MASTERING CHALLENGE - MastC003 April 2018 - Winners announced

[3ee]

finally, some results!

here are my picks:

1. Olli-H

Smooth, warmish sound, I really like it, suits the mix nicely I find, doesn't have that harshy 'digital' edge as some others have (watch your plugins people! , they are certainly not all for mastering nor can be use anywhere or to a certain amount) anyway, back to Olli's master, pleasant sounding one what else can I say? technically checks out well too AFAI-can tell. Probably can get some more density in the highs. Stereo image is (almost?) perfect.
..........

2. DodgingRain

Good well-rounded master, pretty close to Wizzo's, I ultimately picked your master for the 2nd place cause the fluffy-warm lower mids + a nice stereo image there, gives a good visual image of objects in the distance. Also, chunkier snare than in Wizzo's mix, not as brash and dynamic in the highs as his, not that it's bad, but there's a difference.
............

3. Wizzo

I must admit that your master got interchanged quite a bit between 2nd and 3rd, reasons mentioned above. Anyway, still a well-balanced master.. not sure about the stereo image, what did you try there? seems totally different but a bit weird. Are you messing with some M/S or band stereo tools? are you mastering on headphones?

........

Special mention:

vintage

your master seems great, almost got a place in the podium, ... the sound feels a bit over-compressed especially for the type of song this is, but a cool master nonetheless
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also a pretty interesting one: jonaslasse

over-compressed and deep sounding, also you seem to have totally mangled the stereo image interesting/different one still.

[Mange]

Congratulations to the winners. My favourite was Wizzos

[Mister Fox]

First and foremost, congratulations to the winners!

The Winners Podium is
1) Olli-H
2) DodgingRain
3) Wizzo


We perform with the usual - if you want to, please select one license out of the sponsors pool (in order of the winners podium, one company per winner) and mention it in this thread, then (important) get in touch with me via PM with your full name and mail address.

I'll update the "winners podium" thread shortly (if existing)

Thanks again for your participation. You can leave the thread alive if you want to exchange tips/tricks, edits, etc.

[Waleed Morris]

I must admit that your master got interchanged quite a bit between 2nd and 3rd, reasons mentioned above. Anyway, still a well-balanced master.. not sure about the stereo image, what did you try there? seems totally different but a bit weird. Are you messing with some M/S or band stereo tools? are you mastering on headphones?

Hello 3ee , everyone ,
First of all thank you for picked my track , i was opening the session and i just tweak image plugin a bit !! and yeah i sometimes mix and mastering in headphone but not all the time . really good production 3ee and I hope see you again , congratulation to Olli-H and DodgingRain
A big thank you to Mister Fox for everything i'll choose my prize after Olli-H and DodgingRain .

Congratulations to the winners. My favourite was Wizzos

Thank you mange

[Dodgingrain]

Thanks for picking my master. I tried to follow mastering best practices which seemed to work out ok. Once oli picks I'll make my selection.

[davemcisaac]

First of all - Congratulations to the winners! They were all great sounding masters.

@3ee - I'm certain it was a difficult contest to judge and you certainly have the right to choose according to your own standards. But I did notice that none of the winners hit the Maximum allowed digital peak: -1dBTP:
1. Olli-H: -0.90dbTP
2. DodgingRain: -0.98dbTP (close, but not quite...)
3. Wizzo: -0.04dbTP

Add-On Rules / Target Values:
Loudness Target: -12LUFS ILk
Maximum allowed digital peak: -1dBTP
Release Medium A: Redbook CD/ Streaming (all via one file)
Bonus Release: optional Vaporwave master version (320kbps mp3 format is fine for this)

I also noticed that Olli-H submitted his .wav entry @ 24bit/4100Hz, which is not Redbook CD.

One more thing - You must not have noticed that Wizzo did not add any ID3 tags to his Mp3 submission as required. It is also 256kbps, rather than the required 320.

Upload and Submission Guidelines

• it is mandatory to provide both a "raw" WAV file and a high quality MP3 (320kbit) (in the future even MP4/AAC release)

• releases must feature proper tagging. In case of MP3 and MP4/AAC, that means proper ID3 tags. The information will be provided with each mix package.

I realize that this must sound like I am whining because I didn't make the winner's list, but I would think that only those that adhered to the rule set would be allowed to make it into the winner's circle. That's just my opinion. I thought the rules were there for a reason.

[3ee]

Hi Dave,

Sorry, I must admit that I didn't pay attention to these technicalities closely, I simply normalized to a LUFS number all the entries and fine-tuned by ear where needed..

If you ask me, the rules need to change, big time! I understand that in a real world scenario there should be discipline and close inspection of technicalities.. but when emulating the real world here, takes away most of the fun..

[davemcisaac]

3ee, I understand. After the submission deadline I thought I would do a bit of my own "judging". The 1st thing I did was download all the Mp3s and eliminated all who didn't add Id3 tags correctly. Then I ran a loudness analyser on the WAV files (MLoudnessAnalyser - FREE!) and eliminated the ones who passed the Id3 tag test, but didn't hit the loudness targets. There were only a few left in the contest after that...

I didn't mention anything prior to this time, because I didn't want to influence your judging process.

[Dodgingrain]

I don't know that I agree. Based on what cubase measured the peak on mine was correct and ozone was limited at -1 as well.
I do think that there should be a checklist for the technical stuff but we also need better details on the goal. I don't think a single master for both CD and mp3 is appropriate. I would never do that for a customer. If there is a requirement for CD it needs to be ddp.
I think the technical end must be correct with a master but we need to specify with any measurement what software is being used so we don't have fractional discrepancies and other issues.

[Waleed Morris]

One more thing - You must not have noticed that Wizzo did not add any ID3 tags to his Mp3 submission as required. It is also 256kbps, rather than the required 320.

-I'm using maximum bitrate VBR Encoding not CBR !! I'm very aware using maximum audio quality .
-Id3 tag -yes i forgot to add one in mp3 file !! sure I can make it ! but let's see what Master Fox say .
-I'm opening session now and check my Tp level i'm using fabfilter L2 final plugins in my chain with Tp Enabled.
Thank you "davecisaac" for observation about the rules - Keep it up

I think the technical end must be correct with a master but we need to specify with any measurement what software is being used so we don't have fractional discrepancies and other issues.

Totally agree .