reaMIXed: The Reaper Mixing Contest - December 2020

[Funicello3]

Probably a stupid question, but how do I know which mix is mine on the voting page?

Nevermind, just figured it out...the voting buttons are greyed out for one of the mixes.

[Grundton]

It worked. Thank you.

[javiramallo]

Originally Posted by jansen

What a lovely song, beautifully recorded. Voting is going to be hard as there is so little to do.

Thanks Javimarallo, I'm going to enjoy this

Thanks to you Jensen. I hope you enjoyed. I did did.
Your are right, The voting is difficult this month.

[javiramallo]

Originally Posted by Funicello3

Great song choice. Amazing vocal.

yeah .. that's it.!

[javiramallo]

Originally Posted by WaveTrans

Has anyone found a decent reference track for this?

Please don´t hesitate to share it with us

Sorry, I couldn't joing to this forum until now.

The more decent reference for this song I could find was in youtube.

But, in the other hand I used as reference the following songs:


https://open.spotify.com/track/7tKJd...S0eHd8Nh_9qNSg
and
https://open.spotify.com/track/3EhqS...QKCshx87uvJRbw

[javiramallo]

Originally Posted by WaveTrans

Yes, same here; best I found so far was

https://youtu.be/-T_aMNbXVdA

Anyone found a name for the genre we´re dealing with here?

Some jazz reggae funk fusion?

Good question.

Maybe, "Vocal Smooth Jazz".


I couldn´t enjoy this forum until now, sorry for the late reply.

.

[javiramallo]

Originally Posted by StrumminSteve

I uploaded just now...I didnt see anything re the 96 vs 48k requirement on the rules page. Anyhow...wow..what a song..love her voice and man she plays with some talented cats out there. Good luck all...was fun....and Happy Holidays.... ;o)

Yes, she is amazing!

[Trogdor]

I have submitted my notes and voting, Hopefully it worked.

[WaveTrans]

Originally Posted by javiramallo

Sorry, I couldn't joing to this forum until now.

The more decent reference for this song I could find was in youtube.

But, in the other hand I used as reference the following songs:


https://open.spotify.com/track/7tKJd...S0eHd8Nh_9qNSg
and
https://open.spotify.com/track/3EhqS...QKCshx87uvJRbw

Thanks, nice pieces.

[LCM!]

I've just voted; the more I'm on this, the more I love it.
Thanks Javi for the song: it has been a pleasure to work on such a lovely and sweet piece of good taste; I hope my mix didn´t spoil it, at least.
And thanks to Daryl for his efforts and his patience.
Looking forward to seeing all your projects.

[StrumminSteve]

So....l had the crash just before uploading notes n votes....got votes in but sorry lost notes. Sooo...there will ba another round for top 4 ?....or was that it? Great job by all...some challenges for some inc myself. Heck of a Gal to enjoy....very nice pic for the holidays. Happy holidays to all and Merry Christmas....good luck to the tops...

[darjama]

Originally Posted by StrumminSteve

So....l had the crash just before uploading notes n votes....got votes in but sorry lost notes. Sooo...there will ba another round for top 4 ?....or was that it? Great job by all...some challenges for some inc myself. Heck of a Gal to enjoy....very nice pic for the holidays. Happy holidays to all and Merry Christmas....good luck to the tops...

Hmmm, I was hoping all crashing was fixed, sorry about that. If you can shoot me a note about what you were doing before it crashed I can try to track down the bug.
P
There is only a single round, the multi round approach was not well received so we abandoned it midstream last month.

[darjama]

Voting is closed, I'll have results in a couple days.

I've brought the archive online, with results from the previous contests and the old files:
https://reamixed.com/archive

Next month we'll be switching to a star rating system. In the survey it was what a solid majority of people wanted. And I think it should be more fair. I hate seeing solid mixes get low scores as happens sometimes.

[StrumminSteve]

Originally Posted by darjama

Hmmm, I was hoping all crashing was fixed, sorry about that. If you can shoot me a note about what you were doing before it crashed I can try to track down the bug.
P
There is only a single round, the multi round approach was not well received so we abandoned it midstream last month.

I think i was changing mixes i was listening too... from the area notes are input. No worry..im sure was just a net prob. I think i saw the suggestion to switch between mixes on the playlist side. I dloaded the flacs anyhow earlier...but was trying to hear difference with your normalized setup. I look forward to results and hope we can see the winners mix file in future. Thanks.

[WaveTrans]

Originally Posted by darjama

Voting is closed, I'll have results in a couple days.

I've brought the archive online, with results from the previous contests and the old files:
https://reamixed.com/archive

Next month we'll be switching to a star rating system. In the survey it was what a solid majority of people wanted. And I think it should be more fair. I hate seeing solid mixes get low scores as happens sometimes.

Excellent, thankx!

Tried to download the december mixes ("download all project files") but get an error message from both the results page link and the archive link.

Not Found

The requested URL was not found on this server.

Additionally, a 404 Not Found error was encountered while trying to use an ErrorDocument to handle the request.

[javiramallo]

For the moment is not possible to download the project files.

[javiramallo]

Hello!!

Congratulations to the winners @tinytortoise and @Trogdor.
I love your mixes which sound amazing.
An extraordinary choice of reverb and planes between elements! the feeling is so natural that it is a pleasure to listen to them.
Congratulations again!

Thanks Daryl for making sure everything works.

BTW: I missed bFooz.

[darjama]

The project files should be there now, sorry for the delay.

Congrats to this month's winner, tiny tortoise! I'll be in touch shortly about choosing a song for next month.



see https://reamixed.com/results for all the comments.

Thank you all for taking part in the contest. I love listening to all the entries, and look forward to seeing what's to come next year!

[StrumminSteve]

Congrats to the top cats and thanks to ya for managing and making this happen. Its great to give it a shot and compare to others. I knew i messed up on my mix but it's a good reference to compare and further tweak to get as close to the winners mix result...a reference which will improve my future results...i believe. Anyway...look forward to the next great song im sure...take care all..😎

[Funicello3]

Congrats to tinytortoise!

I managed to pick the top 3, so at least I know I can hear a good mix. Lots of work to do to make my own mix better, though. Really appreciate all the comments on my mix and find them all to be helpful.

Now I'm off to dissect the top 3 projects and learn something.

Thanks darjama for making this happen!

[garanimals]

Nice job all!

First time mixing solely on headphones for me.
Hopefully next time I will be more of a contender.

[StrumminSteve]

Originally Posted by garanimals

Nice job all!

First time mixing solely on headphones for me.
Hopefully next time I will be more of a contender.

I had to mix on the Cans also this go...I knew was gonna be a lil risky...though i dont blame my slacking upload totally on that. That said...Im sorry i didnt get my input(notes)on each mix up for all..I wanted to share my take on each. Some very good stuff going on. Im thankful to have the chance to do this ...thanks Darjama for all you do to make it happen. Look forward to next go...Happy new year all...Its certainly gotta be a better one...hopefully for all ... ;o)

[Trogdor]

Hi,

I really enjoyed doing this mix. This was my first mix in this contest and I really had no clue on how I was going to do. I was aiming for top 3 of course but I just wanted it to sound good either way. I have mixed some tracks before but really not very many. In fact a lot of stuff I have mixed was very poorly recorded and are frustrating to make sound good LOL. This was my first time mixing horns.

Congrats to @tinytortoise for a great mix. I did vote for his to be number 1. I gave @javiramallo number 3 I think, so at least I could hear good mixes when I know them :P. Interesting at looking at the different projects to see how we all get to a finished result in various different ways.

Thanks again to @darjama for hosting this contest. Great job on the site, I think it is fantastic!

I'm looking forward to the next mix. I hope to burnainate some more mixes in 2021

[WaveTrans]

Hi! Could it be that my mix is not in the project file folder, since I can´t find it there?

[Tiny Tortoise]

This month's song was a really fun one. It sounded great before even starting haha. It was a really nice exercise and reminder in keeping things simple* yet deliberate. Thanks everyone for the always-helpful feedback, and of course thanks always to Daryl for your efforts running this contest every month. Also want to wish everyone a happy new year!

For anyone taking a peek at my project file, I feel I should explain the two convoluted-looking FX chains--one on the drum bus and one on a reverb send:

On the drums, I'm using an EQ to isolate some frequency regions to run through a saturation, but first adding a stage of (roughly) envelope-following DC to bias the saturation so it generates even order harmonics. Any remaining DC is then filtered. The saturated part then gets mixed back into the dry signal. It's more straightforward than it looks, I swear!

The reverb chain was really an experiment I wanted to try out this month, in an attempt to get more out of the stock ReaVerb plugin (rather than the whole picking out IRs business). Essentially there are frequency crossover splits, with each band routed into its own ReaVerb instance in order to allow verb-time adjustments per band. Aside from that, some misc. phase and stereo image futzing. Soloed it's obvious that it's still not an amazing reverb but it worked decently enough in context.

[darjama]

Originally Posted by WaveTrans

Hi! Could it be that my mix is not in the project file folder, since I can´t find it there?

Sorry, forgot to rename the folders. It's there but it's named:
upload_202012_1607950737194-Make You Dance 24Bit 96kHz_WaveTrans_12-2020

[Funicello3]

Originally Posted by Tiny Tortoise

For anyone taking a peek at my project file, I feel I should explain the two convoluted-looking FX chains

Thanks for this! I was having trouble understanding those two FX chains.

but first adding a stage of (roughly) envelope-following DC to bias the saturation so it generates even order harmonics. Any remaining DC is then filtered.

This is not a technique that was even remotely on my radar. Is this something you use regularly? Learned from experience?

each band routed into its own ReaVerb instance in order to allow verb-time adjustments per band.

Done only by ear? Sounds very natural to me, but seems out of reach to me at my current skill level.

[Tiny Tortoise]

Originally Posted by Funicello3

This is not a technique that was even remotely on my radar. Is this something you use regularly? Learned from experience?

I do use it regularly on these stock-plugin-only mixes, but outside of that I just use regular commercial plugins for colouration. It's certainly nowhere near as elegant in its usability, that's for sure; but it gives me back some of the colouration control that I'm normally used to, and that was the reason I wanted to make a chain like this from the start.

Done only by ear? Sounds very natural to me, but seems out of reach to me at my current skill level.

My usual go-to reverb is Acon Digital Verberate 2, which has a frequency-dependent reverb-time control. So what I did was to find a nice all-purpose ambience setting with it, and then loosely approximate those times before then adjusting by ear.

For both chains I really just tried to see if I can make stock plugins do stuff that I would otherwise be able to do with 3rd party options, more so out of curiosity than anything else. I assume most people outside of plugin devs don't really ever mess with this kind of thing (though I'm not one) because it's so fiddly to set up and not actually necessary

[Trogdor]

.

Originally Posted by Tiny Tortoise

This month's song was a really fun one. It sounded great before even starting haha. It was a really nice exercise and reminder in keeping things simple* yet deliberate. Thanks everyone for the always-helpful feedback, and of course thanks always to Daryl for your efforts running this contest every month. Also want to wish everyone a happy new year!

For anyone taking a peek at my project file, I feel I should explain the two convoluted-looking FX chains--one on the drum bus and one on a reverb send:

On the drums, I'm using an EQ to isolate some frequency regions to run through a saturation, but first adding a stage of (roughly) envelope-following DC to bias the saturation so it generates even order harmonics. Any remaining DC is then filtered. The saturated part then gets mixed back into the dry signal. It's more straightforward than it looks, I swear!

The reverb chain was really an experiment I wanted to try out this month, in an attempt to get more out of the stock ReaVerb plugin (rather than the whole picking out IRs business). Essentially there are frequency crossover splits, with each band routed into its own ReaVerb instance in order to allow verb-time adjustments per band. Aside from that, some misc. phase and stereo image futzing. Soloed it's obvious that it's still not an amazing reverb but it worked decently enough in context.

I could not for the life of me figure out how all of that is routed. My head is still spinning.

[Tiny Tortoise]

Originally Posted by Trogdor

.
I could not for the life of me figure out how all of that is routed. My head is still spinning.

Hopefully this explains what's going on with them haha:

The saturation chain is:
- DRY [1+2] signal duplicates onto [3+4] which contains an EQ.
- An inverted copy of DRY is then merged with the EQ'd signal [3+4], nulling everything except the EQ delta
- [5+6] is a pure DC signal that has its level modulated by the [3+4] signal (sidechained using General Dynamics)
- The now 'Envelope following' DC is then merged into [3+4] (the EQ delta).
- Now [3+4] gets saturated and DC filtered
- [3+4] output then gets folded back into [1+2].

Reverb is much simpler: basically freq-bands split to four stereo pairs as [1+2] bass, [3+4] mids, [5+6] lower treble, [7+8] upper treble. Each one gets its own delay and reverb line. Then they all get folded back down to [1+2] for regular stereo output.

[StrumminSteve]

Originally Posted by darjama

Sorry, forgot to rename the folders. It's there but it's named:
upload_202012_1607950737194-Make You Dance 24Bit 96kHz_WaveTrans_12-2020

where can we download the project files ? or am I mistaken ...thx. i never saw a link or mention where..

NEVERMIND ....SORRY I FOUND IT ALL IN THE ARCHIVES... ;O)
Thanks!!

[Dex]

Originally Posted by Tiny Tortoise

Hopefully this explains what's going on with them haha:

The saturation chain is:
- DRY [1+2] signal duplicates onto [3+4] which contains an EQ.
- An inverted copy of DRY is then merged with the EQ'd signal [3+4], nulling everything except the EQ delta
- [5+6] is a pure DC signal that has its level modulated by the [3+4] signal (sidechained using General Dynamics)
- The now 'Envelope following' DC is then merged into [3+4] (the EQ delta).
- Now [3+4] gets saturated and DC filtered
- [3+4] output then gets folded back into [1+2].

Fascinating. Thanks for sharing!

[WaveTrans]

Originally Posted by darjama

Sorry, forgot to rename the folders. It's there but it's named:
upload_202012_1607950737194-Make You Dance 24Bit 96kHz_WaveTrans_12-2020

Thanks and sorry for bothering you,
should have looked closer before enquiring.

A happy new year to all of you!

[javiramallo]

Originally Posted by Tiny Tortoise

Hopefully this explains what's going on with them haha:

The saturation chain is:
- DRY [1+2] signal duplicates onto [3+4] which contains an EQ.
- An inverted copy of DRY is then merged with the EQ'd signal [3+4], nulling everything except the EQ delta
- [5+6] is a pure DC signal that has its level modulated by the [3+4] signal (sidechained using General Dynamics)
- The now 'Envelope following' DC is then merged into [3+4] (the EQ delta).
- Now [3+4] gets saturated and DC filtered
- [3+4] output then gets folded back into [1+2].

Reverb is much simpler: basically freq-bands split to four stereo pairs as [1+2] bass, [3+4] mids, [5+6] lower treble, [7+8] upper treble. Each one gets its own delay and reverb line. Then they all get folded back down to [1+2] for regular stereo output.

OMG!
Awesome!
Cool to know about it! I'll try to digest all of this, little by little.
Thanks for sharing.