• SONAR
  • Take Our Blind Mastering "Taste-Test" (p.5)
2016/03/16 04:47:50
Cynical Snott
Not being one who believes greatly in coincidences, I find this a little on the 'smelly' side recalling the recent backlash and negativity of the release with LandR integration, just a little to 'coincidental' for me. Also . . .
 1. We, the user have no idea which file/which master is which and it seems that people would be a little to trusting in a Company which has an agenda to push, ie they would like to 'shore' up, to validate their inclusion of a product such as LandR, especially after such negativity and backlash it created upon release. A company is a company, they are all about doing what is in their own best interest, do not kid yourself, Cakewalk is no different, it would be wrong to blindly place your faith in any company as it seems a lot here do. Remember how LandR was somewhat stealthily slipped in?
2. Not knowing which file is which, which master is which, we really have no way of knowing which is the winner, and I would be very dubious if in fact they tried to tell us that it was in fact one of the LandR masters that was considered the most popular, the best, remember they (Cakewalk) have a barrow to push in this case after recent events.

Welcome To Reality.

Which one do I think is the best, doesn't really matter, and I will keep that to myself and check back if and when it is revealed which is which just out of curiosity.
2016/03/16 05:24:03
Tom Riggs
You Cynical Snott :-) If they told us which was which it would not be much of a double blind test now would it?
 
At least the alternate alias is revealingly accurate.
2016/03/16 05:40:08
SvenArne
I disregard #2 and #4, not because they sound bad, but because I feel they may not be loud enough to be competitive in the modern world. #2 is leaner and I suspect it may be LANDR on medium intensity, since I feel the app is pretty conservative when it comes to adding highs and lows. 
 
#1 and #6 choke when the disco beat enters. 
 
#3 and #5 retain punch while being loud and the winner for me is #3 which I'm guessing is the pro master. I have a hope that #5 is LANDR on high intensity.  
 
Sven
2016/03/16 05:55:14
jpetersen
I just see boxes with the cloud logo and SOUNDCLOUD underneath.
Does anyone know what sites/CDNs need to be allowed to make SoundCloud work?
 
 
2016/03/16 05:57:52
Ibanez Laney
I liked #5.
 
 
 
2016/03/16 06:47:29
Paul P
jpetersen
I just see boxes with the cloud logo and SOUNDCLOUD underneath.



I can play the songs directly on the blog page.  Even if the waveform disappears to be replace by "Hear more on Soundcloud" I can still click the play button (which is now invisible in the upper left of the box) to hear the song.  After pausing a song it can stutter quite a bit when I resume play, but this goes away after a while.
 
Soundcloud only requires permission for "soundcloud.com" (if you're on Firefox 41 or earlier that is.  I stopped at 41 because of the mess cookies have turned into since).
 
2016/03/16 10:16:45
brconflict
js516
I pick #3 as it had the best balance of clarity without loosing that intimacy. But to be honest, that distorted pad sound at the beginning and the overbearing snare kinda ruins the song.

Certainly some mixing/producing choices I probably would have made differently, but they do have a pretty solid mix. I was actually surprised it was out of Finland. It sounds very American, which is where, as another member pointed out is indicative of the "music industry". Why not keep it Finnish-sounding? It might actually stand out.
2016/03/16 10:23:47
Anderton
Cynical Snott
Not being one who believes greatly in coincidences, I find this a little on the 'smelly' side recalling the recent backlash and negativity of the release with LandR integration, just a little to 'coincidental' for me. Also . . .
1. We, the user have no idea which file/which master is which and it seems that people would be a little to trusting in a Company which has an agenda to push, ie they would like to 'shore' up, to validate their inclusion of a product such as LandR, especially after such negativity and backlash it created upon release. A company is a company, they are all about doing what is in their own best interest, do not kid yourself, Cakewalk is no different, it would be wrong to blindly place your faith in any company as it seems a lot here do. Remember how LandR was somewhat stealthily slipped in?
2. Not knowing which file is which, which master is which, we really have no way of knowing which is the winner, and I would be very dubious if in fact they tried to tell us that it was in fact one of the LandR masters that was considered the most popular, the best, remember they (Cakewalk) have a barrow to push in this case after recent events.

Welcome To Reality.

Which one do I think is the best, doesn't really matter, and I will keep that to myself and check back if and when it is revealed which is which just out of curiosity.



I agree that what you think doesn't really matter. The reality is that several different files have been identified as "favorites." So whichever one was done by the human mastering engineer, it will likely be the favorite of some but not others.
 
 
2016/03/16 10:43:01
JoeyAudioey
Cynical Snott
2. Not knowing which file is which, which master is which, we really have no way of knowing which is the winner, and I would be very dubious if in fact they tried to tell us that it was in fact one of the LandR masters that was considered the most popular, the best, remember they (Cakewalk) have a barrow to push in this case after recent events.

 
I promise we're not going to skew the results in favor of LANDR. I promise we're not going to skew the results in any way whatsoever. We'll tell you which file was which, and how each one placed, no less, no more. Besides, it doesn't really matter which one was which, because so far, all 6 have gotten at least some of the votes as the favorite.
 
This brings me to the point that even if we were pushing a LANDR agenda (and sorry to disappoint, but we're not, this was just supposed to be fun), the point that we've been trying to make all along -- that LANDR isn't there to replace a pro mastering house, but to be yet another tool in your arsenal -- has already been proven because again, all 6 have gotten at least some of the votes as the favorite :)
 
Edit: Results are going to be posted in just a few minutes!
2016/03/16 11:05:55
bitflipper
Please check the SoundCloud option that makes the files downloadable.
 
SoundCloud's player does not lend itself to proper A/B comparisons. I would prefer to load the files into a SONAR project so I could easily jump to the exact same locations in each version, including the original to hear what the mastering solution actually did to it.
 
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