Public Mix Contest #5

[jtvrdy]

3rd !!

thanks to all to made this possible.

 

[darnold]

whoops.

looks like i missed this one. I didnt even get to try it with my new monitors. Oh well maybe i can take a stab at Mix Contest 6.

Danny

 

[geet73]

Very nice job, Geet - and since I wasn't really considering myself a contender you, in essence, got top score!

Thanks, Cutiepie.

For my mix, I didn't use all that much reverb, compression, or even EQ. Alot of my mix was picking certain stereo tracks the be the "opposites" for panning. I had the rhodes anD the piano panned at 25% left and right. I had the shaker and the triangle opposite. Stuff like that. Heh.

I'm still very surprised. I didn't spend all that much time on it.

Thanks, I'm excited for the next one.

 

[Tonio]

Congrats to the winners!! and thanks to Bryan and judges. I'm learning LOL
So everyone went for hip hop huh? Not what I was striving for, but each his own. Not to sound like an excuse, but I may have missed a bkg vox file? I could'nt find the low end at all, which makes the whole tune drastically different-well at least with Bryan's.

BTW just wanted to inquire how the judges listened to the mixes? Burned a MP3 disc or? I guess they listened on their rigs or something else?

See ya'll on PMC#6.

T

 

[NL5]

Congrats to the winners!! and thanks to Bryan and judges. I'm learning LOL

Yep. Same from me!

I must say, I think I learned more from this one than any other one.

I know it's been said a hundred times, but it's not-so-much the gear, as how you use it.

I was sitting here listening to the mixes thinking, how the hell did I do so bad, Bears and Geets mixes sound like crap compared to mine. Are all three judges deaf?!?!?!? The more I thought about it, I thought, man there must be something seriously wrong with my monitoring chain, or my room, or something.

Guess what? There was! After spending the entire afternoon going thru my crap, I realized I had overlooked something so stupid, I won't even admit it. Then, I realized my entire "mastering" process was only compounding the problem.

Good thing is, I now hear the "ice-picks" raw tracks was referring too. I am truly amazed at the difference a few very minor (or what I thought were minor) adjustments made.

Anyway, congrats again to the winners!

I'll be waiting for PMC #6 with my tail between my legs.

 

[chrisharris]

I thought, man there must be something seriously wrong with my monitoring chain, or my room, or something.

Guess what? There was!

Nice post. Sounds like it was a good exercise for you and everybody else.

Man, I wanted to enter, but Vestast was a judge, and I just couldn't risk jeopardizing our sexual relationship over this, lol.

 

[vestast]

Nice post. Sounds like it was a good exercise for you and everybody else.

Man, I wanted to enter, but Vestast was a judge, and I just couldn't risk jeopardizing our sexual relationship over this, lol.

I agree. Thanks for that post NL5.

As for you Chris..... Awww never mind...

 

[Raw-Tracks]

Guess what? There was! After spending the entire afternoon going thru my crap, I realized I had overlooked something so stupid, I won't even admit it. Then, I realized my entire "mastering" process was only compounding the problem.

Aww, come on. Don't be shy. I'd be really interested to know what you found in your monitoring chain.

 

[vestast]

BTW just wanted to inquire how the judges listened to the mixes? Burned a MP3 disc or? I guess they listened on their rigs or something else?
T

Hey Tonio.

I downloaded the tunes and transfered them to my DAW, then started a multi track session in Adobe Audition and put all the mixes on seperate tracks. This also gave me a visual representation of volumes on the mixes so I made volume adjustments from one mix to the next if I had to.

My monitor chain is direct out from a Tascam fw-1884 into Event ASP-8's.

 

[NL5]

Aww, come on. Don't be shy. I'd be really interested to know what you found in your monitoring chain.

OK. But first let me say, that I am truly a NEWBIE. I started recording in March/April with almost no gear and NO experience. All of the stuff I have worked on has been singer/songwriter stuff - just acoustic guitar and vocals. The only "full-on" mixing I have done has been PMC's 2-5 - so a grand total of 4 songs.

Anyway, back to the monitoring chain issue. First off, I used to jam with a band in a "u-store-it" storage facility that was made outta concrete. The guitar player had a Marshall stack, and insisted that it only sounded good when "cranked all the way up". Of course when you do that, the drums have to run thru the PA, and the bass, and well, it kinda kills your hearing to a degree. (a good lesson for all the younger members on here) So problem #1 is I lose a decibel or two in the upper frequencies due to my "marshall deafness".

Well, to compensate for that, I had set my HF shelf on my monitors to -1 db. Somewhere I had the back-asswards logic that made that make sense to do. So, I just set them to +1 db to somewhat compensate for my lack of hearing the upper range of the sound spectrum. I wouldn't have thought that would make THAT much difference. WRONG!

Well, then to compound the problem, I was mixing stuff down and saving it as a stereo wave file. Then I would open up SF and clean up the start/end and check the eq balance on my computer speakers since it was a royal pain to change the comps settings to send things back to the monitors. I also figured it would be a pretty decent second source (they are pretty good as far as computer speakers go). Well, after firing up SF, I always seem to sound just a bit dark, so I'd give it a db or two bump around 12k usually, and adjust the very bottom as my monitors don't have a sub.

I have now re-wired my monitoring chain so SF outputs to both the studio monitors and the computer speakers with ease.

Basically, if you add the 1 or two db at the three differnt steps, it starts to REALLY add up. Lesson learned. I now listen to my mix of "Heaven" and it sounds COMPLETELY different than it did this morning (as well as Geets).

Sorry for the long (and embarrising) post, but you did ask....

 

[Raw-Tracks]

Well, to compensate for that, I had set my HF shelf on my monitors to -1 db. Somewhere I had the back-asswards logic that made that make sense to do. So, I just set them to +1 db to somewhat compensate for my lack of hearing the upper range of the sound spectrum. I wouldn't have thought that would make THAT much difference. WRONG!

Yeah, now that you have that straight, it will make a big difference. Glad you figured it out. Don't be embarrased, it's a simple mistake.

 

[Tonio]

Hey Tonio.

I downloaded the tunes and transfered them to my DAW, then started a multi track session in Adobe Audition and put all the mixes on seperate tracks. This also gave me a visual representation of volumes on the mixes so I made volume adjustments from one mix to the next if I had to.

My monitor chain is direct out from a Tascam fw-1884 into Event ASP-8's.

vestast, thanks for sharing!!
That means you did have to convert the files? asp8's I hear (no pun intended) good things about those monitors. Unfortunately I have the PS8's which gives a hyped low end, and the mids are kinda lacking. 1st set what can I say. maybe I should spend more dough on monitors instead of the never ending acoustical treatment-still got the -4db null @ 80-1000hz. Time to revamp again. actually its gotten alot better.

T

 

[caryindy]

Not to sound like an excuse, but I may have missed a bkg vox file? I could'nt find the low end at all, which makes the whole tune drastically different-well at least with Bryan's.

BTW just wanted to inquire how the judges listened to the mixes? Burned a MP3 disc or? I guess they listened on their rigs or something else?

T

Hey Man. I think the BG vox part you're speaking of was there, just really low in the mix.

I brought all these files into a folder and then converted them to wavs. I brought the wavs into Samplitude Master and brought all the slammed mixes down to an average level of the other mixes. Oh, when I brought the wavs into Samplitude, I draged them all in at once and I made sure I didn't take note of the order of the mixes. When I burned the two cds, I scored them based on track number only. It wasn't until I had all the scores in place that I went back into Samplitude and took note of which mix was numbers one through 20. I even had Bryan's example mix in there and didn't know which one it was until the end.
I scored this four times, on different monitoring systems: my control room (SP-8B's and sub), my home stereo, my car stereo, and my work computer with headphones. The finishing order was always close regardless of system.
The key for me was to keep checking against the reference material - to get my ears back to level playing ground. I used some lite jazz and a Gospel hip hop CD I have from Natalie Wilson, Girl Director.

 

[Raw-Tracks]

My judging method was pretty simple. I burned all of the mixes to CD. First I just quickly skipped around, through the different mixes to get a general idea of how they sounded. Then I just started from the top, and listened through them all. My monitors are Mackie HR824's. I tried to listen to all of the mixes at the same volume, but I didn't have any scientific method for doing that. I just adjusted volume by ear.

 

[giles117]

Ok My Turn. I have alist... I would have judged this contest a tad differently.

I Listend as my clients do. Fast and in a hurry. Then slow and intently

Well the person who got the closest to my vision is:




Geet73 - Piano Panned was biggest weakness the rest could be coached of course.

Producer kid was #2 - More Vox, Less Rhodes but could be coached.

Geet had the best sonics and over all color.

My wife had me rolling as we played the mixes. She has become very cirtical since Living with a Mix Engineer.

If any one is interested in my wife and I's personal comments please PM me as we made an extensive list

See yall around for PMC 7 or 8 Got another track with Live Drums for yaz.....

 

[Raw-Tracks]

What's the agenda for Contest #6? Who is providing the tracks? When does it start? I might be interested in judging again, but would like to know what the material will be first.

 

[giles117]

I put a call into Chris at Geomana was hoping he'd call back or hit the forum again.

If he has nothing in a week i do have another song ready. this one is pretty simple

Another track that has been airing since last year (east coast south and midwest)

 

[Doug H]

This one was fun, but took me a whie to get my head around. I spent some time on the core stuff and then hustled the rest of it up at the last minute.

I think this one rewarded those of us with less eq-fu, as long as we left well enough alone, since the tracks were great to start with.

Thanks again to you guys that provide/host the files, judge and make this happen.

Giles, I'd love to hear anything anyone has to say about my mix. I can pretty much guess tho, "where's all the keyboard tracks, and why are the bgv mono" lol. Even after been given stereo tracks I managed to monofy the mix.

Actually I'm a little disapointed not to see the breakdown of the judging, yknow,
bass - sucked
air - ok
imaging - fair
etc...

 

[geet73]

Yay!

I panned them because I wanted more seperation I guess. Heh.

Is it possible we could see the judges individual results?

 

[Raw-Tracks]

Here is my scoring sheet: