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Old 08-14-2020, 09:08 AM   #41
Bass6
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Bah. Work crisis consumed most of the week so this was a last-minute rush job. I hope I've done everything right from the submission point of view, but the mix will be pants!
Hey ho, all good fun. Good luck everyone!🤘
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Old 08-14-2020, 06:23 PM   #42
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Yeah,

The real payoff here is in the feedback you'll get from your peers. So I encourage you to give specific, honest feedback.

Also after the contest they typically make the project files available or have in the past anyway. No idea if @darjama is going to be able to make that happen or not. If so I highly recommend downloading the project files of the mixes you like the best to see what effects and settings and organization, etc... is going on.

This is another opportunity to learn. Often you'll find that others use plugins you didn't even know were available, or maybe exactly how you may want to use them.

It's not far off now!!!

Good luck to all!
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Old 08-14-2020, 10:41 PM   #43
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@PVinKC, I'm planning on making the project files available once the results are ready. It's definitely one of the most helpful parts of the contest for me.

I've been working on getting the voting/listening page ready and haven't had time to review entries, I'll hopefully get through them all this weekend.
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Old 08-15-2020, 08:03 AM   #44
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Dang, I wish I’d seen this earlier. Hopefully I’ll be able to join you next month .
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Old 08-18-2020, 11:28 PM   #45
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My apologies, I'm still working on the listening/voting page, so I'm pushing back voting for a day.
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Old 08-19-2020, 02:45 AM   #46
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Hi, I am new to the contest. In some older threads I've seen some problems with current voting system and also it is a bit confusing to assign 1., 2., 3. place. A place is an end result of voting, not a mean for voting.

One cosmetic change would be enough - instead of assigning places, assign directly number of points - 3 points, 2 points, 1 point. All is needed here is just to rename "1st place" vote to "3 points" and so on.

For some further consideration, what if each voter had 6 points and would be allowed to distribute them freely across any number of tracks he desires. On one extreme, he could assign all 6 points to just one exceptionally great track, or 1 point to each of six equal-ish tracks.
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Old 08-19-2020, 04:44 AM   #47
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Quote:
Originally Posted by bFooz View Post
Hi, I am new to the contest. In some older threads I've seen some problems with current voting system and also it is a bit confusing to assign 1., 2., 3. place. A place is an end result of voting, not a mean for voting.

One cosmetic change would be enough - instead of assigning places, assign directly number of points - 3 points, 2 points, 1 point. All is needed here is just to rename "1st place" vote to "3 points" and so on.

For some further consideration, what if each voter had 6 points and would be allowed to distribute them freely across any number of tracks he desires. On one extreme, he could assign all 6 points to just one exceptionally great track, or 1 point to each of six equal-ish tracks.
The contest is not being redesigned. It's just being hosted by someone else. The point of the voting system is to pick your 1st, 2nd and 3rd most favorite tracks.
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Old 08-19-2020, 03:47 PM   #48
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I toyed with using a different kind of voting system (distribute 100 points however you like, a tournament-style bracket system), but what Dave came up with isn't overcomplicated and it's fair. So it's what we're sticking with for now. But for clarity's sake I've labeled it:

1st place (3 points):
2nd place (2 points):
3rd place (1 point):

I should be able to have it live tonight (midnight Pacific Time), though a few things still need work. Please give me your feedback and let me know if anything is broken.
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Old 08-20-2020, 01:12 AM   #49
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Hi y'all. Unfortunately I couldn't make it for this round, but I wanted to wish you all good luck!
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Old 08-20-2020, 09:37 AM   #50
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My judger method:

I download all the submissions.
In reaper I use the action, "normalize Loudness of selected items to xxLUFS" in orden to get a equal loudness for all of them.

After That, listen carefully each of them in my monitor, in my head phones and finally if I have time enought in my car.

Of course this method is posible only while the number of submitions reamain low.

The best for all of you.

Javier.
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Old 08-27-2020, 11:08 PM   #51
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And the results are in!

August's winner is ... bFooz!



Congratulations!


You can read all the comments submitted during the voting process and download all the project files at https://reamixed.com/results.

I've got a few new features planned for next month, and hopefully I'll be able to improve the user interface a bit as well.
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Old 08-28-2020, 02:18 AM   #52
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Thank you for running. Was really well worth it for the learning experience. Hope it continues and I'll be in next month.

I'll leave more feedback on each track next time too. But then I'm new to this so didn't really know how to describe / differentiate.

Thanks every one who left feedback. I am off to read about what loudness i should have used. 🤔

Congratulations to bFooz and Javiamallo👏🏾🤘🏾
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Old 08-28-2020, 02:36 AM   #53
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Thanks, that was a close one!

Quote:
Originally Posted by darjama View Post
I've got a few new features planned for next month, and hopefully I'll be able to improve the user interface a bit as well.
Another voting idea if you did not already considered this would be that each song would be rated with 0..10 points (100 is too much IMO). I think this could be easier for voters since it reflects a voting process better == listen to each song and rate it.
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Old 08-28-2020, 05:44 AM   #54
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Ehh...4th out of 13 isn't too bad. I must admit to mixing this in a couple hours. I didn't revisit it at all, just uploaded. I was wanting to test myself on the level of having a client to mix for and only having a couple of hours to mix.

Granted, if I was mixing for a client I wouldn't be limited to stock plugins. That is not to say that I could not achieve as good a result with the stock plugins. But that isn't my experience either. So all things considered I'm happy with the results.

I have been extremely busy lately and didn't get time to give proper comments. I apologise to everyone for that. My mother is in the final stages of life and most of my "free time" is spent trying to get her house ready to sell so we can pay for her care.

I will try to have more time to do a full critique on each song as well as knock out some more "Mixing with Paulie" tutorials going forward. But can't make promises at this time. Hope everyone understands.
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Old 08-28-2020, 11:30 AM   #55
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Quote:
Originally Posted by bFooz View Post
Thanks, that was a close one!



Another voting idea if you did not already considered this would be that each song would be rated with 0..10 points (100 is too much IMO). I think this could be easier for voters since it reflects a voting process better == listen to each song and rate it.
I am thinking about changing the voting system, but I want to reduce the number of comparisons people make at one time. Ideally, I'd like it to be a series of AB comparisons, so you just pick the track you liked best, and the tracks are ranked by percentage of wins.

Alternatively, it could be a tournament style system, where you rank a quarter of the submitted tracks over consecutive 2 day periods, and the final 2 days is used to rank the winners of the previous rounds.

Looking over the voting data, it looks like about half the people voted for themselves as #1. So part of what I'd like to do in a new voting system is to counteract that somehow.
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Old 08-28-2020, 06:43 PM   #56
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Quote:
Originally Posted by darjama View Post

Looking over the voting data, it looks like about half the people voted for themselves as #1.
Wow, really? I didn't think we could vote for ourselves, or I would've got more than 1 point

Great job organising Daryl, interface seems to work well and it's easy to follow - thanks for all your efforts.

On the song, only one point really: I was really surprised that no-one else seemed to do much to correct the sonics of the bass. This is pretty much a funk song, and as a bass player for some 40 odd years, that was one of the grottiest funk bass sounds I've heard. Shame, because the rest of the instruments were very well played and recorded. I didn't get much mix time in the end, but most of it was spent fighting with the bass.
Thanks to everyone who commented - useful info, and I'll be rethinking my reverb approach next time!
Onwards and upwards!👍
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Old 08-28-2020, 10:47 PM   #57
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Well done bFooz and javiramallo on your mixes. Thanks to everyone who provided feedback, and of course thanks again Daryl for your work getting all of this up and running. And wow, the functionality to filter comments to each mix and also to simultaneously play them back on the same page is really nice!

Couple of things I wanted to bring up:
After seeing comments referencing the dBTP figures for each mix, I had a question about the -1dB max peak contest rule: does/should this refer to intersample peaks (true peaks) as shown in the SWS Loudness readout, or Youlean Loudness Meter etc? This would be the most readily verifiable way since we already have the tools on hand, but Reaper's native meters will only show the dBFS value of each sample without accounting for ISPs

Some of the submissions were in 44.1kHz while others were in 48kHz. My opinion would be to standardise the contest to one or the other (Dave's contest required 44.1kHz submissions), or to require that project rates match the source file rates (in this month's case it would have been 48kHz). The differences between working at either rate would be minor, but definitely tangible e.g. adjusting higher frequencies in reaEQ.

As far as people voting themselves #1, my 2 cents is that voting for yourself at all seems counterproductive to your own development whether you deserve points or not--after all we're blind to our own flaws, and biased regarding our own work one way or another. It's much better to evaluate others' mixes from a more objective standpoint rather to complicate our judgements by comparing them to our own mixes and having to internally justify why ours deserves more points. TLDR; the focus here shouldn't be to win but to improve.

Last edited by Tiny Tortoise; 08-28-2020 at 11:42 PM.
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Old 08-29-2020, 01:36 AM   #58
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Tiny Tortoise View Post
After seeing comments referencing the dBTP figures for each mix,
Is there any true peak limiter in Reaper by default? If not, this should be just straight digital peaks.
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Old 08-29-2020, 02:35 AM   #59
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Hi all.

Congratulations bFooz. Great job there keeping the mix natural. I love it.

In the other hand, what a surprise !!!! Thank you. I am really happy and proud to be in second place.
My keys were:
.Try to get a good tonal balance.
.Compress, Yes !, but Do not overcompress to maintain naturalness.
.Choose a couple of outstanding IR's for the reverbs.
.Finally, be clear about the loudness and TP limit of the final mix.

Very important,! I want to thank Darjama and DaveKeehl for their effort to make this contest possible.

Thanks also to all for the effort to write feedback.

About the voting system. Please keep it simple.
Perhaps, this time it has not been easy to vote and create feedback, but IMOH is mainly due to the fact that everything had to be done at once in a single session, so it required time and concentration.
If a method could be found to be able to do the same thing as on this occasion, but allowing, in some way, the user to do it at his own pace, little by little when he can so that, finally when he has finished, upload all at once the vote and the feedbacks, it would be great.

About the rules:

Hey folks, let's keep it simple too please.

Rule 1: Only REAPER stock plugins.
Rule 2: DO NOT change or make up sounds where there aren't any, I mean replacement samples and things like that.
Rule 3: Same SampleRate and Bit as the original files.
Rule 4: Maximum Loudness -14Lufs (Integrated).
............. and if you like .....
Rule 5: Maximum TruPeak of the entire track -1TP, or instead "Digital Peaks" -0.5 for example! what is going to be easier for everyone.

Why go further?
They are not complicated rules to comply with. You just have to want to read them and that's it.
Keep it simple.

About "I vote myself." I see no problem in that.
If you can, you can, if you can't, you can't. It is the same for all participants.

My personal opinion is: I would prefer that it not be possible but for this, we would have to add the:

Rule 6: In the voting process you cannot vote yourself.

Since, if something is not clearly established, why should it be done in one way or another? For each of us (different cultures and countries around the world, fortunately) the criteria that can lead us to think that something is right or wrong, honorable or not honorable can be very different.
This is why, if we want that "I vote myself" is not allowed, it is necessary to specify in a rule to know what to abide by and / or how to act.


I wish you all the best
Sorry for my English (The google translator helped me).
See you at the next.

Javi Ramallo.

Last edited by javiramallo; 08-29-2020 at 08:24 AM.
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Old 08-29-2020, 08:25 AM   #60
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Quote:
Originally Posted by javiramallo View Post
For each of us (different cultures and countries around the world, fortunately) the criteria that can lead us to think that something is right or wrong, honorable or not honorable can be very different.
I feel I should clarify that I'm not trying to throw shade on anybody for voting for themselves here. In previous contests it's been established well enough that nobody is going to stop you or make a big fuss about it. My opinion remains though, that I think it's a counterproductive practice to the ones who do it. We know going in that winning this contest doesn't give any fancy prizes, and the pond is small enough that being a big fish won't elevate our status in the real world. So then the only reasons to do it are for the practice, the feedback, mixed with a bit of friendly rivalry to help us push ourselves.
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Old 08-30-2020, 11:24 PM   #61
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A couple points of clarification:

Sample rate: current rules say keep it at the same sample rate as the media files. Let's stick with that. It would suck if mixes got penalized because they forgot to use best quality sample conversion.

Peak: I think -1 dBFS instead of TruePeak is fine, I don't think I've seen a file with a peak of -1 dBFS and TruePeak over 0, which IMO is what the concern about TruePeak is.

Start Point: I did specify in the rules to not change the start point, as I was working on a marker system for the player to compare parts of the song. I think only one person followed that rule. I didn't finish the marker system in time for the August contest, should be done for September. In any case, I'm going to scratch that rule going forward since I have another way of dealing with it in the marker system.

In terms of votes for self, I think I'll not include it in the rules, but put a suggestion on the voting page. Something like, "In the spirit of using the contest as an opportunity to learn, we ask that all participants refrain from voting for their own mixes." I don't want to have to try to police this too much, since obviously if people want to evade detection they can.
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Old 08-31-2020, 01:35 AM   #62
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Quote:
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In terms of votes for self, I think I'll not include it in the rules, but put a suggestion on the voting page. Something like, "In the spirit of using the contest as an opportunity to learn, we ask that all participants refrain from voting for their own mixes." I don't want to have to try to police this too much, since obviously if people want to evade detection they can.
I would probably put this differently. This formulation suggests that it is bad to vote for the self. What if someone truly considers his mix better than the rest?

It could be "In order to provide fair results, please consider only the quality of the mix when voting."
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Old 08-31-2020, 01:40 AM   #63
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Originally Posted by bFooz View Post
I would probably put this differently. This formulation suggests that it is bad to vote for the self. What if someone truly considers his mix better than the rest?

It could be "In order to provide fair results, please consider only the quality of the mix when voting."
Agree with bFooz.
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Old 08-31-2020, 09:52 AM   #64
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I do think it's better not to vote for yourself. It's virtually impossible not to be biased to think your mix is best, you mixed it to sound just how you wanted it ideally, most likely in the same listening environment you're using to compare it to other people's mixes. Even if you think your mix is best (I'd venture to say most of us do), I'd strongly encourage you not to vote for it.

I think we either have to discourage people from voting for themselves or explicitly state it's allowed. Otherwise people who assume they shouldn't are at a disadvantage.
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Old 08-31-2020, 10:12 AM   #65
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Quote:
Originally Posted by darjama View Post
I think we either have to discourage people from voting for themselves or explicitly state it's allowed. Otherwise people who assume they shouldn't are at a disadvantage.
It should be either impossible (do not show me my mix at all among entries) or allowed.
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Old 08-31-2020, 12:24 PM   #66
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Congrats all. Can't wait to start mixing with you all again next month!
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Old 08-31-2020, 01:39 PM   #67
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Quote:
Originally Posted by bFooz View Post
It should be either impossible (do not show me my mix at all among entries) or allowed.
Again agree with bFooz.
I think that we shouldn't be talking about this anymore.

Daryl, For your peace of mind, write the suggestion, and let it run.

Cheers
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Old 08-31-2020, 02:36 PM   #68
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Quote:
Originally Posted by bFooz View Post
It should be either impossible (do not show me my mix at all among entries) or allowed.
Hmm, I could do a 'did you contribute a mix?' / 'select your username' form before you get to the listening/voting page which would then filter your mix out.
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Old 08-31-2020, 02:42 PM   #69
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Quote:
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Hmm, I could do a 'did you contribute a mix?' / 'select your username' form before you get to the listening/voting page which would then filter your mix out.
Yea, that would work. But from the mixer's point of view it's kind of an unnecessary step so for a good UX there should be some kind of reward in it. In other words, why would I do that?

Or maybe let only participants vote?
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Old 09-02-2020, 02:50 PM   #70
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From my experience, the best way to deal with this situation was to clearly state that voting for yourself is highly discouraged, but not forbidden. Of course a good randomization of the submissions order is really handy to confuse people. I used to shuffle the entries many many times until there was a good level of randomness.

Sometimes users voted for themselves, but I always pointed that out on the monthly threads here on the forum, so that trend slowly disappeared with time.
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