Gear Shootout Contest?

[brandondrury]

Hello everyone,

I've got an idea. I'd like to do another contest and I'd like to do it as soon as possible. Instead of doing a song contest this time, what if we did a gear shootout contest? So in other words, instead of a person recording a song and posting it, what if we posted some kind of shootout, posted it, and then we all rated the awesomeness of the shootout.

This would be a fun thing that is basically designed to get everyone to start putting their gear to the test. The idea of rating a shootout may not be as intuitive as rating a song, but I think it's worth a go.

The basic idea behind the rating is the person who works hardest to create the most exhaustive, most eye opening shootout should be rewarded for his/her efforts.

I'd be up for just about anything. For example, I'm always looking for compressors (plugins or hardware) with magical color. It would be nice if
someone processed a snare drum or electric guitar with a fast release so we could really hear the compressors working on 5-10 different compressor plugins.

The possibilities are endless with this one. We could test mics, preamps, compressors, converters, reverbs, delays, bit depths, sample rates, and just about anything else we can think of. I'm up for anything.

I'd be happy even if the same recording chain was used and we got to hear various kick drums, bass guitars, electric guitar amps, and musical instruments. That would be very useful.

It would be awesome to hear the same drum kit with the same micing recorded in different rooms.

Prizes
I haven't pursued any sponsors yet because I just wanted to throw this one out there. Ideally, there would be something nice like Superior Drummer 2.0 as the main prize and then maybe something smaller but useful like a plugin or something for Top 5 runners up. (I regret not having any prizes for the runners up in the Christmas song contest).

Motivation
It's important to me for everyone to feel motivated to really post some cool shootouts. Sometimes these can end up being more work than you'd expect and when the going gets tough, it would be nice for all of us to have a reason to work hard on our shootouts.

I've considered taking a different path. I've considered being a dictator on this one and if you post a shootout of use (by my standards), you get a free RecordingReview.com T-shirt. I'm not sure if that would work as well as having a big prize. Then again, maybe I could do the big prize and still give away the t-shirt to everyone who participates.

Standards
If I get enough interest in this Gear Shootout Contest, I'll create a new thread where we can discuss standards for the contest. It's required that each entry in the shootout be of use to all of us. We'll cross that bridge when we come to it.


So what do you think?

[rockerdude]

Brandon, this sounds like a great idea! I think the free t shirt thing is a cool prize and what about a 100.00 gift certificate from musicians friend for a grand prize.I think this would be a positive thing for everybody. I have lots of high end gear and some not so high end gear so I can post a lot of helpfull samples.I have many plugins to try,custom built preamps and some pricey preamps(Avalon,Api,Melcor,Millina,Vintech) drum,vocal and instument mics.Some nice rooms,converters,vintage outboard gear.I have the entry level stuff and the high end stuff.Plus this would be a cool thing for me,I get to try out all my new gear.Im in!I just found out about the Christmas song contest fiasco.WOW! For a contest I think It should be original songs only.This would show the talent of the songwriting/arangement.It doesen't take much talent to rip a solo over a backing track then to call it "You're song" is just wrong and not fair to guys that wrote lyrics,played actual instuments and recorded it in their studios. Rob.......out........

[brandondrury]

what about a 100.00 gift certificate from musicians friend for a grand prize

Not a bad idea, but you'd be surprised how many people Musicians Friend won't ship to (internationally). I'm not sure if Musiciansfriend would sponsor a contest or not. They never responsed to my inquiries in the past. I've had the best luck with the software companies donating gear because they aren't out anything other than packaging.

Brandon

[justabob]

All kinds of people testing apples and oranges. The westminster of of the recording kennel. Is a shootout of preamps better than a shootout of mic's than a shootout of software? for a website about helping others learn about the subject and improving the art of the craft what better way than this. A great idea if those who unlike me have someting to shootout take the time to do it. I look forward to learning a lot. APPLAUSE!!!!

Great idea.If we all do that can we all follow if it gonna be a stereo mix or mono. I know that it should be a master stereo mix BUT, I once read something. I do not have it saved. Maybe i can find it, It was about people in general (musicians) posting their music on you tube and my space.

It was about the tiny speaker vrs a stereo mix. It was told to post a mono mix as it would have a clearer overall sound coming from a computer.

I have never tried it but any ideas if we are gonna post songs with gear. Should we just follow the standards of a master stereo fader track then bounce it to Aiff or mp3 file.

I even heard an aiff file is a bit cleaner.

What type of file are we to post? the regular bounce to disc at whatever to get the file, Maybe we should all note that too. Aiff vrs mp3 wave file ???

[gg.gamble]

Great idea. I would wear a RecordingReview t-shirt with the utmost pride !

[rexde]

Fantastic.
I think you should do both the grand prize and the T-shirts (honorable mentions?) Here are some suggested judging factors:
1. Clean comparisons: 'I used identical signal chains, except X....'. This might sound simple, but when comparing mic's or live acoustic instruments, this can be tricky.
2. Money saved: "Device X cost $8000, but plugin Y has a free 2-year trial period, and only costs $20 for a license."
3. Usefulness: A mic shootout is probably more useful to most of us, than tin vs bronze kazoos.

I tried to do one(Taylor Acoustic Guitar vs Epiphone Acoustic Guitar), but didn't get a lot of response. I didn't want to say what was different, until I had responses. I think this would be more accurate, but I don't think people like to reply 'blind'.

[brandondrury]

If we all do that can we all follow if it gonna be a stereo mix or mono.

This would depend on the source recorded. I don't think I'm going to make any limitations one way or another in regard to stereo or mono as different situations call for different panning...or no panning at all.

You are probably think of the fact that Youtube (and presumably others) streams mono by default. In my list of standards, the minimum quality will be WAY higher than Youtube.

It was about the tiny speaker vrs a stereo mix. It was told to post a mono mix as it would have a clearer overall sound coming from a computer.

Hmmm...without knowing the context in which this was said, it sounds very fishy. If mono mix was "clearer" than no one would mix in stereo. There must have been more to that one.

Should we just follow the standards of a master stereo fader track

I'm not sure what what you are asking.

I even heard an aiff file is a bit cleaner.

I've never heard this. I'll have to do some A/B work, I guess.

What type of file are we to post?

This will definitely be in the rules when I post them.

2. Money saved: "Device X cost $8000, but plugin Y has a free 2-year trial period, and only costs $20 for a license."

I see what you are getting that. In the standards I've written so far, I call this "ear opening". The idea with these shootouts is not necessarily to save money. At least this is not the direct idea. The idea is for all of us to come together and compare together with the intend on REALLY listening to our gear and see if we find some surprises. If money is saved, that's certainly a benefit but it's not really the drive behind the contest.

Brandon

[Vulconizer]

Good idea man. I'll support it 100%.


Ever decide on a logo for the T-shirts?

[brandondrury]

I'm actually working on that right now. I think I'm going to go plain jane, boring old logo for now. Without a doubt, I'll have a machine gun, a girl with a monstrous rack, and probably a monstrous monster on the future line of t-shirts, but I think I'll start out relatively normal.

For some reason I was in the mood to put a bird on the design, but I don't know. This t-shirt printing business is strange, new territory for me. I've got that brand-new-to-recording and what-the-hell-is-an-audio-interface kind of anxiety going on. That makes me avoid the whole damn fiasco.

But....every time I walk my dog I think about RecordingReview tshirts, so it must be done.

Brandon