Running Behind On Country Contest

[brandondrury]

Hey dudes/chicks,

I'm in the middle of a brutal recording schedule. This is my 5th day of non-stop tracking. I've not even had lunch breaks. I just eat between takes.

It appears that our socialist experiment with the Committee has officially failed. In previous contests, there were 3 committee members (including myself) who stepped up and rated every single song. I was hoping that 10 committee members would be enough to make sure that all songs were voted on. Unfortunately, that hasn't happened.

I've got 6 minutes until the next session starts, so it looks like I'm gonna have to listen to all the entries that didn't get enough attention. For the next contest we'll be going back to good ol' capitalist voting just to ensure that everyone gets voted on and the work load doesn't reside on just a few people.

Brandon

[Level Theta]

No worries. Take your time Brandon and thanks for the update!

[TonyB]

It was tough and nearly impossible to track what I reviewed and what I haven't.

[clamprod]

Understood, Brandon.
Valiant effort. :-)

No need to 'rush' it

Thanks for letting us know.

[Hagiazo]

Thanks for the update. No worries. Earn a livin and get back to it when it won't kill you.

[paul999]

It may not have failed as much as you think. I sort of saw this coming. I rated everyone as far as I know. If you PM the other committee members a list of who needs attention I bet they would pitch in to get everyone at least 2 judges.

[brandondrury]

It was tough and nearly impossible to track what I reviewed and what I haven't.

Yeah, good point. A good chunk of this was my fault. I should have sorted the threads by least number of ratings. That would have automatically put the the threads in need at the top. That was a MAJOR oversight on my part.

So maybe I we should give this leftist committee thing one more try with me not being a dumb ass.

In my defense, I'm COMPLETELY exhausted. I'm in the middle of tracking a cool local band that is working me TO DEATH. The pay ain't bad and they always bring beer. I'm just torn a little from my normal RR duties.

Brandon

[TonyB]

No problem. We're making due. I know how it is to be in the middle of a band's big project.

[Guitarhacker]

Hey Brandon..... I love the capitalist way of doing things.....

I have been wondering what was going on.....thanks for the update. I can relate to the "too busy to eat" thing myself. Not right now mind you.... it's a bit slow, but yeah...last year was crazy.

I hope you get this worked out soon, and get a chance to eat and at leasat catch a few hours sleep in there somewhere too.

Do you have any sort of revised top 10 date? Even a hopeful target date?



I don't know how you guys/gals were running the pre-judging..... I thought that each judge would listen to each song(for a small number of songs entered)....


Since there was about 114 songs entered.....this woulda been my plan of attack....

Given 10 judges and 114 songs..... Each judge gets approx 23 songs to review. So 2 judges will have the same exact songs to review. This ensures 2 sets of different ears on each song.

Each song gets reviewed by the judge on areas of: levels, loudness, use of creativity, genre compatibility sound, etc (heck ...you know the deal).... all on a scale of 1 to 10. Add up the points for each song. Enter the number for each song into it's column in a spread sheet...each song gets 2 numbers entered. A spread sheet makes the math easy and the top 10 are selected by math. Highest 10 scores= top 10 finalists. No brain lock, no ears bleeding........ Damn that was easy.

All 10 judges review the top 10 to see that they agree on the finalists..... last chance to argue for a wild card favorite...then 10 are agreed upon.

Public voting begins on the top 10.....


Maybe you can use this on the next contest to make it easier on you. Divide the work, every body knows exactly what they have to do, and reviewing 23 songs is easy...well...easier than listening to them all..... my ears were shooting blood after the first few pages........

solo mi dos centavos......

gracias amigo.

[TonyB]

It may not have failed as much as you think. I sort of saw this coming. I rated everyone as far as I know. If you PM the other committee members a list of who needs attention I bet they would pitch in to get everyone at least 2 judges.

You were a machine last week!!!!

[Nathanael]

Wow... Yea, I got destroyed the last two weeks.. Made it to districts in swimming (Yea I am still in high school), fell behind in Calculus and my dad ripped me a new one for that, got the flu, and my part of the state is under 2 feet of snow, which is about 2 feet more then we normally get.... that doesnt account for the recording gig that I scored and have been working on every spare second and the 6 live shows I have worked... but at least I get lunch Brandon... I have some time now, should we keep going through and rating or are we gonna throw it to the public and then try this again another time?

[Jimmyman]

My perspective.
A good judge is rare. A good judge has been there, done
that, bought a T shirt. BUT that (still) doesn't qualify one to
be a judge. What about talent and skill and training/education?
In America ( I am one of those) they talk about standards.
There has to be some (reasonable) standard. I have seen
people who were "metal heads" who could do a crit on a
country song and nail every little detail as to what needs
work and or what is great.

I have seen "country music" lovers/musicians etc who
couldn't give a clue as to what needs what. I don't care
for "metal" music BUT I've heard some that totally amaze
me. I could say the same for "bluegrass" music. In any
genre there is O.K, bad, good, awesome etc.

The same goes for talent/skill be it the contestant or
the judge. 3 seconds of listening can tell a person a lot.
Ever heard a tune and in 3 seconds go "I'm gonna like
this?" (Or not). Of course a person can't judge a mix
in 3 seconds but a "section" be it the start, middle etc
does say a lot.

So we have say 113 mixes. I have listened to many
of them. Not just a few but a lot of them. It only takes
(in some cases) a small amount of time to determine
that a given mix doesn't (or does) sound good. However
there has to be some standard for deciding what good is.

113 times 3 minutes would be 20,340 seconds equals
339 hours. That's over 8 weeks (at 40 hours) for one
person to judge. Even 100 judges is over 3 hours per
person and that's just to listen let alone comment.

I'm just thinking here. I hope my thinking isn't
dangerous (to me).

[datm]

113 times 3 minutes would be 20,340 seconds equals
339 hours. That's over 8 weeks (at 40 hours) for one
person to judge. Even 100 judges is over 3 hours per
person and that's just to listen let alone comment.

I'm just thinking here. I hope my thinking isn't
dangerous (to me).

I think you're math's a bit off there. 113 times 3 equals 339 minutes...which is about 5 and a half hours.

[Hagiazo]

I think you're math's a bit off there. 113 times 3 equals 339 minutes...which is about 5 and a half hours.

Whew! That's a bit better now isn't it?

[Jimmyman]

I think you're math's a bit off there. 113 times 3 equals 339 minutes...which is about 5 and a half hours.

Thanks for pointing that out. I felt something wasn't right
and I see what I missed now.

[pentoade]

(133x3)/60 = 5.65 hours listening time. It's been 14 days since the closing. Which means it is less than 25 minutes per day. Even less if you started listening prior to the contest closing. I spent a lot more time than that trying to craft a mix worth spending time listening too. I think it's fair to assume that many people put well over 5.65 hours into their contributions to the contest. I don't want to seem like a complainer (because obviously I'd like to have a fair chance for earning a few votes) but it seems like the judges can easily determine who didn't put much time or their best effort into the mix and quickly narrow down the contenders to a field they find easier to review in greater detail. The whole idea of the contest is for people to get to compare their approach to others. I think that it has been successful. It has been a great chance to compare.

[Nathanael]

The last four posts are all dead on.... Takes a lot of time to do, but it is also easy to see who put a lot of time and thought into it... Now that Swimming is over, I can take a harder look at this, and it is as simple as Pentoade said, but its not super easy, still takes time/effort/thought.

[paul999]

I found that it took about 5 min/song to evaluate. I would type as I listened. I am not the fastest typist on the planet so I couldn't leave as detailed of feedback as I wanted to but I always considered the score very carefully.

[bitflipper]

Brandon had warned there might be as many as 50 entries , so I started with the very first submissions and kept up as they came in. I downloaded each entry so that I could easily revisit any of them, renaming each file with the forum handle of the submitter.

My biggest concern was maintaining a consistent level of objectivity from start to finish, so I created a spreadsheet where I could rate each mix on a scale of 0-3 in 10 categories such as overall EQ, overall balance, lead vocal level, bass/kick balance, and loudness. I added extra points for creativity when warranted, deducted points for technical flaws such as excessive overs and untrimmed noise in the lead-in. This method helped me to apply the same standards to every entry, even after 114 auditions, and even after becoming really sick of hearing that song.

One lesson that stood out: the most common flaw was that many mixes were too hot and/or overcompressed. With the Loudness Wars being such a frequent topic of discussion, I am surprised that this is still a major problem.

I would advise everyone to go back and check the average RMS values for their submissions. Keep in mind that this is a Country tune, not Hip Hop. Average RMS between -12 and -14db would be appropriate for this genre. Some entries came in at -6db, which is very compressed even for aggressive pop and completely inappropriate for Country.

Also look at your peak levels. Way too many entries tried to get the peaks right up to the 0db limit, sometimes with disastrous results. To be safe, leave 1 to 3db headroom up there, even for "mastered" songs. Sure, professional MEs will get it up to within 0.1db, but they have better gear than you do. No one will notice if your peaks are 3db lower than Metallica's, and you will avoid clipping that would ruin your otherwise good mix.

This headroom requirement is especially important when your ultimate target is an MP3 file. MP3 encoding involves very steep filters which cause ringing that can raise the peak levels during playback up to 3db above where you thought you left them!

But that's analog clipping. Far worse is digital "clipping", or "overs". It sounds much worse than analog clipping because the frequencies generated are not harmonically related to the music - so they sound truly NASTY.

One or two - or even a few dozen - overs won't be noticed. But some contest entries had tens of thousands of overs, and there was no question as to their audibility. In some cases, this technical flaw took an otherwise good mix out of the running.

I was also disappointed with the lack of dynamics in many of the submissions. I'm not talking about the micro-dynamics lost during compression, but rather the macro-dynamics of a song. Volume automation is how you get interesting macro-dynamics. The first verse should be the quietest part of the song, then come up for the first chorus, back down slightly for the second verse, and so on. Many submissions had only a 1db variance between verse and chorus, making for a dull listening experience.

Of course, volume automation isn't the only component to dynamics. A lot of it is in the mix, pulling some voices up and others down, changing around the emphasis as the song progresses. Too many mixes kept every instrument at the same level from beginning to end (some of the best mixes were brutal when it came to muting instruments, taking them completely out for portions of the song).

OK, that's enough complaining. I don't mean to be overcritical - everybody obviously put in a lot of work on these mixes and the majority were quite listenable. Some were outstanding. Some, I listened to more than once just because they were a joy to hear.

[Nathanael]

Wow... Bitflipper, you have way to much time on your hands :P lol But good work, that is way more organized then I would have gotten, lol, I mean did get

[clamprod]

Wow, bitflipper, that's good stuff.
I would seriously consider that spreadsheet as a good learning tool.
I realize that you may not want to release it, but if it didn't bother you, I'd love to see it.

It's been a very long time for me (actually before 'digital') since being involved in recording/mixing, so this country contest was a perfectly timed opportunity for me to see 'if' and 'what' I still had to work with in my mind and ears as I'm leaning toward getting involved again.

Thanks for your, and all other's, efforts with this.

[bitflipper]

I'm not sure seeing the spreadsheet would do you much good without a great deal of explanation, as the column headings are abbreviations only meaningful to me.

Basically, I ranked each mix on these parameters:

1. Kick & bass: are they both clearly audible and balanced to one another, or are they buried or too loud; do they have a pleasant tone as opposed to being ticky or boomy
2. Lead level: is the vocal right up front as the genre dictates, and when instruments take over are they just as prominent as the vocal was
3. EQ: too bright, too boomy, too much midrange, or a nice uniform representation; also EQ on the vox and instruments, especially the piano which didn't sound very good in the raw track (a few mixers really beefed up the piano with EQ - bonus points!)
4. Loudness: loud enough to be on a record, but not compressed to death
5. Width and depth: is there a sense of width, or is everything up the middle; is the L-R balance good - is there a sense of front-to-back depth, or is everything fighting to be in your face at once; how does the mix sound in mono
6. Balance: are the instruments balanced, or is one instrument dominating
7. Dynamics: does the volume change from verse to chorus, from beginning to end; do different instruments come to the fore at different times; are the cool licks accented; does the mix vary between thin and thick
8. Effects: are effects used appropriately, or do they draw attention to themselves
9. Creativity: extra points for doing something nobody else thought of, such as changing up the vocal EQ in different places or adding a harmony (no points for bad harmonies, though)
10. Technical: was the count-in and opening noise muted or trimmed, how many digital overs were there, were extraneous noises edited out, was there excessive hiss

I assigned a score between 0 and 3 in each category and totaled them. This total did not determine the final ranking, but was a major factor. Some mixes were enjoyable in ways the numeric rating scheme could not reflect - they just sounded good.

I also noted the average RMS values for the first verse, first chorus and overall song. I was looking for some variation (good), but also on the lookout for excessively high values (bad). The better mixes showed at least 2db difference between verse and chorus (I'd have liked to seen more), and between -10 and -14db average RMS overall.

I also used the TT DR Meter and noted the DR value for each song. This measures the dynamic range of the loudest portion of the song. DR values ranged from 5 (very squashed, Nickelback-ish) to 18 (wimpy). For Country, I was hoping for a DR reading between 11 and 14, although some in my top 10 were as low as 8 (dynamics are important, but they're not everything).

I also used Adobe Audition to count overs. Sadly, a few of my favorite mixes had significant overs, really too many to qualify as a truly commercial-grade record. But most of the better mixes managed to avoid overs altogether - no coincidence, as these mixers clearly had not obsessed over loudness to the point of total destruction.

OTOH, the mixes with over counts of 12,000 to 67,000 could not be taken seriously, as record-buyers would be returning those to the retailer for a refund!

I don't know what value this explanation may have for anyone, but at least you all know I tried to be thorough and unbiased!

[clamprod]

Understood.
Thank you; good stuff; details to pay attention to for today's product.

One question.
Considering this 'assignment' was toward mastering for final product 'to print', would some of the clipping..overs (that resulted from MP3 encoding you mentioned earlier) not be a part of the the wav file that would have been sent to print? Would the difference in overs (file.wav vs file.mp3) been significant or, I figure, somewhat dependent on the program?

Thanks

[pentoade]

It really depends how close you were to clipping before the mp3 encoding. The ringing that creates the peaking can only push so much further so if you leave a small bit of headroom you will be safe when you encode to mp3. You can easily inspect the mp3 version to see if it did clip with any wave editor.

[TonyB]

Wow! This contest sure wasn't for noobs that's for sure.

I took that into consideration.