Tone competition 2 round 2

[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 two.

CC: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1010558/CC.wav
CX: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1010558/CX.wav
D: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1010558/D.wav
DD: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1010558/DD.wav
DW: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1010558/DW.wav
E: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1010558/E.wav
EE: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1010558/EE.wav

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!

 

[Jaymz]

CX for me

 

[motomoto]

CC for me.

CX was my second favorite

 

[El_Gato]

Not easy at all, I liked 4 tones: CC, D, EE, CX... in that order. So CC.

When are you saying whose tones were the ones that didn't pass the 1st round? I guess they will be shown when telling who's the winner. Would be great to know this after every round so we may have some surprise. Just saying.

 

[monolithsound]

CC and CX are a little too thin for me...I liked EE

 

[Metaltastic]

Jesus christ, I listened to CC and thought this was gonna be hard, because it wasn't bad - then I listened to the rest, and promptly changed my mind Sounds like a bunch of them are kinda mono and/or phasey (especially D, E, and EE), but yeah, CC by far IMO! (though CX in a kinda close second, I guess - too grainy though IMO)

 

[Dom Ostarig]

CC to me... far way better IMO... balance.


EDIT: sorry, not so far.

 

[jhrv]

CX for me

+1.

 

[updog]

CX

 

[Dexter_prog]

I voted CC, sounds really good. CX sounds really flat to me. And I am sorry for the loud ones, but I've completely ruled them out. I need to hear the tone in context to see if it sounds good to me, if the one who mixed them couldn't balanced them, that's his/her problem (and I am talking about the creator of the tone)

 

[Metaltastic]

And I am sorry for the loud ones, but I've completely ruled them out. I need to hear the tone in context to see if it sounds good to me, if the one who mixed them couldn't balanced them, that's his/her problem (and I am talking about the creator of the tone)

Seriously - how else can you judge a guitar tone if not by how well it works in a mix? (unless your aspiration is to make unaccompanied guitar music, in which case, godspeed I guess )

 

[exzem]

voted CX.

D has a weird balance.
DW too scooped.
DD would love to hear this one mixed at a proper volume, really hard to comment when the volume is so fucking loud so all you hear is the fizz. Not a bad tone at all, but seriously hard to compare to the other ones.
E too much high mids make it sound weird to me.
EE sounds like its too much scooping around 1k for my taste.
CC not bad but sounds a bit flat to me. CX has more dimension too it, not sure how to describe it It sounds very s-preshigh:ish

 

[iraobryan]

CX for me. I liked the graininess (is that a word?) mentioned above. CC was good also. I think this will be a close round.

 

[Mikko Vainiala]

Personal disqualification / notes about guitar loudness thing

Anssi wrote in Guitar Tone Competition 2 thread:

“One participant was clearly illiterate and bounced his submission with some sort of master compression The guitars were -9dBRMS and peaks at -0.2 dBFS (the average was somewhere near -22dBRMS...), so you can guess what happened when you add the original backing tracks on top of the guitars. I dropped the guitars so that it didn't clip anymore (which meant -5dB) instead of turning it down the 10dB to match other submissions, because the participant clearly wanted the guitars LOUD AS FUCK!”

First I’m sorry that my fellow countryman Anssi haven’t removed those untruthful comments. His words sounds otherwise wannabe-nasty too, like:

“…so you can guess what happened when you add the original backing tracks on top of the guitars. ”

What’s the point any other than also calling someone moronic here? Everybody knows what happens when you put normalized track (-0,2 dBFS) above another track.

Anyways, in that thread I replied:

“No master bus compression on the guitar track. Also, no master bus compression or any kind of editing with the backing track or mixdown.

I submitted a mixdown where I dropped guitars -5dB, so that the mix won’t clip. I did this way as to make sure the guitar tone itself is heard clearly, not because I wanted them sonically “loud as fuck” in the mix.”

I also wrote:

“But when you considered the guitars were loud (whoever submissed them) you dropped them only -5dB as to avoid clipping “instead of turning it down the 10dB to match other submissions, because the participant clearly wanted the guitars LOUD AS FUCK!”

So I was hoping all the time Anssi would drop those levels more when writing these:

“…to match other submissions. Definitely more pleasant to the voters too.”

“Btw, did you ask the guy about that “loud as fuck thing” and he said yes? IMO, only moron would wanna that and be embarrassed later how his submission popping up that way!”

“So Anssi, (especially if this is my file), just use a common soundmen sense and drop that guitar volume slider enough to match the level of other submissions.”

“Of course, if this volume dropping is not considered a fair thing by other participants, think I’ll consider passing the contest. In any case – no harm done.”

Then Anssi wrote in his reply:

“If I would've dropped the level drastically, it would've sounded a lot different.”

So he decided to keep it loud because it would’ve sound a lot different.

I still replied and wished:

“Oh, but for the aesthetics sake, please take that guitar file which I posted and put it down -10dB and paste on the backing track and then I can sleep my nights and live on!”

Now its voting time and Mark wrote:

“Some have louder guitars than others. No extreme differences though, the most extreme ones have been edited by Anssi.”

Well, I REALLY THOUGHT that my guitars was dropped before the voting starts and this is why. When posting files I wrote to Mark, copy-pasted from our e-mails:

“Hi Mark,

Appararently there was a huge mismatch on the guitar levels on my mixdown compared to others. I did that superloud mixdown because I wanted the guitar tone alone heard clearly on top of the mix. Here is a balanced mixdown where I lowered guitar levels -9dB and then pasted over the backing track. Use this file instead.

I hope its ok, but if its not just consider leaving me out of competition.

Greets, Mikko"

Mark wrote back:

"I had it checked, and it sounds fine.

Mark"
I wrote back to Mark:

Great! And I apologize this confusion and additional work you had to do.

Mikko

Mark wrote back to me:

"Ill replace the old submission with it"

My question is:

Was it Anssi’s decision not to drop the volumes? Also, I said two times that I’ll pass the competition if those levels are not dropped. No respect for my wish to pass the game because I found my file now posted here as DD.
Now when I said it, I’m obviously out.

As for common interest:

This is my mixdown I posted to Mark and here is BB from round one (don’t know whose it is) guitars levelled to match other participants.

But anyways, let the show go on, it could also be just a human mistake from Mark’s side – no harm done or hard feelings here, its just fun, tone practising etc.

Cheers, Mikko

EDIT: fixed link name.

 

[Metaltastic]

That was quite the manifesto Mikko But FWIW, I agree with you - Anssi turning the volume down would not drastically alter the tone at all (thanks digital realm! :Spin: ), and judging by the responses, I highly doubt anyone would've minded (in fact, most people would've preferred them all to be mixed at the proper level).

On the other hand though, you could've submitted a softer file; why did you normalize?

 

[Unavailable]

Definitely a close one between CC and CX. I voted CX.

 

[Djabthrash]

Voted EE.

EE comes first because the tone is the best, even if it still needs some work IMO (to trebley at now, a tad too loud, not balanced enough for the mix maybe). D is not far behind, but too much low mids or something, less clarity, and still too loud/not balanced enough for the mix.

Then CC & CX are the most mix-ready, but i don't like the tone at all. Sounds pretty digital/POD-ish to me.

DW seemed buried and kinda POD-like too.

DD & E sounded meh, it was hard to listen to.

So a mix between EE and D would be perfect, and less volume also.

 

[Mikko Vainiala]

That was quite the manifesto Mikko But FWIW, I agree with you - Anssi turning the volume down would not drastically alter the tone at all (thanks digital realm! :Spin: ), and judging by the responses, I highly doubt anyone would've minded (in fact, most people would've preferred them all to be mixed at the proper level).

On the other hand though, you could've submitted a softer file; why did you normalize?

Hey Marcus, let's just all forget it yea?

That normalization thing is an old habit of mine when tweaking amps, so that I always normalize clips to same level and look what happened to overall peaks and RMS levels after the component changes. But I also commonly mix that way and think like "ok, first dropping normalized drums down min 6dB and then pasting normalized guitars min 14 dB over it...8dB difference between those sounds good with these...now, the bass...", some kinda memory template in decibels.

Let's just say, my mistake at the first place and I just didn't quite have enough balls to post a quiter mix.

 

[Metaltastic]

Hey Marcus, let's just all forget it yea?

Hey, you were the one who posted it

 

[Mikko Vainiala]

Hey, you were the one who posted it

Like I said, like I said.

But still, wtf Anssi!!!