Mix Contest Entry

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guitardood
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Mix Contest Entry

Post by guitardood »

Hi All,
The folks at "THE MIX ACADEMY WEB SHOW" are having a mix contest. The track below is my potential entry. It's a Christian pop tune and the first time for me mixing this genre.

If you have a few minutes to spare, I'd love to hear any critiques or tips you may have. Brutal honesty is very appreciated (don't be mean though, LOL!).

Mix Contest - Won't Stop

Thanks for listening and your time.
________________________________________________________________________
Best,
Guitardood

Chuck Fletcher on Reverb Nation
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"Life is like a box of chocolates. You know, eventually you're going to get the one filled with alien-like nasty tasting goo and have to spit it out and say YUCK".
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ronjams
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Re: Mix Contest Entry

Post by ronjams »

Hello fellow Dp user I love the track. Nice Groove. The main problem that I hear is that the bass guitar could be pulled back some and perhaps the kick could be brought out more. Consider doing some side chaining between those sounds.
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HCMarkus
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Re: Mix Contest Entry

Post by HCMarkus »

Listening on a laptop (I know...) kick and snare are very prominent and the bass barely audible so it just goes to show, mixing is hard in this era of micro speakers and subwoofers.

Great vocal and cool guitars! I like the song, too. Rather long at over 5 min, but maybe OK in the praise environment. I would love to hear a bridge that moves from the tonic.

Good luck in the contest!
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guitardood
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Re: Mix Contest Entry

Post by guitardood »

Thanks for listening.

@ronjams, I replaced the Kick & Snare with some pieces from Superior Drummer and then readjusted the Kick/Bass relationship. I think it works. Same link above is the latest mix.

@HCMarkus, In addition to the above, I also tried to clarify the bass a little. Made a few other tweaks.

Thanks to you both for taking the time. Very helpful and appreciated.
________________________________________________________________________
Best,
Guitardood

Chuck Fletcher on Reverb Nation
Chuck Fletcher on Facebook


"Life is like a box of chocolates. You know, eventually you're going to get the one filled with alien-like nasty tasting goo and have to spit it out and say YUCK".
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Phil O
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Re: Mix Contest Entry

Post by Phil O »

Considering the genre, I'm feeling like the vocals could be a little more in your face. JMHO. Other than that it sounds pretty good on my monitors.

Phil
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mikehalloran
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Re: Mix Contest Entry

Post by mikehalloran »

Overall I like it. I play in this sandbox a lot so I do have a few observations, some specific to the genre.

One thing that stands out is that the drum rolls and fills sound 'machine perfect'. So, while these drum tracks are common to the genre, it's easily heard and critical ears in a MIX contest might ding you for it. This is easily fixed and I recommend 'humanizing' them a bit.

Is the flanger on the vocal a subtle or special effect? If subtle, I'd make it less; if special, I'd make it more.

I, too, would place the vocal a bit more prominently – not louder but something. I'm not you and this isn't my mix.

That's it as far as the contest goes. Good luck with it.

What happens next? I imagine that this is destined for Christian radio in general, KLOVE being the biggest player.

This market is all about the lyrics. The vocals do need to be more in your face for Christian radio.

KLOVE is a network of 10W stations across the country. Compared to other broadcasting, this is cheap to do. Spend a good deal of time listening and you'll hear that most of the mixes are terrible. Too many submit the album/CD/iTunes track and that is a huge mistake.

To reach the maximum number of listeners, the network hits everything with a brick wall limiter that squashes the life out of any but the most carefully crafted tracks. It's not loudness wars but a need to be heard by listeners driving within a 10 mile radius of the transmitter. Dynamic range won't cut it at the edges.

The way around this is to embrace it. Do a special mix for this market and squash it till it can't breathe. Your goal is make it sound good anyway and survive the final step. You will go nuts at first as you find that tweaking the bass in 1/2dB steps on certain notes affects everything but it can be done.

Every once in awhile, KLOVE plays U2. Those tracks sound fantastic compared to everything else yet they go through the exact same process. Someone prepared those mixes knowing exactly how they were going to sound.
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ronjams
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Re: Mix Contest Entry

Post by ronjams »

guitardood wrote:Thanks for listening.

@ronjams, I replaced the Kick & Snare with some pieces from Superior Drummer and then readjusted the Kick/Bass relationship. I think it works. Same link above is the latest mix.

@HCMarkus, In addition to the above, I also tried to clarify the bass a little. Made a few other tweaks.

Thanks to you both for taking the time. Very helpful and appreciated.
I just listened to the new mix and I think it wasn't necessary to change anything but going back a second time has made a noticeable improvement. That being said, the guitars sound real warm and lack some definition and could also be interfering with the bass but it seems to me that the guitars are panned which is good. Consider using something like the Spatial Maximizer to of course keep the wideness in the M/S mode while adjusting the eq to bring more definition in the sides[L/R]. Using a bell curve to reduce within a range of 300 to 475 to get rid of the mud while boosting in a range of 1800 to 3000 to get more clarity or instead use an exciter-just a suggestion. This should get you what you want without having to touch anything else in the mix. If you would like to check out some of my mixes, I have 2 songs on Soundcloud. Just type in my name Ron Green Jr. You can listen also on http://www.broadjam.com/rongreenjr Most of my arrangements are more keyboard driven.

Like you I'm just trying to get better at mixing/mastering and recording. Please note I haven't arrived yet. There are guys on this list with way more experience and raw talent than me but yet I think that my advice is sound.

Sincerely,-Ron
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guitardood
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Re: Mix Contest Entry

Post by guitardood »

Hey Mike,
Thanks for taking the time.
mikehalloran wrote:One thing that stands out is that the drum rolls and fills sound 'machine perfect'. So, while these drum tracks are common to the genre, it's easily heard and critical ears in a MIX contest might ding you for it. This is easily fixed and I recommend 'humanizing' them a bit
All the tracks they provided are audio only. Don't know of an easy way to humanize, other than use Trigger like I did for the kick and snare and then humanize the MIDI. As it turned out, Trigger didn't work very well in the few build-up spots, velocity-wise, so I wound up having to blend my added sounds to the ones there. On top of that, the overheads are the only track with cymbals and they have the toms and kick-click very prominent.
mikehalloran wrote:Is the flanger on the vocal a subtle or special effect? If subtle, I'd make it less; if special, I'd make it more.
A few of the tracks they provided had effects printed on them, the flanged/autopanned vox being one. Don't know what, besides the mix between the fx track and the lead vox track, I could do to bring the effect out more.
mikehalloran wrote:I, too, would place the vocal a bit more prominently – not louder but something. I'm not you and this isn't my mix.
I did make a few tweaks to the lead vocal verbs/delays and compressor as well as boosted it about a quarter db on the latest mix (minutes ago before this post), the bass as well to try and bring out the attack a little and cut back a little on the mud. Probably going to submit this one.

Thanks again for taking the time to listen, commenting and your insight, very much appreciated.
Last edited by guitardood on Sat Oct 03, 2015 1:41 am, edited 1 time in total.
________________________________________________________________________
Best,
Guitardood

Chuck Fletcher on Reverb Nation
Chuck Fletcher on Facebook


"Life is like a box of chocolates. You know, eventually you're going to get the one filled with alien-like nasty tasting goo and have to spit it out and say YUCK".
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guitardood
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Re: Mix Contest Entry

Post by guitardood »

Hey Ron,
Thanks again for listening and your insight.
ronjams wrote:
guitardood wrote:Thanks for listening.

@ronjams, I replaced the Kick & Snare with some pieces from Superior Drummer and then readjusted the Kick/Bass relationship. I think it works. Same link above is the latest mix.

@HCMarkus, In addition to the above, I also tried to clarify the bass a little. Made a few other tweaks.

Thanks to you both for taking the time. Very helpful and appreciated.
I just listened to the new mix and I think it wasn't necessary to change anything but going back a second time has made a noticeable improvement. That being said, the guitars sound real warm and lack some definition and could also be interfering with the bass but it seems to me that the guitars are panned which is good. Consider using something like the Spatial Maximizer to of course keep the wideness in the M/S mode while adjusting the eq to bring more definition in the sides[L/R]. Using a bell curve to reduce within a range of 300 to 475 to get rid of the mud while boosting in a range of 1800 to 3000 to get more clarity or instead use an exciter-just a suggestion. This should get you what you want without having to touch anything else in the mix. If you would like to check out some of my mixes, I have 2 songs on Soundcloud. Just type in my name Ron Green Jr. You can listen also on http://www.broadjam.com/rongreenjr Most of my arrangements are more keyboard driven.

Like you I'm just trying to get better at mixing/mastering and recording. Please note I haven't arrived yet. There are guys on this list with way more experience and raw talent than me but yet I think that my advice is sound.

Sincerely,-Ron
I did a few more tweaks, including some mods to the bass to try and demudify it a bit and bring out the attack a little and also made a few tweaks on all three electric guitars to make them a bit more chimey and subtly stretch the tails on the clean guitar a bit. I think it's good and am probably going to submit.

Thanks again for taking the time to listen and comment, very appreciated.

BTW, I listened to a few of your tracks, both on BroadJam and SoundCloud. I really liked the "NEW DAY" track. Sounded fantastic on my system.
________________________________________________________________________
Best,
Guitardood

Chuck Fletcher on Reverb Nation
Chuck Fletcher on Facebook


"Life is like a box of chocolates. You know, eventually you're going to get the one filled with alien-like nasty tasting goo and have to spit it out and say YUCK".
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guitardood
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Re: Mix Contest Entry

Post by guitardood »

Phil O wrote:Considering the genre, I'm feeling like the vocals could be a little more in your face. JMHO. Other than that it sounds pretty good on my monitors.

Phil
Hey Phil,
Thanks for taking the time to listen and comment.

I tweaked the vox a bit. My problem is I really like the job the vocalist did and voice nuances and really hate to squash it too much :) Latest posted mix is probably what I'm going to submit.

Thanks again for your listening and sharing your thoughts, very appreciated.
________________________________________________________________________
Best,
Guitardood

Chuck Fletcher on Reverb Nation
Chuck Fletcher on Facebook


"Life is like a box of chocolates. You know, eventually you're going to get the one filled with alien-like nasty tasting goo and have to spit it out and say YUCK".
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