How about a Guitar Tone competition, round two?

ahj just showed me this thread. Yeah, I'll host another one! Give me a day or 2 to get all the planning done. I want to make sure I don't repeat the mistakes from the first one.

Some of which have already been mentioned here. I want to make sure we get it all right this time. Lolzgreg mind if we dedicate this thread to the planning stage? Any issues you had with the last competition, any ideas you have for this one post them here. I'll go over all of it. I also have a list of things that could have done better, but lets see if you can come up with more.
 
Personally, I think we have to reamp the DI's and nothing more. If you wanna give us drums and bass also, the levels have to remain the same for everybody, so we have only to put our reamps, the bass and the drums all togheter. If you don't explain this simple rule this will become a "loudest mix in my life" war instead of a guitar tone competition.
 
Yeah but on an AE forum of all places?
We all know that a guitar tone that sounds good on its own doesnt necessarily sound good in a full mix, and at the end of the day, to us guys, a tone that doesn't sound good in the context of a mix is useless.
 
im in, but i think we should make small donations to markg if he do it again, cos it will take alot of time for him and last time he did all the work for free, atleast so he can get some free beer

:lol: All donations will go toward an engl e530 / mesa 2:50 poweramp

Count me in.

But... the rules should be clear from the beginning, last time my sample was a bit controversial due to was louder RMS, but I demonstrated it was perfecly correct, cause there were 2 ways of normalizing RMS (weighted to human earing and the other). I passed to the final but people then hated my tone for being tricky. Sons o' bitchas.

Or to do things easier, the master of the contest should normalize all samples to the same average RMS.

It is just guitar tone, or guitar tone sitting in a mix, I mean, will there be drums and bass?


I want a fixed drum and bass, so the only variable will be the guitars.

-18db RMS for the mix. Drums and bass will be supplied all mixed and ready to go. ahjteam will help me make sure all entries are -18db RMS.

No editing on the drum + bass backing track! These will be supplied all mixed and ready to go. You can do anything to the guitars so long as the final mix is -18db RMS. You're no allowed to adjust the bass + drum backing track in any way.

1 24 bit 44khz stereo wav file as your entry no exceptions.

Looking for track suggestions! I'd like it to include some heavy chugga chugga as well as cleans and a short lead. Also looking for someone willing to supply the DI's and bass + drums completely mixed and good to go.

Lets make sure there are no loudness issues like last time.

Like last time I will upload a package with everything you need. It will include the DI's and the mixed down bass + drum backing track, as well as a readme about deadlines, how to submit your work, etc. and a tab in case you wish to record it yourself.

Did I miss any issues from the first competition?
 
Forget about mandatory RMS levels or any of that crap, IMO everyone should just make their tests, mix them however they want, MAKE SURE THEY'RE NOT CLIPPING, but don't apply any sort of loudness maximization, then send it to someone who will do basic loudness maximization for all of them individually using his ears rather than meters :)

Otherwise, I don't quite know what "redeem myself" means Greg, but as I said my DI's last time were a result of the particular riff I chose and the pickups being too low, thus making them not the best, but someone else is supplying the DI's this time so it won't matter (but PLEASE no djent, or at least not exclusively - actually a riff that combined a bunch of different elements would be pretty cool...) And no way will I have a Roadster in the next half-year unfortunately, but probably another Tiny Terror (and wait and see what I'll be able to do with that through my Recto cab :Smokedev: )
 
Otherwise, I don't quite know what "redeem myself" means Greg, but as I said my DI's last time were a result of the particular riff I chose and the pickups being too low

It was only a joke, hence the ;) We shouldn't choose a cover, we should do something original. I think real bass should be played. Anyone who wants to offer DI's for this competition should. I think there should be a mandatory "PRE-AMP" (har har) for all the contestants: I (or someone else) should run all the "contestants" through an amp with the same settings and mic position to see which one "sounds best." That way, no one has a handicap and it can boil down to "the best tone is the best tone." Anyone, feel free to start planning, I'm with MarkG on this one.
 
If I have time I'll do some reamps with amps that aren't so usual here that I may have, just for the fun of it.

IMO as it has been suggested, it should be only guitar.
Being presented with drums and bass it should be normalized to some RMS value, otherwise this will turn into a mix competition and not a reamp competition.
 
IMO as it has been suggested, it should be only guitar.
Being presented with drums and bass it should be normalized to some RMS value, otherwise this will turn into a mix competition and not a reamp competition.

Well I think that's not a problem provided people are given a good bass and drum stereo backing track and forbidden to alter it in any way! (honor system, of course, though bouncing both bass and drums to one stereo wav would make the chances of people being able to fuck with it much slimmer) But it's gotta be in a mix context IMO, that's all that matters to me!
 
Doesn't matter though, as what's on the meter doesn't necessarily mean a mix won't sound louder than others. Just everyone send your final mixes to one person to get the loudness even for all of them; if no-one else volunteers, I'll gladly do it, and I think I at least showed in my quick master of Splat88's tune here that if nothing else I'm capable enough at getting some transparent dbfs's! :)