Audio Mastering Competition #1
"Pump up the volume." By delphaber @ Flickr.com
Update: Obi of www.obiaudio was announced the winner with 46% of the votes at 8am on Friday 7/31/09.
Competition pushes creativity. Isn’t that what they say? My blog is hosting a healthy, but intense competition between the best and brightest among up-and-coming music producers from all around the world. The members of FutureProducers.com decided to have a mastering competition featuring my song, RPG Rainbows.
This is a competition where we will allow the people to decide the best of audio mastering performance on RPG Rainbows. The finalists are Morning_Star, Edge0125, Obitheincredible and deRaNged 4 Phuk’dup. The winner of the competition will be determined by a poll on Future Producers (FP).
Please vote! In addition, ALL mastered copies of RPG Rainbows can be downloaded as FREE MP3 for your listening convenience.
This is the first time that I have sponsored a competition like this, so if you have any feedback or questions please leave it in the comments section. You may also ask questions to the finalists about their audio mastering performances in the comments section. If all goes well, I may just develop this competition into a regular feature on this blog. Adding yet another way to get up and coming composers, music producers and audio engineers some added exposure to media music supervisors and content producers.
A few comments. I love the way the snare and electric bass sound on deRaNged 4 Phuk’dup’s entry but I really thought that it would be close between me [Morning_Star] and obi because they seemed the most balanced. I’m going to go all out on the next comp.
Corey,
The poll has only been up for a few hours. Allow for the post to spread to different areas of the Internet. We want an even spread of professional and non-professional audio people to vote.
-Hakim
My vote is Obi.
Thanks Mars, make sure you enter your vote in the poll above.
-Hakim
This is great, Hakim – lots of fun!
Several of us here at SoundOps Mastering are interested to see who wins, and I was surprised to find out we aren’t all pulling for the same engineer.
Just goes to show, audio mastering is as much a creative service as it is a technical one.
By the way, the first time I heard RPG RAINBOWS, I listened to it all the way through, and now that I’ve heard your song at least 25 times (to be able to vote responsibly), it’s really growing on me – nice work
Thanks Will! It looks like this will be a regular event. I will let you know more about future competitions when we work out the details.
It absolutely is, can make or break a record you know what I mean. Just as much as a bass player’s technique or the drummer’s pocket.
Thanks again for your kind words man. We’ll be in touch soon.
-Hakim
voted for Morning Star since it was the only one that didn’t put a sharp EQ right on the nasal-zone of the guitars. it also seems to have the most natural treble. if you compare it at equal loudness to deRaNged, you’ll get a better idea of the comparison.
also kinda sad i missed this one. nothing against the people who submitted mixes (i don’t know any of them, or any of their work) but i could have competed pretty well i think. (yes, i’m listening to the FLAC versions right now, the only real way to compare these)
I also find it interesting that none of these four converted from 48kHz to 44.1kHz. Is this track intended for film use?
JesseG,
Thank you for commenting.
Yes it is. That is a very good point! I will be holding more competitions and will keep you in the loop. Right now I am trying to get sponsors for prizes.
-Hakim