Toontrack Drum Contests Polls

[brandondrury]

Toontrack, the makers of Superior Drummer 2.0, have agreed to sponsor three BIG contests here at Recording Review.

There are some big time prizes involved here!

Grand Prizes
November: Metal: Superior 2.0+ The Metal Foundry SDX+DFH EZX
December: Country: Superior 2.0+ NY Vol II SDX+Nashville EZX
January: Techno: Superior 2.0+ C&V SDX+Electronic EZX

At first I was going to make these drum mixing contests similar to the way that the Metal Guitar Wars was just a guitar recording contest. There is some merit to that from a non-musical, learning engineering standpoint. However, it has it's limitations.

Do you think the following contests should be limited to just drum mixing with a stereo track of the other files or would you prefer to have all the tracks for a full blown mixing contest?

Brandon

[String7th]

I think it depends on the point of the contest. If it's just a drum mixing contest then a simple stereo mix of guitar/vox/bass should be mixed with individual drum mic tracks.

All tracks for mixing would be good for a general mixing contest. I'd go for only drum tracks and a single stereo.

[Metaltyme]

Do you think the following contests should be limited to just drum mixing with a stereo track of the other files

Yep...I personally do. I just think it would be more fun, and the entries would be set apart from each other since there'd be an opportunity for more individuality happening in each contest entry. The full-on mix contest is cool too, but I personally would find it kinda boring. The reason is that the difference between each entry (minus the ever-present exceptions of course) would be marginal (at best), creating a rather laborious public-voting scheme. I'd much rather have the chance to employ creativity to write a drum part to combine with the existing tracks of the contest's song. I'd even think that most people would too. Of course, it's just my opinion.

BTW, if the drum-mixing idea for the contest became the outcome of this thread, would the drums-to-be-mixed have to be written, programmed, or played by the contestants? Or, would a MIDI file of the drums be provided, forcing contestants to use mere drum plugins? Or, would the individual mic'd sources of the drumkit be provided for people to mix those?

I'd personally suggest subtracting whatever drums that are written for a provided stereo mix, allowing drummers, programmers, beat-enthusiasts, and experimenters to all be able to participate in not only the mix of the drums, but the creation of them as well.

Here's a bit of a weird hybrid of the two original ideas within the original post of this thread:
Now, or even down the road, it might even be a bad-ass contest idea to provide all the tracks to a full mix and allow contestants to omit one track of their choice. It'd be up to them to fill in the now obvious gap in the mix with one of their own vocal or instrumental contributions. Hell, allow contestants to alter the overall original arrangement as well. In the end, it would all be judged on its effectiveness as one package anyway. Every entry will be completely different, because there would be something contestant-specific in each one. This could keep the voters more interested in going through each entry. The turnout of people would/could literally be every type of member of this site. I think it could be the most large-scale contest this site has ever seen!

The song could be voted on based on its mix, arrangement, and/or the performance all in one rating. This way, guitarists, drummers, vocalists, ivory-ticklers, loop-manglers, violinists, audio engineers, producers etc. can participate in the contest with fairly equal opportunity. People could go as crazy or subtle on the finalizing of the prospective song and be judged on its overall intensity, creativity, and/or effectiveness. I think something like THAT would be bad-ass. It could really tug at everyone's inspirato to use their noggins to create AND use what they have in their disposal to mix it in the most appropriate, respective way. Talk about the POSSIBILITIES!

For ultimate creative possibilities. It would be good to include the original tracked performances' tempo to accomodate those who only program, rather than perform.

...Just a thought...

Anyway...cool thread!

[Odla]

I would keep it simple; so, if the focus is on drum MIXING, provide a stereo-file of the rest to work with. Otherwise there will be to much variables, I guess...

Considering the vast amount of entries that will surely come & everyone would have to wade through (see the MetalGuitarsWars Contest); is it maybe an idea to have some sort of jury pick the top ten entries so that we narrow the to-listen-to entries a bit?

Well, looking forward to the contests, in whatever form it will be!

Aldo

Seven Day Hunt
Seven Day Hunt - a continuation of EGDON HEATH. Sort of, but not really!

[Metaltyme]

I would keep it simple

Hey Odla,

Simple is the name of the game for sure. The ideas I proposed may seem complicated at first glance, but based on how they are judged, it would still be "simple." The thing is, they would be judged as one product and not on each individual cell of what makes up the entry.

Considering the vast amount of entries that will surely come & everyone would have to wade through (see the MetalGuitarsWars Contest)

+1 ...That's for sure! One of the things I learned from running Metal Guitar Wars is that there were way too many entries that were generally "similar" that it really was a matter of voters having to wade through all the entries to vote. That made it kinda difficult to remember who's entries really stood out. Learning from that contest has made me think of a new way to present Metal Giutar Wars.

I'm still working on the rules as we speak, but the contest will still be simple and what I think to be much more effective. It will be a hell of lot more fun, more educational, and allow participants to use their creativity in a more liberative way. The next rollout of Metal Guitar Wars will be hitting the horizon soon, once I collaborate with Brandon on the subject. I expect it to be even more large-scale than the first one, which was pretty successful in its own right.

is it maybe an idea to have some sort of jury pick the top ten entries so that we narrow the to-listen-to entries a bit?

That's something I considered for Metal Guitar Wars, but that opens up another can of worms that, upon considerable thought, would have been too challenging to govern. For one, what members would be willing to make up the panel without the opportunity to be able to enter the contest? Plus, when the winner(s) are chosen, integrity would probably be questioned way too often, as any hidden/known potential biases could uncover favortism, which might be too tempting to sway the judges' decisions on the finalists.

Well, looking forward to the contests, in whatever form it will be!

You and me both brother, no matter the form!

[brandondrury]

Interesting points, Metaltyme. It sounds like there could be some wicked possibilities for a contest that is more a culmination of musician, engineer, and producer because all of us are noise makers. Not so many of us throw around the "engineer" and "producer" titles. This is something we should do in the future.

When I was scrapping with the Toontrack guys over what could be a ultra mega contest, my viewpoint was from the engineering side of the fence. Looking back, maybe a more "musician friendly" approach may have been wiser, but with that said, there are some serious possibilities for those who are interested to do a engineering only exercise to apply to their on creative endeavors.

So, assuming that all you get to do is mix, would you rather have a stereo track and individual drum tracks, or all the tracks?

Brandon

[Whistlin' Pete]

Originally Posted by Metaltyme

Hey Odla,
One of the things I learned from running Metal Guitar Wars is that there were way too many entries that were generally "similar" that it really was a matter of voters having to wade through all the entries to vote. That made it kinda difficult to remember who's entries really stood out.

It would probably be a good idea to limit the amount of entries per member to 1 or 2. There is a guitar tone competition going on at UM at the moment where you are limited to 1 entry. Then all the entries are posted anonymously and everyone votes on their favorite. This should get rid of the "get all your friends to vote for you" factor that plagues these types of competitions.

[brandondrury]

The anonymous entry is good idea. I have no idea how to pull that off with my current software, but I could probably program something.

Brandon

[Metaltyme]

So, assuming that all you get to do is mix, would you rather have a stereo track and individual drum tracks, or all the tracks?

Honestly? I'd rather have all the tracks. If a provided stereo mix without the drums were provided, I'd find it kinda boring to mix just the drums into it. I'd rather go for the whole she'bang to showcase people's signature mixing capabilities to the 100% max. I would think as well that each entry would be more unique. That goes along way for people voting, as well as providing more creative freedom to present an approach to a mix that other's might not ever dream of.

It would probably be a good idea to limit the amount of entries per member to 1 or 2.

I personally move that it should be narrowed down to just 1 entry--balls to the wall. It could potentially cut out a lot of the half-assed-ness of each entry, as people would focus more on the one and only shot they have for the gold.

The anonymous entry is good idea. I have no idea how to pull that off with my current software, but I could probably program something.

I never thought of that. That sounds like an extremely good idea. That's the way it should be, I think. Implementation might be a bitch, but I'm sure there's a way to do it. Maybe there is a way to create a subforum kinda like the Turbo Members' section, but to be able to submit an entry, you'd have to logon as some sort of guest:

Username: "Guest" Password: "Guest"

Then...to keep track of cheaters, it'd be nice for you to be able to track who's submitted an entry already...possibly by IP address, email, etc. It might require some "police'ing," but it might be workable somehow.

Here is a page from a site I sometimes frequent that's got an exchange section to share patches for the Boss GT units. I'm wondering if the same type of web-software could be utilized to enable anonymity for a contest. If not practical, perhaps there's software out there that exists and that's been devoloped specifically for this exact purpose. Who knows? I'll try to do a little research on the matter.

[Whistlin' Pete]

Why not just have everyone email their entry to a specific email addy, and whoever is running the contest posts all the entries (labelled A, B, C, etc) once they are in?