Moguta

Genso Suikoden 2 - Reminiscence (Deep Sleep) by Hazama is probably -THE- most relaxing mix on the site. also: songs by Pot Hocket Metal Gear Solid 2 - May Fortune Smile Upon You by Vigilante NiGHTS - Good NiGHT by prozax Secret of Mana - Pure Lands (Total Darkness) by Children of the Monkey Machine Secret of Mana - Dirge for the Frosty Plains by Matt Pollard Secret of Evermore - K-PAX for Evermore by mazedude

Happy Birthday sir, and sorry to hear about your wheels. It was good to meet you at MAGFest in January, and I hope to see you back again. ^.^

Street Fighter 2 High Definition, I think? And I actually couldn't tell whether Jose's lyrics were there in the video. I'm disappointed to hear that they had to be cut. ): Although if I remember it had some cursing, right, so I can understand why. It'll be exciting to hear all the finished tracks. Don't hold up the release, guys.

>.> Dude, this thread isn't about what format OCR encodes its music in. The guy asked us what format (MP3 or AAC) we preferred and why, since he got his first iPod, and can now play AACs. And things kinda branched out a little.

To answer the original poster: It really depends on what you'll be doing with your music. Are you just going to use those encoded files entirely for yourself? In that case, you should be pretty safe going with AAC for higher quality or lower filesize. Do you plan on sharing your encoded music with friends and such? Then MP3 would probably be your best bet still, because it is the most compatible and can sound quite good even if it requires some more bits than AAC. (And it's not like the "next generation pro audio codec" of AAC bothered to fix the one standout drawback of MP3, where it plays gaps of short silence between otherwise-continuous files. No, to simply be gapless, you'd need a free codec like Ogg Vorbis or Musepack, LOL.) Are you saying that a format is not "complete" until it's automatically supported by every audio player? In that case, I can only really see MP3 being a complete product. There are plenty of non-iPod portable players which do not work with AAC files. Also, you may find it interesting that the latest versions of WinAmp have FLAC support built-in. A smaller filesize is not everything. I used to use APE before switching over to FLAC. But Monkey's Audio will never have much portable support because it takes about 4x the computing power to decode compared to FLAC. On the other hand, FLAC itself already has several hardware devices under its belt, supports surround sound, has its own error checking, supports ReplayGain tags, and is still actively developed, all of which APE unfortunately lacks.

As mentioned in the writeup, this track is off of Arm Cannon's album Leg Vacuum. I have to say, this is the most creative rock/metal arrangement of Kraid I have yet to hear. How it seamlessly switches modes and instruments, like sliding right from a thrashin' synth & guitar combo into sublime piano, is just great to hear in action. Also, the names on Leg Vacuum are simply hilarious. If you think Cranial Syphon by itself is amusing, just wait until you see it and Super Cranial Syphon on the same CD. These guys have a great sense of humor. ^^

Thank you for pointing that out. So whoever reads my post above, consider it to be suggesting an increase of the minimum instead. o.o Oh, and correct me if I'm wrong, but don't 96Kbps MP3s use a 33kHz sampling rate? The sentence directly below states "Audio must be 44.1kHz Stereo."

Well, I decided to try listening to the Valse Aeris clips played through my speakers this time, instead of headphones, to be on equal footing with Sir Bahamut. And guess what? I actually couldn't tell them apart at all, not even after repeated back-to-back listens! So indeed, for casual stereo-speaker listening, this level of encode does seem fine. However, it's worth noting that my speakers don't posses the clarity that my headphones do, and everything that I previously noticed exhibiting flaws seems to sit further back in the mix when played by my speakers. Chalk it up to dissimilar frequency response curves? So to make sure I was actually hearing something on my headphones and not just imagining it all, I went back to do some authoritative ABX listening tests with my 'cans. And, oh boy, was the difference ever clear again. Doing 12 trials for each clip, I was able to identify which known samples corresponded with which "mystery" sample with 100% accuracy, completing the test in only a short few minutes. It was almost ridiculously easy for me to identify the flaws in the ~103Kbps ABR track while wearing my headphones. I never had to listen hard nor play any tracks twice during a single listening trial. Now, I know that at least some of you remixers have headgear as sensitive, or more so, than mine. All I ask is that someone don their trusty Senns or Grados or what-have-you and at least check out the samples in my last post, to tell me that I'm not insane, and that someone else can hear the metallic shimmering and warbling artifacts prominently in the soundscape too. But even if no one else cares to try, the fact remains that some audio equipment is *easily* picking up on distortions from encodes that are forced to be that low, without the listener even needing to listen closely. Now, I know DJP has his reasons for the size limit. And I don't doubt that many folks have already tried to see it changed. But for some reason today I feel masochistic enough to try bashing my head against the wall. ;P Since there is already an established maximum bitrate of 192Kbps, might it also possibly be prudent to establish a minimum quality? Being the VBR enthusiast that I am, I would love to see the minimum correlate to a VBR quality mode. Hell, if it were my choice, I'd see that everything were encoded in LAME's -V2 --vbr-new mode. But realistically, rather than a VBR quality minimum, a minimum bitrate would just be a lot simpler to satisfy. After all, OverClocked ReMix is a site all about the music, even with everything else that's been growing around it. And for many ReMixers, this site is the only place where their work will be hosted. I would hope that the judges -- and THE judge himself -- care to let ReMixes have enough room to sound clean & as intended after the necessary lossy compression. Establishing a minimum bitrate seems to do this better that trying to tweak the compression so it doesn't sound too bad. And if one is concerned about bandwidth or about storage space, the 6MB limit could perhaps still be in place, overridden only by the minimum bitrate. And since long songs come by only every so often, it doesn't seem likely that there will be any significant increase in bandwith or storage... especially if the minimum bitrate were to be 128Kbps, which most people agree is near the edge of audible transparency anyway. And while I realize that this may be a bit biased coming from a free user of the site (as opposed to he who spends many dollars and long hours on it) it seems better to preserve the odd long song than to forsake it to rigid policy. Besides, when a song more than 6 minutes long passes the panel these days, you know it's something epic to have survived such scrutiny. (And whoever commented that songs more than 10 minutes long are inevitably stuffed with filler... yeah, okay dude. Mozart, Beethoven, and Bach... they were really terrible with all that filler.) It seems reasonable to ensure that such musical epics get 128Kbps protection. Sorry for length.

I know, site policy dictates remixes must be under 6MB. I'm not accusing anyone of encoding it poorly, as I understand that such a low bitrate was necessary for it to be posted. However, given what I hear, I think Bahamut should be careful using that song as justification for his argument. ;p Though to be honest, I'm kinda unsure how it sounds "pretty good". Perhaps the fact that I'm listening to it at high volume in my headcans is helping the artifacts stand out. If ya don't believe me, here are a couple short snippets from Valse Aeris, comparing a ~200Kbps VBR encode (of the project WAV) with the encode on OCR. Playing the two back to back, the cymbal distortion and string warble on OCR's encode seem pretty noticeable: Valse Aeris clip 1 - OC ReMix @ 103Kbps Valse Aeris clip 1 - High Quality @ 198Kbps Valse Aeris clip 2 - OC ReMix @ 103Kbps Valse Aeris clip 2 - High Quality @ 198Kbps (NOTE: Because these MP3s were frame-cut to avoid any re-encoding, some audio players may display erroneous time and bitrate information. The audio itself, however, is NOT affected by this.)

I had no idea that the OCR version of Valse Aeris was encoded so low, so I was rather curious about how well it sounded. So I downloaded and listened to it myself... And, dude... I can hear audio compression artifacts ALL OVER the song. Even without comparing it to the original, the string section often sounds warbly, the cymbals deteriorate into a noisy mess, and whenever several instrument sections are playing simultaneously there is a terrible amount of shimmering noise in the background. I honestly didn't expect the compression to be quite so apparent, yikes. O.O

Has anyone noticed little musical snippets that cameo from Uematsu's other games? So far, I've only noticed that the melody to "A Tiny Memory" is quite reminiscent of Final Fantasy 4 "Hey, Cid". Of course, compose so much music over so many years, and there are only so many notes... perhaps it's more coincidence than cameo. But has anyone else noticed other "borrowed phrases" like this in Lost Odyssey?

This soundtrack has reaffirmed to me that Nobuo Uematsu still has it, and has it good. I really think this is his best work since the old classic days of FF6/7. Delightfully, I must retract my former opinion that his work has been on the decline. And in addition to all his typical beauty, wow, Battle Conditions is just rockin'. Makes me wanna show what this hair can do. \m/

There are some real gems over at Kwed. Not to bash OCR, but I don't really think there's anything quite like the jazzed-up Armageddon Man arrange on this site. Hell, OCR even imports some of the Kwed classics. It's always a pleasant surprise to see an old Kwed tune "newly" posted on OCR, like DHS's quirky but oh-so-enjoyable The Human Race (Bando alle Seghe).

Neat! Is this interview thing going to become an ongoing part of OCR? That would be sweet to see. It seems you're still fleshing out the Category:Interviews section, but I was wondering if any information was going to be included about the date of the interview, or even the date the interview was posted? I wish we could hear more of the songs on GAME; the demo's short clips aren't much to go by. Though, I definitely have to echo Dhsu's sentiments. It's surprising to learn that he went through with the trouble of licensing AND still admirably donates a portion of the album price to charity.

I play VGM about as often as I play other more "mainstream" music. Out of my VGM, OC ReMixes & projects are played about half of that time... so as a rough estimate, about 25% of the time when I listen to music, it's OCR/VGMix related. When do I listen to music? Always, when I'm in the car, and nearly always when at the computer. So I can definitely say I listen to OC ReMixes pretty darn often.

Can't forget The Fat Man! And congrats OCR on getting recognition in a print music publication! And the mag's specialization seems especially appropriate, too, since nearly all mixes here involve at least some electronic synthesis, regardless of genre.

I'm honestly not sure what the big dramarama is about bluefox. From what I've seen (although what I've seen may be limited) he hardly seems full of malice or foul intentions. Bluefox, if you're serious about this, there are plenty of free resources on the web that can help you out in this area just like Wikipedia etc. has helped your technical knowledge. Here's one example: http://www.succeedsocially.com

This had to be the most unexpected of my favorite songs on the VotL project. Looking at the track list beforehand, I honestly didn't even remember the Buried in Snow source tune. But I must give a huge thanks to tweek for remembering it, and going on to embellish it so well. That's half of what I love about OCR; getting introduced to wonderful melodies that I never really knew. The atmosphere comes in very spacious and light, setting the mood for the rest of the track. Even the deliciously stutter-syncopated synths fade in softly, while the chilled percussion echoes far into the icy distance with every hit. The piano, then chimey-synths, that simply play out the melody are so very ethereal within the rest of the mix. And the fading in and out of instruments, to a bare percussionless soundscape at one point before ramping back up, makes even this chill track ebb and flow delightfully. Kudos. And in response to OA, I'd have to say one need not 'rock out' to music in the car. Just imagine cruising down a long highway on a cool dark night, miles of uninterrupted road between you and your destination, the stars as your companion, and this song as your elegy. ^.^

I'm not quite sure why, but I'm sad to say that previous Vampire Hunter Dan pieces haven't really done much for me. So it was a pleasant surprise when I downloaded this mix and found myself swept away. The progression between themes is handled with such smoothness that, not knowing the source tunes myself, I can't easily identify where one ends and the next begins. Also how the dynamics gradually build and fade along with the mood of the piece... combined with the superb samples & production, and orchestration that really sounds like what an orchestra would play... just stellar. I have to say, I'm hoping to hear much more like this from our Dan. I've always felt OCR could use more symphonic arrangements, especially ones so perfectly-executed.

Happy belated birthday, sir! Long live VGMdb, and a many more SotWs! (Once the respective sites get restored, that is. >.>)

Seeing that, I had to look up Tyler Heath. Then I had the revelation... whoa, Unknown finally changed his remixer name. When did that go down? (I can tell ya, it's a good thing. Having Unknown in the Artist field I'm sure made many think "Unknown Artist".) Also, some more orchestral artists for good measure: Beckett007 (rather recent) Nigel Simmons Russell Cox Nixdorux Random Hero PLBenjaminZ Dale North - 'Rena Lanford of Arlia Village' And I think it's worth mentioning, too, those who sometimes blend orchestral with other elements: zircon ziwtra - 'Gifts of Mana' Ghetto Lee Lewis - 'Emotions Lost in Time' Star Salzman tweek mv - 'Aquamarine' & 'A Foray into the Eastern Horizons'

This is definitely a sweet orchestral arrangement. The few that managed to pop up on the project were all stunning. And this take on Jenova's theme was no exception. I especially love the emphasis on dynamics, and the varied flow that this arrangement employs so naturally. Also, if I'm not mistaken, this is a medley (or more like a delicious interweaving) of both J-E-N-O-V-A and Jenova Absolute, whereas the mix's page only lists the former source tune. Good work Spekkosaur-- I mean Steffan Andrews. Wish we got to hear more of your work, it's always classic.

F*ing sweet. That is, if I played an instrument in a school band.

Thanks for the release, dude. Now I have to track down all the rest of the Chromelodeon / Sprite Slowdown material I don't have. Really was a shame to hear that you guys stopped playing, you were such a fresh-sounding group.

"Enhanced", just like Starla's... ... ... ... ... ...fingers were in that blaze of Guitar Hero glory against Sammy. What, were you expecting something different? To be perfectly honest, nothing pulled my attention to that "asset" which you guys all seem to be gawking over. *Shrugs* Don't know what the big deal is anyway. But, really, it was awesome to see so many faces, familiar and new, at MAG this year. The OCR crowd keeps growing, and the international attendees too! I mean, it takes some real dedication to come from Sweden! <3 for AeroZ and Wire.