****Mastering Challenge Vote Thread****

[bmanic]

How much time do you think you put into this?

The master was made in about 60 minutes. Sometimes I can work a lot quicker but this track was quite tricky. I wasted about half that time trying various ways of controlling the rampant bass. Then I went: "f**k it!" and started from scratch.

Cheers!
bManic

[Kim Lajoie]

Would any of the participants in Geoff challenge (or anyone else in this thread) be interested in such a thing?

-Kim.

I'd certainly be interested. How would we know when this was taking place? By signing up for this module?

I'll start a thread asking for participants.

-Kim.

[Kim Lajoie]

In an ideal world I would simply call the producer/mixing engineer and say that it needs to be re-recorded and remixed. The playing is, quite frankly, rather poor. The quality of the instruments themselves or the recording chain is also rather poor which has made it pretty difficult for the mixing engineer to get any real "warmth" into the mix.

Well, it's the old fart's argument at work. We don't NEED badly performed music, so it doesn't NEED to be recorded. Think of all the time you'll save. On the other hand, think of all the money you won't make recording bad music.

Seriously though bmanic, that was some good analysis.

-Kim.

[Dean Aka Nekro]

EDIT: File should work now!

Hi again, it's Simon.. well not really, but the bad guy who speaketh the truth, well, not really that either.

Anyhow, I'm glad this has brought up some more conversations around the different mastering approaches here. I've now done a master of my own in the studio (I couldn't get anything decent with headphones at home, it's a tough track to master) so let me go through the process and my philosophy of mastering a track like "Captivate Me".
-------------
Selfcritique:

That's it. Seriously, I write that kind of stuff to myself. Am I insane? Perhaps.

Cheers!
bManic

Hey bManic not really insane, and the Selfcritique is good and like i said Simon you are honest, now you just need to submit your eleven in order for
your opinion to count (which i am halfway through doing and my son has chicken pox and i bought him a new computer game and he keeps making me do all the tough parts! So with him complete with nintendo DS and the washing machine on in my 'home control room' im finding it bloody tough to think straight let alone listen) but hey thats life

[shogger]

This is a very interesting thread.
Here are my votes. The ones in paranthesis' are the masterings that were submitted besides the original 11.

(bduffy)
(Kim)
(mstr)
(Kilroy)
1 Perse
2 Nigrine
(bmanic)
3 Aeneous
4 Ultramarine
5 Indigo
6 Zinnober
7 Vermillion
8 Nacarat
9 Russet
10 Mazarine
11 Morel
(eduardo_b)

And because it's fun I grabbed the mp3 and made a quick mastering, too.

http://chacka.bplaced.net/mastering_cha ... hogger.mp3

As I don't want to comment on every mix I have a few general thoughts that lead to my votings. I was concentrating on two things, both when listening and when mastering myself.
First the overall feel: Do I like what I hear when listening to it? Does it have something that grabs me?
Second I put my main concentration upon the vocals, main and backing vocals. Is it easy to follow the lyrics, the melodies? Is the vocal sound nice to listen to?
And now for the reality check: As you can see from my votings the questions I asked myself are answered rather personal and emotional and not so technically oriented. This is also the reason why bmanic's version is only average in my voting. While being technically good in many ways it seems rather lifeless to me. There's not much that grabs my soul in this mastering.
This is the reason why some technically clearly mediocre versions got a higher voting by me. If it's boring but perfect it won't catch peoples hearts and therefor will be forgotten easily.

Shogger

[Highvoltage]

i like bduffy's the best. interestingly the last 3 late entries were the best.

[eduardo_b]

And now for the reality check: As you can see from my votings the questions I asked myself are answered rather personal and emotional and not so technically oriented.

If that's the case, I'm quite pleased to be at the bottom of the list.

As far as I'm concerned, if the emotional connection isn't in the original mix, mastering is not going to change this.

[eduardo_b]

Would any of the participants in Geoff challenge (or anyone else in this thread) be interested in such a thing?

-Kim.

I'd certainly be interested. How would we know when this was taking place? By signing up for this module?

I'll start a thread asking for participants.

-Kim.

Here, in Production Techniques? This is the forum I check the most.

[Arglebargle]

I suck at mastering, but I'd be interested.

[Nokenoku]

i like bduffy's the best. interestingly the last 3 late entries were the best.

Not really ... if you can first see all the mistakes other people did, it's easier.

[7kilo]

i like bduffy's the best. interestingly the last 3 late entries were the best.

Not really ... if you can first see all the mistakes other people did, it's easier.

i must get this of my chest, i think its pretty lame to enter songs after the deadline. with all respect, at least wait until the votings are in. and THEN show us hows its done. please do. nothing wrong with that, that's why we entered in the first place...to learn. i understand it's all for the love of music <3. but please wait till the votings are in for the original contestants.

[shogger]

... Submitting another version may help you cast light on the a point you might try to make regarding of some of the entries, but it serves no other purpose. I have committed to the original 11 participants that they would be the ones the winner would be chosen from, and I don't intend on changing this. There aren't any prizes or fame involved.

Yes, right. If I would have liked to be inside this no-price-no-fame-but-winning boat I would have participated in the original challenge. As others have said before: This is only for fun. And to me it only became interesting and fun when bmanic started talking about the entries and finally showed off his skills. After tons of posts I read from him I got a chance to check what he says with something that is replicable which made it a huge learning experience for me, in many ways.
I don't see a problem in talking about the entries that were posted. If someone wants to take my fun mastering apart, why not? Until now this thread is quite civilized, and more so for KvR standards. We could simply keep it that way.

I appreciate everyone's interest in this thread so far. But please show consideration and respect to the entrants and the rules in the first post. Regardless of how bad of a job you think they did.

I don't think that the original entries are bad jobs, Because these aren't "jobs"! It was pointed out that this is a learning experience and for you to get a mastered song, right? I don't see much disrespect here, really. As bmanic said, if the problems aren't talked about not much can be learned to do it better in the future. And if you like the masterings of e.g. Kim or bmanic that much that you wanna use it in the end you even might be able to do so?

Shogger

[bmanic]

i like bduffy's the best. interestingly the last 3 late entries were the best.

Not really ... if you can first see all the mistakes other people did, it's easier.

Is there some bitterness in the tone of yours?

It's sad to see so many people take this so seriously. I know I should have worded my posts differently but I can not "fake" it like that. Perhaps the thread would be more civilized and not so dead serious without the word "competition" in the topic? There is no competition. It's all for learning purposes, there's no pot of gold to be won. And it's clear from the votes of people that all this is extremely subjective (which has been a GREAT learning experience as well, at least for me!).

How about we all calm down a bit and stop taking all this so seriously?

If you guys have any specific questions or want specific comments on any masters, I will provide them.

I'll also rank the original 11 but that will have to wait an hour or so.

Cheers!
bManic

[bduffy]

Interesting, interesting...you know, whenever someone has a mastering challenge thread, they should probably open a secondary thread for the inevitable interlopers (like myself) who can't resist having a go at it!

Here are my rankings of the O.G. 11:

1. Nacarat
2. Aeneous
3. Ultramarine
4. Indigo
5. Vermilion
6. Mazarine
7. Morel
8. Russet
9. Perse
10. Zinnober
11. Nigrine

Some really tough calls there. No offense to any attempts, I realize it's all in fun and helping our fellow man.

[Nokenoku]

i like bduffy's the best. interestingly the last 3 late entries were the best.

Not really ... if you can first see all the mistakes other people did, it's easier.

Is there some bitterness in the tone of yours?

It's sad to see so many people take this so seriously. I know I should have worded my posts differently but I can not "fake" it like that.

No, there's no bitterness in it. Please stop assuming. I really HATE it, when people try to interpret some statements in my posts I've never made.
For me, THIS is sad to see, since it makes discussing on the internet really hard and is often leading to misunderstandings.

And to not being misunderstood here:
This should not offend you, I just wanted to mention it.

Next thing:
I'm not the kind of guy, who brabbles indirect stuff. I just said, how it is.
I mean you won't disagree, that it's easier to do it, if you've already had some examples of which things you could do easily wrong on that particular piece of music, would you?
Of course this won't apply to a real pro (since he's experienced enough anyways)! But I think (if I'm wrong, excuse me plz), we have no mastering professionals in this thread.

How about we all calm down a bit and stop taking all this so seriously?

I really think, that's mainly your impression. As far as I can see from the posts here, people are totally aware, that they are no mastering pros and just did that for fun and to learn.

Same for me. And I already learned something important:
1. Certain things are not to fix while mastering. Either they're already done in the mix (or even earlier) or not.
2. I should've done more comparing with good mixed/mastered songs ... then I hadn't done the mistakes I did.
(3. Some people seem to have a really strange taste and/or really really bad listening systems.)
(Hope I'm not offending anyone with the last statement.)