martins mixing challenge - with your monitors off...

by **Martin** » Thu May 24, 2007 12:24 pm

i hesitated for a good 5 minutes before pressing new topic in fear!

i had an idea for people who want to pass 15 mintues

a short song, 8 or so tracks of the usual suspects of instruments

mix the whole thing, using plugins or whatever you choose, without listening to any of it, then post the result

turn the 'just use your ears' thing on its head, and maybe learn something about your mixing approach

i think it would be really interesting to hear the same thing a few times mixed only with settings and meters....

anyone want to have a go at it? i'll whip something up if anyones keen

by **jkhuri44** » Thu May 24, 2007 12:47 pm

hey!

thats awesome...

i dont have ANY spare time...but id be keen as a bean to try it! and learn stuff while im at it..

post away...(you can use sendspace to slap huge files on the web---if you dont already know, and good thing is, they stay uploaded for months)

by **Chris H** » Thu May 24, 2007 12:51 pm

Ok... i'm in....so you will put the traks on a server for us to download?....and trust that we won't sneek a listen as we do our thing.......
resisting temptation.....i'll have to drink some coffee and eat some chocolate as i go

by **jkhuri44** » Thu May 24, 2007 12:51 pm

ohh...

wait...

this might be horrendously stupid, but do we first listen to the raw tracks?

THEN mix with monitors off....or is it just total deaf mixing...LOL?

by **Chris H** » Thu May 24, 2007 12:53 pm

jkhuri44 wrote:ohh...

wait...

this might be horrendously stupid, but do we first listen to the raw tracks?

THEN mix with monitors off....or is it just total deaf mixing...LOL?

Come on!!! .......Total deaf mixing or nothing. Ha!!

by **jkhuri44** » Thu May 24, 2007 12:58 pm

thats a mad idea...seriously!

one thing, it has to be honest...ie. you get one go...and if its shite...its gotta be posted! LOL..

otherwise we can re attempt till the cows come home...and it would end up being as good as mixing while listening....

by **Chris H** » Thu May 24, 2007 1:05 pm

Gotta be prepared for it to sound like shite.... i wont even listen to it till after i post my mix up for every one else to laugh at........life is not worth living if you cant take a few risks....
I would expect that the traks are well recorded an a reasonably accurate reference system and we get a good idea of what each track is...kick snr oh vox elec guit accoustic bass whatever. and music style ... Alt country..blues... jazz combo .. indie pop rock .. whatever

by **Martin** » Thu May 24, 2007 1:13 pm

yep! i shall have something up on my server by this afternoon for you to NOT listen too, i think i have something old-ish i recorded. keyboard, drums, bass and a vocal and maybe guitar...

glad you're all keen! i was scared i was going to get banned...

the deal is, you cannot listen to it AT ALL until you're in the process of bouncing it down, and don't chicken out and not post it!!

would MP3's zipped up into one file be fine for everyone? i'll start them all at zero so it works in any program etc

i say mp3 cause in wav it will be a huge huge file, either way i'll make a minute thirty or so long so its smallish

by **Sheer Noise** » Thu May 24, 2007 1:15 pm

..... whack it into logic, use all channel-strip presets for eq, compression etc... and mix visually balancing the meters on each with eyes only... Gimme a go!

Dave

by **Martin** » Thu May 24, 2007 2:17 pm

alrighty, i was going to wait till i got home to pull out one of my better recordings but i'm at work and really keen to get the ball rolling so i'm uploading an old punk style track instead. its got..

kick,snare,tom1,tom2,OH L, OH R, Bass, Guitar & 2 synths

will be up within the hour, stay tuned

once we're done with this one we should have another go at something!

by **Martin** » Thu May 24, 2007 2:50 pm

here it is mates! - 5 year old punk song, should be a good for a giggle

http://www.sendspace.com/file/139y39

thats the mp3 version, zipped into an archive

WAV version i can put up too, but its 80 meg

by **Chris H** » Thu May 24, 2007 2:58 pm

Went to the link and got the ..." This Site Has Been Blocked" ... notice in the Safari window.. I suspect it's from the network admin settings here at work. First time ive had this though?? Oh well i will have to wait till i get home and give the DL a try.

by **Martin** » Thu May 24, 2007 3:09 pm

http://www.cmproductions.com.au/studio/ ... geMP3s.zip

that will be finished in about 10 mins from the time of this post...

cheers

by **jkhuri44** » Thu May 24, 2007 9:06 pm

HAHAHAHAHA!!

i cant believe it....!

done.....

it was pretty funny, 20 minutes....and in the 19th minutes im like...F*$&K IT!!! ...cant wait to hear this thing...

i shocked myself...i thought it was going to be a real stab in the dark...incredible how many of the levels were set instinctively....

a tad over compressed for my tastes!

the vox are a tad loud as well.. but maybe thats what the mastering engineer would have done anyway to make it radio ready.

Mixed this in Cubase SX 3...with an SSL G series 400 EQ on the master, and the SSL Mix Bus Comp, followed by Waves L3

all the individual tracks, only used waves Rennaissance Compressor, and Rennaissance EQ....

i forgot to add reverb to anything, once i rendered it, i noticed...DOH....but the synths make it sorta ambient, which worked out anyway, punk would have minimal to no verb anyway...

well, that was fun....wouldnt mind trying it again to see if this wasnt a fluke...LOL....

Heres the link to the mix, a 320KB mp3:

http://download.yousendit.com/ABFAFF455B6E60C0

What'chall Think?

by **heathen** » Fri May 25, 2007 9:41 am

You guys are mad! I'll give it a go, hahaha.

by **Linear** » Fri May 25, 2007 10:59 am

I have enough trouble mixing with the monitors on!

Sounds like a novel idea though. I seem to remember Terry Manning doing something similar - is that where you got the idea from?

Chris

by **heathen** » Fri May 25, 2007 11:31 am

Jk that sounded bloody terrible, haha, so does mine! Check it out, now wheres the embarassed emoticon?

http://www.sendspace.com/file/yozgem

Was bored today, now off for some fishing.

by **Sheer Noise** » Fri May 25, 2007 11:40 am

About to try the Logic "Preset-Channel-Stip-Only" method... wish me luck! :P

Dave

by **jkhuri44** » Fri May 25, 2007 11:50 am

yeh, it did sound terrible...rofl

im more surprised by the fact i kept going...lol

by **chris p** » Fri May 25, 2007 12:03 pm

I sort of get the idea, and its good comedy value, but I think a more interesting challenge would be to see what phorum phriends can do with the mix with monitors on - the bonus points being for innovative mixes. Exactly when we all have time for that I don't know, but I'd like to put some of those tracks through Stav's backwards compression, for example.

Peter Gabriel ran something along those lines a while ago - providing the tracking files for one of his songs, the best remix winning a Duende or something like that.

by **heathen** » Fri May 25, 2007 12:05 pm

[quote="jkhuri44"]yeh, it did sound terrible...rofl

im more surprised by the fact i kept going...lol[/quote]

Hahaha. Same, lol.

by **Chris H** » Fri May 25, 2007 12:24 pm

Ok, the download worked. I'll see if i get time to give it a shot today.

by **Martin** » Fri May 25, 2007 12:48 pm

chris p wrote:I sort of get the idea, and its good comedy value, b.

thats probably a bigger part of it...

my actual inspiration for the idea was one of the composers where i work was on the phone to a client and was tweaking regions in one of his works

there are a bunch of things that DAW users do without needing to hear them and i thought we'd go the extra mile and not hear it at all!

to be honest that track is pretty rough anyway which i thought would add to the comedy value :D

by **Martin** » Fri May 25, 2007 12:52 pm

jkhuri44 wrote:HAHAHAHAHA!!

i cant believe it....!

done.....

not bad at all!!!!

by **jkhuri44** » Fri May 25, 2007 1:07 pm

wouldnt mind trying it again...

was pretty funny..

i have no idea if i've learnt anything though...hahaha

by **Martin** » Fri May 25, 2007 3:47 pm

i'll put up another one, a bit more refined this time :D

by **Chris H** » Fri May 25, 2007 4:01 pm

Ok finished and up on myspace in 5 min
www.myspace.com/bigheaventhestudio

by **Chris H** » Fri May 25, 2007 5:32 pm

Here is the link on sendspace...// so i can save face and embarrasment and delete it off myspace. ....

http://www.sendspace.com/file/5nh6l7

by **jkhuri44** » Fri May 25, 2007 6:35 pm

woos!

LOL

by **jkhuri44** » Fri May 25, 2007 6:35 pm

actually, probably a smart move..u dont wanna be getting rid of business :P

hahaha

martins mixing challenge - with your monitors off...

martins mixing challenge - with your monitors off...

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