Here’s a mix contest with some really decent prizes. You must might recognise the song and artist 
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I actually received an invitation to this from Bandcamp this morning already. The interviewer could have let you talk a little bit more.
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This is for the site I posted about at the beginning of the year.
To-date, it has been very educational and a great place to work on your mixing chops. And NOW, we get to mix pre-released tracks for this contest by one of IRD’s own and incomparable Andrew, featuring some tastey guitar parts by another IRD member @StylesBitchley. Good times! 
Thanks Andrew! 
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I remember that one !
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How is this judged and how are the judges qualified to judge a mix?
It’s all in the video, but here are a few more details from the rules:
- Our AMC team will review the mixes between Jan 1st and Jan 7th.
- On Jan 8th we will post the top 20 mixes in each mixing category for the members to vote on. AMC members will be choosing the five mixes for each mixing category (Beginner and Advanced).
- Club member voting starts Jan 8th runs until midnight Jan 15th.
- The top five mixes of each mixing category will be chosen by the member votes.
- The winners will be chosen out of the top five mixes in each category by the songwriter, Andrew Gosden.
- The winners of each mixing category and the random drawings will be announced on Jan 16th at 6 pm PST.
- Each mixing category will each have one random drawing.
They all have PHDs from the School of Rock. Each and everyone of them will be equipped with a set of 100% certified golden ears calibrated to a frequency response within +/- 0.0001dB from 20hz to 20k. (Smilie)
Oh ok, so the songwriter is the final judge. Okay. That seems reasonable. Thanks for the clarification and sarcasm. (winky)
quick question, you have to be a paid subscriber to participate am I correct?
just checking. Either way seems like a great Mix Contest and I loved that song from before.
Cool stuff Andrew! Worth joining up just to keep an ear out. Love this song!
And crikey… what a lot of tracks!
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Signed up! Not sure how much time I will have this holiday season to work on this, got a hardy busy schedule ahead but I wouldnt miss this for the world just to see how this song progresses 
… oh boy just saw the orchestra mix contest there too… sorry @ColdRoomStudio I might be stolen into that one more lol
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Sorry for the late reply… I’ve been asleep along with everyone else in this hemisphere! Yes, it is a paid site. I think you can just pay by the month and leave whenever you want.
It’s a great site, and it will be really nice to have more balance in the gender representation over there!
@FluteCafe Michelle, there is a member who has just joined who is a modern classical composer, and he has recently contributed a live multitrack orchestral recording for members to mix, so I think you could definitely school us all in that department!
Yes indeed! $1000 is a big prize, but believe me, whoever wins it will definitely earn it!!! 
PS… oh @FluteCafe, I just read your post - I see you’ve already discovered the orchestral mix! 
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Will LOVE to hear your take on that one!
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wow… that is an exhausting list of tracks with several major issues. A month of time from the date of the posting is just not enough to mix that performance to be at an acceptable professional level. But I will see what I can do.
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I haven’t downloaded the orchestral multis - what sort of issues do they have?
If you read his write-up, it’s basically his orchestra, a lot of them older and not exactly tech savvy, recorded their parts themselves and sent them to him. It’s a bit more involved, but that’s the gist. Really a neat project in these times!
Here is my amateur attempt. I tried to use one reverb to put them in the “same space”, and another for “ambience”…
— edit — (miked’s mix removed - not sure if it’s OK to share it) — edit —
Instead, here’s the composer’s mix:
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Yes its a great concept and props to him for getting this together. I did see that the recordings were remote. Which makes this even cooler and even more challenging to mix. Things that I did notice right away is the sonic character of the instruments (likely from recording/tuning issues) and timing issues that will make mixing and adding an ambiance or depth to the track very hard (though not impossible).
Timing issues will need to be manually fixed in the mix, note for note, specially in the bridge section for it to sound like a clean and cohesive mix. Unfortunately there is no trick to this. The other approach is to leave it as is with some EQ to each track to correct timbre related issues, then add dynamics and exaggerate the positional depth of each instrument to mask the issues. It is definitely a lot of work but I hope my findings help you in the contest.
@miked I did hear your mix , you have done a great job with the Cello! The Piano imo is the best part of the performance and it gets buried in most mixes there to an inaudible point. The piano needs to be the binding agent for this one.
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Thanks for the input Michelle! To be clear, the orchestral piece is simply a “challenge” - and challenging for sure! Bill, the composer, was kind enough to share his project and the tracks with the group.
Night and day from Andrew’s song - THE contest - which boasts impeccable recordings, performances, organization and inhuman attention to detail!
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yes I know, just got drawn to that right away and now after spending 3 hours with just the flute track in the orchestral challenge alone I realized that I may never have the time for the main contest 
Bill will fall out of his chair when he hears what you do with it!