Hey J, if this isn't the right place for this, feel free to move it...
Here are the notes I jotted down regarding each mix:
j.hall - nice bottom, gtrs seem smeary, overall dark
rkoehler - choruses smaller than verses and too dark, cymbals really eating up space
firefly - stereo spreader or verb? big smeary mess here
antman - vox too spitty/sibilant, guitars too scooped/neutered. where's the bottom?
billbehadaz - vox buried in chorus, vocal delay sounds cheap, too much dynamic shift from first chorus to last, will make the front of the song sound weak comapred to others around it. last chorus sounds good.
cymatics - strange buss compression, upper mids/top harsh, lower mids neutered
scott selfridge - bottom end nice, top a little edgy
grant richards - dark, nice pumping overall, sorta welrdly pushed in the mids
gregthompson - harsh upper mids, makes it seem overly-thin
jtexas - extremely dark and bottom heavy - tweeters 6dB to bright?
podgorny - nice presence, not over-done,but seems phasey
uncleozzy - snare way too big, overall dark tones
adammiller - nice balance.i like this one
ator - holy midrange batman!
boedconstrictor - vox too sibilant in verses, vocals distracting, overall balance prettty good
maxim - vox way too loud, mix very dark, little presence in choruses
icombs - very wierd spectrum - monitoring must be screwed in this room. no midrange!
robdarling - vox too loud, nice balance overall, maybe a touch splashy
Since this portion of IMP17 was to "beat J.Hall's mix", I'm considering his mix the benchmark. That being said, I only found one track that I would choose over J.hall's mix if I were mastering it and that was Adam Miller's. I think this mix is really well balanced and also has the smooth upper midrange and top end I look for in a good mix.
For comparison, here's j.hall's mastered mix (the way he wanted when he came down for mastering):
*click*.
Here's Adam Miller's version mastered (though Adam's was mastered off the MP3:
*click*.
Cheers, hope this helps!