Guitar Tone Competition Round 2!

[Jevil]

Alright, my meters are working fine, Jevil's meters are off.

Not really, I know what is happening.
I always check levels using Equal-loudness contour.
Without the loudness contour all ahjteam are leveled as -18 RMS db. So my meters are correct, but we are talking about 2 different standards for the same purpose.
This is a pic of what I'm talking with the original D sample (NOT the -18db)

Okey, but whic standard is better to measure and adjust RMS Loudness?
With Equal Loudness Contour or without Equal Loudness Contour?
I was said to do With Equal Loudness Contour, and SForge is by default activated.
Why is better Equal Loudness? Because is weighted for the human hearing.
So many tracks adjusted to the same level with this method will sound the same volume for the hearing.
If I do a compilation with a Rainbow song from 1975 and next song is Dimmu Burguer, both will sound at the same volume to my hearing if normalized by Equal Loudness. With the standard method you probably will need to turn down the volume in your hifi.
I thought you were normalizing that way.

Here is info:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equal-loudness_contour

And here:

http://replaygain.hydrogenaudio.org/equal_loudness.html

My job is connected to hi quality Sound Level Meters related to Health and Safety. I would like to give a better explanation, but english is not my mother tongue and I find it hard to give an precise explanation.


Well, anyway, as I said before, that's not the matter of the contest.
The show must go on.
Sorry for the speech I didn't want to spoil nobody's fun.

 

[MarkG]

Not really, I know what is happening.
I always check levels using Equal-loudness contour.
Without the loudness contour all ahjteam are leveled as -18 RMS db. So my meters are correct, but we are talking about 2 different standards for the same purpose.
This is a pic of what I'm talking with the original D sample (NOT the -18db)

Okey, but whic standard is better to measure and adjust RMS Loudness?
With Equal Loudness Contour or without Equal Loudness Contour?
I was said to do With Equal Loudness Contour, and SForge is by default activated.
Why is better Equal Loudness? Because is weighted for the human hearing.
So many tracks adjusted to the same level with this method will sound the same volume for the hearing.
If I do a compilation with a Rainbow song from 1975 and next song is Dimmu Burguer, both will sound at the same volume to my hearing if normalized by Equal Loudness. With the standard method you probably will need to turn down the volume in your hifi.
I thought you were normalizing that way.

Here is info:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equal-loudness_contour

And here:

http://replaygain.hydrogenaudio.org/equal_loudness.html

My job is connected to hi quality Sound Level Meters related to Health and Safety. I would like to give a better explanation, but english is not my mother tongue and I find it hard to give an precise explanation.


Well, anyway, as I said before, that's not the matter of the contest.
The show must go on.
Sorry for the speech I didn't want to spoil nobody's fun.

This contest is all about learning, and your "speech" was very informative. Thank you for the information. I don't think I used the right words when I said your meters were off. Sorry, I didn't mean to attack you in any way. When I said off I meant that you were measuring using a different standard than ahj and myself, and you are. I didn't mean that yours is better or worse. I don't think it matters all that much which is better, as long as we agree on a given standard for the competition.

 

[Jevil]

Sorry, I didn't mean to attack you in any way.

Oh no, I didn't feel attacked at all.

 

[MarkG]

Oh no, I didn't feel attacked at all.

Thanks again for that info! that contour stuff sounds pretty interesting.

 

[Loren Littlejohn]

I voted H, but G definitely sounds a lot louder making me think that it will win on that merit alone.

 

[ahjteam]

Mark, check your PM

 

[MarkG]

Mark, check your PM

Checked the pm, thank you! I'll put the next rounds up shortly and give you the editing credit.

 

[Calippo Tecks]

Can't wait for the next round ;-)
good job this far MarkG, appreciate the time you spend for this.

 

[MarkG]

Can't wait for the next round ;-)
good job this far MarkG, appreciate the time you spend for this.

Thanks! I know it isn't perfect, but I hope people enjoy the clips and learn something new. I know I already did.

 

[Jaymz]

This one is close!

 

[MarkG]

This one is close!

Still a few hours left on this one, so who knows. If anyone hasn't voted on round one or two yet now is the time to do it...round 3 and 4 will be up when these two finish.

 

[Calippo Tecks]

I'm actually glad about this RMS problem, we learned something about that right now
Alright round 3 and 4 coming, I guess my entry still has to come, isn't it?

 

[abyssofdreams]

"I" sounds very dynamic (cab?) and although the tone is very middy I like it best.
"H" sounds like the tone that would sit better in a mix but hard to tell since it's very distant.

 

[MarkG]

I'm actually glad about this RMS problem, we learned something about that right now
Alright round 3 and 4 coming, I guess my entry still has to come, isn't it?

yush!

 

[MarkG]

Here's the authors of the tracks that didn't make it:
Guitar F:2000contoursvt
Guitar H:Jex
Guitar I:killzone2kx
Guitar K:JaeKae

Sorry you guys didn't make it, but congrats to G and J! Thanks to everyone for participating, and see you guys in round 3 & 4.

Alright, here we go. Round 2 info:

Solo guitar files:

I adjusted the volumes to be more alike. Some clips were extremely soft, others extremely loud. They now all average about -8 to -13, instead of some being -2 others - 20. No other changes have been made. If one clip is half the size of the others...its because that user only submitted half a clip. This is stuff I corrected for the competition, but not for these files.

Guitar F: http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/1010558/Guitar F.wav
Guitar G: http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/1010558/Guitar G.wav
Guitar I: http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/1010558/Guitar I.wav
Guitar J: http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/1010558/Guitar J.wav
Guitar K: http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/1010558/Guitar K.wav

Curve EQ files:

Do you like the EQing in one of the tracks? If you download this VST plugin you can copy it exactly.
http://www.voxengo.com/product/curveeq/

It is a 60 band graphic EQ that can load saved EQ curves and apply them to any recording.

Here are the saved curve EQ files I took from the guitar tracks. Since G and J did so well, I'd say those are the files to look at. There is no H guitar...that's because Mr. H didn't send me his guitar only file.

Guitar F EQ file: http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/1010558/Curve EQ F.cqs
Guitar G EQ file: http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/1010558/CurveEQ G.cqs
Guitar I EQ file: http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/1010558/CurveEQ I.cqs
Guitar J EQ file: http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/1010558/CurveEQ J.cqs
Guitar K EQ file: http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/1010558/CurveEQ K.cqs

If you want additional information, or graphs of the EQ curves let me know.

 

[Metaltastic]

Wow, I totally thought "I" was James...

 

[Jaymz]

Wow, I totally thought "I" was James...

Haha Mines far worse.

 

[MarkG]

You'd be amazed how many people thought the wrong riff was theirs 1 person got it right, 3 guessed wrong so far.

 

[MT01]

Too late for the poll but G did it for me.

 

[MT01]

Too late for the poll but G did it for me.