Guitar Tone Competition IV?

[ahjteam]

So, 2011 is ahead, I was thinking that should we do yet another guitar tone competition? What do you think? We need:

- A host. MarkG has been the lovely host of our past 3 competitions, but if he is busy or something, I think I can take over this, but I am not 100% sure of my upcoming schedule. If I take over the hosting, we also need someone in addition to do some third party quality checking. It usually takes about total of 1-2 hours depending on the amount submissions

edit: MarkG said no, so it's me, ahjteam

- A song. 30-90 second long clip of unreleased original material. Thinking "out of the box" is encouraged and ability to do the song pretty fast is required. I don't want to wait 2-3 months for the song like we once did.

Minimum of drums, bass, vocals and 2-4 rhythm guitar tracks, but preferably something more. If we can get a song with addition of maybe cleans, less distorted "crunch" guitars, lead guitars and a solo it would be a big plus. Not necessarily everything, but at least something to make it more varied, like total of 3-12 tracks of guitars (single/dual tracked solo and dual/quad tracked other stuff)? Keyboards on the backing tracks are a plus, but not required.

I think we can get someone to pre-mix the backing tracks like on the previous rounds, and if you don't have a singer or a player or what not, but since we have very capable people on the forum, I think we can collaborate like we have done on the previous competitions (Daniel played bass on the second competition and Javi Perera sang on the third competition etc)

If you are interested, you can contact me.

edit: we have the song and lineup to do it also!

- Clear rules. This has been a big dispute in the past, so I suggest we use a modified version of these rules with addition of at least "voting for yourself multiple times results in disqualification and possibly a permaban" -rule. Any other suggestions/modifications or what ever to those rules (except the most obvious like dates and stuff) to make those rules even clearer would be appreciated.

- Sponsor(s). This is not required, but a cake would be nice. We were blessed with kindness of Slate, Brainworx, IK Multimedia and Voxengo on the previous two competitions.

If you have connections to some music production related companies that have a new and upcoming product that they want to promote and might be interested in sponsoring our competition, please let me know.

edit: this was easier than I thought. The competition is sponsored by Wolfe Amplification and LSD Drums. the winner gets Wolfe Stinger, a 10w recording amp. The 8 finalists gets a special 3 kicks and 3 snares package from LSD drums

http://www.wolfeamplification.com/
http://lsddrums.bigcartel.com/


You can contact me via PM or
email: atenhunen@kolumbus.fi
msn: ahjteam@hotmail.com
aim: atenhunen@kolumbus.fi
skype: ahjteam
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[kernelxsanders]

if i had a better interface and understood midi drums a little better, id use some riffs i have. anywho, lets get this shit going!

 

[Donovan S.]

I have a pretty dynamic song you might be able to use. PM'd you.

 

[Ermz]

I think a simpler song would be better. Last time there were too many layers of all kinds of stuff, and it became more of a 'who is best at mixing' rather than who gets the best tones.

So I'd recommend something that sticks either to rhythms, leads or cleans.

 

[Morgan C]

The main issues with the previous comps have been right at the source. The backing was mixed kinda weirdly (I remember the snare was really low in the last one, the one before I think the bass was all weird), and the actual guitar DI's weren't that great. Meant that even the winning tone wasn't really that good.

I didn't even enter the last one because I couldn't get a tone I was happy with, but IMO the tone I ended up with was actually pretty decent compared to many of the others.

I think getting these elements right, straight away, are the most important. I'm more interested in entering a competition where I get a really nice tone, and compare it to others and get some useful information, than a competition that I really don't like my tone or anyone else's, but there's some cool prizes available.

 

[Donovan S.]

The song I have only has rhythm guitars with a few leads over them. No cleans, moderate distortion, nothing like that.

 

[ahjteam]

I think a simpler song would be better. Last time there were too many layers of all kinds of stuff, and it became more of a 'who is best at mixing' rather than who gets the best tones.

So I'd recommend something that sticks either to rhythms, leads or cleans.

Pulling out 2-3 tones shouldn't be too much to ask IMHO. How about 2 heavy rhythm tracks, 1-2 lead/solo tracks and 0-2 clean/crunch tones?

I still think that there should be vocals. What do you guys think?

 

[Harry Hughes]

I think a simpler song would be better. Last time there were too many layers of all kinds of stuff, and it became more of a 'who is best at mixing' rather than who gets the best tones.

So I'd recommend something that sticks either to rhythms, leads or cleans.

This.

The main issues with the previous comps have been right at the source. The backing was mixed kinda weirdly (I remember the snare was really low in the last one, the one before I think the bass was all weird), and the actual guitar DI's weren't that great. Meant that even the winning tone wasn't really that good.

I didn't even enter the last one because I couldn't get a tone I was happy with, but IMO the tone I ended up with was actually pretty decent compared to many of the others.

I think getting these elements right, straight away, are the most important. I'm more interested in entering a competition where I get a really nice tone, and compare it to others and get some useful information, than a competition that I really don't like my tone or anyone else's, but there's some cool prizes available.

Also this. While I didn't end up being in the comp because I screwed up on a minor detail, I got a reasonable rhythm guitar sound, but couldn't for the life of me get a sound for the guitar solo at the end that didn't sound either scratchy, muffled, too scooped or too honky.
I spent hours, referencing other songs in a similar style, but I just couldn't get something that I could at least say was sorta good.

Pulling out 2-3 tones shouldn't be too much to ask IMHO. How about 2 heavy rhythm tracks, 1-2 lead/solo tracks and 0-2 clean/crunch tones?

I still think that there should be vocals. What do you guys think?

In an ideal world, no it wouldn't be much to ask, but in reality, it really did complicate the competition too much.
I don't mind if there is vocals, but the tone should just be one element rather than there being rhythms, leads and various other stuff.
I think given the nature of this forum, the competition should be focused on getting a good high gain rhythm sound.

 

[ahjteam]

I got a reasonable rhythm guitar sound, but couldn't for the life of me get a sound for the guitar solo at the end that didn't sound either scratchy, muffled, too scooped or too honky.
I spent hours, referencing other songs in a similar style, but I just couldn't get something that I could at least say was sorta good.

What I can read between the lines is that you are good at getting a rhythm guitar tone, but there is still room for improvement on getting the lead/solo guitar tone. Which is why I think that the track should have at least 3 tracks; 2 rhythm tracks and a solo.

 

[Morgan C]

What I can read between the lines is that you are good at getting a rhythm guitar tone, but there is still room for improvement on getting the lead/solo guitar tone. Which is why I think that the track should have at least 3 tracks; 2 rhythm tracks and a solo.

I think he was more saying that the solo tone is based a lot more on the DI's than the rhythms. I remember Marcus saying that even with a POD vs Dual Recto or similar amp, there was little difference in his solo tones, but a huge difference in the rhythm tones. I agree that it should be just high gain rhythm stuff. Double or quad-tracked doesn't matter, in fact the latter might be nice for a change, but KISS.

 

[Soundlurker]

We should have different categories to vote on
- Best Rhythm Tone
- Best Lead Tone
- Best Clean/Crunch Tone
All of these should obviously have a different thread (with pole) and participants will be able to decide what's their main goal and set their guitar levels respectively ( i.e. loud rhythms and quiet clean/lead, for example).

A huge problem with the previous competitions were loudness discrepancies and I think there should be a new rule about this. In order for every tone to have a fair chance, they should be as close as possible to each other in terms of loudness. I propose that this time participants should only send the guitar tracks which are to be mixed by the judge within 0.5-1.0db or to ease thing a bit they should send a mix with guitars in range of the predetermined thresholds (-XX.XX db to -YY.YY db)

 

[Fragle]

but then again, with so many categories and the huge amount of sumbissions things will take ages and will be very complicated, and also somewhat confusing IMHO.

besides, with that many variables it would also be much more of a best mix rather than best guitar tone contest.

i think just quad tracked rhythms and a solo would fit the purpose of the contest - who's getting the best guitar sounds - the best.
also, i think we should really try to limit the post processing. imho this shouldn't be about who's able to mix a mediocre guitar sound in a way that sounds best, but who's able to grab a great sound that also fits the backing track right at the source.
maybe, let's just allow high/low pass filtering, and maybe multiband compression (as for some esp. multi-mic techniques multiband comp is quite essential to *that* sound imho). this way we can judge how everybody is able to use amp settings and mic placement to coax out balanced sounds right from the source.

 

[Harry Hughes]

but then again, with so many categories and the huge amount of sumbissions things will take ages and will be very complicated, and also somewhat confusing IMHO.

besides, with that many variables it would also be much more of a best mix rather than best guitar tone contest.

i think just quad tracked rhythms and a solo would fit the purpose of the contest - who's getting the best guitar sounds - the best.
also, i think we should really try to limit the post processing. imho this shouldn't be about who's able to mix a mediocre guitar sound in a way that sounds best, but who's able to grab a great sound that also fits the backing track right at the source.
maybe, let's just allow high/low pass filtering, and maybe multiband compression (as for some esp. multi-mic techniques multiband comp is quite essential to *that* sound imho). this way we can judge how everybody is able to use amp settings and mic placement to coax out balanced sounds right from the source.

Honestly don't see why it should be restricted to just using real amps (if that's what you mean) and honestly, it doesn't matter how much post processing you use, it's the end result that counts.
Guys like Splat88 get better tones from amps sims than 99 per cent of people that try to coax tones from traditional mic'd up cab with amp setups.
While getting a good tone straight off the bat shows that you can do just that, being able to get something that is a bit subpar and whipping it into good shape takes just as much of an ear and skill to my mind.
Again, it should be about the end result and it's mostly in the ear, not the gear you use.
And also again, I stand by my statement that it should be solely about getting high gain rhythm tones to keep stuff simple and to minimize hassles.

 

[JeffTD]

Honestly, I'd advocate removing bass from the backing track, or maybe including it for separate processing to the drum stem. Way too much of the guitar tone is dictated by the bass tone, so if this is a guitar tone competition and not a 'fit this bass tone' competition, I think we have to either make it modifiable or remove it entirely.

Get rid of vocals, too. The entire-song thing just does NOT work, as we found out last time.

 

[Fragle]

no, i didn't talk about ampsims vs real amps.

and while i agree with your statement that "being able to get something that is a bit subpar and whipping it into good shape takes just as much of an ear and skil", i just think that the competition should be about "who get's the best guitar sounds" rather than "who's best at mixing guitars".
besides, forcing the participants to get the very best tone possible right at the source should be pretty educational for most (if not all) of us.
people over here always post things like "get the sounds right at the source, don't try to fix it in the mix"...we'll here's the chance to really work on that and compare your results to others, and when the details are reveiled in the final round the winner(s) can explain what they did, and help the others get better at TRACKING good sounding stuff.

 

[jeid]

I think keeping it simple is the best idea here. Ermz said it right, it turns into more of a mix competition rather than a tone competition if it's over complicated.

 

[Lasse Lammert]

I think a simpler song would be better. Last time there were too many layers of all kinds of stuff, and it became more of a 'who is best at mixing' rather than who gets the best tones.

So I'd recommend something that sticks either to rhythms, leads or cleans.

this.

also would I say it should not be the same fucking style again...make it some old-schoolish thrash or something

 

[Harry Hughes]

What Jeff said it a great point.
It would be quicker to put together a track without having to worry about waiting for vocal tracks anyway.

Also, getting the best source tone off the bat just isn't an option for some people because of different amps and cab setups. I know Ermz has said in the best (and it's something I agree with) that sometimes getting a darker tone first and brightening it up later can sometimes sound superior than trying to capture the brightness first off.
I'd honestly much rather hear everyone get try to get the best tone possible, regardless of how they got there, rather than everyone saying "this is the best I've got while keeping it fairly raw in terms of post processing" and almost no one have really great tones because most people simply wont own an amp and cab that has a perfect lower mid character and a total lack of high end junk and everything in between to just slot in the mix super easily.

Just work with what you have, try to get the best tone possible with what tools you have at your disposal, to me is just the simplest and most effective approach that wont discourage people from competing.

 

[Soundlurker]

Maybe the song should begin with guitars only so people can decide if they'd vote based on how the guitars sound on their own and how they do in the actual mix.

 

[Harry Hughes]

Maybe the song should begin with guitars only so people can decide if they'd vote based on how the guitars sound on their own and how they do in the actual mix.

Eh, I'd honestly would rather not see the "How it sounds on its own" thing.
Again, the simpler the competition the better.
The tone on its own thing just seems too far removed from the entire point of why we would be doing this