MIX CHALLENGE - MC070 October 2020 - Winners announced

[Dodgingrain]

@Los_ady - I assume though that the desire is to have to vocal set back and not upfront/in your face?

[Los_ady]

@Dodgingrain Hey thx for the question ! You can make it as you feel it would serve the song the best way.

For the topic of vocals I don't want to spoil too much here haha

I had to figure this out on my own honestly for the first few revisions until I was sitting with vocalist Anna for hours mixing the vocals only

You can orientate on the feel of the reference tracks "Holy Motor's" and decide by the guts

Like this we get an idea what you was feeling while mixing the track, I hope this makes ! Have a good mixing !

[E.C.Miraldo]

@Mister Fox

That's actually something I thought was lacking in these past few mixing challenges, I went into sound engineering in order to be able to help musicians accomplish their own idea for the song, not mine(I tried making music, i'm terrible at it).
Well it's great we can do it!
Once again, you're managing of these contests have been flawless, thank you so much!

@Los_ady

Okay, so you did the mix of it?
That's really cool, I love the sound you got in the recordings! Personally i'll go on a bit different way on the drumms, but the vocals and guittars are really really solid, the way it's recorded we all have so much we can do!

In this case i'll just try my best to surprise you and all of cheap flights(love the name btw)

Thank you so much for you attention,
Looking forward for the 21st!

[Alexey Soloviev]

Hello Everyone!
This is my entry for the contest: https://www.dropbox.com/s/29p9tsqr4tw9u ... v.wav?dl=0

[Los_ady]

@E.C.Miraldo Awesome - Yes I did the full production with the Band together: Recording, Mixing and "Mastering" (I made it louder for Spotify and the way the Band wanted it)

Again bending the "rules that get preached on YouTube" haha it's ok, just trust yourself and do the best you can - that's my only advise for engineers

Have fun, looking forward for your mix !

[m_tree]

Hi everyone, this is my first posting here. Thanks for the song and the challenge. I did my mix already, but now I let it rest one week or so to do some further improvements with fresh ears.

I've heard the until now submitted mixes and found out that the last two mixes are much louder than suggested. Ca. -10 / -12 LUFS integrated.
I say this because there's a fundamental problem with loudness: Louder always sounds better. Even the target with -23 to -16 LUFS is too unspecific for a comparison. You can't compare a -16 and a -23 LUFS mix without getting affected by the difference in loudness.
Apart from that the -23 to -16 LUFS integrated certainly is the right target for a mix that would be mastered in a second step. Even if I master my mixes by myself I do this in a second step with a non-limited mix with enough headroom.

@Los_ady
Thanks for the track! Nice recording.
Is the demo-mix the final mix?

[Los_ady]

Hey @m_tree thank you for your mix ! Yes the Demo Mix was the final one but the process was different as I did the mastering as well.

Don't worry about the loudness differences, everything above -16 LUFS is unfortunately disqualified

Loudness is important as well if you send it to a client

When you think your mix is better in -16 LUFS than in -23 LUFS than mix it that way

THIS is the challenge to learn how to control all elements of the mix: Loudness is one of them, especially to achieve a balance between perceived loudness and the meter is a good goal to achieve, I'm also still learning to improve this every day haha

Can't wait for your mix, have a great week !

[E.C.Miraldo]

According to spotify's recomendations in fact it's actually better to have a dynamic master, even if it's lower LUFS, with peaks at -1DBTP, as their algorithm(which is arguably one of the bests we have, or even the best) as the peaks will be preserved with loudness normalization(which is different from peak normalization), which in turn results in a louder psicoacustic perception, than having a very compressed, -8/-9LUFS master as they are both going to play at the same volume, but the latter will not have it's peaks preserved, as much probably there won't be many peaks.

This doesn't have much to do with the current contest but I just thought this info could be useful for the boys and girls around this forum.
Give our ears a rest, don't overcompress!

[TrinacriAudio]

All tracks are off-grid at every bpm. Is it a problem that only I have?

[Los_ady]

@TrinacriAudio Thank you for letting us know, now I'm curious if other people face the same issue!

How did you imported the files ? At first create the project, setup the BPM and then Import the files ?