Warzone Beat Battle - October 16-17, 2020
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Delta Skeltah
ILLIEN
@Kulateral congratulations g. That drum break sounds great.
Yeah that was wack. I cant stand competing against people who don't know what mixing, and eq'ing is. I understand if stylistically you lean to one beat more than the other. But if one is better mixed and a better overall production, you should vote for it. WE ARE ENABLING PRODUCERS TO CONTINUE TO NOT LEARN THE CRAFT OF MUSIC PRODUCTION and its way more than just the style of the beat. Wack....
I dunno re mixing/eq'ing etc, I mean... I pretty much agree. There are certain beats that are probably really let down by production quality. But sometimes it's a mix. Like some that probably sound 'cool' to people 'cause high quality samples and slammed through a limiter,some i find kinda dead.
But similarly there are beats that the idea, the soul/heart of it are just on point af. Which are better than some that are brilliantly mixed run of the mill beats.
But saying this, even with that both in mind, I think there are some beats/matchups that for whatever mix of reasons, you can just tell okay A was clearly better than B. (regardless of the first two points).
Music production, half of it is creating the vibe (the beat itself) the other half is making it pleasant to listen too. The art of intentionally making it sound good. Dragos drum loop sample has a great vibe. That’s it. There’s no continuity to the one beat he posted for the comp and Its muddy. I know the type of beat he was going for but it was so far off with the mix. Ok ok....here is what I’m trying to say...***For someone that’s musically trained, that went to school for drumming in college, when I hear an unmixed beat/ un-eq’d, it’s like hearing someone trying to play a guitar that’s out of tune. The reason you eq a song no matter the style is so that it’s in tune and pleasant to the listen too. There’s different ways to tune different styles of music. I don’t like out of tune songs. Some of the more grittier beats people make can still sound gritty by maybe “de-tuning one string”....but not the whole guitar.
Hmm i dunno... cause even tho there is plenty of science in mixing, mixing is largely agreed to be an art. A dark art at that.
But mixing is subjective. The same track could be mixed a myriad of ways; all of them can be "right" and all of them can be good. One might prioritise the bass whilst another mix prioritises the kick. One may opt for a brighter mix whilst another a darker.
There are definitely some tracks on here you can fairly comfortably say "that's not mixed well", but as long as it's reasonably mixed it can still be a more viable vote than one expertly mixed bland af beat.
Got to consider too, especially to boombap heads, some of your favourite hiphop records probably had quite poor mixes. But didn't stop them being bangers or worthy of a vote/win here.
What are you talking about bro. You're trying to make people that don't know any better happy. How was my beat bland as fuck? HA
Mixing is only slightly objective to the style. But overall is the same across all platforms. The hiphop records you're referring to sound great. You think they don't because you don't know any better. And plus they didn't have quite the technology we have today. Some would say they prefer the sound of the past which is great. However it isn't an excuse for not studying the sound and actual doing it. People just don't know what they are hearing.
Making beats you have to start getting better at hearing frequencies. If you make boom bap beats, its not your ticket out from eq'ing your music, from mixing the song, to applying the right compression, saturation, etc... 2good is the perfect example of this. His beats sound like they are from the boom bap era but they translate to all devices. They sounds clean and pleasant to listen to. Same with Fades ***We have to stop making excuses in this area and stop giving free bones. People will never learn about music. The feel of a song, is more the mix of it than the beat. It's the first thing you hear, and then you have to tell yourself, "okay, now let me ignore this awful mix and just listen to the beat now."
You are lying to yourself if you say you don't do that.
Mixing has and always will be a part of the criteria for voting. Like it or not.
Often times the mix can decide my vote, Ive voted for an rnb beat before because the harder more suitable beat was mixed like shit. Ive lost due to shitty mixes too. In the days of the home producer we need to get to grips with mixing, as hard as it may be. A good mix is what separates the men from the boys and should decide battles. Its all about balance and weighing up the different criteria to come to a conclusion. A lot of people just vote for the beat they like, thats fair enough, but the criteria are there for a reason.
Often times the mix can decide my vote, Ive voted for an rnb beat before because the harder more suitable beat was mixed like shit. Ive lost due to shitty mixes too. In the days of the home producer we need to get to grips with mixing, as hard as it may be. A good mix is what separates the men from the boys and should decide battles. Its all about balance and weighing up the different criteria to come to a conclusion. A lot of people just vote for the beat they like, thats fair enough, but the criteria are there for a reason.
I love you @2GooD Productions.
Never said any of that but do go on. You gotta remember firstly you were actually agreeing with my point about saying better beats maybe lost out - which means your ears largely agree with mine.
I also distinctly remembering one of your beats in early rounds and thinking how good it sounded - I'm gonna assume both musically and mix, as I was gonna shout you out about it. So calm down, babe.
Bit rude and ignorant to suggest i 'don't know any better', as I know in fact from plenty of experienced engineers and producers in the industry.
I never said I ignore the mix, but there are say at least 4 completely different things...
Composition
Production
Mixing
Mastering
Realistically, most will only kinda do one of those things (group maybe comp+prod), they're wildly separate arts. If you wanna focus on just mixing or mastering, then we may as well just say xyz is the best mastering engineer here and automatically award the win to them every battle.
Demos, which aren't mixed, can sound fucking incredible. Why? because the feeling. Even well produced pre-mixed tracks. Because of the composition and production elements.
Equally there are plenty of well mixed, mastered commercial records that are just shit. And demo's you'd rather bump than listen to them.
Same reason why A&Rs or people already up high in the industry have actually stated they don't care about your mix/quality, they can hear if the songs/beats/compositions etc are good and that's why they pick an artist/producer up to work with them, because there are other people who can get the sound quality, what they're looking for is the actual content/soul/heart whatever.
So it could be argued you or whoever else is fooling people by suggesting the mix/master is the most important thing - if you're aiming to be an engineer, then for sure. If you're looking to be a producer/writer, then no.
None of what you said there is wrong regarding what a&r's are looking for. But we arent a&r's, we are mostly home producers trying to get good at the various aspects of music production, and in the modern age where everything is done in the box, in peoples bedrooms, to stand out on a battle forum you need to try to get as close to a complete package as you can get on your own. That means a combination of composition, sampling, arrangement, percussion, and mixing. The feel and emotion of a track, the quality of the sounds, it all plays a part in the beat when its up against another beat or beats. It could have the best sounds but a shitty melody or feel, it could have shitty drums and great bass, its all about weighing up the pros and cons to make an informed decision and hopefully get fair results. Its when people just choose their favourite beat regardless of any criteria that results get wonky. Also have to remember that not everybody has the ears/hardware to hear certain things and cant be expected to vote given what they are limited to hearing. It would be great to have a panel of production and mixing experts to judge the battles, but we dont, its just us, and what hardware we are limited to owning.
Never said any of that but do go on. You gotta remember firstly you were actually agreeing with my point about saying better beats maybe lost out - which means your ears largely agree with mine.
I also distinctly remembering one of your beats in early rounds and thinking how good it sounded - I'm gonna assume both musically and mix, as I was gonna shout you out about it. So calm down, babe.
Bit rude and ignorant to suggest i 'don't know any better', as I know in fact from plenty of experienced engineers and producers in the industry.
I never said I ignore the mix, but there are say at least 4 completely different things...
Composition
Production
Mixing
Mastering
Realistically, most will only kinda do one of those things (group maybe comp+prod), they're wildly separate arts. If you wanna focus on just mixing or mastering, then we may as well just say xyz is the best mastering engineer here and automatically award the win to them every battle.
Demos, which aren't mixed, can sound fucking incredible. Why? because the feeling. Even well produced pre-mixed tracks. Because of the composition and production elements.
Equally there are plenty of well mixed, mastered commercial records that are just shit. And demo's you'd rather bump than listen to them.
Same reason why A&Rs or people already up high in the industry have actually stated they don't care about your mix/quality, they can hear if the songs/beats/compositions etc are good and that's why they pick an artist/producer up to work with them, because there are other people who can get the sound quality, what they're looking for is the actual content/soul/heart whatever.
So it could be argued you or whoever else is fooling people by suggesting the mix/master is the most important thing - if you're aiming to be an engineer, then for sure. If you're looking to be a producer/writer, then no.
I understand your point. But those days are coming to an end, because of technology and what’s available to us. There’s no excuse for people to claim they are only a composer when making beats for a beat competition. Most major artist do all of those things. composing, produce, mix and master. This is a new standard and we should set our standards higher
its never been in the judging criteria, whereas mixing always has
exactly this^^ times are a changing, the market is oversaturated with good beatmakers, they need to upgrade to producers and do their own mixing. Even if not to a perfect standard, just good enough to stand out against the competition of which there is a fucking lot. Its a battle and things like how it sounds overall compared the the competition is a major part in what swings votes.
imho tho, a lot of what people may view as mixing issues, is in my opinion, bad production choices.
For example, you have a kick and a snare, they kinda don't sound right, so you do loads of "eqing" and reverb, and "saturation" or whatever else. But it still won't sound right.
Whereas the issue could actually be the snare and kick don't sound right together -- you can even choose a worse sounding snare, but because it *suits* the kick, it now sounds better.... even unmixed and unprocessed.
There are some beats whose mixes sound fucked... drums like hidden somewhere, like we're menna go find 'em ourselves, then a really loud lead line and such. Those obviously i rule out immediately, 'cause that's too far.
But if there's a dope sounding beat, it has a few mix issues but sounds dope, I'm not gonna go "oh well, this beat doesn't sound professionally mixed and mastered to major label standards, therefore I'm gonna vote for this wack beat that got the good 'rap template' treatment". I'm gonna vote for the dope beat.
For example, you have a kick and a snare, they kinda don't sound right, so you do loads of "eqing" and reverb, and "saturation" or whatever else. But it still won't sound right.
Whereas the issue could actually be the snare and kick don't sound right together -- you can even choose a worse sounding snare, but because it *suits* the kick, it now sounds better.... even unmixed and unprocessed.
There are some beats whose mixes sound fucked... drums like hidden somewhere, like we're menna go find 'em ourselves, then a really loud lead line and such. Those obviously i rule out immediately, 'cause that's too far.
But if there's a dope sounding beat, it has a few mix issues but sounds dope, I'm not gonna go "oh well, this beat doesn't sound professionally mixed and mastered to major label standards, therefore I'm gonna vote for this wack beat that got the good 'rap template' treatment". I'm gonna vote for the dope beat.
Clearly you don’t quite
Just to support this point. The main reason composing, producing, mixing, mastering were all sort of separate back in the day was mainly because of analog equipment. Which is still very import and the best. But not everyone back in the day could afford a $50,000 studio, or had the space for that. We have very similar tools at our exposer and pretty much anyone can make a good mix. You just need to study and train your ear.
of course, its about balance. Weighing up the good and the bad and trying to offset one thing against another. Which is why voting can be hard sometimes to make a final choice, and not feel some way guilty because both could easily swing it one way or another depending on your mood that day. "Overall dopeness" is a combination of all the other factors.
You can have a bad snare and it not fit. But at some point in order for the music to work you have to know how to eq it in. Or find the reason it's being masked. You make adjustments musically. Obviously there are sounds that just don't work.
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