Hear here also liked the original...but for the "mastered" #4 was my choice for the dynamics and cymbals being brought out a bit more so..in da mix...2 was close second...
 
And I like the number 4 because it is even..and 2 could be said is half of...thus not whole..holy 4 first choice.
 
 
lol.
 
Thanks 
 
Cheers!

When do we find out what is who's doing, on and or how was it done, by whom or what?
 
and our opinions only matter to ourselves who have them, and like them that way.

hueseph

stevec

Soundwise

hueseph
if you had taken the time to match volumes you would have found that the transients were in fact more prominent in 2 and 4.

You can tell that just by looking at waveforms as well.

Exactly.     
 
I was listening on headphones, at work.  Level matching simply wasn't an option....    However, it was a real-world/outside the studio listening experience, as 99% of the target audience is likely to do.   
 

As a consumer, you turn up your player to a comfortable level. As a critical listener you should do the same for each individual track. Even then, you stated that you found the transients in 2 and 4 to be muted when clearly this is not the case.

Geez....    OK, OK, I'll go back an re-listen...   
 
OK, I'm back.  Yes, I did like 2 and 4 better with a little more volume, no surprise there.  Between the two of them I preferred # 2 though the difference between them isn't that drastic.   
 
But overall, I still stand by my original assessment in that # 3 is my favorite, even when level matched.   The drums have more snap which for a song like this is important IMO.   And given the genre and target audience, I wouldn't necessarily expect listeners to adjust their playback volume, but rather that the mastering process have that target audience in mind - I'm picturing a lot of portable devices in noisy environments.
 
I grew up on vinyl...  I do know what dynamics are and am familiar with the loudness war.   But I'm also a realist - while I think things have improved to some degree over the last few years in regards to over-compressed, distorted and/or lifeless masters, it's certainly not what it was in the 70's, nor do I ever expect it to be.   At least not as long as lossy compression and cheap ear buds rule the land.   
 

stevec

hueseph

stevec

Soundwise

hueseph
if you had taken the time to match volumes you would have found that the transients were in fact more prominent in 2 and 4.

You can tell that just by looking at waveforms as well.

Exactly.     
 
I was listening on headphones, at work.  Level matching simply wasn't an option....    However, it was a real-world/outside the studio listening experience, as 99% of the target audience is likely to do.   
 

As a consumer, you turn up your player to a comfortable level. As a critical listener you should do the same for each individual track. Even then, you stated that you found the transients in 2 and 4 to be muted when clearly this is not the case.

 
 
Geez....    OK, OK, I'll go back an re-listen...   
 
OK, I'm back.  Yes, I did like 2 and 4 better with a little more volume, no surprise there.  Between the two of them I preferred # 2 though the difference between them isn't that drastic.   
 
But overall, I still stand by my original assessment in that # 3 is my favorite, even when level matched.   The drums have more snap which for a song like this is important IMO.   And given the genre and target audience, I wouldn't necessarily expect listeners to adjust their playback volume, but rather that the mastering process have that target audience in mind - I'm picturing a lot of portable devices in noisy environments.
 
I grew up on vinyl...  I do know what dynamics are and am familiar with the loudness war.   But I'm also a realist - while I think things have improved to some degree over the last few years in regards to over-compressed, distorted and/or lifeless masters, it's certainly not what it was in the 70's, nor do I ever expect it to be.   At least not as long as lossy compression and cheap ear buds rule the land.   
 

The dynamic range of Vinyl is lower than what the CD format is capable of, FYI.  
 
And this test was done with Lossy Compression.  

NeoSoul
The dynamic range of Vinyl is lower than what the CD format is capable of, FYI.  

Theoretically speaking that is. In reality, CDs have much less dynamic range then vinyl records used to. But you already know this.

2 and 4 were my picks. I gave a slight edge to 4. 1 was too harsh and 5 and 6 seemed to crush the snare in the chorus. I never master anything. I've always paid for mastering (Vita Mastering and Treelady) and I've always liked the results I've gotten. LandR might convince me to try it here and there, but I still prefer to send 4-8 files to one person to create a cohesive EP experience. 

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?
 
 

Me too... I hope I find an answer as I continue reading the thread...
 

I took the survey and went with #3.  I like the track but I think there is a problem with the snare that is greatly affected by the mastering.  It sounds a little splatty.

Keni
But funny? Master 5 (6th track) shows the LANDR logo on top of it... Not very blind...?

All of the tracks have the LANDR logo on them.  It's just part of the blind test image.  

Good point from Bitflipper, does Soundcloud add compression?  I vaguely remember reading something that said that the upload process does re-compress MP3s for optimal SC usage.  Perhaps I only dreamt this but it was years ago when I think I first saw this.
 
But, I also think that the reason that there is so much subjectivity here is that I think that the objective of "mastering" is not the same to all users hence we go with what we think sounds better (myself included).  On a very high level, I am not a fan of loudness and overly compressed sound (mastered or not), but that is just me.
 
So, what is your (the) objective/definition of mastering?  
 
Jim

A couple of thoughts......
 
1) A bit of onion in the mix -> soundcloud's own processing (maybe?).   
     a. We're listening to these files, mastered 41.1K 16bit WAVs presumably (maybe higher resolution?) and then comparing them to what soundcloud dishes out (128kbps streaming - yuk).... still, you can hear the variances between each track, so that's good.    Right?  Right?
     b. Were they pushed to SC as MP3?  If so, did SC reprocess the MP3 (again)?  Meh.  Don't know that it really matters, but it would be nice to know what was "touched" by the hosting site.  How many cooking contests chefs allow the organizing authority to tweak the recipe prior to presenting the meal to the judges?   Hmmmmmm..  Odd.
     c. There may be some additional sound file processing that soundcloud is doing (compression)- can anyone confirm?  I can tell ya (you may already know), that youtube destroys audio.  Yuk.
 
2) Also, how you are listening to it (computer / software) may make a difference.  I say this because my good ol' Govt machine has done some really weird stuff when I stream from SC.  So strange.  Was listening to one of my tunes that had a fade at the end..... my Govt machine, streaming my tune via SC, did not do the fade.  I could even see the fade in the SC wav profile, but the fade did not occur.  Not something I care to call the mega-Govt-IT department about, mind you.  I never trust anything I hear on this machine, as a result.  Same goes for my own MP3s that I email to myself.  No clue what it is about the Windows audio on this machine that is changing the sound, and I am afraid to ask.  (Windows 7 machine BTW).
 
3) So, I have an idea.  Gonna run an experiment tonight.  Will upload a file (probably a 320 MP3) to SC tonight.  I will record the streaming audio (not download my file from SC) and compare it (visually) to the original submission.  I'm curious to see if there are any glaring differences.  Anyone done this already?

=================================
In the test, you'll find an original pre-master, and 6 masters:
1 mastered by a prominent mastering house/engineer in NYC;
2 mastered by different intensity settings in LANDR;
and 3 mastered by Cakewalk staff using various plug-in suites.
=================================
 
This is fun....  Ha.... too weird!! 
 
OK, here goes nothing! (seriously....you all are going to kill me for this!)
From a strictly UNSCIENTIFIC standpoint, I just noticed this after comparing screen grabs of the SC graphic Waveforms (yes, I went there):
 
1. Mastering blind test #2 and #4 have nearly the exact same graphical waveform. And, and, aaaaand, they are nearly identify to the pre-mastered version except for a slight boost in "amplification", if that's what is being represented by SC's waveform drawing (think so).  Ha!  Guessing these are the LANDR Tracks.
2. Mastering blind test #1, #3, #5, and #6 are VERY similar to each other, but have an overall significant amplitude increase from the pre-mastered baseline track.  They also have peaks which appear in places that the baseline track does not.
 
My Wild A$$ Guess:
#2 and #4 LANDR
#3, #5, #6 is the Cakewalk Staff
#1 is the NY Mixing Engineer (slight variances from #3, #5, #6) - very hard to tell.
 
Cheers!
 

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

 
What do you think? Do these results surprise you? 
 
 

Nope I voted for 3 and put a comment that #5 was a VERY close second for me.

berlymahn
 
My Wild A$$ Guess:
#2 and #4 LANDR
#3, #5, #6 is the Cakewalk Staff
#1 is the NY Mixing Engineer (slight variances from #3, #5, #6) - very hard to tell.
 
Cheers!
 

WRONG!!!!