Guitar tone competition 2 round 9

[MarkG]

The winners from these threads will face each other head on in the final thread / showdown of semi-epic proportions.

I'll give every round a couple of days to gather enough votes before moving on to the next round. I intend to keep the voting time 5 days, but I'll extend it if needed and shorten if possible. I don't want to rush a round with insufficient votes or drag on too long when there's already a clear winner.

When voting, please keep in mind this is about the guitar tone. Some have louder guitars than others. No extreme differences though, the most extreme ones have been edited by Anssi. Some files were submitted with master bus changes. We used the submitted guitar only files and put those in the standard backing track in these cases to remove the master bus changes.

Without further delay, here are the7 contestants for round nine.

X: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1010558/X.mp3
XX: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1010558/XX.mp3
Y: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1010558/Y.mp3
YY: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1010558/YY.mp3
Z: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1010558/Z.mp3
ZZ: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1010558/ZZ.mp3

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1010558/round 9.rar

If you recognise your own work, please keep it to yourself. Usernames will be made public in the end. Please place your vote, and post in the thread with your reasoning!

wavs are uploading and will be up in about 30 min.

 

[MarkG]

Last round before the finals

 

[Unavailable]

Whoever had Y bounced their track down with the drums in mono.

YY was my favorite of these ones.

 

[updog]

I think Y and YY are VERY much alike, but besides the mono drums in Y I think think YY is maybe just a TAD better

 

[P-E]

I think Y and YY are VERY much alike, but besides the mono drums in Y I think think YY is maybe just a TAD better

Exactly what I thought when I voted.

 

[iraobryan]

I went with X, there's just something about the grit in that tone I liked.

 

[jipchen]

I liked Y better, but the mono drums made me vote for YY

 

[MarkG]

I went with X, take me home baby

 

[Mago]

YY, really cool sound

 

[cococo]

YY

 

[88mph]

yy

 

[Rex Rocker]

I liked ZZ.

 

[Frankzappa]

Easiest round so far YY! The rest was pretty bad uke:

Y was ok too.

 

[Nuno Filipe]

^lol so the rest is pretty bad? I want to see if your tone goes to the next round.

 

[Ermz]

The whole thing has been really illuminating. I don't think I've liked a single one of the tones (including my own), and it seems directly proportional to the DIs. This should make it self-evident that the DIs are SO CRUCIAL in the reamping of good tone. Every reamping exercise I've done, whether hobby or professional has alluded to this.

 

[Nuno Filipe]

The whole thing has been really illuminating. I don't think I've liked a single one of the tones (including my own), and it seems directly proportional to the DIs. This should make it self-evident that the DIs are SO CRUCIAL in the reamping of good tone. Every reamping exercise I've done, whether hobby or professional has alluded to this.

I fully agree with you. I didnt hear till now a really good tone and I didnt like my tone either but I dont say that the all the rest is crap or pretty bad. This guitar tone was not easy, but I dont think it´s a DI´s problem as you Ermz. I am gonna say why but I dont want to offend nobody. The backing tracks dont provide the complement to do a good tone, the bass is almost non existent, the snare has no body and so on... this makes very hard to achieve a good mix and therefore a good guitar tone. Because I worked to fit the tone with the backing tracks, that was the hard part. So if someone says that the tones sucks or it´s all crap clearly dont know how hard is to fit the guitar with the backing tracks.

 

[AEL89]

I don't think I've heard a really good tone in this whole competition. Nothing on any of you guys who've submitted as a lot of you have posted some crushing tones before. The backing track is poor and that's made it difficult for everyone - it may have helped if it was 'pre-mixed' by a pro (Lasse, Ermz, Glenn etc etc). Thats obviously easier said then done though...

Once again - nothing against any of the people who entered. I'd also like to say well done to the guys who organised this, there were a few limiting factors but you did a fucking good job nonetheless!

 

[Djabthrash]

* Y wins : a bit on the digital/distorted side but it works very well in the mix and sounds cool and still quite tight/clear.
* very similar and close is YY
* then X (nice but a bit too digital-sounding/djenty/untight) and XX (same but maybe a bit too EQ-ed/scooped ?)
* then ZZ (too distorted/digital/spongy/untight)
* then Z i dismissed right away (meh, messy, phasey, too trebley)

 

[ahjteam]

bump

 

[lolzgreg]

The whole thing has been really illuminating. I don't think I've liked a single one of the tones (including my own), and it seems directly proportional to the DIs. This should make it self-evident that the DIs are SO CRUCIAL in the reamping of good tone. Every reamping exercise I've done, whether hobby or professional has alluded to this.

I'm not offended by this comment in any way shape or form, but I just think the real culprit here is you, Ermz. There have been some very nice entries, some okay ones and some horrible ones. If your reamping isn't making you thrilled, you should probably continue to leave it to someone else to do your reamping, or find a versatile rig and dive in deep. You have a lot of talent, but one cannot do EVERYTHING.

A good engineer should be able to milk whatever they have for what it's worth. I've worked with a lot of terrible DIs... ones that were recorded into cheap interfaces with no DI box and even ones that were undergained. Lasse has done some incredible work with those wacko DIs he got from India, and I'm sure a lot of people on this forum have shot for the gold with half-assed tracks. You just need to fight at it. Some of the first times I worked with great gear in front of me, I had no idea what I was doing and didn't get great results. Now, I have the privlege of an expanded wealth of knowledge and great gear, and I'm trying my best to please my clients with what I have.

I'm sure a lot of forumites here said "oh yeah, let me try my patch/my concoction of VSTs/my standard micing position/my regular tonestack settings/regular whatever," and expected it to work. The outcome of this will teach people versatility. One glove doesn't fit every hand.

On the other note of the backing tracks being hard to work with. BINGO. Do you think these were meant to be easy? Your job as an engineer is to make the tone fit the mix. If it fits the mix, it's going to sound great in context; if it doesn't, it won't! This wasn't supposed to be a competition of "who can make the best sounding backing track so that the guitars can slide right on top and whoop-de-freakin do." When you have to work harder at what you're doing, it will improve your skills overall and it will be a learning experience for everyone involved. Ermz, I recall you alluding to this whole "guitar tone competition" as a silly idea at some point saying "I don't know why everyone is concentrating on the best guitar tone," or something like that-I'm not going to search through the whole forum looking for your quote, and please correct me if I'm wrong. This is about context, just like you wanted it to be.