There was a time when uploading a mix to CCMixter laid you open to adverse critical comments. Sometimes another mixers take could make me look at my work and learn from their words. Now it seems that the critics only offer silence. I must admit I do this as well!

Many years ago on another site Loveshadow commented that I always put too much reverb on my tracks. At first I thought what does he know and anyway he’s from Birmingham!! But he was right!

It would be nice to see and recieve a more critical approach to a mix even though at times it can hurt.

I also use the “Sting” approach to listening to a mix. If it doesn’t grab you after 30 seconds move on!

Speaking only for myself, I don’t think my own mixes are so perfect that I have any right to be critical of others (Loveshadow’s are). Especially yours. You obviously know what you’re doing and are very good at it.
I know what you mean about the silence though. If I’ve mixed people who I know are active on the site and they say nothing I assume they don’t like it. But I don’t assume they don’t like it because it’s not well done, I assume it’s just not to their taste.

Somewhat related:
I think the one thing that probably helped me improve my mixes the most was the two uploads a week restriction. I remember Snowflake’s positive spin on it was “think of it as an opportunity to spend more time with each mix and maybe end up with a better mix”. At the time I wasn’t sure if I should be offended, but she was absolutely right. Sure, I now have a three months long backload but when I listen to something that’s been sitting ‘ready and waiting’ for weeks it quite often sounds considerably less ready than I thought it was. (At which point it’s tweak it if it’s worth it, delete it if it’s not.)

I am convinced, that overall the quality of the material uploaded to ccmixter would have benefited from constructive critisism.

It would take a lot more time from the reviewer to do so, rather than sending compliments.

If you are interested in “critical” feedback for your mixes, you can ask for it. Folks are often happy to share their opinion, particularly when it is solicited.

I agree with everyone, and would like to offer my perspective.

I like constructive criticism.
I also like encouragement and sometimes those two don’t blend properly.
I love a mix because I’m in a good mood and I show my appreciation.
I dislike a mix because I’m in a bad mood and keep my mouth shut.
Sometimes, in between that I have the time to give a respectful critique.
Not often, though, because I’m not just representing myself on the ccMixter website, but ccMixter itself.
Have you ever given feedback and got no response, and then that person never comes back?

I think probably the best way is to post in the forum to look for feedback — make it less of a review and more of a workshop.
Get everyone to weigh in, offer examples of what they mean, etc.
In reviews, it’s a bit of a fragile response, and might catch the mixer in a bad mood.
Tone is so hard to gauge anyway, and it’s easy to be misunderstood.

Me personally, I need to know if there’s an imbalance in freqs that I’m missing, as in bass overload or screeching treble.
I don’t notice those because of my playback and mainly that I’m not trained.
I figure that if once we’re friends and are on a professional level, we can call us out on our errors and offer fixes, that would be best!

Thank you for reading, see you in the mix :)

Kind regards,
Apoxode

I’m new at this community/site and from what I see, everything looks and feels a little bit dated when using the website.

I’m figuring this might be because everything runs on open-source and might be hard to change (?), but if it was easy, maybe just a button/click box at upload: “Do you want feedback?”

From my perspective, I am far more taken by what people accomplish as artists than I am with the fact that they mastered it wrong.

In your case, you paint these vignettes from your life and from news and literature that are so tangible, that I can’t tell if it is music or a watercolour. So from my mind, “you need a better compressor” is just way less interesting for me to communicate to you than “I see what you’re doing, I’m impressed by the choices, and I hope you keep doing it.”

That’s not to say there’s anything wrong with giving that kind of feedback, just that personally, I am far more motivated to tell you that your note in a bottle reached my shores.