Rules and Prizes

[brandondrury]

Grand Prize
The grand prize winner will receive a Universal Audio UAD-2 Quad (their choice of PCIe or Satellite).



Contest Contributor Prize
The contest contributor winner will receive a Universal Audio UAD-2 Quad (their choice of PCIe or Satellite).

Rules

YouTube - Mix It Til You Puke - Volume 2 Rules

--Only one entry per person
--Community participation is REQUIRED to win
In order to win ANY of the two Universal Audio UAD-2 cards, you must enter a mix in the competition. You must listen to 10 other entries to the competition, give your critiques, and rate those entries/threads in order to qualify for the prizes.. Note: DO NOT POST USELESS JUNK. If your 10 posts are of no value, the other member's will click on the "Report This Post" that appears at the bottom of each post and you will be moderated.
-- Contest Contributor
Every time you critique a mix and rate that mix you will be giving a "raffle ticket". A random ticket will be chosen. The more you participate, the greater your chances of winning the Universal Audio UAD-2.
-- Last Day To Enter A Mix Is June 5, 2011
-- How do we pick the Grand Prize winner?
For two weeks (Monday ,June 6th – June 20th), no more entries will be allowed and the entire community will rate the entries/threads in a democratic fashion to pick the 32 top mixes. From there, myself and Jetface will pick the winner in a Final Four-style tournament.
In order to get the tracks, you must go through another Universal Audio quiz.
-- Visit Producer Peter Katis on The National, Jonsi, and Universal Audio Analog Hardware - Blog - Universal Audio and Universal Audio - Analog and Digital Audio Products and Plug-Ins for the answers.
-- TRACKS ARE OUT OF SYNC - All the tracks in the epic bridge got screwed up. I'm not sure how this happened. They start on the wrong bars. I'll have an update shortly of where to move them to. I feel like an ass. What else is new? See "Additional Musical Thingies" down below.

Rating Threads/Mixes
We'll be using the thread rating functionality to rate each mix on a 1-5 scale.


Mix Requirements

YouTube - Mix It Til You Puke - Volume 2 - Mixing Requirements

--The idea of this one is to dance, dance, dance.
--Full blown remix.
Judging a zillion mixes that all sound the same (like most the entires in Mix It Til You Puke Vol 1) is WORK. You are REQUIRED to put YOUR creative energy into this song to make it more fun, more exciting, and easier to sing along to. Songs that sound the same as my reference mix will immediately be discarded.
--You are free to add your own tracks.
--You are free to take away most tracks. Vocals must stay in tact, but feel free to re-arrange.
--The song should feel like the same song. (A good example of this is the Pet Shop Boys "You Were Always On My Mind" is still the same song as the Willie Nelson version.) You are free to re-arrange the song. For all we care (myself and Jetface), you can make it a country version, although I know of no plugin that does a southern accent yet.
-- Big ol' kick drum
This is dance music.
--Fairly loud mix
The last chorus should hit -6dB RMS. If you decide not to play by this rule, you WILL NOT win either prize. It's not a moral issue. The "client" has decided. It's up to your skill level to make it sound big, dynamic, fun, AND loud enough. There is NO reason to exceed -6dB RMS in the loudest portion of the song. Excessively squashed (bad sounding mixes) will not win.
-- Dynamics are REQUIRED - Saline Dynamics In Loud Modern Mixes
-- Take command of this song.
At each stage, you as a mixer in pop/dance music land should decide if you need to escalate a part, pull back on a part, etc in order to get maximum excitement. Dynamics are good. A verse that drops down, pumps up in the prechorus, and then goes KAPOW in the chorus is a GREAT thing if it feels right on an emotional/musical level.
-- Sound quality" is important and required. A mix that sounds good and nails the emotionally exciting thing will be a contender.

Additional Musical Thingies
- 130 BPM
- This song is a ASS PAIN in terms of editing. There are additional beats in certain spots so that the bars don't always land on one. I knew when we were putting this one together that it was going to be a NIGHTMARE. I fought to find ways to get the fractions to line up. No dice. This is how it is. Fair warning. I recommend not snapping to a bar or you will have trouble. I kept it on "beats" and that helped. Good luck!
Unaligned Tracks

--The following tracks do not align as I had planned. They were originally intended to start at the bar in their name. (81Virus_02-01 should have started on bar #81). Something got screwed up.

Here are the correct alignments.

Bar 69.4 81Virus_02-01.wav
Bar 77.4 81Prophet2.wav
Bar 77.4 91bass_fizz.wav
Bar 100.4 112Prophet3.wav
Bar 69.4 81vocoder.wav

All the remaining tracks start at 0:00.

Yes, Prophet3 and Vocoder are 50kb and blank.

There are two "blank" files in there. Ignore those. I'm not sure how that happened.

The lead vocals are labeled incorrectly. They are called "verse".

Brandon

[mreynoldsaudio]

Coming Soon

Is it too early for us to know the style of music?

Btw: HELL YEA! CAN'T WAIT!

[brandondrury]

All in time, grasshopper.

[mreynoldsaudio]

I'll paint the fence and wax the car! haha

[jasonp128]

Is it too early for us to know the style of music?

Perhaps a Death Metal Polka remix of Monsters???

[mreynoldsaudio]

Perhaps a Death Metal Polka remix of Monsters???

I was thinking more of a Grindcore version of "A Teaspoon Of Sugar".

[moleunion]

Something with REAL drums PLEASE!!! I think that will be something that is very educational for all of us. Mixing drums is hard but super important!

Also, I'm surprised you're doing another one so soon... I thought you'd be soooo burned out from the first one!

Thanks for making these though... the first one was super educational.

[mgraham70]

Something with REAL drums PLEASE!!!

That would be nice. Maybe some (more prominent) guitars too?

[amenneste]

i can't believe they'll go hearing all the mixes again..., i guess they'll find a better way to judge without killing their ears. But definetly good news!,

[Steverino]

[Daves]

Here we go again!

[mgraham70]

Bring It!!!

[Romstar]

Once more unto the breach......

[m24p]

This is painful, letting the suspense build like this. My nerves! Jeeves! Brandy!

[brandondrury]

1) You guys have no idea how much I SERIOUSLY enjoy it when the suspense drives you crazy. Of course, if the human race didn't have an insane amount of loopholes I wouldn't have to spend so much damn time on the rules....or figuring out hot how to implement the rules so that people actually follow them.

2) This contest will also be a MIDI-based thingy. HOWEVER, the song is dramatically different. Monsters was goofy cartoon music. This one is less quirky and more straight forward modern radio pop. For what it's worth I do back and forth between all sorts of genres. I go in phases with this thing where we may do a couple metal contests and then do a country contest, etc. For the next contest, I've got a fun rocker we can all do. The only problem is that while mixing rock music with real drums is super fun, trying to listen to hundreds and hundreds of mixes that vary by 2% is nerve racking. The remix-based contest is pretty much the only way to make this make sense.

The other problem is when you "just mix" a song (like a normal paying gig of a live band) this objective fidelity thing we are all shooting for gets minimized. When you A/B a great mix and just a good one the difference is pretty huge. When you listen to 196 of these in a 3 weeks that difference is almost non-existent. I haven't figured out a good way around that.

Brandon

[mgraham70]

I personally don't have an issue with a "re-mix" contest. It just felt (to me) like the ambiguity of Puke 1 was aimed at somewhat coloring within the lines. As long as we know experimenting and adventure is welcome... I'm all for it. Puke one's challenge was just trying to figure out what the hell was acceptable and desired from Brandon and Jetface. Seems like Puke two's challenge will be striking a balance between real creativity and fidelity. That sounds like a lot of fun, to me. Just my 2 cents.

[dbths1987]

I guess it is an awesome learning experience to mix different genres rather than specializing 1 or 2. Being versatile mixer is million points for us as we know different genres sprouting every now and then. And mostly are derived, conceived , inspired and modifications of the exisiting genres so I'm cool to what estrange idea the artist and Brandon will come up with. I'm wondering how a mix sounds like if it is a combination of classical-waltz-country-hardcore metal. Im super excited with what ever track the commander wants us to mix after all we're here for fun and OF COURSE ABOVE ALL FOR THE UAD. "Rules will rule"

[fHumble fHingaz]

For the next contest, I've got a fun rocker we can all do. The only problem is that while mixing rock music with real drums is super fun, trying to listen to hundreds and hundreds of mixes that vary by 2% is nerve racking. The remix-based contest is pretty much the only way to make this make sense.

The other problem is when you "just mix" a song (like a normal paying gig of a live band) this objective fidelity thing we are all shooting for gets minimized. When you A/B a great mix and just a good one the difference is pretty huge. When you listen to 196 of these in a 3 weeks that difference is almost non-existent. I haven't figured out a good way around that.

Personally, I'm a big proponent of creative, imaginative mixing... IMO, a "balanced" mix is not where it's at - I want to bend the listener's perceptions & take them on a ride that reflects the character/story of the song. Sure, it's risky because someone's bound to hate it, or question your creative choices, but isn't that better than getting a reaction like: "Meh... well I guess it's a balanced mix"?

I agree with what you've indicated in you post Brandon - encouraging creativity in the mix contests is going to make for more interesting, exciting contests, & it's actually going to make the job of judging them easier, because you won 't be faced with an "Attack of the Clones" situation. (& yes, I referenced that appalling, tedious movie with purpose).

Let's face it - there are a million guys out there who can compress, eq, pan & get a balanced mix, just like there are a million guitar players who can play a pentatonic scale at warp speed + 1. But just like only a handful of those guitar players can turn that same scale into something amazing, melodic & devestating, it takes real creativity & imagination to turn a mix into an amazing song.

[clamprod]

brandondrury
"The other problem is when you "just mix" a song.."

So, if changing parts, moving things around, etc. would that actually be more of a "Production Contest" rather than a "Mix Contest"?

Looking forward!

[BenJaMan]

yeah i definitely stayed on the conservative side as opposed to the creative side due to the ambiguity of puke 1.0...

the directions seemed to indicate they were pretty happy with the character of the song and just wanted a clean punchy loud mix not artistic re-interpretation...

to hell with it puke 2.0 im'a go big or go home ! can't wait !

[reinmj]

to hell with it puke 2.0 im'a go big or go home ! can't wait !

Oh hell yeah i get the feeling we're going to hear some awesome mixes with the next contest

[mitchk]

ah what a tease! I got myself all ready, sat down at the desk and opened this thread ready to work! hahaha can't wait for it to get posted.

[m24p]

Yeah, I was planning to work on it this weekend, but my Sunday is full, so...

[sensei]

Coming Soon

Alright,I'm going to try this one!

[bholst]

count me in