djpretzel

I'd recommend a follow-on EP or something, just to make sure the scope doesn't prevent it from ever seeing the light of day. Also, psyched to see @DaleNorth on board, and hope @DiggiDis does something more than lurk. As for art style... does anyone know any real-life graffiti artists? Within the confines of... legality... it'd be awesome to have the artwork be photos OF Parappa graffiti! Just a thought... could also go the extremely lo-fi MS Paint route, since that's almost the game's aesthetic

Just curious as to status on this... June 23rd is, well.... quite soon!

Sorry if my response seemed flippant to you, but here you are stating as fact what is completely erroneous, and seem to be faulting us for it at the same time... if you had approached this topic as more of a point of inquiry rather than assuming your own understanding to be accurate & whole, and ours to be faulty, I think I would have responded differently... You're still not quite getting it, yet you project confidence and speak in certitudes ("negligible", "certainly not"); when talking about the limits of the human ear, sampling frequency and bit depth are the relevant metrics, since they dictate the fidelity of the conversion of audio from analog to digital. When talking about the lossiness of a bitrate, it's about how the audio in question is compromised to fit into that space... MP3 has a lot of tricks up its sleeve to increase quality at lower bitrates... things like cutting off low & high frequencies, joint stereo, etc... how perceptible this lossiness is depends on the actual audio in question... it also depends on whether the bitrate is constant or variable... it also depends on the MP3 encoder being used, because not all encoders are created equal... Your initial post stated that the human ear couldn't hear sounds "higher" than 128Kbps, and your follow-up post still isn't understanding the difference between bit depth, sampling frequency, and the effective bitrate of a lossy compression algorithm like MP3. Some decent additional info, with links to studies, at: http://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/3219/are-there-any-perceptible-differences-between-the-sound-quality-of-192-versus-32

I love this post. I absolutely love this post. It proves a certain point; for every individual convinced he/she has golden ears and can hear the difference between 1024Khz and 4096Khz and 128-bit audio vs. 2048-bit audio (intentionally ridiculous numbers here, folks!), there's someone questioning the use of bandwidth and (incorrectly) invoking something like Nyquist to argue that we've gone past the limits of human hearing... @Grunkk, my brubba.... 128Kbps is a bitrate, not a sampling frequency/depth. You can have a 128Kbps "quality" stream of 16-bit, 22khz mono audio. You can have a 320Kbps stream of the same. You can also have a 64Kbps stream of 24-bit, 96Khz stereo... I'm not gonna bore you with the details, here, but in simple terms: the MP3 bitrate dictates the lossiness of the compression, whereas the bit depth & sampling frequency dictate the fidelity of the source audio. The first is the lossiness of the digital compression being applied to the captured data, the second is the "lossiness" (more like "quantization") inherent in the conversion from the analog realm to the digital. Metaphor: MP3 bitrate is JPEG lossiness on a scale of 0-100%. where as audio bit depth & sampling frequency are the resolution and color depth of the lossless source image being compressed. You can have a JPEG 100% quality image that's 100x100 pixels, and you have have JPEG 20% quality image that's 1000x1000 pixels... 128Kbps can be noticeably lossy, even to the layperson, depending on the nature of the audio in question... hence our decision to increase to either 192Kbps or VBR1, with a Nyquist-friendly and industry-standard 16-bit + 44.1khz stereo source. If all of this seems overwhelming, I guess you'll just have to trust us: we've landed on a standard that 99.9% of people couldn't reliably pass an A/B Coke/Pepsi taste test on when comparing to lossless, including Neil Young and Brendan Becker, yet which doesn't unnecessarily wander into the realm of 320Kbps, 24-bit, 96khz diminishing returns...

Which add-on, just so we know? Also: Just FYI, that's really Windows 8 you're describing... Windows 10 is more like "Hey, we went WAY too far with that touchscreen stuff... let's dial it back a bit, create an OS that's actually pretty solid, but make sure to introduce a bunch of new privacy concerns that most people won't bother objecting to..." - most of which can be disabled, but point being, it's a pretty solid desktop experience now that doesn't try and cram touchscreen down your throat anymore.

@CyberSkull Confirmed, thanks for reporting; should be fixed now.

@timaeus222, @Liontamer, @Skrypnyk Should be fixed now.

That's cool, nothing wrong with being on the fence. If your primary goal is just to support OCR, there are better ways - this is first & foremost a commercial product being sold by Impact Soundworks, and that's Andy's actual job/livelihood, etc. To answer your John Oliverian inquiry, 5% of gross sales go to OCR. In terms of being persuaded of the value, know this: even though it already has 1000 presets, we're gonna be adding new presets with almost every minor version, major features and even new systems with major versions, and some badass functionality as well... imo it's a pretty indispensable & comprehensive library even at 1.0, but OCR & ISW are committed to ongoing enhancements, too!

@Norrin_Radd There was an issue with the codes but it SHOULD be addressed now... @zircon indicated it was fixed, at least. The SNES stuff is great, and yeah... the quad layer engine w/ X/Y is flexible, but the mod matrix is something I'm particularly proud of... @Neblix killed it on that one, stretching KSP to its limits - if you compare it to other mod matrices in Kontakt libs, it's best-of-breed. And we've got plans for extending it in SAC 1.1... Also planning on running some SAC-related compos, soliciting presets from the community, etc. and really growing this library over time... I mean, it already has 1000+ presets, so even 1.0 is a super-formidable beast of a release... but it's only gonna get better!

VERY excited to see what artists are going to do with this library - the mod matrix + 4-layer engine really allows for some amazing stuff! A few of the presets were designed by yours truly Others were designed by @timaeus222, @Flexstyle, @bLiNd, @Sir_NutS, @Neblix, and of course @zircon!

I'd really like to at least ask if a revision is possible... it's a great arrangement, largely great performances, and a very unique style that I'd LOVE to see on OCR... all of the truly problematic stuff is in the first 1'30" and is basically intonation... if a multi-track recording exists, it could conceivably even be melodyned into form... If no revision can or will be provided, then I agree that Larry's "warts and all" approval makes sense, and I second it... YES (borderline) (let's ask the artist!)

Don't worry TOO much about website - we can usually handle that for you - but getting the art down is definitely important... I'd recommend scouring the deviantart and/or gamearthq and seeing who's done what in terms of Parappa fanart; they might be down for doing something new!

This is just how IPS4 does things, vs. vBulletin or even IPB3... presumably there are internal benefits to the unique strings being added to paths, but they wouldn't be apparent to end users or even, necessarily, administrators Thanks - this should now be fixed.

Very similar in structure/relationship to source as some of the SCB mixes, yes. I can see why the panel had issues with this, but I ultimately agree that it's a nice embellishment of a minimal source out into something that breathes & develops a bit more. YES

@JK FlipFlop, @Slimy Option has been added!

This is where I'm losing you - OCR staff are in complete control of what the OCR name gets affixed to, and I have ultimate veto power, at the end of the day. Do I often veto the opinions of staff, or go off and do something entirely on my own without talking it over with them first? No. But in your hypothetical above... you do realize we have a judges panel that decides what gets posted on the site, right? The OCR name gets affixed precisely & solely to that which we believe it should be affixed to. Most of the time the suggestions are coming from the community, or staff, but sometimes it's my idea... the accountability lies with me, so when you talk about an individual using the OCR name without our review & consent, how is that relevant? It's a name, a website, and a community that WE work on, for hours on end. We're doing the administration, the moderation, coordination, the promotion, and it's a ton of work. Put frankly, if we're not in a position to make certain types of decisions, then not only are we unable to do our jobs efficiently, but the whole thing kinda falls apart... Your follow-up post is a little bit clearer, and that clarification was requested and is appreciated, but it still seems a little unreasonable to me. Your definition of what constitutes a "community" effort is very black-and-white, when I think things are more nuanced than that. To me, as long as members of the community worked on it, and the site gets behind it, and we associate the OCR name with it, that's all it takes... there are degrees of community involvement, in other words; it's not an all-or-nothing proposition... I think you might have a tendency to create these binary distinctions and get all huffy when simply accepting the spectrum of possibilities would be more accurate & reasonable? Perhaps, 5-10 years from now, when the OCR name is being applied to undergarments & flamethrowers & corn dogs & pharmaceuticals, we'll look back on the prophetic words of @Brandon Strader and acknowledge his foresight and wisdom in predicting the commercial dilution of the site's mission... but I wouldn't bet on it. At any rate, if you want to continue discussion, please message myself & zircon.

Just following up on this... it's the default IPS4 theme CSS, not something we did, so we aren't necessarily fans either. SO far we haven't really tinkered much with the IPS4 theme, but that will certainly change, and as we make modifications, I'll look into this.

Thanks for the suggestion - we'll add it soon!

I'll mention this in the write-up. In fact, I'll probably quote myself. Hello, future me! S'good stuff; obviously plays it a LITTLE loose with sources, but I didn't have to work too hard, plus the breakdown helps. Also obviously a different style/sound for timaeus, which is by & large done quite well, with an emphasis on the agile & delicious fretless bass. If I had to nitpick, I'd say the only weakness might be the snare part, as it pertains to the overall drum part - would have liked more dynamics on the snare, more accent & grace notes, to really give it that shuffle & syncopation, beyond what's present. As it stands, snare sits at the same velocity for most of the track and doesn't vary much, and the drum part could have a little extra pizzazz/humanization/panache, and I think the way to achieve both those goals would have been weaker accented snare notes filling in some of the gaps with extra syncopation. That's my VERY specific criticism, but it's easily outweighed by all the other righteous & highly enjoyable stuff going on, so.... YES

I still listen to it & dig it immensely... some production issues, sure, but THAT ENERGY Super-catchy lyrics/chorus; I think it stands up well.

Yes, and also... yes. We don't use direct game names, but for many of the Genesis sounds specifically, you can easily guess based on preset euphemisms/references. Recreating most types of SNES/Genesis sounds is entirely doable, and with the other systems, all the core waveforms are there. It's pretty darn flexible and has pretty wide coverage. So let me get this straight... any time the staff & founder of OCR want to put OCR's name on something, we need "clearance" from "hundreds" of people? Have you noticed that you're the only one expressing this perspective? That's why I asked others who might agree to chime in - it's so bizarre and out of left field that I'm genuinely curious if anyone else feels the same, or similarly. If as the founder/president of OverClocked ReMix, LLC I have to get "clearance" from "hundreds" of other people before doing something like this, I'd quit. So would you, if you were in my shoes. There ARE decisions that involve/require community feedback, namely when we do anything that affects the submissions process or content policy. We didn't get "clearance" from "hundreds" to run our FF6 kickstarter, or for that matter to release Random Encounter, which YOU directed. I'm not going to throw insults at *you* personally, but your *position* on this matter *appears* to be hypocritical & inconsistent... it's a VGM-related sample library, worked on by many OCR regulars/veterans, conceptualized by the founder of OCR & a former-judge and current ReMixer who's organized some amazing OCR albums. Again, the connectivity & relevance seem blatantly obvious to me, and appear intuitive enough to others. FWIW, I do appreciate the role of "watchdog" and I don't mind decisions like this being questioned, but you're going beyond questioning and just making bad faith assumptions that don't seem to be grounded in reason. There's a cutoff point where it stops being "useful questioning of authority that prompts warranted reflection" and starts being paranoid accusation, incomplete appreciation of reality, or repetition of unreasonable & inconsistent claim... If you cannot explain the above inconsistency more clearly, perhaps refrain from further contributing to the thread until your position is more fully-formed?

But OC ReMIx never stood for "Don't endorse super-cool commercial projects that are completely relevant to the site mission of promoting VGM"... that was never a restriction, at any level. We are, first and foremost, a community of fans creatively expressing our appreciation for some amazing music. But the site's mission & principles have always included promoting VGM, and that includes commercial offerings if they are relevant. This is relevant. A portion of each sale will go towards supporting OCR, by the way. If anyone else agrees with Brandon's concerns, please chime in; to me, it seems like most people get the connectivity & understand why this is something we have been part of & will be a part of. Some amazing music will be made with this library, guaranteed! Some of that music will end up on the site, some of it will end up in games... sure feels like a win-win, to me. Heck, when you see who's putting together some of the demos for SAC... if you still feel raw about it, I'll be waiting.

That's a pretty big budget I'd hodgepodge it. Don't go with one vendor... CineSamples does brass well, so maybe use them for that, but branch out from there.

CineStrings just feels a little meh next to the likes of Spitfire Mural or Sable or even the Albion patches, or (from demos I've heard) Berlin Strings, Hollywood Strings, etc. With CineWinds, I really dislike the articulation artifacts in legato transitions. To me they stand out too much & end up making the instruments too foreground/close.

My quick two cents: CineBrass is pretty damn good. CinePerc is pretty damn good. I don't particularly like CineWinds or CineStrings.