Lockdown mixing challenge voting thread...

poopot

Right peeps...

Voting time... you cant vote for yourself etc etc...

Cast you votes as below:

1st place - 5 points
2nd place - 3 points
3rd place - 1 point

all the mixes can be heard in the following playlist.

https://soundcloud.com/thefretboard/sets/lockdown-mix-challenge

voting closes 11.30 Sunday 31st May...

Winner announced shortly after.

Cheers Luvs

Stuckfast

Well having had a bit of a mess around with these files, I thought it was a really tough track to mix, especially the drums. Not quite sure what was going on with the overheads in particular, sounded like they were probably cheap mics placed too far apart. Anyway, here's my $0.02 worth:

poopot Lively and energetic and mostly a decent mix balance except that the kick drum is far too loud. The whole thing feels a bit scooped: it's crispy and overcooked in the upper mids and lacking in 1kHz. I like the bright vocal but it makes the breaths a bit too obvious.

bezzer Again the kick drum is too loud. Something weird going on with the bass, it keeps moving from side to side. Sounds like the feed from the snare drum to the reverb has been gated at the wrong level, so some hits have no reverb and others have too much. Vocal level is a bit uneven. Nice hi-hat sound (which is not trivial on this track).

branshen The mix balance is mostly good, but the frequency balance is muddy. The vocal is on the loud side and too thick in the low mid-range, and the guitars are also too rich at the bottom end, perhaps also a bit over compressed. In fact I think backing off the compression on everything would help, it all sounds a bit claustrophobic and there are some odd artifacts on the drums.

 spark240 The frequency balance is like a mirror image of branshen's -- too much low bass and upper mid-range so it sounds very 'scooped'.

Roland At first I thought you were going for a retro 60s sound and that seemed like quite an interesting take on the track, but it didn't really carry through. The whole mix lacks upper mid-range and the balance seems kind of unstable -- the bass in particular is barely audible one minute and then too loud the next. Not convinced by the reverb choices. Vocal is very loud.

Rico Nice guitar sound, it's a shame that it gets buried after the intro. Overall though it's a bit muddy and there's perhaps too much reverb on the vocal. BVs and keys are almost inaudible.

oaf Another good guitar sound. The mix as a whole has too much going on in the low mids but is light on proper bass. The drums are a bit over-compressed which has brought the grace notes up too much and sound a bit crispy in the upper mids. Backing vox and keys are a bit overwhelming and the lead vocal is rather loud.

fretwired Did you import the files at 48kHz or something?... Mix balance is all right except that the lead vocal is too quiet and too reverb-y. The speed up works for the instruments but makes the voice sound chipmunky, if you're going to do that you need to shift the formant up too.

Tough to score, but for me I think oaf edges it over poopot for first place, with Rico in third.

oaf

I tried to volume match them as I went along... here are my thoughts (for what they're worth)

Poopot good balance of elements, slightly over-prominent kick and overall treble skew maybe? Seemed a little distant in general somehow.

Bezzer good in parts but too much bass (frequencies) and compression for me. Very thuddy kick and cracky snare. Seemed a little over-squashed/heavy for the style. A bit scooped with prominent bass and treble but not much mids (though recognize this is a characteristic of the arrangement).

Branshen cymbals/hihat a bit prominent. Claps sounded like static (that's the recording though, surprised so many kept them in). Wonder if the vocal would be better with less reverb/(is there some kind of delay/doubling?) Good balance and control of the elements overall. Keys a teeny bit lost? Pleasant sound.

Spark240 a little over-trebly for me (again the percussion, though guitars a little "ice-picky") and the bass guitar is a bit heavy/thumpy. Liked what you did with the backing vocals. Slightly too much compression overall(?) but pleasant and it feels quite energetic/powerful. Some elements panned/imaged very wide (may be a bit much for the style?)

Roland seemed muffled somehow with the hihat/cymbals very prominent. Had a "playing in another room" sound to me. The main vocal was nice and clear but felt very separate from the rest. Pleasant but a little flat sounding.

Rico slightly muffled, the lead vocal felt a bit distant (is there some kind of delay/doubler that's a little strong? not sure) but had a good level. Cymbals a little tinkly. Guitars seemed a bit masked at times. Would have liked more guitar, a bit less bass. Decent general balance though and worked nicely overall.

Fretwired a different take Too much room/distance. Too many chipmunk/weird speedup aliasing issues. Drum balance sounded good and bass guitar well controlled.

1st Spark240

2nd Branshen

3rd Rico

A catchy track and good to hear the different takes people had on it!

Fretwired

For the record mine was a cock-up in mastering ... :-)

Branshen

Fretwired said:

For the record mine was a cock-up in mastering ... :-)

no. you must live with the shame

Fretwired

Branshen said:

Fretwired said:

For the record mine was a cock-up in mastering ... :-)

no. you must live with the shame

:-)

Oh the shame ...

Roland

I thought it sounded better sped up.

Forgive me, but I’m not going to vote. I can’t hear much above 3.5k, so I’m never going to be able to give a properly balanced decision.

Fretwired

Roland said:

I thought it sounded better sped up.

Forgive me, but I’m not going to vote. I can’t hear much above 3.5k, so I’m never going to be able to give a properly balanced decision.

Vote for me then .. :-)

spark240

Obviously I think mines the best....;-)....so next best and thus -

 5 points - @Bezzer - I like this mix bright, and wide...my styleee.
 3 Points - @Branshen  - Again, nice stereo width, guitars sit nice in the mix, vocal very slightly muddy for me ....but who am I..
 1Point - @poopot  - Nice even mix...Im not keen on the click Kick drum...otherwise cool.

Good mix challenge, be interesting to see what a Pro engineer would do....not belittling anyone of course !

Bezzer

@spark240 Blimey!  I think hell must have frozen over ha ha!  Thank you kindly!

I will vote soon, I've been mixing my cover challenge for days now and slowly killed my ears.  When they have recovered I will return here!

spark240

Bezzer said:

@spark240 Blimey!  I think hell must have frozen over ha ha!  Thank you kindly!

I will vote soon, I've been mixing my cover challenge for days now and slowly killed my ears.  When they have recovered I will return here!

Never underestimate your ability.....

Bezzer

Had a good listen now.  I think there's a clear divide on here between those who like bright and wide mixes with powerful kicks ... and those who are wrong 

Based on that, my choices where clear pretty quickly so then it came down to details.  First being "the clap" which was a ridiculously bright sample and had become more of a click so how that was dealt with.  On that basis ... and I realise it may seem like you scratch my back but I promise I was impartial, I think tastes are similar ...

5 points @spark240 ; ... bright but still warm, vocals sit in the mix not on top of it, fixed the sharp spike of the clap.  Really liked it.
3 points @oaf ... initially I thought deleting the clap was cheating but it did stop the distraction and the mix was lovely and warm with an especially nice bass sound.
1 point @poopot ... really lovely crisp sounding mix but I think the reverbs swelled a bit and became a little too much for my taste as you go through.  The claps were really prominent in the 8k + too which stood out.

I mean these are niggles, they all sounded great and was having to find niggles to seperate.

Nice job by everyone though, even enjoyed @Fretwired playing back at 45 instead of 33 1/3   (shame, I think they may have been a nice mix sat in there)

poopot

Right peeps...

Played them all in the car with boy wonder listening... he wrote the track so he can have my vote for this one!...

5pts to @Bezzer ;
3pts to @oaf ;
1pt to @Branshen ;

the general verdict was they are all great...

top work chaps!.

poopot

Voting ends tonight folks!!!!!

Branshen

@Poopot: Good tone overall. The kick doesn’t sit well and gets overbearing after awhile.

@Bezzer: Good tone but this would have made 3rd place if there wasn’t an issue with some snare hits disappearing (probably gated too hard)

@Spark240: To my ears, too tinny and lacking in body.

@Roland: muffled and unbalanced with too much bottom end. Instruments don’t cut through.

@rico: My favourite of the lot, deals with snare slapback issue well.

@oaf: Decent tone overall, but the mix sounds messy (probably caused by the balance of the drums).

@fretwired: Despite the accidental speeding up, I quite like the tone and balance.

@rico: 1st place

@fretwired: 2nd place

@poopot: 3rd place

Good job all! Thanks for the comments. I've definitely learned something from mangling this mix!

Fretwired

For me it's as follows:

5 points to @Bezzer ;

3points to @Branshen ;

1 point to @poopot ;

Was a tough call .. we done chaps!

poopot

Voting closed!...