How to judge.
I wanted to listen to what everyone did to compare them. In order to get a method to compare I chose to load all of the files into CoolEdit and sync the cursor so I could bounce between tracks one by one to compare sonicly, visually and statistically.
I also used Feurio to load them all into and adjust the levels so they all play back at somewhat the same level.
I like using these two programs above because I can compare the same part of the song quickly without having to go through the intro each time.
Observations.
1. Overall Levels were all over the place.
2. peak to RMS levels were all over the place with some uncompressed and some very compressed.
3. Spectrum was all over the place. Some mixes had nothing over 14Khz at a level higher than -60. Some have signal there for cymbals and some have boosted everything up here( and those hurt.) Spectrum seems to be the biggest diffirentiator once level is adjusted to become a non issue.
4. some are at 44.1khz and some are at 48Khz which can change pitch and speed if you are not carefull. ( dump the soundblasters and get a real sound card guys)
I am having a tough time keeping the tracks straight, the naming conventions ----- I mean there is no naming conventions ----- and depending on the program (explorer, windows explorer, wave editors etc) the names just keep changing to the point of I cant tell who's mix I am listening to.
People using internet handels(fake names) on this board and then using others on their webs where the files are located for download then naming the files differently from that makes it pretty confusing.
The files need to be called.
{mixers name} {revision number} {More-at-ease} {bitrate-samplerate of mixdown} {MP3 encoding rate and sample rate}
or something like that.
All that said, I now have the raw tracks in my DAW and am starting to listen to them. Mixing will start next. Some of the submittals will be hard to beat.
Very nice recording Josh, and a good song, lyric and performance. Thanks for making it available.