The Great Mix Competition: Jeremy vs. Nick vs. All the rest of us

Up for a challenge? Below is a link to a zip file containing a demo I recorded in my studio - yes, it's me performing.

stereo acoustic gtr track
stereo crash cymbal
stereo drum mix
stereo piano
mono electric guitar
mono male vocal
mono bass

All tracks are 24bit, 44khz WAV files. A Pro Tools 7.3 ptf session file is provided, but not required, as it just contains the tracks laid out in Pro Tools.

Your mission is to do the best mix you can of this song then post the MP3 of your final mix to this thread. Then we'll all vote on a winner.

Ready to go? Click the link below to download - a 245 MB zip file (about 50% compressed)

FarFromHome.zip

Start your engines Nick and Jeremy. Good luck!

Sorry I don't have a prize - the winner will get recognized as the big cheese on the forum!

Justin,
cool.. thanks

Is there a deadline?

Jeff

No deadline - let me know if there's a problem with the file. This is a simple demo that I think represents well a typical solo artist project. I was thinking about some rules about not adding instruments or voices beyond what's in the file but, heck, do what you want - this is a creative exercise. Of course, we also want to find out what happens when audio is processed through Jeremy's word clock cables and quasi-grounded audio gear. Prepare for some sparks gentleman!

Prepare for some sparks gentleman!


But of course..
I don't think my skill set measures up.. but it should be fun and educational to see what people are able to do with the same material from all the differnt creative back grounds..

All the best..

j

wickstom to big ist fag and youone big faggat! I dont bzack ytou up you absolute idiot!

wickstom to big ist fag and youone big faggat! I dont bzack ytou up you absolute idiot!

JUStin you serious Idiot!

Eat total crap!

So....I guess Rider's out....Either that, or that's his way of saying "my mix will be better than yours"....

bzack tyou? What?

Man, I got to get with Rider. He gets some r e a l l y good weed.

I thought this was between me and Nick. But actually it would be very interesting to here what everyone comes up with. This is what "The Mix Posse" does all the time. They post tracks, people take a crack at a mix. Very cool because you can hear interesitng ideas of things you wouldn't think of.

I got nothing aginst Nick, desipe his angry nature, I love the guy. I'll start on it tommrow, I mean later today...

stereo drum mix? that's like instant water.

Yeah< I forgot to mention, stereo drums very much limits what you do with the drum sound obviously.

Rider can I hang with you for day or 2?
That'd prob be enough entertainment for me for a year

Guys I'm not sure how you can judge unless you're mixing the same song. different styles/genres/textures require different mixing techniques and such. You have to listen for different things. mixing an acoustic guitar is much much different than mixing a very chorusy or heavily distorted guitar, rock drums is way diff from jazz or blues drums ect....

Yeah sorry about that - I haven't had a live drum kit in my studio for some time haven't had the space until now. I've been planning on getting a kit all year but just hasn't happened yet.

You could always program new drums using a virtual drum plugin or if you have a kit - re-record. Then again this is to see what you can do with a mix.

If you're all changing instrumentation / replacing drums, etc. they it's really not a question of mixing anymore as much as rewriting and producing a new version of the song.

Is this about mixing techniques being compared or about creative production?

Good point. I don't want to put rules or restrictions on this contest so I'm going to say do what you want. I think it'd be a hoot for all of us to hear anything creative our collegues have to offer, including re-record, add parts etc. That said, if you just want to re-mix using the existing source material, that's fine too. Heck, cut it up and make it a dance mix if that's what grabs you!

i DON'T AGREE jUSTIN, IT SHOULD BE MIXED AS IS. Changing sounds and adding things well not make it an even compitition. It should be as is.

Noted Jeremy. I don't think most people will take that approach but if they do, I won't stop it.

Then the point is mute, i'm out. it HAS to be the SAME for everyone. Justin, can't you just keep it real for 5 seconds, "Oh whatever anyone wants to do". If you break the drums down, add sounds then fuck it. it's like allowing someone to start on the tracjk at whatevr point they want. This is useless.

justin, you've once again fucked up a cool thing.

Man I hate that word....

Ok, i've listned to the track. If this is to work, no changing of anythng other than just basic mixing. No Melodyne on the vocals because they are way out.
In order for this to work, there has to be a equal playing field.

No mastring, because that can greatly change what this is about.
If yall are cool with this then i'm in. If anything goes then it's not what it was supposed to be. Is that cool?

I'm with you, Jeremy. I'm gonna do it just for fun. If we get to add instrumentation, etc. then it's not just mixing anymore. If anything, it should be two separate competitions then.

No time aligning, this is about sonics. What your rig puts out.
And it's not about someong being better than someone else, other than me being better than Nick and puting his name calling ass to shame.

he obvoiusly has problems, like we all do. The diffrence is I don't try to degrade a person because he disagrees with me, I don't resort to childish name calling.

BTW, where are you Nick?

Justin, offtopic here but I can't see anywhere were to start a new topic.

I went to a bar tonight, when I pulled up in front of my house, there was a car parked in front of it with lights out at about 1 am, and I noticed what looked like a girl duck down as I passed so I wouldn't see her.

I'm in a suburban neiborhood, my house is at an intersection of Winer Road and Willimsburg. You can google it at 1212 Winer Rd. Odenton Md. 21113.

Anyway it seemed somewhat suspecious. You never know if someone is staking out your studio for a robbery.

I waited 45 min and the car was still there. So I got a flashlight and walked out on my fronyt lawn pointint it to the ground by the car, they didn't move, then I got the liesence plate numbr "7BDC13" Maryland. I pointed the flashlight into the car at about 1:45 am, it was this brunett hott looking white girl with a black dude. She immeadiately started the car and pulled off without turning her head lights on.

Another car started at the same time across the street and soemone black dude yelled out something at me, I couldn't make out what he said.

Eaither they were staking my place out or it was som kind of drug deal waiting to happen, but that doesn't make any sense. Wht here, it's a stupid spot for that.

if anything happens to me, you have the liesence plat number. 7BDC13.

No time aligning? No melodyning? shit if you've got the tools, I say use 'em. Show what you can do. What are you afraid of? Your mission here, should you choose to accept it, is to make the best of the raw material downloaded possible. There are no rules. Shit everytime I put rules on the forum I get attacked for being some sort of Nazi. No, you run a studio, if I were your client, and I handed you these tracks, and said hey I just need you to make a killer mix of these recordings for me, I can't retrack them (insert your own story here, my band quit, my mother's in the hospital etc.) - would you say - well I can't do any time aligning or melodyning? Look whatever you do is all up to you here. There is no prize. The prize is showing what you can do. That said if you choose to do major surgery, fine. If you choose to simply eq, add reverb, delay etc and mix then so be it. The only rule is to upload an MP3 when done and let your commerades on the forum judge you. Then again, if you're too chicken to do it, then you will be known as a chicken. And be careful cuz Nick admits he eats chickens (and fish).

Justin,

I think what Jeremy is saying here is that mixing doesn't typycally get into melodyne and vocal fixing. That's done in the production stage... not the mixing stage (typically)He wants this to be about mixing.... and That is what I thought this was going to be... even though I'm not taking part in it... I'm just backing Jeremy up a little.

Cheers,

AK

What word "mute"? It's "moot", damnit!! Point is moot, the point is definitely not mute!!! Moot, moot, moot!

Adj. 1. moot - of no legal significance (as having been previously decided)
jurisprudence, law - the collection of rules imposed by authority; "civilization presupposes respect for the law"; "the great problem for jurisprudence to allow freedom while enforcing order"
irrelevant - having no bearing on or connection with the subject at issue; "an irrelevant comment"; "irrelevant allegations"
2. moot - open to argument or debate; "that is a moot question"
arguable, debatable, disputable
controversial - marked by or capable of arousing controversy; "the issue of the death penalty is highly controversial"; "Rushdie's controversial book"; "a controversial decision on affirmative action"

Alright, got that out of my system.

I see Jeremy just chickened out. Before even mixing. I think if someone replaces drums, that should be noted, but straight mixes should be compared.

Are you kidding me? That's what I get paid for!!!! Tightening up tracks, fixing pitch, blah, blah, blah. It is a part of a mixer's job these days. You know, fix problems? Make the artist sound good? Mix away!!!!

sscannon,
No, that wasn't the word, but I have gotten a lot of help from you in the past, your a stand up good guy, so I won't be getting into this with you. I was just venting.
Steve

I agree with Jeremy. It sounds like what you really want to compare now is how well someone can polish someones turd. No offense Justin ... I haven't even listened to the tracks yet.
I downloaded them and haven't begun transferring to my HD24 yet. I live in a non PT environment. I believe it getting the best mix with the TALENT provided to me.. .not the best that computers have to offer.

As a live guy, I have seen the miracles that are attempted to be used to try to create talent (via things like a PT Venue) live, and it almost always fails misarably. I no longer trust ANY studio album - because of things like your proposing. Screw the work your presented with from the artist - make it sound good through tricks.

I will also drop the attempt since I don't have the world of "software enhanced artist" at my disposal. You want a real competition - try mixing it unheard - one pass (100+ degree tent optional). That's what I have to do every day.... not spend hours laboring over a 3 minute song in nice AC with optimal listening conditions)
(man .. I see the dander flying already

Where's Daddy Likes?? He should get into this with you guys. I'm not touching this one. My experience is no where near you guys'.
Besides, you've already heard my work.

Justin,

How do you attach a file?

Ok, I emailed my mix to Justin, hopfully he well post it. Is that what we're supposed to do Justin? I worked on it for about 2.5 hours. Was going for that far away feel, like the song.

Ok, here it is. I spent about 3 hours on this, went ahead and tuned the vocals. It's unmastered. Ok Nick, lets hear what you can do!

http://www.puresoundstudio.com/farfromhome.mp3

Joe - you say you believe in getting the best mix with the talent provided to you... fair enough... there are varying degrees of talent so what does that have to do with computers? Computers just tools, same as a mixing board, same as analog tape. I can appreciate your situation having to mix quickly in live situations but don't take out frustration by knocking computers and people who mix on them. Whether you participate or not is entirely up to you. If you choose to simply mix the tracks - fine. You know, I'm calling this a competition to be fun but comparing music is like comparing flavors of ice cream - chocolate doesn't beat vanilla - they're both good! Kinda of sad actually how today's reality shows etc. make it so there can be only one winner.

Justin,

I just emailed my mix to you too.

EWF - I didn't get a file from you in my email. To post it here - all you have to do is hit Reply (not Quick Reply) then use the blue File Manager link to attached the MP3 file to your reply.

Jeremy - I must say I'm suprised - I don't mean to hurt your feelings, but it didn't sound good. The vocal tuning was all over the place. Bass and acoustic guitar were too loud. The drums were panned weird. The levels were low. Do you always make your MP3s at 128kbps? This is fine I guess but I generally prefer 192kbps. Oh well.

Here's my mix which I think is better but certainly has flaws we can talk about: FarFromHome.mp3

Well It just says to me that you have problems in your new studio, bad monitoring. Or maybe your just loosing your hearing. This mix sounds head over heals better than any commercial release i've heard of late. Maybe a hearing test in a good idea??

I did this useing my most recent tara lab cables and balanced power. It's very open and transparent. The vocals were tuned perfectly, levels are low BECAUSE IT'S NOT MASTERED !!!

You need to get a life...

Becides, this track is to fucking long anyway. Drums panned weird? What do you expect with a stereo mix of them, can't do a damm thing.

Thanks, Justin. Here's my submission.

EWF, Justin, I don't want to hurt YOUR feelings but , you have got to be kidding me.

Ill be chiming in with a mix tomorrow aswell I like this, kinda cool way of doing mixes and compare(to be able to talk about strength and weaknesses), as long as it doesnt turn into a pissing contest!

Yes, Jeremy. I was just kidding with you. Funny wasn't it? Actually it was your version that inspired me.

Man . . .I'm going to be in Florida for a week, so I won't be able to work on this until next week. I just opened the session and gave it a quick listen.I'm planning on adding some more tracks to it. Justin, I like the tune but it is a little long. Tempo is 125 bpm, right?

Mike - I think the tempo is 120 but I'll verify this when I get back to my studio. Using identify beat in ProTools you can figure out the exact tempo. Yes the song is 5 min. 24 sec. which is long - part of the challenge would be to cut it down, but of course, that's a judgement call. I'm really excited to hear what you do Mike.

Jeremy - jeeez are you this angry with your clients? Let's keep this civil if we can. I was only giving my opinion on your mix. Let's hear what other people think.

EWF - Bravo! I like your mix better than my own. You managed to clean up the harshness of the snare and made the kick and snare nice and punchy. Hmm Jeremy, I guess it IS possible to improve a stereo drum track. The mix you did sounds nice and balanced and the bass sits well. One comment would be the lead guitar - my mix has a nice dreamy delay on that guitar. Then again, panning the acoustic right and the lead left and leaving them relatively dry is nice too and gives nice presence. Overall levels seem a bit low to me. Also your MP3 was 174kbps which seems kinda non-standard to me but it's a minor point.

Say TLiX, if you're listening and you have some spare time take a crack at this. If your lovely wife would entertain re-singing the lead vox, that would be spectacular, as I wrote this song for female vocal.

Justin, you wouldn't know a killer mix like mine if it snuck up on you and bit you on the ass.

But I would know how respond like an adult to constructive comments.

If you can't take critism you should not post a mix. This is not about throwing insults about each others work. It's about getting advice on what we can do to become better at our craft.
It seems to be turning into a pissing conest.

Jeremy- Are your drums panned primarily left? The vocal seems a bit low, and the drums are buried. EWF- nice clear, punchy mix. Just what I would expect from someone of your stature.

Just my thoughts on a first listen. I guess it goes to show you how different mixes of the same song can be.

Jeremy, you sure talk a big game, but your mix is weaker than a beer piss . Your Tara Labs, clean power, HD system, etc. don't mean squat if your ears think that is a great mix. I know you can do better than that with all that gear. Pump up the drums and vocals a bit, and it will sound more like a pro mix. No offense, just my opinion.

I actually preferred, by a longshot, EWF's mix, although the guitars are panned way wide, which is cool when they both play, but leaves you leaning to one side when it is just the acoustic gtr.

But who cares what I have to say? Just another ahole with an opinion. There, I said it for you!

I have no idea what your talking about. If you can't hear how superior my mix is over everyone elses, then you all need to go back to audio engineering school. Weaker than beer piss??? You havn't seen me take a piss after about 12 beers, it would knock you over.

As a matter of fact, I think i'll take a huge one on all yalls mixes. Is it still weak???

Where the fuck is Nicks mix at. That's what this is all about. If you think my mix doesn't sound good, wait till you hear Nicks.
I've heard his work, talk about beer piss.

Sean - why not join the party and try uploading your own mix?

Jeremy, you are the reigning king of chain pullers!

Think it's at 126 Mike. Hey... come on. If you're gonna add instruments, I'll have to too {sorry Justin hehe}

Why not let everyone have a crack at it? That's what'll make this fun! Musical, production and mixing skills
Nick... I'm pulling for ya. Especially after what Jeremy said a while back about the old guys not being able to hear!

I've downloaded the file, it's just a matter of getting time in the studio. I'll try in the next couple of days.

BTW EWF, nice job.

Brent the competition is open to everyone. Go for it, download the zip file and make upload your own mix of it.

Sorry about all the posts guys... but this is sooo much fun!
OK then... How about two mixes. One using existing audio and another umm "produced" version.

Two mixes is fine, or one mix. Do as much or little as you want.

Thanks for the kind words, everyone. This forum is full of talented individuals so coming from you guys it really means something. Jeremy's just messing around with us. I especially like how he "tuned the vocals" and the "far away feel" he achieved.

Justin - The overall level is low because I didn't do any "mastering" or compression on the final mix. I think I actually had the final mix peak at 0.1 dB from clipping but average levels probably nowhere near that. The reason the MP3 is at 174 kbps is because I converted it into a Variable Bit Rate MP3 instead of a Constant Bit Rate. I was trying to get the quality of a higher bit rate CBR with a little smaller file size.

sscannon - I hear you about the panning of the guitars. I was just trying to create some space in the middle for the vocal. I probably went a bit too far with the spread, but it accomplished the goal - maybe a little too well.

I don't know if anyone is interested but in case anyone wants to know:

Total cumulative time spent was about 2.5 to 3 hours. No outboard processing was used. Everything was done in Sonar 6 using plug-ins that come with it. The processing used was as follows:

Lead Vocal: EQ, Compression, Reverb
Bass: EQ, Compression
Drums: EQ, Compression, Reverb
Cymbals: EQ
Piano: Reverb
Electric Gtr: Reverb, "Stereo Widener" (not sure if this really helped, but after I stuck it in there I just decided to leave it)
Acoustic Gtr: EQ, Reverb

No "mastering", compression or processing on the final mix itself. I guess I could have used some multi-band compression at the end to squeeze out a few more decibels but I decided to leave it alone.

I'm looking forward to hearing what everyone else comes up with. This could turn out to be a very interesting learning experience. Thanks, Justin.

Ok, I re did the mix. Let me know what you think.

http://www.puresoundstudio.com/farfromhome.mp3

Ok
Justin,
can you send me a word doc. w/ lyrics and guitar chords over the top?
Two mixes-
one is just what Justin sent... (I am going to send it through a summing mixer though)
and second will be my own version with the wife singing it even though she said... 'not really my style' I talked her into it. :-) I may have to play a round of geetar on it as well.
I'm about to go ape-ship on you all!!!
tomorrow its ON!
oh email...
earwitnessrecords@yahoo.com

Jeremy -

With respect, it still sounds really bad and out of balance. Here are my comments:

- bass and piano way too loud
- crash too loud
- drums panned left and way too low, can't hear the kick
- whatever tuning you did on the vocals sounds very out of tune and very odd, definately not complimentary, also vocal level is way too low
- lead guitar panned right doesn't do anything for me
- you only mixed 1 verse and 1 chorus why not the whole song?
- reverb isn't complimentary - piano has too much why not try a reverb and delay combination on differnent parts?

Frankly, it almost sounds like you were trying to do a bad mix on purpose - are you testing us or something? Listen to EWF's mix and compare it to yours.

As for mastering. Let's forget the formal mastering process for a minute. Let's say I'm your client and I just want a good sounding demo and I want you to do it soup to nuts. The contest is to do the best sounding mp3 you can.

Maybe he's just mixing from the wrong hard drive.

Ohhhhh, stop it!!!! stop it!!!!! I'm tearin' up here!!!!!

Ok my $0.02 I wasn't going to post my opinion but f'it I aways ask everyone theirs on my mixes.
EWF very nice mix, nice clearity lacking a little bite in drums & Bass (IMHO) but that could be a taste thing. Vocals are nice and front guitars are good. Mix has plenty of space.

Jeremy The vocals sound very low, panned too far right and out of tune. The drums are non existent. The crash is not too loud it's where it and the drums should be. The piano is too low. the acoustic is fine but can't differentiate? between the bass and guitars.

Justin I still can't download your mix.

This is all just my inexperienced opinion.

TLiX -

Here're the lyrics, chords, tablature...

Download Adobe PDF: FarFrmHome_Tab_and_Lyric.pdf

Open Chords
Verse: G(5), Csus9, D, Dsus9
Chorus: Bm(#5/11), C(add9), Em(add9), D(add4)
Outro: Am, C, G(5), F#(#5/b9/b13)


FAR FROM HOME - music by Justin Arey, Lyrics Steven Stern copyright 2005

Here is far from home,
A place not quite familiar but not unknown.
She was drawn along by hope
Lit like the light on an unanswered phone.

She is following
A sound unheard, a word
That she's named her heartstring.
And every day seems one day closer
To the end of her secret wandering

CHORUS: When she finally finds her feet
Upon the street
That she's moved forward on.
Though every step seemed like
The right leap at the time,
She's far from home.

It was never a home,
An empty place encased by wood and stone and,
He blew in just like a breeze,
To leave, but not before a careless seed was sown,

She is following
And that's enough for now
The motion's everything.
And every day seems one day closer
To the end of her secret wandering

CHORUS: When she finally finds her feet
Upon the street
That she's moved forward on.
Though every step seemed like
The right leap at the time,
She's far from home.

She's run far from home
From her messed up life
In the middle of nowhere and
She's not real sure just why she left

She didn't take to big towns
Nobody noticed her,
Nobody thought of her, and
She couldn't make a home with that

Far from Destiny, is a
Mystery she never read
Hurt by words she overheard, in the
Tavern down the street, now she's
Far from anything, she's
Far from anyone, she's so
Far away it seems, she's so
Far from home, and now it's like...

Dark Star - not sure why you can't download, seems to work fine. Here's the link again...

FarFromHome.zip

Hmmm.... hmmmm...... ...Ya think ?

He could want everyone to do theirs and then blow them outta the water??? hmmmm

This sounds like fun but I won't hve time till the end of the week.
Is that O.K.?

No deadlines, we'll keep this going for a while.

nahhhh.... that's the best he can do

Wow, thanks a lot guys. That really makes me feel great. I guess you win Nick, though you never posted your mix.

Yeah Nick, how come you're not commenting or posting a mix on this thread by now? Jeremy threw down the gauntlet and you accepted. Don't back out now old bean!

Jeremy - chill dude, don't take it personally, we're all friends here trying to help eachother.

I don't know, I think Jeremy's mix is cutting edge, surprising in it's disregard of sterile conventions and sonically so wide open it dwarfs the grand canyon.
Of course I haven't actually heard it yet but if had this is what I'd think.

Jeremy's just messin' with us. I heard some of his stuff he's done ages ago... it was pristine. You'll know when he puts up his "real" mix.

AK

I thought the same thing right away Andrew but I don't get the joke. Jeremy let's hear your real mix please.

Allrighty then my first mix with my newly installed Basstraps!!....
Far form homey

Thanks Morten. Your mix has some issues in my opinion. My comments are:

-too much compressor on everything, what'd you use?
-kick drum sounds lost, snare sounds phasey
-bass sounds boomy, not tight
-doubling effect on vocal could be effective but maybe in smaller doses rather than the whole track
- acoustic guitar sounds too boomy and phasey
- piano sits kinda weird and low in the mix
- the compressor works on the lead guitar
- interesting how you cut the other instruments in the outro to solo acoustic guitar - this could be cool

That's it for my comments, thanks for playing!

heh I was experimenting with Distortion(Sans amp) on the drums, which made the kick drop down in frequency and made the Snare alittle grainy, its all very experimantal, was really just playing with the tracks, comp 1176 with a gain reduction of around 3-6db on the drums.
Bass same story at drums. Tho i duplicated the track and put Sans amp on the duplicated track and set it 6db lower then the org. track.
Acoustic gtr just 1176 comp and a high end boost with eq Mcdsp P6, and chorus(TL everyphase)
Piano lol I agree

Yeah Morton, what's up with that? Listen to my mix. That should help you out.

Ok, I worked on it some more. I changed the drums and vocals a bit.

Funny Jeremy but please don't upload any more joke files as it wastes space on the server. It's also not that funny.

Good mix Morten. The drums are still weak to me but again I'm use to heavy huge and loud drums.

justin,
can you split the drums into multitracks? dry would be nice.

Sorry, no, the drums are from Drumcore and are from loops.

Sorry Justin, just having some fun. I well do a "real" mix in the next few days. I just basicly did the worst possible EQ on every track as posible, to capture that "weak beer piss" sound,and I did! But was very supprised at how good it sounded thru my computer speakers compared to the studio, and it was funny. Huummm, must be something here.

Maybe this was not just an accident but there is some hidden meaning in all this, some mixing karma. Nick I know your learking out there, not sayin much.

This is really between me and you. You've been laughing about all my comments over the years about some miniscule little thing that to me made the mix sound better. But maybe I am delousional.

So if you have the balls to post a mix, I well. Most likely you don't. Hats off to you guys who have. It's not easy excepting critisism, especially after putting your all into it.

But like someone said it's an exersize in becomeing better at this. I think me and Nick need to meet in the ol western dirt street, for a draw. You have the balls Nick???

Yeah the drums are intended that way actually I wanted to go against the "nice and bright" to try and make it alittle more dirty/folkish, a bit lowfi really.

Thanks Jeremy - I still don't really get the joke but if you and Nick are having a good laugh I guess I'm fine with it. I think it's a great idea to have a contest like this where people do their best "real" mix. If this were Top Chef however I'd be telling you to "pack your knives and go!"

As for Nick, he seems to be conspicuously silent on this thread for some reason. Nick what say you?

Jeremy is acting up a Zumbido.

I was incorrect in my earlier post about some of the guitar chords. Here are the Chords with Tablature and Lyrics for anyone who wants to strum/sing along or re-track.

Download Adobe PDF: FarFrmHome_Tab_and_Lyric.pdf

I just found this post (I was away)

Justin, this was a fantastic idea -- you guys should do more of this.

EWF's mix is superior by far -- Now, Justin, could you post the vocals again -- and this time pay attention to pitch. Good song - a bit long (the funky pitch makes it even longer)

Yes I should re-track the vocals with more attention to pitch. Never said I was the best vocalist in the world. Let's see if any of you can help with pitch correction as part of the challenge.

And Kecinzer, I wanna hear a mix of this from you, of course!

here you go..

Cool. My comments are...

- chorus on acoustic guitar and piano too phasey sounding but an interesting idea, maybe just too much
- reverb on the drums gives the song a different feel, sounds a bit overcompressed
- nice job pulling out the snare, sounds like it has more buzz
- vocal sits ok in the mix
- bass sits ok in the mix
- lead guitar sounds wimpy and a bit out of place not in the same "room" as the rest of the track

A good mix thanks for taking the time. Oh and please comment on what you did and why you did it, that's at least half the fun of this contest.

didn't compress the drums. I thought of giving the track a twist change it's feel as you say.. I would like to get a track with the toms a little bit pronounced and if possible i like to have 4 or 5 vocals so I can mess with it more.. If you're looking to expand on this :P

Oh the lead.. I was going to take it out.. Maybe make a more elaborate lead with melody?

The drum track are several loops taken from Drumcore. You can do anything you wish with these tracks. Cut the song to make it shorter or make parts longer (hey show off your editing skills). Dupe parts. Re-track with virtual instruments etc. I chose this material because it was a little rough around the edges so you could have some fun making corrections. Anyway, it's all for fun so do as you please.

Sorry Justin... somehow got two there. Second is a duplicate so feel free to remove it.

The files didn't get uploaded Brent. Can you try it again? I deleted the your post so people don't get confused. Make sure to check your link after posting. If you still have problems or it doesn't work, email me the file or post it to a server of your own and post the link in the thread. Email is justin@jyaf.com

Justin, How do you attach a file to a post? fronk10

You need to go to Full Reply or just click the Reply link - Don't use Quick Reply. Then click the File Manager link and attach a file. When in the File Manager window, don't forget to click the Add file button after you browse to your file. Then when done click the Post button.

Justin, here's one with a little different twist. My wife plays keys and couldn't resist putting some B 3 on. Helps create the groove. Take a listen. fronk10

i can't hear the b3 very well fronk

I think I forgot to plug it in. fronk10

Does anybody have the chord chart for this? I want to throw some Hammbone on this myself...
Steve

Yes, chords and lyrics here...

FarFrmHome_Tab_and_Lyric.pdf

Adobe Acrobat PDF

Sorry for the trouble Justin. But appears to be working now.

fronk10 -

Thanks for joining our contest... my comments are...

-B3 organ sounds cool, but the part sounds more like a jam, I like the way it picks up at the end, that could have been used as a nice climb to the chorus parts or maybe in the outro.
-the mix sounds balanced overall
-the reverb choice on the vocal sounds a bit odd
-nice job, you get points for creativity

Please feel free to elaborate on what you did and why. Sounds to me like you had fun with it!

Brent -

Bravo nice job! You've raised the bar in the contest with this mix and I'm declaring you the leader as of this moment.

And WOW, some nice edits with the vocal harmonies, you built some nice chords. The filtered/distorted delay taps on the vocals added interest to the song, a tad cliche perhaps. I noticed you actually did an edit to the bass in once section changing the notes and adding a slide to a lower octave at 1:17. You also successfully edited the song down from 5:24 to 4:24 cutting a full minute while retaining all 3 verses. Nice work!

It'd be great if you could elaborate on your process here in this thread so we can all learn.

Very nice mix Brent!! Especially for the pay (listened to it on Apple ear buds on my laptop)

I like all your choices and you took a somewhat meandering song and gave it a solid form with sections that build and release.

@ Justin... you may think the 2k eq vocal delay fx is cliche but it's one of those things that if you heard the song like this first... you'd always miss it if it wasn't there. Personally... I think it adds more to the song and production than it takes away

My 2 cents.

Again.. great job Brent.

AK

I've been listening to all the mixes on my computer spaekers with a sub. There are 2 that stand out for the wrong reasons in different ways.

Mortons mix had some bad EQ choises which make the bass frequencies bommy and thuddy, over driving my sub.

Audiofile has some extreme pumping on the mastering, maybe trying a bit to hard to make it sound good. I likes the chorus on the gtr, really changed the feel of the tune.

Other than these 2, I think they are all good. Like different flavors of ice cream, or different kinds of bread, like shaved and unshaved pussy, (personaly I like it trimed to a straight vertical line, nice and thin, but not tooo thin) like different kinds of dogs, or cats, or the extreme verity of wildlife in the amazon jungle.

Or like different kinds of beer, or weed, man if everything looked sounded, smalled, tasted, felt the same, life would be boring as hell. The mixes are all good. Just I think that AF over did it in the mastering, and Morton had some EQ issues.

One other thing is it's not fair having mastered and unmastered mixes competing. I say master it.

But my mix brings a smile to my face. It's flipping the bird into the face of bad sound, saying "fuck you, bitch!! Whatever, Whatever, I do wat I wontt!!

Very nice Brent...
j

jeremy. I have absolutely no compression on either drums or master mix.

i do appreciate the compliments oh great master!

I wonder where the pumping is coming from? It sounds overly compressed, maybre a mp3 conversion thing> I don't know. I'm not saying it didn't sound good, it did, just that something about the overall sound caught my attention. What till you hear my real mix, you well hear just how much a master I am.

You well be so humbled, shiver in your boots, and deeply regret any bad thing you ever said about my external hard drives, or w/c cables.

Justin, I volenteer to mail 50$ in cash to the person who gets voted for the best sounding mix. If I win, each one of you has to send me 50$ in cash. I'm serious, I well sent a 50$ bill to whoever gets voted the best mix.

There has to be a deadline, lets give it 2 weeks. What ya tink???

Oh, and you can only post once. The mix that is there is it. ORRR we start a new thread, and do this for real for 50$.

The only way this can work is if we send the mixes to Justin in a time frame, then he makes a vote post with all the mixes anonimusly. Then you vote on the mix not knowing who it is.

What you think Justin?

diophile, this by far is the best drum mix I've heard on this song. They have much more bite and attack. Thr Ac guit has more bite and attack also. the song is a bit too long tho. But you and EWF has made this song sound pretty descent.

Instead of "The Mix Posse", we well be known as "The Mix Monsters".

Jeremy - I am thinking of coming up with some sort of prize but I don't want to impose a deal where everyone chips in cash for a few reasons. One, for it to be fair, everyone would have to chip in the same amount and, essentially, that makes it an entry fee and I think it would have a chilling effect on some who might otherwise participate. Second, there are laws about running contests and I don't want to run into legal issues. Stay tuned, for prize info though. I can't promise anything but I have a few ideas. The prize would be donated, be relatively inexpensive and likely a piece of gear or maybe a book or something. Remember this is about learning and sharing your work with your collegues. The real prize is showing what you can do!

Regarding your recent post above. I think your choice of adjectives is a bit on the crude side and doesn't represent you well. I too have heard you do really good mixes, so I don't understand why you think it's funny to let a joke mix stand with your name and reputation on it. Anyway, I'll be interested to hear your "real" attempt at it.

Brent,

Very nice with some cool ideas.

Excellent Brent! I can see you aren't just a great engineer, but a real musician / producer.

What did you use for the vocals tuning?

Yea Brent´s Mix is super cool!!, very nice job

Well Jærømi`s comments made me go back and do another mix, cause I did suspect I had some Bass problems as im treating my room at the moment!, and after getting this stage of putting up bass traps done(I probably need to do some things still!), It became pretty clear what Jærømi was talking about so here´s a new mix after all the bas traps are done(for now).
Plz if those of you with better treated rooms, could point out what im missing, like if theres still bass sticking out here and there, then that would be cool
and I should probably mention I dont have a subwoofer!.

Its still mixed with the same plugins
Far from Home

Thanks for the complements guys and nice job by everyone so far.

Hey Justin! Thought I´d give it a go, but the stereo instruments looks like two similar mono files, not true stereo. Did you just split up a mono file?

Morten - your second mix does sounds better than the first one. Nice job. The mix isn't particularly bass heavy so your bass traps must be helping. This is a complex topic that's been discussed heavily on this site. You might try doing a search on the forums for more info.

Justin, you are as stiff as a board, is there no humor in your life? You take all this too seriously. As far as my so called reputation goes, I don't care what people think.

Morton, you need to check your mixes on other playback systems. I heard the thumping in my office computer speakers. I use to have that problem when I was using the DA7 as my A to D converter. When I got the apogee mini me, it cleared up that monitoring problem. You should be able to hear it with a good pair of head phones, bass traps aside.

Jeremy, I love humor but yours in this instance is juvenile and not funny. Sorry you don't care about how people view your work.

They are stereo and the WAV files are labeled with L and R. The acoustic guitar was recorded with two small diaphram condenser mics set up as a coincident pair.

Chill Justin. Take a deep breath. I'll do a mix friday sinse I have the day free.

Edited my previous post. Be happy to share eq/signal processing as well as a tuned vocal with everyone. But especially a fixed vocal wouldn't be fair for those that have already posted mixes. And there's still mixes to come...
Couple things; Editing Justin's puzzle was half the battle. Again, more songwriting than mixing. But those edits made mixing far more straight forward. With all the extra counterpoint to work with, didn't feel the need to use effects to make up for things missing. All because the tune's existing space became more effective/important.
'Course, the other half of Justin's puzzle is mixing. The conundrum is how to get kick/bass working together. Lessor of evils here... because of the composite drum track and {not picking on Justin's bass playing} clicky note stops in the bass line. Used cab emulations and spring reverb from Guitar Rig II on the electric. Liquid Mix's 1176 emulation with "all buttons in" on the lead vocals and a de-esser after {semi-successful}. Very little EQ on most else... mostly a few cuts just for cleaning. Sound of the acoustic is all compression.
Admit to using Waves linear multi-band and Renaissance Compressor on the L/R bus and in that order. Not for loud but for over all sound. Picking on my own stuff, that was only semi-successful too.

Thanks for the info Brent. I think you've demonstrated with great results that a few simple parts can be edited and mixed to form a rich listening experience. I'm curious about how you took the one vocal part and created the harmonies using melodyne. Under ideal circumstances would you have had the singer go in a track the harmonies or not necessarily. In this case you did a remarkable job as they didn't sound artificial to me in the way you blended them in. Can you comment more on this (e.g. did you raise or lower the pitch by 3rd or a 5th, did you just listen and do it note by note, how did you arrive at your choice of "chord" for the harmonies?) Also any comments about the placement and/or delay taps?

Okay, I give up. I can't keep mixing any longer on my employers dime. Here's what I came up with. I set a few extra limits on myself, so please be understanding with your comments. This was mixed on a work computer using whatever sound card it has. I've never used the DAW software before (it runs off of a flash drive). All plug-in's are freeware.
The monitors are these cheapy headphones I got with a CD player I bought 10years ago. If you've got actual speakers let me know how the bottom end came out! I think I like Brents mix better (based on the crappy headphones). He demonstrated the arrangment problems with the song and came up with creative solutions (plus he tuned the vocal). I, on the other hand just brutally hacked whole sections out, and mercilessly killed tracks, just to make it end sooner. I might have done better if I'd added some parts, but I don't think that would have gone over too well with my co-workers. Anyway, thanks for the challenge, it's fun to see what everyone comes up with. If nothing else I've got a better handle on the new DAW.

Cheers,
Peter

Thanks recorderguy, good to get another perspective and see what can be done on the average office PC with freeware. Some tracks seem distorted to me. Some of the edits don't make sense to me so if you have any thoughts to share, please do or if not that's ok too. Glad you found it a good learning experience. Keep up your training and learning.

Justin,
I wasn't sure if there was some distortion (like in the vocals) that's what high quality monitoring gets you! I can't claim any of the edits make a great deal of musical sense! I was just trying to cut the track down to size. I felt (feel) like the song lacked some structure and was too long (as others have noted). I think Brent did a really good job of giving it some form and keeping it interesting. Frankly I was just trying to make it go by a little faster, thus my hack job. Thanks for the challenge, it's always fun to see what folks come up with. If you decide to do some more I might be able to contribute some tracks.

Cheers,
Peter

Ahh... would much rather have the harmonies to work with Justin. Hate admitting to using Melodyne so much for jingles though, can pretty much look at the screen and shove notes around on the fly to put harmonies together. Unfortunately, Melodyne has no {what I'd call} good auto routine to create harmonies... faster to use your ear. Mostly a third above here but there's a fifth below too in the final answer-back line at the end of chorus #2.
Time wise, this tune took about an hour to fix up the lead vocal and create the harmony. Harmony takes a little longer because a nifty trick is yanking out a little pitch modulation {vibrato} and pitch drift, in places. With pitch drift, notes usually have to be retuned = more time {I always do that manually because double clicking the note doesn't always put it at the correct interval.} Then when shoving the harmony track back in PT {or thingy of choice}, with a very slight timing offset, the harmony doesn't sound so much like a lead vocal clone.
But for this tune I corrected the original lead vocal track beginning to end as was. Then also built the harmony from that to use all the way thru. As things went, used "Ctrl M" in PT to mute the harmony in places. That way it was simple to get back any harmony piece later. But as far as Melodyne's useful range, I think if you stay in what would be considered the vocalist's natural range, it's pretty close to undetectable in a mix.
The filtered vocal was an unhappy accident and yes, probably somewhat overused. Unhappy because once it was there in the first verse, the only way in heck it wouldn't be stupid was to continue on with it. So left the first as was, second time around added the third and third time used both parts two lines in a row. Again... fly by the seat of your pants, song writing/production tricks. For PT users, the sound is the probably all too familiar "cosmonaut voice" plugin

On your part Justin, there's really nothing here that doesn't sound good. Piano was a little strident but that's surely nothing to do with the recording. I mentioned the lowend being somewhat of a battle but that's just part of the hand dealt.
As far as the mix, I really don't think there's anything special here. If there is any difference, it's mostly song first. Then trying to make it sound big with acoustic guitar/vocals as opposed to what would usually be used for "big."
No matter what, hope it was as much fun for everyone as me.

Great response Brent, Thank you!

I guess I'm behind the times because I didn't realize melodyne has a plugin' version that integrates with Pro Tools and other DAWs. Here's the link. Pretty affordable too as plugins go - definately seems like a must-have plugin. Very cool.

For those like me who didn't know...
http://www.celemony.com/cms/index.php?id=plugin4&L=0

We could probably debate the tasteful/subtle uses of this tool versus more dramatic uses but hell, it sure does sound good.

great contest, i like it

1) Justin Arey Mix sounds over 7.5,
the audiophiles mix16, has a nice vibe also but dont like the snare reverb, too much reverb in the snare for me,
the fronk10's Mix 24 , vocal reverb at the end sounds similar vibe to a colds play song, but i dont like the drawback organ,
the recorderguys mix27 has a nice idea of muting the drums,
but i would not mute drums, becouse the snare intro sounds great, i feel like moving the drum track to preserve the snare intro+the guitar solo intro, but who knows, could lower the vibe energy level,
the others... no comment...

2) i downloaded the big file, but guitar track has pops, how could this be? its compressed, did you verified it when compressing it ? cant be download problem becouse rarsoft would tell wrong crc or something, must be the source file, can you check that please, pops in high freq. guitar track

uhmmm, listening the Justin Arey Mix also guitar pops can be heard, quiet but there are some

3) heres my "0 effort mix"
i felt to much stress making it, thats why i coudnt spend more time making it better, but i think its a nice song, vocals could sound better with a nicer mic or pre like at4060, rode nt-2 or mxl v?? + john hardy m-1+jensen or spl gainstaton1, millenia stt-1 , or a presonus mp80/20 with burrbrown moddification http://www.imjohn.com/PresonusJensenXfrmrs/TestsByOthers.htm or something,

overall i rate over 8.0 recording and music,
thats remebers me that im eager to purchase/hear those cd/dvd rom from 3daudioinc i, replica, pres in paradice , 3d pre cd vol 1&2, and the other cant remember
http://www.3daudioinc.com/3daudio_prelppix6.html
that remembers me that
i really like the Madonna - Confessions On A Dancefloor kind of sound
in the tour vocal goal was to be exacly like the studio, sennheiser condenser + focusrite liquid channel to replace the original vintage mic-pre,
http://www.focusrite.com/news/79
but i dont like the tour sound, sounds too blended with ambient/crowd mic
would be so nice to hear those dbx blue mic pres, vs. the focusrite liquid chnnel dbx blue replica vs. others
uhmmm,
i wanted to try those akai harmony vst plugins in those parts i felt solitary at the end, but im too lazy, too much stress for me

4) beware that i dont know much about this genere kind of music, im more into 70s, 80s disco & y2k electronic music, trance, electro, techno, house, progressive, etc...
i dont spend time listening your genere kind of music

5) listening other mixes vs. my mix, i feel that my "0 effort mix" sounds too much mono in the lead guitar and in the voice, like it needs like a arboretum hyperprism vocoder or a ring modulator or akai vst plugin, loud delays with filters or something,
i feel it needs more effort,
i feel sometimes its too dry, and also i feel my drums sounds to much in the back, i feel that my snare should be more like EWF 12 mix, like it needs a +6dB near 500hz or something, with a semi-narrow Q
anyway...

nice contest i like it, nice recording also,

justin,
why is brent's mix in bold?

Just got the Melodyne plugin today. I will see how much easier it is than rewiring to the host. Sorry I haven't had time to check out the tracks.

Sean - Let me know how that plugin works out for you. There's a competitive upgrade available to get it for $169 if you own autotune, pitch-docter etc.

Audiophile - it's in bold because it's the best mix so far and Brent is leading the competition right now.

123 - Welcome. Your file did not come through, please edit your post and try again. You have to click the blue "Add File" button for your file to be uploaded. Also please upload an MP3 - not a rar file. Your comments are a bit hard to comprehend.

who decides the "best mix"?

We'll all vote at the end. Obviously "best" is relative. Brent's mix stands out as being really good.

The egocentricity of the vocalist's opinion shouldn't be allowed.

I think the opinion that Brent's mix is the leader is well represented by others in this thread. It gives people who haven't submitted mixes to get an idea what they're up against. Like flavors of ice cream, there may not be a real winner here - the competition part is just a driver for fun and learning.

your biased toward your vocals as i said earlier. Not to offend brent but my mix sounded bigger and was clsest to a master than anyone elses' even though i did no mastering. You claiming to be the sole judge is biased as well. Most of what Brent did was arranging. You should change the name of the thread to Justin's favorite 'polish my turdy vocals mix'. ;P
You obviously can care less about any of the other instruments. Especially the drums where they most likely are the deciding factor in any song.

The goal is to create the best sounding mix you can. So far Brent's stands out as the best. I'm not bias towards vocals or towards any one part as you suggest. The contest is not over and no one has voted so there's nothing to beef about.

Man god is that you singing Justin?

Yup! The whole song is written and performed by yours truly.

If Justin always sounded like this, in his 5 years as Web Developer for Panasonic, its no wonder that they went out of proaudio business...

Great thanks!

Wow... kinda too bad, the premise of this is getting lost by a couple complaining about it. All when most did it for a little fun and to learn. Fact is, there's nothing in the tracks provided that a pro shouldn't be able to handle.
But if this gets out of hand, feel free to yank my stuff Justin. Didn't post it for competition sake. Hoped it might draw some other songsmith/producer people out to display their wares... and hopefully learn some things myself.

Oh... BTW Audiophile, if ya think my mix was bad, just wait until you hear the completely replayed/revamped version 'ol Brent's been working on in his spare time. Replayed drums are huge because they actually work in the tune like that now. So... if ya honestly think "big" drums is the deciding factor as to wether a song is good or not, I'm sure you'll love it

Thanks Brent, you did a great job. Fun and learning is exactly what this is about. And I'm hoping we'll see some other mixes posted soon from some other folks. So the "competition" is ongoing and keep checking back.

I think this is a great thing... doing mixes based on supplied tracks.

I'd do a mix too if I had the time. Right now I'm scoring too much crap and deadlines don't permit me to do it. But if this sort of thing becomes an ongoing thing (which I hope it does)... I'll throw my 2 cent mixes in too.

Cheers,

AK

Brent...I look forward to your "spare time" mix... should be fun!!!

Audiophile... lighten up. There are no rules.... it's all good.

I've got one I'm working on. Time's a bit short but soon.

Yea if I could get people to quite calling me with I 'have' to record this four song thing by 'yesterday' and if you have the next three days avail I 'need' to get it done name your price and I'll pay.
Gosh no time for fun! ;-)
Oh the girl I'm now in the mixing process is going for a Joss Stone kind of thing and I've been A-B'ing it with Joss's new album. Anybody listened to it? There are some real interesting things going on and they pack a lot of cool stuff into a mix, but then its open too... The kick sounds these cats are using on this new stuff too is kind of interesting. I'm trying to figure out a good sample to use as a blend to the live drums I recorded.

Sam, I have always heard if you 've got more work than you can do
you are working too cheap. Think about it. More money -- More gear. Benny

Amen.

No really my philosophy is "too much work in this business is a bad thing". It's not like your repairing a car, or a computer. It's an subjective art. If your over worked, you can eaisely loose perspective, become mechanical in your decision making, and the product could be empty and baseless.

Unless your a money whore, it's not a good idea. You need days off to get out of the studio, go to the beach, or the mall. Go out to a club and meet and talk to new people. Listen to what's getting people off in the real world.

It sucks being slow, but it's worse being over worked.


I've gotten a little busy over this last week and haven't had time to do a mix. I will in the next few days. A full blown extravaganza!! Melodyning the vocals etc. I had no idea this was your production Justin, hats off to ya. The only real problem is the song is to long.

Apparently I need to raise my rates. I'd like to do a mix of this demo but my next free day is Sept 4th and when it comes I won't be spending it at the studio unless there's a point of a gun involved.

Thanks Jeremy. A few notes about this song you might find interesting. I've been a songwriter since I learned to play the guitar and this song came to me shortly after I bought a Taylor 310 (for me, a very inspiring instrument!). The chords are similar to Tracy Chapman's "Fast Car" but, of course, I put my own twist on it. A lyricist I've worked with in the past took a working lyric I had going and wrote the the first two verses and choruses, then I wrote the last verse I found a drum loop I liked from Drumcore and strung together a few variations and a couple of fills. As the song came together, I liked the groove set by the drum loop and tried to get a simple bass part going that complemented the groove. The acoustic guitar strum also helped the groove. When approaching the electric guitar sound, I wanted something really gentle sounding that didn't overwhelm and added a club-like, intimate, close, present feel. So I jammed on the track and cut out the parts I liked (rather hastily so check your fades ins/outs on the lead guitar parts for pops). The song is long because the outro is pretty much a jam. I left it this way for the competition so you'd have more to work with in your edits. Brent did a masterful job cutting it down by 1 minute. Mic on the vocal was a Rode K2 into my Panasonic WZ-AD96M preamp. Mics on acoustic guitar were MXL 603S small diaphram condensors set up as a coincident pair also using the WZ-AD96M mic preamp.

The question's been asked a few times is this a competition to mix or to edit or to retrack or what. I've placed no restrictions, bottom line, take the tracks and make the best sounding demo you can with them. I've heard, "levels are low" because the song hasn't been "mastered." How many clients do you have that don't end up paying for mastering and just ask you to do it? In some cases, this may be a mistake but the budget-minded client might be perfectly fine accepting the best "master" you can produce. For the purposes of this competition, consider this a demo for the budget minded client who simply wants you to produce your best possible mix of the song. For those who don't have the time, so be it, this is for fun and learning so, of course, you can do as much or as little as you want. Still, if you want to show your forum brethren just what you're capable of, then my friends, GAME ON!

What BPM did you track it at?

J

Logic said 125 bpm.

Sounds about right. I'll verify this later when I have the session in front of me. On the other hand, it should be easy for "any of you" to figure out

I guess my mix shows that I agree with Jeremy about the song being too long, however I do feel there are some other problems with it. The reason I like Brents mix so well is that he gave the song more structure. The verse is separated from the chorus sonicly by the addition of harmonies, the electric gtr and piano are slightly rearranged and the band-limited vocal all contribute to defining the sections. This makes for a more varied, livly and intresting listening experience IMHO.
Any one feeling slighted because they think their mix sounds better than someone elses should chill a bit. There are LOTS of ways to define a good mix (what do you call a poorly mixed hit?)and this is just for fun after all.

Cheers,
Peter

125 here guys...

Cool thanks.. yes I am lazy today.. plus I got some new plugins..

Jeff

That's cool listening to you add stuff and rearrange the song, but this was more about sonics originaly, how your gear and how it's interfaced can change the over all sound quality. Everything from W/C to mixer, to mixdown method, cables ect. Not so much as how much you dress up the song.

But it must be very interesting to Justin to hear his track taken on by others. That's cool. At Omega they use to say "There is only one rule, there are no rules".

Nick if your pissed off at me, for being a jackass, please just realize I was born this way,I can't help it . I try, and try, but every once and a while my "jackassness" kicks in without me even realizing it. Until later when it wears off, I'll read something I siad and think to myself " What a Jackass I was".

I beg your forgiveness, and well kindly pleasure you in any way.

Holy shit dude, 17 pages long? Is this a new record???

BTW, do you know where flipping the bird came from? You know, the middle finger in my avaitor. Yeah that's me man. For all the world to see. Not angry at anybody, just saying a basic "fuck you" to whoever.

Anyhoo it was during a war between the British and French, not sure when, eairly 1700's or something? The french developed a new bow and arrow that was the high tech weapon of the day. It was better at killing english soldiers than other weapons.

So when they captured French soldiers, they would cut off their middle finger, the one used to draw back the bow. So in battle, they use to flip the British the bird saying basicly, "fuck you",
isn't that interesting.

That's an urban legend

Here's the link:

http://www.snopes.com/language/apocryph/pluckyew.asp

18 pages, and strangely, mostly on the same topic .. .THAT has to be a record.

Only 6 pages on my computer.

I totally agree Dan, hats off to you guys, they all sound good to me in their own ways. Funny , still even knowing this, the louder mix jumps out and gives the impresson of sounding better. Isn't that just fucked up?

Thanks Dan - My comments are:

-vocal timing adjustments - seems slow to me can you describe what you did?
-organ and synth parts - cool! a bit surreal, I like it
-leslie rotating speaker/tremelo effect on piano - nice!
-overall sounds clean and balanced - nice creativity!

Please elaborate on your approach and choices. Also what DAW/other gear/software did you use? Nice job.

Very very nice Dan. Like the piano treatment as well as the new counter point items.
Mix is surperb I think. What I'm having trouble with is the offset vocal. It would surely work like this. But without a re-sing to change the timing a bit, it always seems to either be behind or pushing time in the wrong spots.
Nice mix and certanily gets the idea across though!

Thanks, guys.

Funny, I didn't touch the vocal timing. I guess the tracks somehow didn't line up at the start and I just got used to hearing it that way. I thought it was just a quirky vocal,which I liked. When I get back to town maybe I'll sort that out.

I'll elaborate more a little later. Got to run now.

Here's a new mix. After Justin's latest comments I decided to coax a little more volume out of it. I was trying to achieve increased volume while maintaining the basic sonic signature of the original. I was pretty happy with the overall sound of my first mix and didn't want to get into an overcompressed sound. Hopefully I have achieved that with this one.

Dan - Nice job on Mix2 - my comments

-nice improvement over your first mix, vocals sound in time now
-I like all the things I mentioned from the first mix, the organ adds a hip/cool flavor to the song reminiscent of the counting crows, the reversed guitar effects are cool too. Mixed in the background so not distracting but add nice "color" to the song
-thanks for explaining your gear and choices - very cool setup
-I like the reverb and eq on the vocal, seems to add a nice softness and fullness that's pleasing to listen to

EWF - my comments are:
- this mix is very bright especially on the snap of the snare and the crispness on the cymbals - not necessarily a bad thing, I'm going to listen to this on a few different systems to see how it fairs. The added clarity on hi-hats does re-enforce the groove in a way not presented so far in the mixes I've heard. Also it highlights the acoustic guitar in the mix in a way not heard so far. The added hi-end separates the parts and defines the parts well.
-nice contribution overall!

Where is the cowbell guy when you need him?!

Sorry I havn't gotton around to doing a mix, just dealing with the summer time blues.

Justin, I emailed my mix to you...

J

Jeff -

Bravo! Nice job! I have bolded your name along with Brent's in the contest to indicate both of you are leading the pack right now. Your mix, like Brents, indicates a lot of careful listening and editing work. Here are my comments...

-nice autotuning work on the vocal
-nice new drum track but perhaps a bit low in the mix, what drum plugin/program did you use?
-nice editing, I particularly like how you re-arranged the part with the lead guitar
-nice background vocal, what program did you use?
-bass seems a little low level in the mix
-eq/comp/reverb on vocal sounds nice
-nice organ work although the very end of the song sounds like you lost steam and just wanted to finish up quickly
- I like the way the guitar is mixed and that you used delay on it
-acoustic guitar sounds nice in this mix
-what happened to the piano? Did you cut it on purpose?

Overall, you're a contender along with Brent's mix. Please comment more on what you did, what gear you used etc. here in this thread.

Thanks Justin,
I usually mix the drums up some.. but I was a little unsure about how Strike would mix. I think it needs a little more kick.
I'll comment on the other things when I get home.. Funny;.. when I hit that end note.. I said to myself.. Im tired! I gotta sleep.

J

Ahh I had a feeling you were using Digidesign Strike. It does feel a little robotic. I think with a bit more more tweaking you could fool almost anyone. Well, 'cept maybe Nick and Jeremy.

And by the way, considering this mix competition idea started with Nick vs. Jeremy - their mixes are conspicuously absent. Oh well, I 'm guessing Nick must be on vacation this week. Jeremy is likely curled up with a blanket someplace while tightly gripping his word clock cables.

Yeah that was my first time using strike. Its great in some respects and others.. well, very imiting. You either use all their patterns or not. IT does not break them down for you. Oh well, I am just getting lazy. This is showing me a weakness in my lowend here. Now I have to figure it out. I actually moved every thing back to where I had it in my room and trying to figure out where the hole is. It never ends.

Jeff

Nice job Jeff

That's ok. We'll just take your sig's word for it.

Thank Brent...

J

Ok we haven't had any more entries for a while. Brent emailed me that he's preparing something new for next week. I'm inclined to set an end-date for the contest fairly soon. The following people have said they would upload but have not yet:

Nick Batzdorf
Jeremy Hesford
mofca
TLiX

If you guys still plan on participating, post a reply here. Otherwise I will set a date for the contest to end and we can all vote.

Justin,

I have a feeling that the "contest" idea turned a lot of people off who may have participated. I was on the fence for a while about it myself. I really like the exchange of ideas but I don't think the idea that a winner can be declared is a realistic one. Everyone will vote his or her taste. It's so subjective. Though I appreciate your comments you can see that most of us do not want to be critical of each other. And lastly, I agree with the others that you should not have "bolded" your personal favorite mixes. It implies that there's a concensus where there certainly is not one. If we do this again, let's make it more show and tell rather than a road race.

Thanks Dan but I disagree. Everyone has a contribution to make and I think we're all mature enough not to discredit any effort, no matter how small. But some people do outstanding work that should be recognized in some form. My intention in bolding names is simply to highlight the ones that stand out. A little healthy competition never hurt anyone. I think what you're saying is that an apple isn't better from an orange, they're both good. I certainly don't want people to rant on others for the purpose of making them feel bad. Constructive criticism is different though and that's really why we're all here - to learn from eachother. The rest, is to recognize outstanding work of our peers. I see nothing wrong with it.

I still think my mix holds it's own. No other mix can compare to it, i'm just that good. I'm not trying to make you guys feel, bad, well maybe just alittle bit

>>>>My intention in bolding names is simply to highlight the ones that stand out. <<<<<<

Yes, I understand. They are standouts to you, and other mixes might work better for somebody else. So there will be a vote but you've given certain mixes an edge. By endorsing them it appears that there has already been a vote of some kind when it's just your opinion. Don't you see that? Look, I really don't care much about winning or losing. I'm just trying to point out why there may not have been all that much participation. Lot's of guys said they were going to do a mix and then didn't. Something turned them off about this thing.

I agree, there's nothing wrong with constructive criticism, but nobody did it, except you? Why not? So fine, you like competition, I can understand that. Then just keep it fair is all.

Jeremy, love that far-off thing you' ve cultivated!

This is an open forum. I encourage everyone to comment about their own and other people's mixes - good or bad comments. I don't know how I can be more fair. But yes, I highlighted the mixes that stood out because it was obvious that time and careful listening went into each. If you feel differently, please go back and point out any other mixes that you feel should be highlighted. I also bolded these because I realize not everyone coming to the site is going to listen to every mix, so I wanted to at least make it easy for people to hear the really creative ones and hopefully get turned on to the contest as a whole.

Look when we do the voting maybe I'll try and set up a couple of different poll questions like best editing job, best autotuning, best use of eq and compression etc. It'll be tricky because I don't think people will necessarily be able to do such indepth judging. It's really not the point anyway. All we want to do is here is recognize one individual for their mix and offer congratulation from their fellow peers. It's not about better or worse, it's about encouragement.

Ok, eveybody's but my mix sucks.

I'm not getting my point across. Most likely everybody who submitted spent time and listened extensively. The mixes you put in bold as the most creative are so by your opinion. And you're right, many will see the bold and not listen to anything else. The more I think on it the more that bugs, so I'm out of the game. No hard feelings.

Dan, do you really know what this is about? An exersize of ego, or excorsism of the ego. This is the true test of an artist, and we are artists, artists of sound.

To me, if you can overcome your ego, you truly are an artist, an artist of life. No matter what kind of critism you get, you can take that in and digest it, without feeling threatened. It's to expand your life, ability, as a human being.

We are all on a journey, and hangin out together here, on this forum. After all we have been thru to get to this point, the point where we are at now, was no easy feat. A lot of set backs, dissapointments, frustration, and just wanting to throw in the towel, (don't forget to bring a towel! btw).

If your talking about me, dude I'm just kidding. Listen to my mix, like Sscannon said, it's sounds like beer piss, and how wrong he is!!!! It not only sounds like beer piss, it's tastes like it. Have you just accidently drank some of your own piss? I have, and believe me, the taste describes my mix to a tee.

BTW, your own urine, fresh, is actually healthy to drink, and good for you!!! That's why my mix wins, hands down. You guys have no choise but to grovel at my feet and beg for my forgivness.

Justin,

I agree with Dan. I didn't do this for the "competition" aspect of it. I did this for fun and to learn something. But to just highlight certain mixes because YOU think they are better than the others just doesn't seem quite right to me, especially if there is supposed to be a vote afterward. I think it sort of taints the whole competition aspect of it. Don't get me wrong, I think the guys that did the highlighted mixes did a great job, but it's like a guy that's sponsoring a competition making it clear that he thinks certain ones are better before anyone has even voted. You said, "It's not about better or worse, it's about encouragement." Well if that's the case then why did you highlight the ones you think are better? I think Dan's point is if "it's about encouragement", the fact that you're already giving out awards could have the opposite effect and discourage some who were thinking about submitting something but ultimately decided not to because it seems that the results are a foregone conclusion. Let me be clear that I don't care about "winning" this competition. It's just that if you want more submissions (and I think we all do), it might be better if the person that started the competition isn't handing out the prizes before all the submissions are in.

Jeremy,

I'm voting for your mix. I believe yours should be highlighted.

EWF - Go back and listen to the mixes submitted so far and see if you disagree that Brent and Jeff E. are leading the pack overall. I wouldn't have bolded them unless I felt they really stood out. And besides, I haven't given out awards. If this was a car race there'd be leaders right? I can appreciate you and Dan have both submitted two mixes and feel free to submit more if you want. Actually Brent is about to submit another mix. So I don't think people are discouraged because I pick a couple of leaders. Please disagree with me if you like, but I think you should point out why another mix is better or, if not better, what particular aspect was introduced that deserves merit.

Also btw, I think mofca, TLiX and Jeremy are all capable of winning this thing. Nick I'm not sure about because I've never heard any of his work. I do understand these folks are time-challenged and this might not be worth it to them. Err well 'cept for Jeremy and Nick who threw down the gauntlet to begin with. I figure if they're not going to submit mixes to the challenge then a dual at 20 paces should suffice.

EWF, thanks for trying, but there's no way to make Justin see how creepy the bold thing is. I've deleted my mixes. Good luck to those who stay in.

Jeremy, I so know you've been kidding, right along. No, I've never "accidently" drank my own urine, but I'd be interested in hearing the circumstance that led you to that defining moment. Maybe over a beer.

For the record, I do listen to what you guys are saying but I also respectfully disagree on this one issue. I try hard to be fair to everyone but in a competition there will be winners or else it's not a competition. And yes, I'm administering the contest so I feel justified in making the call on this one.

Dan you are of course, free to do as you please. I think dropping out just because your name wasn't bolded is just plain silly but participation is entirely voluntary. No winner has been declared yet and if you stick with it, you'll have a chance to vote on your favorites - you can even vote for yourself if you want. And why not? We're all friends here.

I mentioned this earlier in this post. You think YOU are the authority and that's what doesn't sit right Mr Justin Cowell. It's coming about like more of an ego trip for yourself. I don't care about being the 'BEST' infact i know i'm not. I think Jeremy's first instict was dean on; i should have seen it coming.

For example, my mix is based on my mainly engineering live shows. Maybe it sounds so 'loud and mastered' because that's what is expected of me to do everytime i setup a band, sometimes with only 15-20minutes to get it done.

I 'polished' bands for over 8 years and decided it wasn't going to do anything for my career 'fixing' bands' recording. Infact, now i'm of the philosophy of fixing the band in it's entirety. For example, I will MAKE the drummer tune his drums and play it ontime. I will autotune the vocals and then tell the singer to SING IT THIS WAY! i will never use a pitch corrected track. I will not time align the drums. It's a recipe for failure. The bands end up thanking me in the end even tough i put the through the ringer.

This competition was supposed to be a 'show and tell' not, who's better, and the so called 'prize' isn't really an issue. I won already cause i do what i love. I had a shreddy solo and a small choir lined up to overdub some parts but now i think it's not worth it.

Perfectly stated! So you should accept this contest in the spirit which it is intended and not be intimidated because I bolded a couple of people's names. You may not care about being "the best" but you should care about trying to do your best work and continually learning. It's true for all of us, regardless of experience level.

Look guys, instead of wasting time and energy getting pissy about bolded names, why not comment on the actual work being presented? What do you like? What don't you like? (not about me, about eachother's mixes!) The debate about cutting and pasting and autotuning is a good one. Bands/vocalists should practice to be the best they can be. But if you can make a mix sound better, I think you should do it, period. If that means autotuning or time aligning, so be it, so long as it makes the mix sound better. Great mixes all have one universal truth - you know it when you hear it.

Well what happened was, you see, I drink a lot of water everyday, like close to a gallon, distilled water. I was in the studio on a phone call and couldn't get off the phone, so I took a huge leek into my empty water bottle. I drink so much water that it comes out clear.

The next day I was doing some mixing and took a big gulp, forgetting that it was actually my urine. I thought to myself, self, hummm, that tastes alittle off somehow.

Then realized what it was. I didn't get sick, or anything. Then was watching "Survivor Man" on TV, he was talking about how healthy your own urine actually is, a lot of minerals and stuff. So I've been drinking my own urine ever sinse.

Jeremy you have become Zumbido and Rider wrapped into one.

Whoa there Sparky! I did not drop out because my name was not bolded! I did so because you're calling this a competition and have provided an unfair advantage to some. There's nothing else to say on the matter except that when 3 or 4 of us are telling you that something smells a little funny, there just might be something to it.

That's a very touching story.

And that was, I thought, the premise when this was first presented 20 something pages ago. A common set of tracks that everyone would work with ... create the best mix from what you are handed. It quickly turned into a free-for-all do anything you want excersize, which is why the tracks never made it downstairs. I don't invest in auto-tune, and other such turd polishing devices. I also live in the live world. I will get the best possible mix out of a band based on what they present me with.

If this WAS a case of mix these x audio tracks the best you can and lets compare, something could have been learned. Once it became a question of who had the most equipment to mutilate a track into sounding good, the whole learning process ended. It's amazing how much I still learn from some engineers that do some trick that can totally change a mix just by tweaking an EQ or a comp or something like that. That is where the skill is ... not in taking 10-20 passes at something playing with plug-ins. It's the reason I don't give many bands any credit for a studio demo disc - most can't perform it live.

If you want a real comparison of mixing skills, I'll give you a set of live tracks - with all the flaws of mixing on a loud, uncontrolled environment - to be mixed with only traditional tools (eq/comp/gate/fx/delay) and see who can make the most compelling mix. I don't suppose you'd be interested in those restrictions though.

Ok I recovered Dan's mixes and unbolded the names to keep the complainers happy. Nobody wins, err, well at least not yet. Somebody will win when the contest ends. And I'm still working on a prize to be announced for the winner.

Joe - yes the contest is to create the best sounding mix you can with the tracks provided. But everything is fair game - you can rearrange, autotune, add new tracks, exclude tracks, the sky's the limit. It's great that you like working in a live environment - hat's off. If choose not to autotune because you feel it's not a good process, by all means don't. Lots of people do and that's OK too.

Here's a question about autotuning. You wouldn't stop a guitar player from tuning their guitar with an electronic tuner before tracking would you? So why stop a vocalist from intonating their voice with computer technology after the fact? Is it really a question of altering their performance or simply making something good a little better. You're not against comping (editing together the best of multiple takes) are you? People were doing this long before computers came around by splicing tape with a razor. And what about bands that overdub, autotune etc. who listen back to their own recordings and actually DO learn to perform them better as a result? Lots of people use recording as a way to compose. What exactly is wrong with that?

I have used autotune, Melodyne, guitar tuners, editing, and every other trick in the book to make an artist sound great. That's why people come to me, because I make people sound great. That's my job.

However, the running argument is that the level of talent has decreased to the point where everyone's vocal performance needs to be fixed because they suck ass. People who have practiced hard and worked on their craft don't always appreciate the band that can't sing in tune or can't tune their instrument. Go back into the practice room before you have me "shape" you into a good singer.

In the case of this contest, I have had so much work come across my mixing desk in the last few weeks, and I'm still catching up. I was going to submit a mix until I noticed everyone was tuning and editing the performance into a new one, and I can certainly do that, I just don't have the time. Why didn't you just re-sing the vocal in tune?

Boys Boys Boys! Ya got great passion, ya sound great, but there's just somethin' missin' Hmmmm.. That's it!
What we need here is MORE COWBELL.....

The emphasis kind of answers the question, doesn't it?

I think the argument is the vocalist should tune themselves up, before the performance.




I don't think anyone is against the learning from computer tuning, or even making great recordings using it. I think the argument is that if it is available - and more importantly, used all-too-frequently - then it allows performers to relax on learning the craft of the art. The craft of simply creating great perfromances, when necessary.

Just like multitracking and splicing and comping did.

I once had a very successful and storied A&R guy ask me (rhetorically): "What person or invention has done more damage to music than any other?"

His answer was: "Les Paul and the multitrack recording technique. " Because that allowed artists and engineers to use technology as a crutch in order to create "performances" that the artists were incapable of performing, in reality, as true artists.

Before that, all you could do was "sweeten" a recording of a performance with things like mic placement, EQ and reverb. The core, underlying performance had to be performed in real-time.

An interesting view, to be certain.

Thanks Justin, you have just jusitfied my exsistence. My life is now complete. Anyone feel like having a drink with me???

Not if its piss!...;)

There is a moment of absolute beauty when you have truly talented musicians that walk across your stage. They could be playing through a set of mackies and they would STILL sound great, because they are masters of their instruments. I hold vocalists to the same standards.

There are too many that are coming across my stages these days that can't perform for crap, or just have a CD with their 'backing tracks' that are actually the whole performance.

I watched a guy last month bring his whole Digi-Venue system out with tons of plugins for everything under the sun... expensive analyzers, etc. His band STILL sounded like crap. Same stage/system, guy from Australia came in with his band ... no sound check .. quick line check and ran with it. They sounded better out of the gate than the other national act did their whole set. Used less power, analog console with a total of 4 gates and 6 comps for the whole band. They sounded great. Even PT can't polish a turd. My biggest problem is the industry continuing to put out these no-talent 'artists', and anyone that can buy a copy of PT suddenly enabling them to do this.

Joe -

Pro Tool isn't the reason the industry is putting out no-talent artists. At some point the business model fell apart. Record company's realized there was no money in putting marketing support behind an artist like Joni Mitchell when they could do it cheaper and make more money with a looker like Brittany Spears. Let's face it, people aren't running out and buying CDs like they used to.

The fact that people can make great recordings in their basement now using Pro Tools means there's tons MORE great talent and music out there. We'll just never hear it because there is no financial model to bring artists to the public at large. But don't lose hope. Someone out there will eventually figure out a way to turn it into a cash cow. Certainly no one could have predicted the enormous impact The Beatles would have had on the world before it happened.

Justin,

Thank you!

--the complainer

And what makes it POSSIBLE to have a "looker" (as opposed to "singer") like Spears sell more records?

Um, that would be Pro Tools, Autotoune, Melodyne, etc., etc.

Without these little helpers, Britney Spears is nothing but a visual - with no sound that anyone wants to hear.




Or, perhaps it means there will just be more mediocre, talentless hacks that have an outlet for their crap.

I'm betting on the latter. Indeed, it's not even a bet. The state of the industry is already proven this to be what is happening.



Don't bet on it. These are VERY different times.

Just for starters: The Beatles didn't have to compete with 1,000 times more competitive acts, cell phones, video games, DVDs, On Demand, multiplex theaters, etc., etc., etc. for the teenagers' attention, in their day.

The days of the universal, music mega-star are long behind us.

And they are not coming back.

Yeah the fuacking mbox. A lot of my clients are buying it and now doing there own production. Some actually have the nerve to call me and ask for help with it.

They figure "well I got PT, I can do it myself now". PT is just software. Any DAW can work as well. They don't have a clue really about WC, pre amps ect ect.

Or how to WRITE or PERFORM a SONG!!!

I get that a lot too Jeremy. I like to help people out and get them going but don't like to work for free any more. The good thing is. They still can't mix for the most part. An the only way Ill teach them is if they want me to mix their album - they can watch and learn for $$.

J

and more and more of these kiddy brats think that they can just walk out with PT on a live gig and plug it in and make their band sound 'just like the record'. Then they complain when it doesn't sound like it did in the studio .. it must be the system's fault. The level of professionalism in the field is dropping as more and more of these weekend basement hacks come on the scene ... and all this 'fix my lack of talent' plugs are what's driving it.

If they would get out on a stage with no pitch correctors/effects, etc. and just sing ... THEN they deserve to be there and record an album.

The most amazing performer I have run into yet was Jewel. She showed up before her last album was released ... our show was here SIXTH performance THAT DAY (3 radio stations and 2 in-stores before she got to us). We gave her a countryman DI, a stock SM58 (no beta) out of our workbox, and a Shure in-ear beltpack. The only FX I eventually put on her was a small plate verb. A bit of EQ on the guitar, a shading on the vocal, and that's it. Not even compression on either input. All the crowd reaction and noise is being picked up from her vocal mic.
This is what I expect a real artist can do. This was in a swank restaurant (fundraiser) downtown on a portable 8x8 stage.

I put a clip of this performance on my site, you can listen, but please don't distribute it !!!!! Media Clip

Wow Joe that Jewel clip sounds really good.



Oh no, The Beatles had no obstacles at all. Not like bible-thumping parents who were outraged at the long hair and wild beats and lyrics. If any group proved music could change the world it was The Beatles. Now go program your cell phone and play some video games

yeah ... that's live - right from the line out's on the console (Yamaha DM2000v2) - They took my feed and went straight to air on the local Cities 97 FM station.

That's what a really talented artist sounds like without any tricks. I have to believe that the same amount of 'effort' is needed in the studio to record her albums ... throw up a mic, and record it ... done. No spending countless hours tuning, cuting and pasting from 50 takes hoping to have enough for one 'seamless' track, etc. All the credit for that clip goes to her .... I didn't spend the whole set trying to polish a turd .. I sat back and enjoyed the set and the remarkable presence she had.

This whole discussion is a mute point unless you are an "A"list producer engineer or you don't need to get paid for a living.

Joe, the percentage of performers that are of that quality are very low. The chances to have someone to come in like that are rare - and yes I have had that quality as well - They come in and nail it. So now for the other 360 days of the year and having paying clients come though the door over and over that do not have an unlimited budget so they can't comp vocals all week on one song. Can they sing? Yes.. Are they Jewel? No... Do they have heart? Yes.
My hat is off to Justin for putting his song up. Does he sing like Jewel? I hope not. But he has a pretty good song. The Melody stayed with me.

You can all all bark all you want about the quality of the artist and the tools that are used to fix them. Its all BS.

But come on, get real. What pays the bills? It is pie in the sky to have attitude when are in this business. It is our job to make them sound great.
If someone wants to pay be $60 an hour to FIX their vocal, time their drums, fix the bass - That is fine with me.

:P at least it's not a time aligned and pitch corrected moot point.

Sure it is. It seems like there is something spiritual that is apart or music when 2,3,4 or more people play and make "music". I do not think you can really replicate that with a machine. Sure it can keep a 2/4 beat, but it is not the interactions of a group. You can tell that when a bass player is playing off a drummer. Or when a guitar player really knows how to play in the holes instead of chopping wood the whole time.
The last part of this whole discussion stems from weather it is ok to "FIX" that when its not so good. And how far do you fix it. I agree with you as to it relates to the goal you are trying to achieve.


J

Don't you think there comes a point where the whole integrity of the music business in general is going to get lost? How many more milli vanilli, ashlee's (although she really CAN sing), etc. is going to take before everyone just assumes that everyone is just fake? It used to be about real talent ... it's not anymore.

Just depends how ya use the tools. If you're a composer/arranger of music, it's all these {some say bad} tools that make it an awesome time to be alive. The exact same argument was made over 30 years ago about multi-track tape machines. Then it was the Musician's Union contemplating banning the Mellotron.
Then MIDI putting drummers/others out of work... on and on.
The music biz is pretty much in a shambles and since there's so many diversions these days, there's not as many good young players coming up thru the ranks.
It's not just the "magic tools."

"Obstacles" are differnet than "competition," Justin.

The fact is, the Beatles had far less competition for their primary audience's time and attention that any act does today.

That's at least as significant a reason why we won't ever have an act with the gravity of the Beatles again, as becuase no one can ever write songs like they did or produce records like George Martin did. The Beatles were phenominal, to be sure, but they were mortals.

And I honestly don't think music "changes the world" in any significant way. It affects individual and small collective experiences/views - and those can, ideally, aggregate into some cultural influence but, "change the world"?

That's a bit of an overstatement.

I hope it does come to a point soon. You may have a great point here that will bring in several other discussions. - To your point that everyone is perceived to be fake...
Maybe that is why there is no passion behind protest songs. Maybe that is why there is no lasting passion behind "save the _______" musicians. People are jus assuming it is all part of the machine.

J

Welp.... just couldn't resist.

ok .. that mix rocks. Sadly, it's probably representative of what's going on in the business these days. Someone walks in with the original files posted, walks out with this mix and bombs like hell when they have to do it live.

I really do like all the additions though

Very cool Brent.. Gotta Love it... Great feel and nice job taking it to the next level. I really like how you gave the chorus some distinction and made the bridge a real event. Now the Chorus ties to the next verse flows.

Joe, You know man, its not sad, its very cool. Who gives a rip about the biz, this is about 2 artists making something. Who knows if they would have ever been able to do it apart. Once this song got under my skin I could hear these changes. Makes me want to listen to it more and more. Sometimes as a producer this is our job for a client.


Jeff

Outstanding job Brent. Nicely done.

blargh you guys still beating this dead horse?

Actually no.. no dead horses here. Just enjoying what someone has done creatively - when, at the last I checked this is what it was all about.

boring.. the mix isn't that great. the arrangement is virtually a collection of what the others have already contributed. the organ, the chorus on the guitar, the harmonies etc.. very creative! I guess someone has learned something from this.

I think the vocals are way too over top in the mix.

BTW, arranging is NOT mixing and it never will no matter how many times you call it a mix.

Love your chops, Brent!

Do you ever have anything positive to say man? I mean really, do you? Can you give Justin a break for one second? He is trying to get interaction going between people in a positive way and all the guy is getting is crap from people who for some reason have nothing good to say about anything. If you want to critique, that is fine but just crapping on what someone does makes those who lurk here even more reticent to comment because they fear getting flammed or pulled into the the fray. I wish the lurklers and the quiet ones would comment and interact. The sad fact is, they just go away and never come back like most people that looking for a place to hang.

Brent,

Great work! Beautifully played and implemented ideas.

Speaking subjectively I think that there's maybe a few too many bells and whistles now. I find myself distracted from the "song" by all the new parts and I think that some of the original intimacy of the piece is now gone. There's so many great ideas you came up with! I'd just pare it down a bit from here and let it breathe a little.

Just my taste. Really well done!

Thanks for the nice compliments gents. Dan... very good observation. Hearing some of your work on MySpace, an observation that also comes from someone that knows their stuff. I'd agree. Man. ... if only this coulda been a from the ground up project... or had a little more time
This was never a matter of out-doing anyone. It was a fun puzzle to try to work out. Then a pleasure to do a little playing, etc., for a group of people that count. A rare opportunity here these days.
But ... curious to know what processing and/or plugins you used on Justin's vocal track Dan? I couldn't get it close to how nice you have it sounding.

I have plenty of good to say when the is any good to say the least the mix is average 'good' ie not gaudauful. I do not care about mediocre mixes, make me really think something creative has gone. It does nothing for me. I curious Jeff, you really think the vocals aren't too loud?

Thanks for the compliment, Brent, and for checking out my page. I used the URS Neve EQ and the UAD 1176 compressor. Also, a little light chorusing from the UAD Roland Dimension D. A little reverb came from Wizooverb W2 and I can't quite remember what the delay was.

Thats cool Dan... I miss my UAD stuff. Are you finding the URS Neve EQ pretty musical? I am using the Massenburg EQ right now and I just cant seem to make it shine.

You know what would be cool... Is to get different vocals and learn what you and others would do to get them smooth or develope a sound. Im not talking tuning but rather with EQ and reverb and delay and such. I have not used Chorusing on a vocal in forever.

Cheers....

Audiophile wrote... I curious Jeff, you really think the vocals aren't too loud?

You know.. I don't really think so but that could be because i am working on a project that has the vocal all the way pegged forward and I have been listening to the new Colby Caillet music. It is right on the brink of distortion. I like her writing and some of the stuff the producer did because it is so very basic, but its always right on the edge and the vocal is forward. Krazy kids.. I guess its better than not hearing the vocal at all on her songs.

j

Nice 2nd mix Brent!!!

I just strolled in here again to see what's new and you put out another mix/production. Nice one!!!

Keep up the good work.

And the rest of you too... keep up the good work. And for the complainers... An ostrich is a bird.

AK

That is EXACTLY what I have been talking about ... I'd like to see more about technique of putting the mix together instead of how to create new tracks and computer enhance it. What are the approaches to making something that you have to work with ... work.

I do often use a chorus and short delay for fixing really bad vocals in a live situation .... blurring the sharp edges takes the attention away from pitch issues usually. If all else fails, bury the high end of it under another instrument. It is harder to hear pitch in the lower frequencies, so it usually helps out.

Of course, if it's just a bar band or someone that's pissed me off, let the off tune shine through

Thanks Andrew. Thanks for the info too Dan. That stuff sounds good.

I agree too Joe. But we're dealing with so many closely interrelated issues. The musical merit/construction/production of the song at hand and the mix of it.
What Justin put up for us, wasn't what I'd call a completed song. The idea was surely there, but running time was way too long, didn't have nearly enough counterpoint to support it and needed some molding as far as song form.

If you guys have followed this thru from the beginning, notice how the mixes use effects to cover the lack of all the above. Perfectly natural thing to do too and we've all felt compelled to do that from time to time.
But what a few did, was go back to the beginning at the song level... where {normally} this should have started in the first place. What was missing, was the artist's input and "new" performance after the fact. Missing because it was impossible, of course. And to quite an extent, things suffer in the end because of that. In the case of these adjustments in Justin's tune, they would have completely changed the attitude of the vocal performance. Changed the function of the acoustic guitar... on and on.
Then... you actually have something satisfying and fun to mix. And something to discuss, I'll add.
If nothing else, I think this thread has shown the song is the most important thing. If the song "ain't" happening, no amount of mixing will ever fix it.
Brent

Yes, Jeff. I find the URS Neve very useful and I use it a lot. If you have an ilok you can run their demos. Haven't tried the Massenburg.

I should mention that I only used the smallest amount of chorusing on the vocal. More of a harmonizer effect.

Yes Brent's exactly right. The contest started because of a light-hearted quible between Nick and Jeremy over who could do a better job mixing. I thought it'd be fun to post some "raw" tracks and see what people could do with them. What Brent did is really what I had in mind -- a demonstration of mixing and, yes, editing in a DAW that we could all learn from. I mean, when I think of the how enabling this technology has become compared to years ago, I'm still blown away. These tools, namely the computer, have reshaped the way we approach the task and the creativity. I think what Brent did is very musical but there is also science behind it. Did I have a country-pop version in mind when I wrote the song? No. But this is what makes it fun. The endless possibilities music and technology provide us.

The idea that bugs me the most is the artist relying on the engineer to fix everything, the engineer should have the ability to fix minor issues and not have to fix everything. Justin gave nothing but raw 'crap' tracks, wouldn't retrack any vocals, didn't bother to fix the garbage drum tracks and the bass lines were off. Brent may get some pleasure from acknowlegements for his contribution but what he has done with the song could have been done with a lead sheet and studio musicians.

I always get these musicians who go up onstage, get paid the upwards of $5k a show and all they do is adlib to their prerecorded cd. whoopty doo..

From my stand point, mixing a great song starts from the tracking process.

Yeah but it's like anything else. Maybe those were the best tracks I could do at the time. Sure I could do better but we can always do better. I think it's a collaboration. I don't think Brent made something bad sound good, I think he made something good, sound better. That's precisely an engineer's job. Would the song have turned out better if Brent was here in Oregon (or I was there in Michigan) to track. Probably. But we have this thing called the internet that makes this collaboration possible. Think of it. You can now do business worldwide whereas before you were limited to your local area.

Exactly my point. We have a large field of Milli Vannili's out there and most people don't know that anymore.

Seems to me we have a lot of grumpy engineers too.

5K a show? Who can live on that?

You can only do so many CD track acts before you start getting that way. When the most important instruction of the tour manager is making sure you know which mic's NOT to turn on, it gets a bit depressing.

Brent,

Your second mix is really impressive. It shows what can be done with some talent and artistic sensibility.

Strictly from a mix perspective, overall I thought it was very good except that in certain parts the vocal wasn't forward enough. In those particular sections it sounded like there were too many elements (organ, guitar, etc.) competing for the same frequency/volume space. Of course, others may disagree, but I just feel thats one area where it could be improved a little.

From an arrangement perspective, this was the most interesting thing of all. It sounded like Justin called you up and said, "Brent, Dick Clark just called and they want me to perform at the American Music Awards. Can you put a live show arrangement together for me?" The extra parts made it a bit over the top, but it was fun! What would have made the illusion of a live performance complete would have been to end it on a single note rather than fading it out.

In addition, I am not a master of any particular musical instrument, but it seems to me that the parts you added were beautifully played.

With all that being said, I suspect that your motivation behind this mix was to show what CAN be done without any self-imposed restrictions, and in that regard I believe you have really succeeded.

Great job Brent,
You take the CHEESE. I like the way the vocals sit in the tracks.Maybe the organ, guitar, etc. could stand to be pulled down in a couple of places.I think Justin just sent these tracks
out to see if anyone could whip them into shape. You did. He has probably already pressed the song and waiting on a release date. After all
it is a catchy little number.
Remember stacking tracks, "less is more" fronk10

Thanks for listening Fronk. Criticism concerning masking was very good too EWF.
The tune could make good use of more space in the instrument/playing dept. As Dan said the playing was a little over the top. Making better use of what was played... as in, less is more {indeed Fronk} would probably fix much of the masking. This likely demonstrates the slippery slope when trying to instantly switch from musician to mixer. Musician wants things that aren't always beneficial in the big scheme.
As far as motivation EWF, this was fun. But think it does show the importance of song and a little pre-production. Again, the missing ingredient was artist and outside musician involvement to put it all in motion. Those things would change the entire attitude again and better represent the artist's original intent.
Just wasn't possible here.

I'm going to set the end date as September 30 for the contest. I know a few folks who wanted to participate were either on vacation or too busy. One month left should be enough time. After September 30, we'll all vote to decide a winner. 1st prize is a Cadillac Eldorado, 2nd prize is a set of steak knives. Just kidding! There'll be some small prize for the winner, maybe a Amazon gift certificate. More importantly, you get the respect of your peers and an award certificate from the site. Cool huh?

TLiX (Sam) -

Take a listen to Brent's latest mix. He was kind enough to send me the entire Pro Tools session with no plugin's inserted except for Strike. I was thinking it'd be a trip to pass the session to you and maybe have your wife recut the vocals. Dyin' to hear how a female voice sounds on this song as that's how I originally intended it. The country-pop thing might be right up her alley. Let me know what you think. If you like the idea, I'll put it up on my FTP server for you to download. About 400-500 MBs.

http://www.audiotalkback.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=download&Number=34

Hi, everyone.

I stumbled onto this website looking for more info about the DA7 we use at church, and saw this contest. I'll probably post more on myself later. I'm a complete beginner when it comes to mixing, but I'm having fun learning.

I downloaded and listened to pretty much everyone's mix, and I've read nearly all the posts in this thread so far. I do like what Brent did with his latest. And Jeremy's current entry gets my vote for "most likely to have done his most recent mix on a 4-track cassette." (I think that's what he was going for with that entry, and also from what I've read I get the gist that we may see a second entry from him.)

Well, call me crazy, but after listening to all those mixes, and getting ear fatigue, I found that going back to Justin's original was like fresh air.

So, I went for something "cleaner." Here's my mix. I wouldn't really call it a contest entry; I'm very green at this; just having fun and thought I'd see what you all think about it. After I get a few critiques, I'll let you know what I used; I don't want the tools to bias your opinions quite yet.

Trying to learn how to mix is difficult, because there aren't many opportunities to get raw tracks. Thanks so much for making the raw materials available, Justin!

Swahl,
Nice job.. and yes I think you accomplished your goal of clean. That was first impression with out even reading your post. Really nice separation on everything and giving the tracks their own space. Kudos..

J

I'ts a group, Group drums .07 and get the piss out of ya!

Just for fun, here's a mix I did a few weeks ago.

Far From Home Cheap Knife Mix

Someone (I don't recall who) upthread was talking about doing stuff all on the cheap and that got me thinking. I set out to do the entire thing in my free time, at work, on my office desktop, with nothing but free-ware - just to see how far you could go in a crappy environment, with a cheap system and free tools.

The entire thing was done on a plain Dell office desktop PC with 726k of memory and onboard sound. Speakers were little desktop Harmon Kardons (not even a "gaming" system, with a subwoofer). The DAW I used was Cockos' "REAPER" (which I was so impressed with, I ended up sending them the $40 "registration fee"). All plugs were what comes with REAPER. No 3rd party plug-ins, at all.

This was all done in my spare time, between real work tasks, at my office. I imagine the total work put in is a couple of hours. I have never even monitored the mix on any other system.

I initially considered doing some major work to the arrangement and/or adding some instruments, as Jeff E and Brent did (spectacularly IMHO, I might add), since the tune lacks a bridge and kind of just goes on and on, but ultimately, I agree with some of the other folks' sentiments: that if this is really about the MIX, we shouldn't be adding new tracks and the like.

I did create some harmonies and I moved some of the guitars and drums around, but I even stopped doing that, eventually.

I honestly don't care about the "contest" aspect of this. I'm a really bad "mixer" and it was fun to just work on someone else's tracks for a bit, just as a diversion and an exercise.

Thats pretty cool Knife.. The exercise reminds me of last week. A bunch of Pro/Am photographers that take their expensive DSL cameras and long lenses to the Reno Air Races all were given little box cameras to see what they could do.

Peace,

J

E-gads the backing vocals don't sound good. Everything sounds kinda thin.

Thin, huh?... Everything?

Interesting. That's not a critique I would have expected.

I created the "harmonies" by taking the original vocals and running them through harmonization and pitch correction. That they sound bad IS a critique I would have expected.

Well, like I said, I know I'm no "mixer."

Hi Knife,

Nice job. Your approach (doing it with free stuff on a laptop) is refreshing and has a lot of merit. It's interesting to see what can be pulled off in different environments. Reaper is definitely a software to "watch"... developing at an astounding rate.

Thanks for posting this. Yeah... things could sound better/different... but for this application... it doesn't really matter.

Thanks for sharing.

AK

HOLY SHIT MAN,,, TWENTY TWO T H O S A N D VIEWS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! W H A T-T H E-F U C K ?????

All because of lil ol me???

Get a ladder and get over yourself!

hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha... next he will say he created the world in 4 days..

J

>The exercise reminds me of last week. A bunch of Pro/Am >photographers that take their expensive DSL cameras and long >lenses to the Reno Air Races all were given little box cameras to >see what they could do.

Perhaps something looking like flys flying through poles.

>Get a ladder and get over yourself!

ROTFL

Sorry, there sin't a ladder tall enough. I thnik Justin sholud end this thread and post a new tracks for folks to mix, this thread is done.

Hey Knife... for what you worked with, getting this far with free {or almost} tools, is pretty impressive.
Swahl... this doesn't sound like a beginner. It's well balanced, clean sounding and you didn't go overboard in the effects dept. Vocal sounds a tad overly sibilant... and some popping P's. But still, nice job I'd say.

Thanks for the comments, Brent. Knife, I'll be finding time to listen to yours soon.

More info about me & my mix: I've been playing keys and singing in a band at church for some years now, and got into doing the live sound for us & some other groups. Our expert sound guy donated his DA7 when he upgraded his home studio a couple years back. The DA7 is how I originally discovered DA7.com a few years back, and re-discovered it / now audiotalkback recently.

For my day job, I'm a software engineer. Over time I've owned various midi sequencing programs and digital audio stuff, and my home studio's equipment list really upgraded when Behringer blew out the DDX3216, followed by a blowout on the emu1212. And I got a good deal on a pair of used SM58s when the same guy who gave us the DA7 upgraded his live rig to Betas.

However, I've collected all this stuff really meaning to do something with it, but asside from one Midi sequence I created and recorded into a PC soundcard years ago, the only recording I've done was on one day this past summer, 3 songs by the 3 piece band my son's in -- and they're 7th graders. If you start by lowering your standards appropriately, they don't sound *too* bad. :-)

As far as my mix goes, though: I recently bought a MacBook. So I thought I'd see what I could do in Garage Band; both the Mac and GB are new for me. Importing the tracks was a B*tch because the prorgram kept getting weird and locking up on each import; I ended up with the import/save/quit/restart/import next approach to finally get it done. But once everything was in there, there wasn't any further problems.

The acoustic guitar I compressed slightly, and left it with no effects. But the meat of the track sounded a bit empty, so I dup'd one channel of the guitar, delayed it by a bit (dragged the track to the right) and fed that through a chorus preset of some kind.

I added some reverb to the electric gutiar because I wanted to place it further back in the space. I was really pleased with the way that turned out. I did a bit of the same to the piano. That went ok, but what happened to the lead guitar was cooler.

I noticed there was some junk, between phrases, on the lead vocal track at around 2:48. So I figured out how to draw a volume automation curve.

That's about it besides tweaks to EQ here & there, and adusting the "master track" parameters.

Sibilance seems to be my achillies heel lately, both here and in live sound (another guy at church pointed some out to me recently). Perhaps partly because in mixing for church bands, the directors I've dealt with are pretty admant that the words being sung are heard and understood by the listeners, so consonants need to get through. Pointers on how to deal with it, both with only the tools in a DA7 (eq/comp/etc.) and with a full blown locker of outboard equipment / computer plugins, would be quite welcomed by me!

DAMN! sorry this is so long!

Swahl. There is a way to do de-essing with a DA-7 and no other processing. But for all the gymnastics it takes setting it up... it's better just to insert a hardware de-esser in a channel send/return.

Plugins... only familiar with what there is here and there's one supplied with Pro Tools software. One that came with Waves Diamond bundle. The Waves stuff is a little more flexible than the stock PT plugin. Either can just be used as an insert on the channel {s} that need de-essing.

But you can also do frequency dependent compression {which is what a de-esser is anyway} via a compressor's side chain input. This goes for hardware or plugin compressors.... hardware as long as the compressor has a side chain input. Either/or requires multing the vocal. One as the straight {or passed/heard} signal. One not heard, to feed the side chain of the compressor that's inserted on the straight vocal channel. The idea is, to hit the compressor's side chain with the frequency band you want to compress. There's some hit/miss here but if the secondary/multed vocal triggering the side chain, is eq'd with a big, narrow Q boost between 4k and 12k, that compresses the primary vocal track... But only when those frequencies are present. Like on S's, T's etc. It'll always be a little different from singer to singer, and gender as far as what works. Same thing for plosives... but there the secondary vocal will need a much lower frequency to trigger the side chain.
I'm probably hypersensitive and too familiar from editing the heck out of Justin's tune. But there's a popping P on the third line {word "hope"} that's really bad. It can go by un-noticed because it almost sounds like a kick drum hit. This one can just be snipped out of the vocal track without any of the above.

How are you de-essing with the 7? No sidechain that I can see.

I didn't say there was a sidechain in the DA-7 Joe. But you can create a sidechain of sorts.

Mult a vocal track in the DA-7. One channel has to be used as the main signal that's ultimately passed onto the L/R bus. The other for the EQ source to compress the main vocal.

Take both vocal channels out of the L/R bus. Assign the EQ source vocal to bus 1. The main vocal to bus 2.
Then enable the compressor across the bus pair and be sure the bus pair and compressor is set for "stereo" operation.

Take bus 1 out of the L/R bus {so the EQ or control track stops there}... make sure bus 2 "is" assigned to the L/R bus. Then set the compressor threshold on the bus pair, just above where it starts to compress.

Go back to the main input channel that's assigned to bus 1.
Enable the EQ and with a semi-narrow Q, boost 4, 6, 8k or whatever. Now... when the threshold of the compressor at the bus pair is exceeded with the EQ boost, it will de-ess the vocal assigned to bus 2.
Again... considerable gymnastics but works in a pinch.

interesting trick .. never thought of that.