I conducted a scientific research today. I took a track I'm currently working on and a track from a professional house producer which was released a few years ago on a respected vinyl label. I made as sure as possible that they would be comparable, cropped them both to the same length, checked out that the volumes match (as louder tracks so easily sound better), checked that the tempi were about the same and the general mood of the tracks were somewhat similar. Basically, tried to match them as close as I could, so that the individual taste of the listener wouldn't affect anything. Finally, I made up anonymous names for them, so they couldn't be identified in any way.
Then I asked 12 people (so far, the number might go up) to listen to those 2 tracks with whatever monitoring they had available. It wasn't just house fans, there was an ambient/experimental composer, a professional movie sound designer and so on. Some of them knew very little about house, which was of course great as it meant they didn't have any kind of bias what proper house is supposed to sound like and could be more objective about it.
As we speak, 7 out of 12 people have listened to the tracks and given me their opinions. Some didn't have the time to analyse them properly, so they just tried to guess which is my track and which is the pro track. Some gave me some detailed analysis, of which I am very grateful.
Anyways! The results of this little survey were quite interesting. Out of those 7, 5 people guessed incorrectly and thought that my track sounded more like a professional release. Surprising, to say the least!
Now, before I get all cocky I must admit that the professional track I used isn't a great, big classic house track. It was impossible to use such as most listeners would have recognized it instantly and the whole point of the blind test would had gone down the drain. Still, it was a track made by a professional, mastered by a professional, released on vinyl by a good label. Which (hopefully) means that I've made some noticeable progress. Or maybe just got lucky, who knows!
Next time I'll do this I'll up the ante and use an even better reference track. Something that costs a lot on discogs preferably.
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