never did get that 24 track reel to reel tape machine!

I make a living as a Live FOH Engineer w/ 25+yrs exp & these days spend a lot of time assisting mid sized venue concert production. Certainly, not entirely due to cutting my chops mixing on a pc. But it has certainly helped me be a better engineer. My point is, I(we) are all working with tools that I could not even dream of getting into one location at one time, let alone all in one box or even exist!(yeah, I got great analog stuff too- i.e. I'll never quite using my Lexi's) ...And the really good stuff was really expensive!

Not to mention the social media aspect & internet in general, this forum & contest are great examples. I've lurked here for years & learned. Built my entire studio with help from forums @ johnsayers.com & highly respect members of gearslutz. Now i'm discussing mixing of a tune that almost 3000 people mixed, in this forum. Couldn't dream of this experience 20 years ago... Enjoy & frolic. Listen & Learn. I am.

Oh, and....I Hated Cutting Tape physically. ya know, rock the tape reels to find your spot, mark it with a grease pencil & CUT it with a razor blade! Mend it back together & hope you got I right & didn't destroy your Master! Now that's Destructive editing...never did get comfortable with it. Not to mention, loading/unloading tape, alignment and care of tape machines, storing tape, rec tape time (maybe 17 mins), tape expense $$$, and simply waiting for tape transport(FFWD-RWD) Only the big studios had automation of any kind. Digital today is way better! For me, I'm amazed when I hear recording from the likes of Floyd, Zappa, & others, & consider the tech at the time

I'd like to add, I bought that Vestax MR66 6-Track, new, on credit from a local music store owner(maybe $700 in 1989). He gave credit to an unemployed 16 year old with no paper work, no adult present, no signature. I made good on the deal & changed my life. I thank him every time I see him still. I occasionally mix his band live. I try to repay that to young engineers as often as I can. I've trained many, and mentor even more. I still have that first recording, archived digitally of course. We were naïve enough to actually drive(my mom drove) to every radio station within 50 miles & asked them to play it...lol we thought that's how it worked...

Sorry for being off topic, just wanted to share & hopefully inspire. I'll go to my room now...

 

[fHumble fHingaz]

Though somewhat off-topic, thought i'd chime in here and post/repost my perspective on this:

When I finished up audio school(s) (we started with a 4track cassette & ended w/the first Pro Tools release)& dreamt of owning a studio someday(circa 1993). The first thing I needed was $20+K to buy a 24 track reel to reel tape machine...(ADAT had just been recently released, not that reliable & I had a Vextax Mr66 -6Track) Most studios had only a DAT machine as digital recording gear. Today, I'm guessing, the vast majority of the mixes submitted to this contest were likely mixed with WAY less money invested. I think everything I used cost maybe $1200. That is simply awesome! I've even heard a good mix in the group done on an Ipad!

Well, I've still got my ADAT, DAT, Reels, DCC(Digital Compact Cassette) & even my Echoplex. But I'm so glad that I've always had a PC, my first hobby, since the early 80's. Computers then could only barely do crappy MIDI & now it's the heart of my 'studio'. ...and I never did get that 24 track reel to reel tape machine!

I make a living as a Live FOH Engineer w/ 25+yrs exp & these days spend a lot of time assisting mid sized venue concert production. Certainly, not entirely due to cutting my chops mixing on a pc. But it has certainly helped me be a better engineer. My point is, I(we) are all working with tools that I could not even dream of getting into one location at one time, let alone all in one box or even exist!(yeah, I got great analog stuff too- i.e. I'll never quite using my Lexi's) ...And the really good stuff was really expensive!

Not to mention the social media aspect & internet in general, this forum & contest are great examples. I've lurked here for years & learned. Built my entire studio with help from forums @ johnsayers.com & highly respect members of gearslutz. Now i'm discussing mixing of a tune that almost 3000 people mixed, in this forum. Couldn't dream of this experience 20 years ago... Enjoy & frolic. Listen & Learn. I am.

Oh, and....I Hated Cutting Tape physically. ya know, rock the tape reels to find your spot, mark it with a grease pencil & CUT it with a razor blade! Mend it back together & hope you got I right & didn't destroy your Master! Now that's Destructive editing...never did get comfortable with it. Not to mention, loading/unloading tape, alignment and care of tape machines, storing tape, rec tape time (maybe 17 mins), tape expense $$$, and simply waiting for tape transport(FFWD-RWD) Only the big studios had automation of any kind. Digital today is way better! For me, I'm amazed when I hear recording from the likes of Floyd, Zappa, & others, & consider the tech at the time

I'd like to add, I bought that Vestax MR66 6-Track, new, on credit from a local music store owner(maybe $700 in 1989). He gave credit to an unemployed 16 year old with no paper work, no adult present, no signature. I made good on the deal & changed my life. I thank him every time I see him still. I occasionally mix his band live. I try to repay that to young engineers as often as I can. I've trained many, and mentor even more. I still have that first recording, archived digitally of course. We were naïve enough to actually drive(my mom drove) to every radio station within 50 miles & asked them to play it...lol we thought that's how it worked...

Sorry for being off topic, just wanted to share & hopefully inspire. I'll go to my room now...

Amen to that SS! Good point about the availability of educational mixing material online - It's been a huge help to me personally.

 

[Kramer]

Liza Colby

Never had time to mix this for the contest. This is what I ended up with. It could be a lot better, but I wanted to call it DONE and move on to something else.


Kramer

 

[davidpend]

Well from a fellow Aussie, it's really geat to hear your perspective, Dave!

Your experience in Audio engineering is really evident in the high quality of your mix.

I guess it's no news to you, but for the uninitiated, Aussie Pub Rock was notoriously, blisteringly LOUD during the '70's and '80's. Bands like The Coloured Balls, The Aztecs, Rose Tattoo, The Angels, Cold Chisel, Midnight Oil and The Hoodoo Gurus were probably responsible for a LOT of permanent hearing damage during that era.

...but I digress... What I found interesting was your perspective on digital. As someone who started recording with analogue portastudios in the '80's, I hold no fondness for the limitations that format imposed. Admittedly, I've never worked with truly professional level analogue equipment like yourself. I'm just thankful that it's possible to produce release-quality sounds from home for a fraction of what it used to cost.

At home now, the only real limitation is our own talent, experience and skills (or the lack thereof).

Its a great time to be alive. The equivelent equipment and software in my small home studio would have cost hundreds of thousands back in the 70s/80s. Plus add to that the digital age of video and cameras and the world comes alive in a way never before accessible to 'normal' folk. I still think the hard yards have to be spent working it all out and learning the craft...but its nice to have the ability to play with all the toys. Still bloody expensive, however attainable. Great to see an Aussie or two about the place! I am very open to sharing information and a few tricks Iv learned along the way. My current path is delving into the arcane world of CD mastering and H.D video documentary production. Cheers

 

[AndyGallas]

The following is about Andy's mix which is well worth a listen folks! I just hav'nt worked out how yo put his link to the track here yet Doh!

Great vocal tone in this mix Andy, overall balance and frequency shaping is very nice and warm sounding. From the rather 'hard' sounding original files you have done a great job of rounding the sound out! Respect mate!

Thank you very much Dave! This means really a lot to me.

 

[AndyGallas]

Hmm.. I wouldn't say it was a conscious decision. My guess is that it is a result of my attempts to tame the cymbals and then get the highs back into the snare. The cymbals were just crazy overboard in my first mix attempt, and there was so much bleed on the snare track that it really seemed to take a little bit of cutting here, parallel eq there, compress this, sidechain that... LOL The cymbals are the aspect of the mix that I was very very unsure about. On one hand, I wanted a lot of them because I wanted it to have an old Grand Funk Railroad vibe to it, but I didn't want them to cover everything.

Yeah, sometimes what is entitled as snare track is not where the great comes from. In this case for me it were the overheads. I just added so much of the snare to the overheads until the overall snaresound sounded good to me plus I did some eqing (to balance the HH bleed about) and some transient shaping on the snare to get it punchier. But a lot comes actually from the overheads where the cymbals sounds better to me. Nonetheless I tamed them a bit with a very mild automation on the drumbuss (1dB cut highshelf) in the chorus plus 1dB of GR on a gate on the overheads. Small numbers but it adds up to a more controlled cymbal sound.

Edit: I almost forgot, I did also time align the snare to the overheads.

Cheers,
Andy

 

[Eduardo Serrano]

Nice mix, Eduardo! I like your punchy kick & snare drum & the low end in general on the mix is nice. Full-sounding bass guitar -lovely.

The guitar sounds ever-so-slightly "out front of" the vocal. That is probably to do with the use of reverb on each respective element. I find, if I'm using an up-front guitar sound, I have to use +70-80ms of pre-delay on the vocal reverb to keep the vocalist from sounding like they are "behind" the guitarist in the sound stage.

The vocal sounds well nested within the mix - really well controlled dynamically, with a pleasing tone overall.

Interesting decision to go with some generated harmonies on the vocal... It's a technique I've had a fair bit of experience with, so I've picked up a few tips on how to do it more transparently... I think you got the level of it right - it's subtle enough not to unduly draw too much attention to itself. However, I think you need to be careful with the intervals - keeping a fixed interval can mean that some notes clash with the underlying chord structure, so it's important to really listen for those & make adjustments accordingly. Usually the right note is only one interval either way. Another thing that may have sounded better in this case was to make the harmony line lower than the main vocal - sometimes it's easier to blend that way. Another thing to watch for is to adjust the formant control on your pitch shifting vst. If you're shifting the vocal up, you probably find that it sounds a bit "chipmonk-like". Shifting the formant control down can counteract this & make it sound more natural. Vice-versa if you are shifting the line down.

Overall a very solid mix - nice work!

Many, many, many thanks for your recommendations, this is the kind of feedback that really makes you learn and rethink things. I did a fist mix where the vocal was a little bit upfront, the next day I listened again and decided that the vocal could be more in between the band,not so upfront so I dropped a little bit (1.5dB) the whole vocal track. I think the harmonies are ok because the song is in G major and the harmony track sounds subtle "behind" the lead vocal track. I noticed too that at this point everything is really, really tiny, I mean that 1 or 2 dBs can make a huge difference on every element in the mix.

Thanks again.

Ed.

 

[haryy]

Hi guys! Nice to be a part of this. I did it for the fun of mixing and because i like healthy competition! Hope you like my mix and every point of view is welcome!
Take care,
Haris



-Drums. I spotted some problems which i tried to solve. Hihats and crash cymbals sounded harsh and phasey through the overheads and the snare so i time aligned them and this fixed the problem by a great deal along with some waves geq eq which cleared some additional resonances. Finally i phase reversed the kick and gained a lot of bass response. The kick has some jjp bass (indeed!) on the amp setting, the snare has some additional reverb and the overheads some jjp snare bot which fattened the whole kit and some cla drums toms which cleared some harshness. Tom hits were put in a seperate track with the same plugins but with more aggressive settings. The drum group has some more treatment: maserati room and kramer tape.
-Bass. I time aligned the 2 signals and then phase reversed the di. Added cla2a and puigchild 660 for compression and clarity and finally some jjp bass in di setting, in order to make the bass bigger.
-Guitar. Cla guitars in crunch setting for compression and clarity, then some mannym tone shaper added highs, kramer pie comp for sweetening, mannym triple d for clearing harshness, mannym reverb to add some dimension to the sterile guitar envoronment and finally some fabfilter eq in order to put the final touch and glue the guitar to the mix.
-Vox. This had some more treatment. I started with some Aphex aural exciter in order to put the dullness out of the sound and added some waves doubler in order to fatten it up. Then i put some maserati vx1 for comp and long delay. Nls channel (ssl) came and added some drive in order to saturate the midrange and make it stand out in the mix a bit more. I put some reverb and then cut the edges with fabfilter eq in the low and hi end of spectrum. I further "vintagized" the sound by adding kramer tape and pie compressor and gained some bottom end with api 550a eq. Finally i put some slapback delay low in the mix with h-delay.
-The master had Puigchild 670 and kramer pie for the specific compression and colour, Nls buss with mike setting in order to add glue and bass to the mixand finally some kramer tape to add glue and tape sound and api 560 to shape the overall tone.

Everything was done ITB with Reaper.

 

[PerfektChaos]

Hi guys.
Give me some feedback please
Was really fun doing this mix. I tried to keep it as natural as possible!

Good luck to all,
W

 

[TheNorwegianGuy]

Hei!

This could be the link to my mix, but I was not allowed to post it.

Look for it at Soundcloud!


Love from The Norwegian Guy

 

[Dave Bechtel]

Hi guys.
Give me some feedback please
Was really fun doing this mix. I tried to keep it as natural as possible!

Good luck to all,
W[/QUOTE]

Hey W,
Nice job with the mix. For me the vocal is a little buried, esp. in the choruses. There is something going on with the Gtr in the Ch that is doing a weird phase thing. Not exactly sure what's going on with it but maybe it was a "doubling" plugin or something.

You dialed in a great Bass tone but the kick seems to distorting... not sure if that was on purpose or not.

What kind of monitoring setup do you have?

 

[collinsylex]

My mix still hasn't been downloaded by the judges, I have 1 download but that was from a few days before the contest closed (and it didn't end up being my final version).... anyone else have a similar situation??

 

[miroslav]

How do you know?

I think maybe the judges are getting the mixes via different route than the usual download button on Soundcloud.

 

[LIMiT]

Same here.. Mine hasn't been d/led or streamed yet.

 

[Reloop]

Hey everyone! Although the competition deadline has passed I still enjoyed mixing this song and would love to share it with you guys.

This is only my 3rd ever mix! (and also my best so far even if I do say so myself!)

Cheers guys

 

[Roisto]

Same here.. Mine hasn't been d/led or streamed yet.

mine either hasn't been, there's zero downloads. honestly i don't really care, i know what i did and happy with the result. im proud of it, i think i've not hear better and im realistic too.. that's the real prize to be proud of what im doing!

 

[Foxp2]

Oh Baby's, tired with sound ? There is my mix ..

 

[SteveC7]

Same here.. Mine hasn't been d/led or streamed yet.

Same here - no downloads. I'm not overly concerned though, I'm sure they have other means to access the files. Or maybe they're downloading and listening in batches.