I handed out a rare couple of 5 stars this time.
I've also changed the way I think about evaluating mixes. Rather than focusing on all the technical details, the main thing I ask myself when I hear a mix is: is the song intact? Is there anything in the mix that's getting in the way of the song? After that I'll think about levels and balances and stuff, but if nothing in the mix is distracting me from enjoying the song, then I'm going to rank your mix highly. I think in contests like this it's easy to get carried away trying to do things that you think might impress other engineers, and this helped me focus on the only thing that really matters: the song itself. Like, it's fine if your snare is a little weird or your mix is a little dark, as long as it doesn't distract me from the song.
My comments probably still sound the same as how I wrote them in previous months, but the thought process in how I arrived at them was different.
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