OK. Here goes.
Victor Calderone’s Roll Remix contest late last year. I won it out of 300+ entries. Here’s the deal on how you can put your best foot forward when doing these contests.
First consider that if you want to be a grand prize winner, the ones chosen to win the big prize and get released on the label, in this case MATTER+, do a remix that you could honestly see that label releasing.
Hopefully what you would normally do fits that label. The “community winner” or runners up are also very good mixes, they’re usually quote interesting, and liked by a number of people but…they’re not something the label would release.
In my case I entered this contest on a whim. For starters I was curious AF to here what Calderone’s stems sounded like.
Then I was like, well…if I can do something I like and it doesn’t kill me on time to complete, I’ll submit an entry.
At the time I had a lot on my plate between having a 15 month old kid, freelance work, and job hunting. I didn’t have all the time in the world to be all perfectionist about it.
I did get into a groove and my first session adding parts and was a good time. I also didn’t re-invent the wheel, doing nearly everything from scratch. I use Maschine and Ableton. In this instance I did use them together, with the original stems in ABleton, and my original stuff added with Maschine as a VST.
I added my own bass line and synth parts. I EQ’d some of the original stems. I didn’t use other parts. I left in the original rides and hi-hats as they were. I didn't really change the arrangement of the original track either.
I did add my own swirling evolving effects which was tape saturation from the UAD EP-34 tape machine and I added some sound effects from a Waveform Sound Pack. There was other stuff I did, but it's not coming to mind at the moment.
Use presets, presets are your friend. Obviously you should change them, but don’t feel the need to create brand new sounds just for a remix contest. You can but I don’t have time for that. It’s fine to use presets and simply tweak them to your liking. Others prefer to do all their own sound design. Whatever floats your boat.
Personally I don’t mind presets because stock sounds have gotten so much better over the years.
I did the final mix down.
I did not do the master and was proud enough of what I did that I felt it was worth getting mastered, so off it went.
I would strongly advise you to get your stuff mastered by a pro. They have gear and rooms myself and most reading do hot have access to along with the mastering skills required.
If you take this seriously and you’re releasing quality free tracks from time to time, go get them mastered by a pro. I guess some people do it on their own but I can tell the difference. And so can judges of remix contests.
Once your done don’t worry about what others think. I had several people give constructive criticisms on my mix. Who cares? They are not the judges. Input from others can be helpful but not always.
Also, don’t worry about getting votes and what not unless you’re hell bent on being the community winner. My remix had like 9 votes before judging closed and I was the grand prize winner.
While Play.Beatport has been closed, I’m sure these tips will help you with similar contests. They should also help you with your original productions.
Submitted August 31, 2016 at 07:56AM by eric-louis https://www.reddit.com/r/edmproduction/comments/50gle4/35_year_old_dad_wins_remix_contest_on_beat_port/?utm_source=ifttt