Whelp..... I got the LANDRs!!
#5 was my pick in the survey, BTW.
 
A good tune!

berlymahn
Whelp..... I got the LANDRs!!
 
 

So some might say "you know crap when you see it"

I didn't read any of the responses before I listened. I went from track to track at the same point in the song on two different sets of phones, K-240s and M-40s. The M-40s are a LOT louder. (My monitors are put away right now).
So. I did think the pre-master sounded good but for the mastered tracks I was torn between 3 and 6. After a lot of back and forth I chose 3 with 6 a close second, 5 after that. I didn't like 2 or 4 simply because they were too quiet using an Octa-Capture and the K-240s. I had the Main Output on the OC set to 3:00 using the K-240 but had to back off to 12:00/1:00 using the M-40s.
Comparing quiet passages and loud passages I just thought everything sounded better, by a hair, on 3.
 
My hearing is rolling off on the high end too... and my feet are cold.
 
J

Dang... I was late to the party but since I didn't read the thread I guess it is sort of like time travel. Hmmm. Interesting! I'll be looking forward to a test with level matching. Perhaps I will have my monitors back out by then.
 
J

Woohoo! I picked #3!  With that said........I still would like to try mastering the raw track myself. Can I? Can I? Please?? 

 
Any chance we can get more details on what the Cakewalk staffers used?  
 

I'd rather know the who, Social Security # and bank account #.

bapu
I'd rather know the who, Social Security # and bank account #.

You'll have to wait for Analytics to be deployed in the next Sonar version.

Obviously, I'm joking there. ;)
 

Joey Adams [Cakewalk]
Results are in! Here's the answer key:

 
It was a very tight race, but the clear winner was Track 3 (so there is definitely still plenty of room in this world for professional mastering houses ).
 
In 2nd place was Track 5, which was followed extremely narrowly by the LANDR masters, where Track 4 beat Track 2 by almost nothing. Track 6 was next, and Track 1 was last.
 
Note: These masters were intentionally not level-matched, as we believe that for a song of this style, the resultant level was part of the criteria for the quality of the masters. We will be doing another one of these tests in the future, wherein the levels will all be matched.
 
What do you think? Do these results surprise you? 
 
 

I was sure, 2 & 4 are Landr masters. Now I wonder, what particular plugin suites were used for A, B and C?