Alright, I’d like to start off by saying that it’s great to see so many people entered. I still remember PMC #1 and can’t believe how big it’s become on this board. Second, congrats to our winners for #12. There were a lot of good entries and I know the judges and I had a hard time picking a winner.
Attached you will find my critiques for everyone’s mix. There is a .doc file and a .txt file. If you can’t open either of those, let me know and I can send you your own critique via PM or post a PDF file too. Anyway, I felt it was important as a judge to type out more than just a sheet full of blanketed numbers so that people might actually learn from this experience and improve for the next competition. I come from a classical/jazz music background and critiques are usually always given in competitions or auditions so that you know what you did right and what you did wrong in the eyes of the judge. However, please realize this comments are from MY perspective and some of them you may disagree with….and rightly so. But please don’t take offense to anything I say. Music is largely an opinionated art form and everyone’s opinions differ. Hopefully these comments may help you approach your mixes from a different perspective and you’ll start to hear things in your mixes you’ve never heard before.
Now for some general comments:
The biggest problem (as with all the other competitions) was the overall volume level; most of them were way too hot! Almost every track clipped somewhere and some levels were even slammed all the way to the top of the ceiling for the ENTIRE song. Turn it down! You’re not turning these mixes over to a recording label, so the loudness war has no merit here. I don’t mind having to turn up mixes that are a little too quiet…but I hate to have to turn a mix almost completely down to negative infinity. In an ideal world I could just set my levels all are unity and be completely happy with the listening levels.
Next, a lot of people need to follow directions. Not just the whole “turn the mix in on time” thing….but the client (in this case Chris Finster) had specific requests at the top of this thread that weren’t followed. One example was the trailing vocals leading from the first verse to the chorus. He said these tracks were unedited and that certain things needed to be taken care of. In fact, I think his exact words were “Please God, edit that SHIT OUT!!!” As an engineer it’s these minute details that we need to pay attention to because they can ruin our mixes for the listener. Hearing pops at the end of the song that were left over from the original tracks, lack of or poorly created fades at the end/beginning of the tracks, edits that are not done on the beat, trailing vocals leading into a chorus that start to clash with vocals that are already there….! They have to be edited out!
Finally we have the overall dynamics of the piece. I don’t really like to say I only work on certain styles of music. I like to take my background from EVERY style of music and use what I’ve learned to incorporate it into something I don’t know very well. For example, this mix could benefit so much by approaching it from a classical stand point. Finster has a ton of different sections in here including an intro which amounts to almost 1/3 of the entire song! The intro was written so it builds and builds to the first verse. He adds one layer at a time until you have this wall of sound that passes the torch onto the vocals. Keeping the faders of the tracks at the same position for the entire piece just doesn’t do it justice. Use automation! Build it with each part that is added. Add fades and crescendos/diminuendos when certain instruments come in or leave. When the vocals start, you know it’s time to ease back on the guitars since they aren’t important anymore. Screams have to be loud but not excruciating….the whisper at the end was sung as a whisper for a reason; you should barely just notice it. When it’s louder than the vocal line before it, you know your mix is not done yet. When mixing drums, treat them as a section and not individual instruments. If the snare sounds in your face but the overheads sound like they’re in the distance…keep mixing them. Cymbal crashes denote end of phrases or sections…make sure we hear them! The vocals need a lot of massaging as well. A very very good read that I suggest is Bruce Miller’s “Mix Deconstuction” lessons (
http://bruceamiller.us/b_main/audio_course.html). Specifically check out when he talks about the reasons why he spends so much time on dynamic rides. You can also hear pitch problems that need to be masked at certain points, and phrases that need to be edited so they end together. It’s weird hearing a vocal panned in the middle finish a word and 2 beats later the harmonies panned hard left and right finish the same word.
Okay, enough generalized comments of the mixes. Onto the individual critiques (in ABC order):
(Sorry if my sentences are hard to understand or there are typos. I tried to write them more like “notes” while I was listening)
If you can't view either the .txt file or the .doc file...let me know.
