Mixfest - what now?

[zap]

After completing the mastodont mixing job you may witness at www.mp3Charity.com I now find myself with a few minutes left over for MixFest.

So I plugged the WAV's of Rader Ranch's "London Towne" into my Sonar, tinkered for a while, and out came a mix. Perhaps not the final one, but a mix nontheless. (I dont know if this is supposed to be an excercice in anally editing the mix for a week, or what you whip up 'on a lark' on the track).

Anyway, what do we do now? Assuming I have a mix. Should I put it online? Or will that give other participants making the same track an "unfair advantage" (or give them a huge laugh?).

Also, Mixerman mentioned the "no mastering" concept, and "No adding" concept. Is removing okay, though? Just wondering. Mute button is your Friend, y'know. Is Editing okay? (scissors and glue will give you a clue).

E.t.c.

What I whipped up so far isn't stellar but it works for me. Its also done 100% inside Sonar on a 1GHz machine and its just about to crack the CPU *grin*

/Z


- - - w w w . m p 3 C h a r i t y . c o m - - -

[Mixerman]

Do not put a URL of the song up. I don't want anyone listening to your mix before they do their own.

If you want to edit, be my guest. Arranging is half of mixing so, of course you can remove what you deem to be superfluous parts. This is a mix, not an exercise in combining sounds.

I don't care if you mix it in 3 hours or 3 days. Personally, I'm mixing mine, like it were for a record. Do whatever makes you happy.

Hold on to your mix. I for one, haven't even recieved the tracks yet. An analog tape is being passed around for those mixes. We need to give everyone a chance to do their mix before we consider compiling them. Including me.

Mixerman

[zap]

My main "problem" with London Towne is that it contains a premixed drumloop on 2 tracks that I, frankly, am not too keen on

But I guess replacing it is "cheating"?

Hmm, but cutting it to smithereens in Recycle might do the trick? Thats still "Editing" innit? :D *grin*

/Z

[RNorman]

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Master Zap:
My main "problem" with London Towne is that it contains a premixed drumloop on 2 tracks that I, frankly, am not too keen on

But I guess replacing it is "cheating"?

Hmm, but cutting it to smithereens in Recycle might do the trick? Thats still "Editing" innit? :D *grin*

/Z<hr></blockquote>

Don't worry about it. I only used about half of She's the Man. And the guitar parts don't sound anything like the original. I was glad, not because I don't like the original, but that I didn't come up with somewhat the same thing. So edit, leave off tracks, whatever, as long as Mix said, you don't add tracks of your own. Believe me, I've been tempted! <g> But I probably couldn't do as good a job as the originals anyway.

[zap]

Yeah but my problem is I dont want to *remove* it. The whole track falls apart without it... but its very, hmm, 1987'ish. Sounds like some old Front-242 drums behind folkrock. And big old long splashy crash and booms. Eeek. Hmm.

Maybe I can take it out, put it through recycle, envelope each beat so it becomes short and sweet, distort the whole thing thru quadrafuzz and then phlange it gently? That might work.

I mean, that way I havn't actually *added* anything. It's just *really complex* editing. :D

/Z

/Z

[k.w.blackwell]

Master Zap wrote: <blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><hr>Maybe I can take it out, put it through recycle, envelope each beat so it becomes short and sweet, distort the whole thing thru quadrafuzz and then phlange it gently? That might work.<hr></blockquote>

Hmmm. Maybe you should run it through a dbx decode process first.

[Ang1970]

Do you mean EN-code? And if so, Dolby-B is the way to go.

[Mixerman]

If you were really mixing this project, there would be an artist or producer there, and they wouldn't take kindly to your adding parts.

Do what you want to the song. I just think it becomes a producers disk when you start hearing mix after mix with different parts. It's better if everyone agree to use the tracks that are there, and underdub, rather than overdub.

There are times in a session that I'll be mixing, and I'll tell the Producer they need to change a art, or add a part. But that's the exception more than the rule. Use what you have.

Mixerman

[zap]

Well, what I'll probably do in the end is make more than one "mix" of this.

One, a pure *mix* mix (which is what I have now, sounds pretty neat) where there is really not much going on except automation, EQ's, e.t.c. i.e. nothing is moved from one place to another, nothing re-arranged, and all tracks are "used" although some of them might be way in the back.

Then, I'll do a "what I would have done to it" mix, where I will be a bit more, hmm, daring. I guess the former mix would be the "official" mixfest submission (although it'll probably be somewhat boring in its similarity to the original, and hearing 10 versions of the identical song might drive people up the wall, but then again thats what this is about so... ) and the other one done for fun.

In general I think I am at heart more "producer" than "engineer" although I see the engineering half of it as an integral part of my "producing". I think this is an european wiewpoint where "producer" people are much more expected to be engineering, whereas the US perspective is more that a "producer" Waves hands around and decides stuff and the "engineer" silently and bowing his head turns the knob, and woe him if he has creative input on the "song".

I think this all stems from my 20-years-soon experience in garage-recording myself and my synths 'n computers (click here for funny old pictures and here for not half as funny and recent ones :D ) that I do NOT really view

- songwriting
- production
- tracking
- mixing

...as separate entities. For my way of work, "production" and "songwriting" is one, and since all is done on the synthesizer/sequencers, "tracking" is not a concept, and sometimes when the song is written, it has also been recorded and mixed at the same time. One big whole, really.

/Z

[k.w.blackwell]

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><hr>Do you mean EN-code? And if so, Dolby-B is the way to go.<hr></blockquote>No, decode. Just a quick-and-dirty way to approximate the kind of downward-expansion that seemed to be needed.