Tone competition 2 round 2

[ahjteam]

@Mikko Vainiala

1) I didn't calll you a moron, I called you illiterate as you clearly didn't read the rules:

WHAT TO DO WITH THE FILES:
-------------------------

[...]

- Do not normalize the bounced tracks.

2) I tried to match the submitted level, you personally mixed the guitar loud as fuck in the original submission

3) The ones I had turned up were dropped from the master fader so the whole mixdown was quieter. I checked the volume of the hihat count at the beginning, calculated the difference and the raised the volume of the guitartrack by that amount

@Marcus:

The overall tone of the song can change drastically if you turn up or turn down the different elements. You might actually hear the drums and bass for example if you turn down the guitars enough or they might overpower the guitars if you turn it down too much.

 

[Metaltastic]

Fair enough - chalk this one up to a misunderstanding I'd say!

 

[Force666]

You should have just excluded anyone who clearly couldn't follow "the rules". As you guys said you would.

Just .02

 

[Mikko Vainiala]

Whatever Anssi,

That BB mixdown from the first round and my DD from second were drastically too loud compared to others and you could've lowered them.

My mixdown was replaced and accepted by Mark, did you replace it back to the loud one? If, then why?

Also, you can post those graphs and try to accuse me about breaking rules. No way. The rules were fine placing any kinds of plugins on a guitar track (compressors, limiters, whatever) which where doing that "normalization" in my case.

 

[Dexter_prog]

You should have just excluded anyone who clearly couldn't follow "the rules". As you guys said you would.

Just .02

+1

 

[ahjteam]

That BB mixdown from the first round and my DD from second were drastically too loud compared to others and you could've lowered them.

The submitters (meaning you and the others) were in charge of the balance between guitars and backingtracks, not us. I only edited the tracks only if:
a) there was suspicion of master bus processing, then I just placed the guitar tracks on top of the original backingtracks
b) the tracks clipped, then I dropped the guitars until the masterbus didn't clip
c) the tracks were dropped from the master fader, then I placed the guitars on top of the original backingtracks and raised the guitars by the amount masterbus was dropped.

Slamming your -9dB RMS guitars on top of the submitted backingtracks caused the mixdown to peak at +2.6dBFS so it was case "b".

My mixdown was replaced and accepted by Mark, did you replace it back to the loud one?

Nope, that was Mark. He is in charge in all the stuff related to this competition (except I was in contact with Slate and got the sponsorship for the competition), but we both checked the files to have second pair of ears.

I did hear the new one you submitted and listened it and gave it my approval, but apparently he didn't put it up for some reason. Most likely because of the "Only one submission per member, so make it count!" -rule that read in the rules. Sending a fixed version is second submission. Or then it might've been human error.

The rules were fine placing any kinds of plugins on a guitar track (compressors, limiters, whatever) which where doing that "normalization" in my case.

If you would've actually read the rules and submitted accordingly, you would've known that:
a) You were supposed to just mute the backing tracks so you would only have the guitars at the same level as with the backing tracks (see second line under the section "WHAT DO I HAVE TO SUBMIT")
b) the rules disallowed normalization. (see sixth line under the section "WHAT TO DO WITH THE FILES")
c) if muting the backing track caused the guitars to suddenly raise by 5dB, it is master bus processing, which is disallowed in the rules (see fourth line under the section "YOU ARE NOT ALLOWED TO")

Because arguing over the internet is just plain stupid, pointless and you won't get a medal from it, I won't continue discussing about this topic any further.



edit: @Force666, Only thing in the rules that lead to disqualification was the "no mp3 submissions were allowed" rule:

- Submission format is 24-Bit 44.1 KHz interlaced stereo wav, no exceptions. Failing to meet this requirement leads to disqualification.

 

[James-Doolan]

My vote goes to cc.

Cx is not to bad but a little muffled for my liking, the rest are not even in the ballpark

 

[phatfil]

came down to cc or cx. i liked cx better. cc is a bit too bright for my tastes.

 

[P-E]

CC for me, CX was pretty good too though. I agree with comments about DW, seems a bit too scooped (not enough low-mids/body/whatever).

 

[Mikko Vainiala]

My mixdown was replaced and accepted by Mark, did you replace it back to the loud one? If, then why?

Nope, that was Mark. He is in charge in all the stuff related to this competition (except I was in contact with Slate and got the sponsorship for the competition), but we both checked the files to have second pair of ears.

I did hear the new one you submitted and listened it and gave it my approval, but apparently he didn't put it up for some reason. Most likely because of the "Only one submission per member, so make it count!" -rule that read in the rules. Sending a fixed version is second submission. Or then it might've been human error.

Ok, thanks for the clarification and guesses. I still don’t know what happened, but I’m not convinced about this hard core “so make it count”-rule, cause I just read what you write on round 3 post (my underlines):

awww shiet, when I was listening these tones while doing the quality checking my favourite for the submissions that came on time was on this batch, but it seems that mark put one of the later submissions in this one so it's really hard to decide...

Because arguing over the internet is just plain stupid, pointless and you won't get a medal from it, I won't continue discussing about this topic any further.

It’d be fair to continue this at least to the point I’m not considered a liar here.

So I wanna once more to make it perfectly clear that I didn’t use master compression or tweaked anyway that backing track.

But who believes it? No one cause you still write to me like some uncultured/educated (illiterate) moron with those a), b), c) sections…like I had broken a shitload of rules with my submission.

c) if muting the backing track caused the guitars to suddenly raise by 5dB, it is master bus processing, which is disallowed in the rules (see fourth line under the section "YOU ARE NOT ALLOWED TO")

This was a wrong assumption from the start and part of the reason why we’re / I'm having this small debate here.

Btw, I did my final mixdown in the most simplest way:

First I found a tone which fits, IMO, the backing track well (my priorities were: clear harmonic squeals, low strings supporting kick drum, some stereo widening for guitars to keep snare alive, then some bite and mids.)

After re-amping I added couple of plugins to guitar track and rendered it to disk and after that I opened a simple wave editor and pasted it over the backing track so that the mix didn’t clip, so no master bus editing.

Yes, it was a very loud guitarwise because I was thinking that the whole Competition 1 which was all about the loudness and was waiting something similar to happen. Then I read your feedback about all the posted submissions, contacted Mark and was glad he approved a new mixdown with lowered guitars.

But no more complaints, there will be new games and it was not my fav tone from the amp at all. So lets move on if Mark don't wanna say anything?

Mikko

 

[Ermz]

Thanks for putting this together so quickly, Mark.

Just one question, would it be possible to offer these clips as a single .rar file bundle option for us more bandwidth-limited folks? I'm finding it a bit hard to pull these files down quickly with my awesome outback internet connection.

Also, CX takes it for me here.

CC: The best out of the 'losing' bunch. Has a bit of a strange tubby low-end, and something smeared about the highs. Isn't quite punching with all cylinders.
D: Too stuffy/boxy.
DD: Way too pushed in the 1 to 2k area. Sounds grating and scratchy.
DW: Just too distant compared to the others.
E: Sounds very phasey and just generally wrong.
EE: 500Hz overload.

CX is a little mid-rangey and dull, but nothing some mix EQ couldn't fix. It has the most starting potential.

 

[Force666]

Maybe these should be silent voting rounds? As in cast your vote, but don't reply in the thread. Just a thought.

 

[Ermz]

Maybe these should be silent voting rounds? As in cast your vote, but don't reply in the thread. Just a thought.

The threads would get bumped off the page in a few hours, unless Lasse stickied them.

 

[Mago]

wtf? why dome sound like there's some strange mono-phase-thing going on? sounds like they were just panned 30-30 or so...
for me it was between CX,CC and EE.
CC was cool but somehow something was strange dunno...EE too.
so it ended with CX, even if it was a bit too dark

 

[cococo]

My vote goes to CC, CX is a little muffled.
I'm hearing that there is a lot of Eq 'compensation' in this tracks for the quieter bass of the backing track, a thing that I didnt do

 

[MarkG]

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.

I replaced the file with the one you submitted to me later just like you requested so I don´t see where that mistake from my side comes in. Anssi was the one doing the checking, but I am ultimately responsible considering I´m the organizer. If you want to blame anyone, blame me.

*edit*

ok I see you wrote a ton more. I´ll get back to this and read it all tomorrow. its 4 am and I really need some sleep

 

[ahjteam]

It’d be fair to continue this at least to the point I’m not considered a liar here.

So I wanna once more to make it perfectly clear that I didn’t use master compression or tweaked anyway that backing track.

But who believes it? No one cause you still write to me like some uncultured/educated (illiterate) moron with those a), b), c) sections…like I had broken a shitload of rules with my submission.

This was a wrong assumption from the start and part of the reason why we’re / I'm having this small debate here.

The reason why it standed out was because when doing the QC it was the only one that had normalized guitartrack and it was just standing out so much because it was so loud that I though it had some sort of master bus processing. Here is selective log with offtopic removed from the conversation I was having with mark, it was a LOOOOOOOOOOOOONG night:

[01.12.2009 01:10:26] ahjteam: mark
[01.12.2009 01:10:35] Mark: anssi

[01.12.2009 01:24:57] ahjteam: btw, do you have something to batch convert wavs to mp3s?
[01.12.2009 01:25:27] ahjteam: because if the files are okay, there is no need to edit them, I'll just let you know which ones need editing
[01.12.2009 01:26:45] Mark: yeah thats fine
[01.12.2009 01:27:18] Mark: ok renamed them all

[01.12.2009 01:35:16] Mark: in .wav form its 700mb
[01.12.2009 01:35:18] Mark: give or take
[01.12.2009 01:35:36] ahjteam: argh, it's gonna take forever

*mark downloads and installs software to batch convert wavs to mp3s*

[01.12.2009 02:08:40] Mark: I checked some of the mp3s
[01.12.2009 02:08:45] Mark: sounds like some people are dumb
[01.12.2009 02:09:41] ahjteam: ?
[01.12.2009 02:09:50] ahjteam: totally brickwalled?
[01.12.2009 02:09:59] Mark: some
[01.12.2009 02:10:09] Mark: also hearing some bass boosts on the drums
[01.12.2009 02:14:08] Mark: uploading will take a few min

*mark uploads the mp3's*

[01.12.2009 02:44:19] ahjteam: downloading
[01.12.2009 02:45:54] ahjteam: alright, I'll start listening now
[01.12.2009 02:54:40] ahjteam: it seems that a lot of people seem to struggle with the low end
[01.12.2009 02:55:57] Mark: doesnt matter though everyone gets the same files
[01.12.2009 02:56:04] Mark: and everyone knows they have to fit the guitars to the backing
[01.12.2009 02:56:09] Mark: wouldn't want to make it too easy
[01.12.2009 02:57:24] Mark: ran into trouble yet?
[01.12.2009 02:57:38] ahjteam: I have a list of ones that needs checkin
[01.12.2009 02:58:46] Mark: ok
[01.12.2009 02:59:05] Mark: ill send you the guitar files of those
[01.12.2009 03:14:46] ahjteam: I'll just listen to the rest of the files and I'll list which ones I need
[01.12.2009 03:14:53] Mark: ok
[01.12.2009 03:15:22] ahjteam: These needs checking: *, **, *, *, DD, *, **, *, *, *, **, *, *, **, *, **, *
[01.12.2009 03:15:29] Mark: nice list
[01.12.2009 03:15:39] ahjteam: and i you noticed others then add those too
[01.12.2009 03:29:08] Mark: 18 haha
[01.12.2009 03:29:10] Mark: almost 1/3
[01.12.2009 03:29:13] Mark: is suspicious
[01.12.2009 03:32:08] ahjteam: its the low end
[01.12.2009 03:32:18] ahjteam: most likely their tone just suck, but I just want to make sure

*mark preparing an mp3 of the guitars package, uploading it and giving me the link*

[01.12.2009 03:48:47] ahjteam: that DD is just fucking redicilous
[01.12.2009 03:49:15] ahjteam: RMS -9dBFS
[01.12.2009 03:50:05] ahjteam: compared to the others... CX for example is -22dBRMS
[01.12.2009 03:53:39] ahjteam: alright, I would like to have the guitar wavs for these, others were just so horrible that it was the reason that was causing the massive low end boost: *, **, *, *, DD, *, *, **, *, *
[01.12.2009 03:54:20] Mark: so *, **, *, *, DD, *,*, **, * and * need fixing?
[01.12.2009 03:55:03] ahjteam: yeah, * is too quiet, DD and ** is too loud, others most propably had some sort of manipulation on the backing tracks

[01.12.2009 04:04:10] ahjteam: but those blatant ones were really distracting like the DD
[01.12.2009 04:08:15] ahjteam: if you put that peaks at -0.10dBFS & -9RMS file on top of the backing tracks, its going to peak instantly
[01.12.2009 04:12:12] ahjteam: I had to lower it by -4.8dB to make it not clip
[01.12.2009 04:12:52] ahjteam: but oddly enough, it actually sounds pretty good eventho it is brickwalled like shit
[01.12.2009 04:13:15] ahjteam: but I'll lower it -0.2 db more so that it won't hit zero
[01.12.2009 04:13:37] ahjteam: then the peaks are at -0.3dBFS
[01.12.2009 04:14:03] Mark: ok

[01.12.2009 04:21:02] Mark: so how many actually need fixing
[01.12.2009 04:21:07] Mark: those 10?
[01.12.2009 04:21:26] ahjteam: most propably something like 5-8
[01.12.2009 04:21:34] Mark: ok
[01.12.2009 04:21:36] ahjteam: just making sure
[01.12.2009 04:21:42] Mark: thats not too bad
[01.12.2009 04:23:14] ahjteam: in my opinion that is 10% too much
[01.12.2009 04:23:35] ahjteam: should've been something like 1-3
[01.12.2009 04:24:13] Mark: ideally yes
[01.12.2009 04:24:41] ahjteam: * is the only one I can understand
[01.12.2009 04:24:53] ahjteam: most likely just bounced too quiet
[01.12.2009 04:25:03] ahjteam: but it sound okay and all
[01.12.2009 04:25:41] ahjteam: but those idiots who actually go and edit the backing track even tho you were told not to do that...
[01.12.2009 04:26:23] ahjteam: double facepalm

* mark sends me the wav guitars and I begin editing *

[01.12.2009 05:13:40] ahjteam: I'm done in like 2 minutes
[01.12.2009 05:14:55] ahjteam: I have all the files processed now

* uploading *

[01.12.2009 05:17:41] Mark: how many did you fix
[01.12.2009 05:17:58] ahjteam: 4
[01.12.2009 05:18:02] Mark: thats not so bad
[01.12.2009 05:18:03] ahjteam: * DD * and *
[01.12.2009 05:18:10] Mark: 4 out of 55
[01.12.2009 05:18:12] ahjteam: but I rebounced the rest just in case
[01.12.2009 05:18:22] Mark: ok
[01.12.2009 05:18:23] ahjteam: *: raised guitars 6dB
DD: dropped guitars 5dB
*: resampled from 48khz to 44.1khz
**: removed a weird "bump" sound from the beginning

others: just added on top of the original backingtracks and
rebounced
[01.12.2009 05:20:06] *** "Mark" signed off at Tue Dec 01 05:20:06 2009.

 

[Mikko Vainiala]

I replaced the file with the one you submitted to me later just like you requested so I don´t see where that mistake from my side comes in. Anssi was the one doing the checking, but I am ultimately responsible considering I´m the organizer. If you want to blame anyone, blame me.

*edit*

ok I see you wrote a ton more. I´ll get back to this and read it all tomorrow. its 4 am and I really need some sleep

Yo, get some sleep Mark. (Its 7:25 am and I’m also still working here with unhuman passion for the new isocab.)

When you wake up the the situation simply is:

You said that you replaced the mixdown file and Anssi said he listened and approved it. Still the DD file for the voting is the old and extremely loud one.

How the heck did that happen?

@ Anssi:

...interesting conversation you guys had there.

"[01.12.2009 04:12:52] ahjteam: but oddly enough, it actually sounds pretty good eventho it is brickwalled like shit"

Heh, definitely offtopic, but I knew all the time you somehow liked it. You talked all the time it was loud as fuck but nothing like utter shit etc.

But it was how I adjusted the amp (for serious gain) and then some tape saturation from a plugin (so no master bus compression) which “brickwalled” it.

SO: I think we're soon happily over with this, but I'll still come back to read what Mark has to say after double checking some things.

 

[Wolfeman]

Tough call between CC and CX, but I went with CC in the end. Maybe if CX would have been a tad louder in the mix I would have picked it.

 

[RiF]

I voted EE, although the mix is a bit "monoish" but the tone attracted me the most as it is the most br00tal and recognizable of them all. CC is good, too but too bright for my taste. CX had some PODesque low-end which I didn't like, but would still be the next, if I would get forced to vote.