Shootout Contest Rules

[brandondrury]

Recording Gear Shootout Contest
Create your own recording gear shootout, post it to RecordingReview.com, vote on your favorite shootouts, and lose! I mean win! Just make sure to follow the guidelines as I'm going to be fairly strict about this one.

Don't Expect To Win!
This stupid shootout is supposed to be fun. We all come together to learn something. We should all vote for as many shootouts as we can and we should all vote fairly based on the quality of those shootouts.

I have specific measures in place that will reduce spam and contest hijacking that will be applied after the voting is over.

Don't get too wound up if you are in first place towards the end of the contest because that could all change when I delete all the spam. It's a secret. I won't give it out. Let's just say that if you think you are cheating to win, you probably are! (I discovered the wheel! ) If you aren't sure if you are cheating or not, send me a PM or ask down below.

The real winners are those of us who get to listen to each shootout and learn.

What Are We Voting For?
Each thread/entry will judged on the following criteria by your peers:

Comprehensiveness
A shootout with 20 mics on an acoustic guitar is obviously more comprehensive than a shootout with 2 mics and therefore the shootout with 20 mics should get a higher score.

Ear Opening Experience?
A shootout that is more likely to shoot down popular myths and/or change any prejudice that may exist in the recording world should be worth more. If hearing a shootout convinces you to purchase less expensive gear, that shootout saved you money! Thats what I call an “ear opening experience”. If a shootout sold you on spending dramatically more money, that is also an “ear opening experience”.

Usefulness
I'm going to be stickler for usefulness. While seldom is objective, scientificy methodology necessary in music recording land, for these shootouts, it is. The idea for these shootouts is to compare specific mics on the same sources. We'll get into this in the standards section below.


Standards
It's important that we create shootouts that are as useful as possible. Because of this, I've created a list of standards for the shootouts.

---Any shootouts that do not comply will be moved to the Bullpen and I will send you a Private Message.

---Each audio piece in the shootout should be on it's own clip / file. So if you were to record a vocal with preamp #1 and preamp #2, the first uploaded file should be preamp #1 (001.mp3) and the second uploaded file should be preamp #2 (002.mp3). For instructions, see below.

---No single clip should be longer than 20 seconds.

---All clips should be 256k mp3 files with a 44.1k sample rate
16-bit, 44.1Khz wav files should be zipped and attached to the opening thread as well for users who prefer to listen to high quality wav files.

---All shootouts should be blind! The point of these shootouts is to remove bias and prejudice. Do not give away the identity of the gear / methods used in the filenames or the inital post.

--- In the initial post, list all gear/techniques you are comparing.

---A notepad (.txt) file should be attached to the shootout that properly identifies the gear/techniques used for each file.

---No two human performances are alike. Two different vocal takes, for example, can sound dramatically different with the same gear. If the shootout requires multiple human performances, I require that you do the shootout twice. Yes, this is double the work, but it's the only way to make the shootout usable.

Let's say we are doing a vocal microphone shootout using mic #1, mic #2, and mic #3. It is required that you record mic #1, then mic #2, and then mic #3 and then start the process all over again going back and recording the same clip again with mic #1, #2, and #3.

Some may consider this overkill. I assure you that it is not. There will definitely be cases where mic #2 is the brightest clip in the first series of tests and the darkest clip in the second series of tests.

While you could certainly record a clip from mic #1 and then record a second clip from mic #1, I require that you do not do this. It makes sense that takes #1 and #2 could be more similar than takes #1 and #4 due to a million human factors. I think the best way to ensure that the human factor is best accounted for and still keeping the shootout fun and reasonable is to simply do the shootout twice.

In the cases of human performances, keep them all in the same thread. In other words, if you are doing a vocal shootout with 3 different microphones, your single shootout entry should contain 6 different audio files.

If you do not include two files for each piece of gear/technique used and agree that they were done back to back, I will move them to the Bullpen and you will not be entered in the contest until they are fixed.

---Science vs Human Engineering. As was seen in Voiceover Microphone Shootout I had a problem. I was using a variety of microphones at 12” away. This seemed like a good standard until I got to the dynamic mics with extreme proximity effect. I knew I was going to get a thin sound at this distance. I can't think of a time where I'd use a SM7 from 12” away on voiceover. In instances where sticking with an objective standard just sounds bad, you have a couple of options.

A)You could do a shootout at 3” and 12” for each mic so that each mic gets an ideal chance. This would maintain your scientificiness.

B)You could just place the mic where it sounds best to you. This loses quite a bit of scientificiness and places the test on your audio engineering ability.

When possible I say go with A.

---Never give out the identity of the gear/techniques used in the first post. If you want to speak freely (mentioning your favorite and such) you may do so in the second post. From then on it's a free for all.

Deadlines
As of March 14rst, no one can enter any more shootout submissions.

Voting will remain open until Saturday, March 21nd at midnight.

The Point
The entire reason for doing this is to have fun and learn more about audio recording. By comparing different gear we push ourselves to listen more closely and we may stumble onto something magical. While I encourage everyone to create the best shootout they possibly can and we do intend on rewarding the best shootouts.

Shootout Ideas
Basically, compare anything and everything you can possibly think of in the effort to learn and show your results!
Dynamic mics vs condensers
$100 mics vs $1,000 mics
Mic placement
Mic patterns
Preamps
Converters
Compressor plugins
Reverb plugins
Soft synth vs hardware synths
24 bit vs 16 bit
analog vs digital
audio interface vs audio interfaces
electric guitar emulators
Software mixing algorithms
drum samples
orchestras
drum rooms
drum heads
drum tuning
plywood vs concrete
drums in a garage verse drums in a room
acoustic guitars
electric guitar amps
electric guitars
room mic shootout
guitar amps on the floor vs guitar amps off the floor
power tube distortion vs preamp distortion
hardware compression vs plugin compression

Instructions

How To Create A New Entry (Thread)
Go to Recording Gear Shootout Contest - Home Recording Forum

Click on the “New Thread” button. It looks like this:


Write a title that describes what you are testing.
Good Ex: AT4050 vs AKG414 on Acoustic Guitar
Bad Ex: Take a listen!!!

Write a description that describes your shootout and any flaws in the test. DO NOT give away the hidden identity of the files your shootout, but make sure to list all the gear / techniques used.

Attach 256k, 44.1 mp3 Audio Files

Scroll down to "Manage Attachments".

Click "Browse" and find the mp3 files on your computer.

Click "Upload".

Be Patient. When the song is fully uploaded, you will see a small message towards the upper half of the box that illustrates that the file has been successfully uploaded.

Upload your .txt notepad file with all the answers to your shootout using the Attachment Manager.

Finally, upload your ZIP file with all 44.1Khz, 16 bit wav files.

Click "Close This Window" in the top left corner.

Submit Your Thread


How To Vote
See the screenshot below. In the upper right hand corner of each thread, there is some text that says "Rate Thread". Click it to give your vote!


How To Win
The Song / Thread with the highest rating and more than 5 votes will be the winner.

Sorting Order
I've always struggled with giving each entry in the contest equal exposure. It seems pretty much impossible. I will sort all entries so the threads with the least amount of replies show up at the top until we close the entries. From there on out, I will sort all entries from the highest score to the lowest score.

Questions
If you have any questions, don't be shy about sending me a Private Message or asking on this thread.

[brandondrury]

I hate doing this after the competition started, but with only one entry I think it's safe. With that said, I'm the Supreme Overlord Commander. So tough!

Amendment #1
For people who conduct more than one shootout, I will allow the grand prize winner (Superior Drummer 2.0) to also win one instance of SPL Transient Designer if one of their other shootouts finishes 2nd, 3rd, or 4th. However, each person is limited to one copy of SPL Transient Designer.

Amendment #2
In the event of a tie, I will conduct an "overtime" shootout where all individuals who have the same score will be able to submit an additional shootout with a 5 day time limit. I'll send out a newsletter and we'll all vote on the winner.

Amendment #3
If you end up with more than 10 files in your shootout don't bother attaching each individual mp3 to your shootout. It's a waste of time, it makes the threads hard to read, it actually takes longer to listen to the files because once the streaming of a file start, it can't stop. Fire up 20 Youtube pages and you'll see what I mean.

So, if you've got more than 10 mp3 files, just zip up the 256k mp3 files to a zip file called mp3.zip so you can just upload the entire thing at once and users can just download the entire thing at once.

[wwbbcg]

im confused about what a shootout is what is it? are we just testing mic placements and putting audio files on based on what we did?

[brandondrury]

A shootout is a head to head competition of 2 or more pieces of audio gear (or techniques).

An example of exactly what I require can be seen here:
4 Mics on Acoustic Guitar (3 Playing Styles)

Brandon

[cliff keller]

Brandon, this sounds like a useful contest. Like a mini consumer reports issue for recording enthusiasts. I would like to also see some shootouts for pitch correction on voice, as this is a tool that i often use for untrained singers. I also hope that someone tests and submits easy to use preset plug ins that are bundled with Pro Tools, Logic, Cakewalk etc... For the newbie (like me) presets are a quick way to experiment with effects/settings.

i won't be submitting for this contest, i am too new for that, but i eagerly await some useful recording tips from it.

regards
cliff keller

[brandondrury]

i won't be submitting for this contest, i am too new for that,

Cliff, that's the entire reason you should conduct your own shootouts. A big part of the recording gig is understanding your tools and learning which ones do what. You don't have to be an audio engineering expert to take 3 different compressors, set them to the same settings and render the output so that everyone can hear them in action.

Brandon

[XYZ]

I assume this is over?

Even so, I did a shootout of various settings and gain structure of a Great River MP2NV preamp, and a Universal Audio 2-610 Tube preamp.

It was illuminating [or the audio version of it] for me and I kept it fairly scientific so you hear the differences between the preamp and preamp settings. Might be helpful for someone trying to decide between a tube pre and a class-A Neve-esque pre.

Anyway, let me know if anyone is interested.

[brandondrury]

I assume this is over?

No, it's just getting started! I'm hoping to have a few hundred shootouts by the time is overly.

Anyway, let me know if anyone is interested.

We are DEFINITELY interested!

Brandon

[MarcoBroChill]

freaking A! the new superior drummer. i live in an apartment while im at school so micing is out of the question (due to already existing noise complaint from recording)at least to get a good level of response without cranking the pre's.

[blueshadow501]

I wish i could do this. I only have Cubase le4, and i am not haviing any luck working with it. I have switched to Acoustica Mixcraft 4, it's not an upscale recording studio but I am having luck with it. I want to learn my Cubase, but maybe I can get the basics with Acoustica for now. So i am in no way able to do this even tho' i would love to