The long nights finally give you more time for your favourite activities: making music, recording, producing, mixing and mastering.
Of course, this will also put you in the mood for the XMAS MIX CONTEST. What could be better than mixing a Christmas song in the cozy comfort of your own home – and when it sounds really good, you can even win great prizes as a reward!
For the 16th time in a row, HOFA is organising the XMAS MIX CONTEST – for everyone who loves festive studio work.
Find more information on the rules and timeline on the contest platform.
The jury listened to, analysed and compared all your mixes and remixes (anonymously, of course), until it was finally settled who would receive this year’s prizes for the best mix and the best remix of the contest song “Santa Claus Is Coming”.
Once again, you didn’t make it easy for us – but in the end, we managed to choose the different winners of the main and special prizes.
We would also like to thank all the other participants who spent so much time and used their creativity to make this year’s contest so exciting and interesting.
You can be sure – this was not the last XMAS MIX CONTEST!
Main Prizes
Category: Mix – €1,000 prize money
The winner of this year’s Xmas Mix Contest impresses with a harmonious and energetic mix that scores highly in terms of dynamics, depth and balances.
Congrats to klaudius!
Category: Remix – €1,000 prize money
This year’s main prize in the remix category skillfully combines a wide variety of stylistic elements, demonstrating that an end product can sometimes be greater than its individual components.
Congratulations to ReNo_Mellow!
Audience Awards
1st Place Public Voting, Category: Mix – Sennheiser HD 490 PRO Plus
This submission by Vins received the most votes in the Mix category and therefore wins the Audience Award! Congratulations!
1st Place Public Voting, Category: Remix – Sennheiser HD 490 PRO Plus
This submission by Paolo Maggiora received the most votes in the Remix category and therefore wins the Audience Award! Congratulations!
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Special Prizes
Congratulations to the special prize winners:
| Category | Special Prize | Awardees | Link |
| Mix | Modal CARBON8 synthesiser | Niko5000 | play |
| Mix | Steinberg Nuendo 13 | Andrey Benassi | play |
| Remix | Beyerdynamic M160 + Beyerdynamic DT 700 PRO X | Engin Hızarcı | play |
| Remix | Adam Audio A4V | John Consalvo | play |
| Remix | Native Instruments Komplete 15 Standard + iZotope Catalyst Series Holiday Bundle | logan07 | play |
| Mix | Avid Pro Tools Studio (Perpetual License) | Equilibrium | play |
| Mix | Celemony Melodyne 5 Studio | TØBi | play |
| Remix | Ableton Live 12 Suite | Niko5000 | play |
| Mix | SPL Phonitor One d headphone amplifier | Michal Krol | play |
| Remix | Steinberg Cubase Pro 14 | Polaris13 | play |
| Mix | Lewitt RAY microphone + CONNECT 2 audio interface | Fors | play |
| Remix | KORG microKORG Crystal synthesizer | RS007 | play |
| Mix | Image-Line FL Studio All Plugins Edition | Ariel Alves | play |
| Remix | Novation Launchkey 49 MK4 + Roland Cloud Ultimate for 1 year | leof | play |
| Mix | Steinberg Absolute 6 | Arvid N | play |
| Remix | Arturia FX-Collection 5 | MouseBeat | play |
| Mix | Arturia FX-Collection 5 | alanvaldez | play |
| Remix | Toontrack Superior Drummer 3 | Bemusico | play |
| Remix | Fender x Teufel ROCKSTER CROSS Bluetooth speaker | Simone Miceli | play |
| Mix | Spectrasonics Omnisphere | Fade to fate | play |
| Mix | K&M Pair of monitor stands | Halestorm99 | play |
| Remix | Focusrite Scarlett 4i4 | Paolo Maggiora | play |
| Mix | Sonarworks SoundID Reference | Pike | play |
| Mix | Sonarworks SoundID Reference | Szundy | play |
| Remix | Beyerdynamic DT 900 PRO X | Repart | play |
| Mix | Toontrack Superior Drummer 3 | Ramm Darkened | play |
| Remix | K&M 2 x Microphone stand | von freitag | play |
| Mix | Image-Line FL Studio Producer Edition | Sono de Vivo | play |
| Mix | iZotope Catalyst Series Holiday Bundle | Cubiclestudio | play |
Winners of the HOFA-College mix analyses
Sin Tone, Nicolas Montenegro, simonicsd, John Consalvo, Christoph_K, 31A-Studio Reutlingen, Vins, Equilibrium, Mario Niemann, francesco93, emhead, Benjamin Lims, RS007, gf, RaWu, Polaris13, Jens Bsdok, logan07, Tonic Smasher, RoyalSoundMastering
The song “Santa Claus Is Coming”
This year’s contest song, “Santa Claus Is Coming”, combines elements of electronic and rock music with powerful drums, delicate flutes and violins.
As always, the contest song was written and produced by HOFA CEO Jochen Sachse, and all the musicians are members of the HOFA team as well.
This is the music video of the XMAS MIX CONTEST Song:
Watch Jochen’s intro video to the XMAS MIX CONTEST here:
Win over €26,000 in cash and prizes!
This year there will be prize money of €1,000 twice – for the best mix and for the best remix of our contest song – and two Sennheiser HD 490 PRO Plus headphones as audience awards.
There are also attractive special prizes from Ableton, ADAM Audio, Arturia, Avid, beyerdynamic, Celemony, Focusrite, Image-Line, iZotope, Korg, König & Meyer, Lewitt, Modal Electronics, Native Instruments, Novation, Roland, Sonarworks, Spectrasonics, SPL, Steinberg, Teufel, Toontrack and HOFA.
Download the tracks
Please enter your email address and press “submit” in order to reveal the link to the download page.
Upload
Upload your finished mix/remix to hofa-contest.com. You can also listen to submissions of the other participants there.
Closing date is Feb 2, 2025.
Audio engineering tutorials for the mix contest
To help you mix and master the contest song, we’re creating a series of videos that we’ll publish here over time. Be sure to check back regularly! 🙂
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5 Responses
My version of the mix. Happy New Year!
I am an experienced mixer for almost 50 years. I was George Duke’s engineer for everything – recording, Mixing, Mastering, and -hold your breath- live FOH. (I am currently doing much of the same for Kenny Loggins). I have multiple monitors in my studio, including some custom designed speakers by Requisite Audio that are tuned with a DEQX crossover room tuning device.
I totally agree with everything that you said I have done similar experiments. I mix first on my main speakers check on multiple speakers, and then at the end I make an a AAC and listen on my Apple Pro2 AirPods. I work 90% of the time at 96K and I print my mixes at 32 bit. I find that when I use Apple’s droplet converter (free on apples site) and feed it a 32bit 96k file the sound is surprisingly good. I am very familiar with the Apple AirPods. I listen to them a lot, especially when on the Internet or watching movies. They are the most popular earbuds so I think it is valid to check my work on them.
I part ways with you with the AirPod settings. I understand that the audio is compressed again for Bluetooth transmission so I make sure that NONE of the other setting are on. Turning on noise cancellation makes the sound “cruncher/crisper” so I only use noise cancellation when on an airplane. I ONLY use the spatial setting when listening to ann immerse source. Listening to a “normal” mix with Apple’s immersive setting on makes everything too bright so I never listen that way.
Thank you for your post. I’m going to listen to last night’s work on my AirPods right now!
Erik, you total legend! You’ve worked on some of my favourite albums and with so many of my favourite artists. George Duke, James Ingram, Al Jarreau, Floar Putim, Yellowjackets etc. What a career. I was lucky enough to meet and have ajam with George Duke backstage at the Montreaux Jazz festival many years ago. We ended up having quite a few beers after! What a gentleman.
hi can u pls put the lyrics of the song here?
Hi Ben
Here are the lyrics of the song:
santa claus is coming
christmas time is so near
if we were all good and fine
there is no reason to fear
all your nice and bad deeds
santa knows them quite well
the good one gets an angel’s gift
the bad one gets it from hell
santa is coming to town
turning it all upside down
santa is coming
his reindeers are drumming
the rhythm is stunning
cause santa is coming to town
ooooh santa claus
you know me well
ooooh santa claus
gifts from heaven or out of hell
santa you know me well