[PROTO·DOME]

Originally Posted by Daethar

Alternatively, since the tracks are already lossy, there is nothing more lost by "upconverting" to FLAC. Just for consistency's sake? This also prevents future artifacts when, say, copying the files, or burning to a data cd to transfer the files, right?

You can if you want, but it's kind of like taking a 300x300 picture then stretching it to 1000x1000 in Photoshop just to match the resolution of the rest of your album. Doing that just makes a small file needlessly huge and just feels more messy.

[Daethar]

Originally Posted by ProtoDome

You can if you want, but it's kind of like taking a 300x300 picture then stretching it to 1000x1000 in Photoshop just to match the resolution of the rest of your album. Doing that just makes a small file needlessly huge and just feels more messy.

Ah, see, I admit I wasn't exactly sure if the same thing happened to audio that does with video. I kinda figured mp3 -> FLAC wouldn't introduce more artifacts, but I wasn't sure.

[PROTO·DOME]

Originally Posted by Daethar

Ah, see, I admit I wasn't exactly sure if the same thing happened to audio that does with video. I kinda figured mp3 -> FLAC wouldn't introduce more artifacts, but I wasn't sure.

Oh no, not like that. You probably won't notice any difference (depending on how you do it), but it just makes a huge file with no extra quality.

I'm just imagining the waveform in my mind with the Photoshop thing.

[Daethar]

Ok, I understand what you mean then.

[Mustin]

I get what you're saying, dude. You are part of the 100% of people who demand .FLAC and complain about it because .MP3 isn't good enough.

I've never seen people who discuss .FLAC not bitch about it because of this, that or the other.

Just my observation.

And I totally get if you pay for something, you want to make sure it's right.

But there's so much free music out there with people putting it out there for free that when we start complaining about it we start to sound absurd.

(note: I recognize this hypocrisy of my own re: Facebook. Fucking Facebook! GRAH!)

Sorry, dude. I normally wouldn't say anything but I'm all hopped up on Red Bull and I just always think people crabbing about .FLAC sound snooty. Coulda just said, "Hey, guys! Love all the free music! I noticed something with the .FLACs - why are some missing in some projects? Anyone got any insights?" as opposed to "This is troubling me," "would it be unacceptable to require a certain degree of quality in how it is released?" and "I propose..."

YOU PROPOSE

snootykins

[Liontamer]

would it be unacceptable to require a certain degree of quality in how it is released?

Thank you for being "troubled" while framing the issues as "OCR doesn't give a shit about the album releases." I agreed with Mustin that was just the wrong way to start off, assuming bad intent.

Even though the original post read VERY DOUCHILY (which I'm making up), and I'm the one responsible for putting together the torrents of everything since album #7, this very directly is about my work. I'm treating this thread as a post-mortem of the Pokemanz package creation itself, so I'll address this as thoroughly as I can. :-)

In the video game industry, it seems to have become a standard practice to release a game with glaring problems and bugs, sometimes even crippling issues, just to make some release date. I don't think the same should be allowed here, especially considering how much thought and deliberation goes into allowing individual songs to be admitted.

No one pushed out incomplete files to make a date. One file update that I got at the 11th hour had the older MP3 version mistakenly left in while the FLAC was updated. That's a grand total of 1 file with an issue. That's not analogous to slapping together a video game to make a street date in order to not miss profit projections.

I mean, why include a FLAC folder if any of the tracks are going to be missing from it? Is including FLAC formats just a gesture of goodwill to the listeners, an "extra", and it's up to the downloader to figure out all the inconsistencies in the torrent and files?

We've always provided lossless versions of everything we've had available to us for an album. For projects like The Missingno Tracks that had such a long creation period and had some much older tracks, if we don't have a truly lossless version of a track, oh well. We still have other projects that started a while ago that may be in the same boat, and that's OK. We'll live. You'll live. :-)

Going forward though, we've already agreed that we need lossless versions of everything and that projects should be maintaining those files. We may need a more centralized area to gather those, so that's one for the next staff meeting. In many cases, it may take years before a project has enough momentum where we're fairly sure it'll be an OCR album, so it may be years after the start of a project before we then get files.

The other alternative with missing FLACs someone mentioned was to take the MP3s with no WAVs and just redo those lossy MP3s as FLACs, which 1) isn't genuinely lossless, 2) makes no sense and 3) is disingenuous, even though most people wouldn't know any better. We'd rather not do that.

At the very least, if you can't preserve the whole of a project into another format, don't bother including it in the torrent.

"If we can't give them all lossless...THEN NOBODY GETS ANYTHING!" Not having 100% of the tracks bothers us too. But that suggestion is silly and just punishes people because of a personal hangup, that's all. Nope. :-D

If an album was missing tracks in mp3 format, would that be acceptable?

Like what, a MOD file only? The primary goal is to release a complete MP3 set. If someone doesn't have an MP3 available, that means they don't want it published by us. :-)

I propose that some more stringent guidelines should be implemented for the torrents on ocremix.org's album section.

As linked before: http://ocremix.org/info/Album_Project_Guidelines

For the completion phase, I'll take a stab at fleshing out further specifics (i.e. WAVs must be 1411kbps, 44kHz stereo, album front must be at least 600 x 600 px).

To have missing tracks, unburnable files, corrupted files, old versions, etc. seems just sloppy. And users who don't browse the forums may never learn of corrections.

Users not knowing corrections is annoying, absolutely. Can't be helped. But for missing FLACs, since people apparently can't read the "Read Me" file included in the package, adding a "Missing FLACs" TXT into the FLAC folder itself will also be done going forward if the set's incomplete.

We deal with the files how we wish, but we're flexible enough to not rake people over the coals if a 4 year old track has no WAV available, because we're primarily about putting out music, not being anal about FLACs. :-)

If you're having issues with burning specific Missingno Tracks files, you need to post in this thread and give specifics to the issue to see if they can be verified/replicated.

The only other idea I'm walking away from with this is potentially pre-releasing a completed album package to the album participants before the official release, which would happen in an ideal situation. Obviously for an older project, it would prove a lot more useful at catching last minute issues. But generally speaking, that's not practical. But it's something to work towards.

[Emperor Charlemagne]

are flacs and .wavs really a "courtesy" when after a year or so some MP3s sound so horribly mangled in quality that there is no point in listening to them?

Or am I alone in that some MP3s I have had after a long time have this weird screeching noise in them.

[Daethar]

Originally Posted by Mustin

Sorry, dude. I normally wouldn't say anything but I'm all hopped up on Red Bull and I just always think people crabbing about .FLAC sound snooty. Coulda just said, "Hey, guys! Love all the free music! I noticed something with the .FLACs - why are some missing in some projects? Anyone got any insights?" as opposed to "This is troubling me," "would it be unacceptable to require a certain degree of quality in how it is released?" and "I propose..."

YOU PROPOSE

snootykins

Originally Posted by Liontamer

Thank you for being "troubled" while framing the issues as "OCR doesn't give a shit about the album releases." I agreed with Mustin that was just the wrong way to start off, assuming bad intent.

Even though the original post read VERY DOUCHILY (which I'm making up), and I'm the one responsible for putting together the torrents of everything since album #7, this very directly is about my work. I'm treating this thread as a post-mortem of the Pokemanz package creation itself, so I'll address this as thoroughly as I can.

Fair enough. I'm sorry if I come across that way to you, it's simply how I try to present my thoughts online.
The site will go on without me posting, the mixers will go on without my input, and I know that. I will still download the projects (I fully enjoyed listening to mp3 version of Missingno). I don't presume people should care what I have to say. But I saw something that bothered me a bit, not in a way that I was offended, but in a sort of OCD sense, and figured that perhaps someone (besides myself and Calatia from the review thread) might want to discuss the potential problems behind it. I spent a bit of extra time trying to sort things out for burning cds, and figured that if some precautions were taken in the future, other people might be saved time and effort in sorting stuff out.
And, I do admit, I had not read the project guidelines page Level 99 linked later. I figured that kind of info was kept secret, only known to moderators and judges and such.

Originally Posted by Liontamer

rest of post

1. Excellent points
2. Even though I used Missingno as the example, I do realize it's happened before, and so that's why I wanted to discuss the whole thing in general. Because this is not really a review of the album, I didn't think it fair to clutter that thread.
3. I do like the things you suggest for going forward.

[Liontamer]

Originally Posted by Emperor Charlemagne

are flacs and .wavs really a "courtesy" when after a year or so some MP3s sound so horribly mangled in quality that there is no point in listening to them?

Or am I alone in that some MP3s I have had after a long time have this weird screeching noise in them.

You're confusing MP3s for 8-tracks.

[The Coop]

Originally Posted by Daethar

This is actually the most reasonable response I have heard regarding this. I understand that, but I personally think they should have been left out of the torrent, and just available on the site.

Not to sound snotty, but you don't cut up albums into what will and won't be included in a torrent. If it's on the album when it's released, then it belongs on the torrent version of the album. Period. To do otherwise would make multiple versions of what should only be a single instance of a project, regardless of what format it's downloaded in. Plus, it would be pretty damn rude to the artists who put all their time and effort in a song, and get it on the album, only to have it left out of the torrent because it wasn't in someones favorite format.