OCRA-0002 - Donkey Kong Country: Kong in Concert

[Digital Coma]

Sent Saturday, October 2, 2004 5:31 pm

To akatti@gmu.edu

Cc djpretzel@comcast.net

Bcc

Subject Re: Kong in Concert - Donkey Kong Country Arrangement Collaboration

WOW!! This is some great stuff.

Thank you so much for providing me with the link. Please pass on my appreciation to all of the musicians who are keeping our favorites alive through these types of highly creative projects.

Later this fall I will be producing a 2 disc Earthworm Jim Anthology album in which I am going to add some of my favorite EWJ 1 & 2 remixes.

Could you guys please make the OCRemix community aware that I would love to get submissions from people in order to possibly add them to the album.

The deadline would be Dec. 1st and ANY type of interpretation on any of the songs would be acceptable. They can e-mail .mp3 versions to inquiry@tallarico.com

or...

If DJ Pretzel wanted to put up a special section of the site to promote this I would be fine with that. I could even supply some .mp3's of the orginal tunes that I think would be great to remix for the album.

Keep me posted and keep up the GREAT work!!

thanks,

Tommy Tallarico

President, Tommy Tallarico Studios, Inc. (www.tallarico.com)

President/Founder, G.A.N.G. (Game Audio Network Guild) [www.audiogang.org]

Host, writer, co-producer, The Electric Playground & Judgment Day television shows

Executive Producer/CEO, Video Games Live

========================================

[Hadyn]

In that case, I put dibs on "new junk city" http://www.vgmusic.com/music/console/nintendo/snes/New_Junk_City.mid

[Aetherius]

Sweet jesus! Tommy Tallarico, you say?

...I must do something!

[Hadyn]

What's a RAR?

that's really a question for the n00b fourms... but a rar is a type of compression for files (like a ZIP), and requires a special program to uncompress them - much like ZIPS need winzip, RARs need winRAR.

a good place to look for it would be on downloads.com

[danny B]

Tommy doesn't know what's in store for him. If it's EWJ he wants - EWJ he gets. Stay tuned.....

[SnappleMan]

Well, looks like I'll be working on an EWJ remix...

Hah, it's funny when you think about it, Tommy's butt rock and my crotch rock might be on the same album together...

So, in essance, I'll be fucking him in the ass... not that I want to... or anything like that...

...

...

...

Okay, so I'm a FGT, so what!?

[Aetherius]

...that was frightening.

[Dhsu]

It'd be a nice to have a complete listing of classical pieces he used in the games. I'm interested in arranging "Udderly Abducted" from EWJ2, but it sounds suspiciously classical. Can anybody confirm whether this is true? Although, I could probably come up with something for "Anything but Tangerines" too.

But yeah...I guess someone might as well start up the EWJ1/2 Remix Project now.

[J44xm]

I've not finished the album yet, but I'm very impressed by it. Thanks for making it available to the public free of charge. I'm new to the site, but I'll be returning, certainly.

One question: Is it just something on my machine, or do the MP3s sound significantly better than the OGGs? I guess I'm wondering if the OGGs ought to be have been made at a slightly higher bitrate. Quintessential Player lists many of the songs as 75-80kbps, which I understand is roundabout the quality of an MP3 at 128kbps (which definitely sucks). What do you folks think? If I'm crazy, I'll shut up.

Thanks! (And I'm not complaining, FYI.)

[gmol]

I've been listening to the album over the last few weeks and I must express my deep gratitude to those of you who contributed to it. It is all fantastic.

So I found all the tracks really enjoyable to listen to, but I must say the Adhesive Boy's track 5 really resonated with me.

I could give unqualified commentaties on all the other tracks, but I listen to the whole album daily (even took it to Rome with me on my iPod).

Thank you for such wonderful quality music.

I know you guys do it for the music, which is inspirational; but if you don't want to accept payment for this music, think of the bigger picture.

It is the first class projects like this (and Relics of The Chozo of course) which could be used to drive and test models on voluntary payment for music. If this did not serve to benefit the artists on the actual album, it could be used as data to help other artists determine the financial viability of distributing music online. I do blabber on though.

I'll be putting $20 down to vgmix and ocremix anyway.

Thanks again guys.

[Karmus]

Wonderful, wonderful!

In a few weeks I can finally get my credit card...

[JorJorMogBoi]

Wow, I agree with everyone else; this album is soooo great! My favorite is Adhesive Boy's mix. I also find myself drawn to Protricity's mixes. (I love the "happy" sound to Mine Cart Misadventure.) Also, Echoes is a really great techno mix sort of thing (electronica?). Love the part with the sax!

Oh yeah, and if there's going to be an Earthworm Jim remix project, someone please do "The Flyin' King" from EWJ2. Heh, the funny thing is that I was just thinking about EWJ a few weeks ago. Awesome!

[Cyan]

Ok, this is MY own opinions of this DK-album. Please don't eat me.

Well, this is good. I have been listening to the tracks for some days now, and I thought that the jazzy ones were the best. But I think that the level of quality is very different.

"One Zero One" is not bad by any means, but it did sound kinda "simple techno/trance" When you just listened to some great jazz and other stuff played by real instruments. (Yes ofcourse, this depends on what kind of music you're into. But that's anyhow my opinion)

It's not only this song though, "Echoes" and "Chekan Winter" falls in the same kategory. I know there are some other techno/trance influed tracks on the album, like Protricity's "Mine Cart Misadventure", but for some reason I enjoyed them more.

"Rest and (Re)spite on a Soft Summer Night" is good, but would have been much better without the drum part.

"Aerofunknamics" is very similar to the original, and too repetive.

However, there are many great tracks.

"Swing, Monkey, Swing", "Arboreal Ascent"

and "West Coast DK Island" are all great jazzy songs I really enjoy.

"Cry of the Chasmal Critter Chain" is totally awesome and in my opinion even better than the original one. Very nice sounds.

"Beneath the Surface" is good. The original is one of the best gamesongs ever made, and this arrangement is, well, good.

I really like the guitar, though the sax is'nt perfect. Nice that you could hear a part Frogs Theme and Kraid in the end.

"Funky Monkey Love" is ok, but would have been much

better without that terrible singing. (Hrm ... I see

some of you here have already mentioned that .. hrm.)

"Machina Anesthesia" is very different, which I really appreciate. It's a song they normally speeds up and techno the hell out of. But again, GrayLightning has made something different. It's not the best song on the album, but the arrangement is interesting.

"dolilop do wop" is a nice track, with a enjoyable vibe going on. I didn't like the original so much, but this is good.

The three last songs are all good, and I really like the pianointro, followed by the rock-version of Gang-Plank Galleon. Protricity's arrangement of the

ending theme is not my style, but anyway pretty enjoyable.

Overall, it's a great job you guys did. I will be waiting for the remake of Dkc2, which I hope to come in the future.

[Jonathon Striker]

somebody e-mail me or something if i'm missing this...

I having trouble getting track 13 to 14 to connect correctly (using no gap, and several crossfade options). They just don't seem to connect perfectly.

More so, I have this problem with track 20 to 21, Dhsu piano to SnappleMan's Thrash the Plank where it just doesn't connect right and i can tell the snappleman's mp3 part not directed toward the artist),Dhsu's piano part shifts channels unexpectedly. Is this just me? I'm using Easy CD Creator 6 by Adeptec, but my dad does have Nero on his system. e-mail me or something if you have the solution.

[Protricity]

I've not finished the album yet, but I'm very impressed by it. Thanks for making it available to the public free of charge. I'm new to the site, but I'll be returning, certainly.

One question: Is it just something on my machine, or do the MP3s sound significantly better than the OGGs? I guess I'm wondering if the OGGs ought to be have been made at a slightly higher bitrate. Quintessential Player lists many of the songs as 75-80kbps, which I understand is roundabout the quality of an MP3 at 128kbps (which definitely sucks). What do you folks think? If I'm crazy, I'll shut up.

Thanks! (And I'm not complaining, FYI.)

Asuming a certain level of quality due to a bitrate is rather shortsighted. Please download the wave version and compare it with the ogg version. I would like to know how much significant difference you really here. A blind test would be preferable.

[analoq]

while ogg does function efficiently in the 75-80kbps range, it doesn't quite reach 128kbps mp3 quality. encoding at -q3 is supposed to give typical 128kbps mp3 quality, and most of the encodes i do on that setting end up around 90-110kbps.

i've heard the oggs and i've heard the wavs and i can back up that the the quality of the oggs aren't too great.

i would've preferred a better encoding of them. some tracks sound ok, but others have a noticeably deteriorated sound.

cheers.

[Protricity]

I didnt encode the oggs or even listen to them yet, but I"ve dealt with ogg vorbis for years. Had to deal with it extensively during the rotc thing. In my experience, ogg 75-80kbps is certainly as good as 128kbps mp3 and usually better. Typically if I'm going for 128kbps mp3 quality, I'll use 64kbps ogg.

Note, I'm talking about general mp3 encoding quality, as in not mp3pro encoders or anything that actually works well. I'm talking about old lame and blade and all the typical average mp3 encoders.

At the same time, I'm talking about the average ogg encoder like cep's or dbpoweramp's encoder which is around 2 versions behind the latest.

for Rotc, the ogg files were around 96-104kbps and there was no significant differences between them and the waves. Any differences that existed were very very minimal and insignificant.

Finally I've noticed bugs in popular ogg vorbis players like winamp. They have a dither option enabled which makes some ogg files sound like shit. Seeing as how winamp enables dithering by default on all installations, this makes it a very very widespread problem.

So make sure that this isn't whats happening to your ogg files either.

If the oggs were poorly encoded, I can reencode them all the right way. I'll find some time to listen to them in detail.

[analoq]

I"ve dealt with ogg vorbis for years. In my experience, ogg 75-80kbps is certainly as good as 128kbps mp3 and usually better. Typically if I'm going for 128kbps mp3 quality, I'll use 64kbps ogg.

well i've dealth with ogg for years as well.

i used to hang out on the developers mailing list too, and i know the developers tweaked the -q3 setting deliberately to produce 128kbps mp3 quality (typical lame encoder as reference)

my own experience with ogg reflects their exact intent.

btw, the settings you posted are the ones i used when i originally listened to the KiC oggs.

cheers.

[Digital Coma]

I having trouble getting track 13 to 14 to connect correctly (using no gap, and several crossfade options). They just don't seem to connect perfectly.

More so, I have this problem with track 20 to 21, Dhsu piano to SnappleMan's Thrash the Plank where it just doesn't connect right and i can tell the snappleman's mp3 part not directed toward the artist),Dhsu's piano part shifts channels unexpectedly. Is this just me? I'm using Easy CD Creator 6 by Adeptec, but my dad does have Nero on his system. e-mail me or something if you have the solution.

Take a look at the included readme in the torrent or see the post where I listed where each zero second pause must go when you burn the CDs so you get transitionless tracks. I don't think Easy CD allows for manual insertion of zero second pauses, so you probably will have to use Nero.

As for the OGG discussion, the purpose of offering an OGG alternative was to provide the album at a much smaller filesize for those interested. When I encoded each ogg, I made sure every song was still of good fidelity. Ari brings up a good point about the dithering option in Winamp's plugin: it screws shit up, so make sure it's off.

Which specific songs in ogg do any of you guys hear noticeable loss on?

[MaxPendragon]

Excellent!

All of it.

Just one minor problem.

Funky Monkey Love was well put together except for it's sexual innuendo. As funny as it was and as much as I love Vigilante's work and the tune. The lyrics were a little offensive.

Not that there's anything wrong with that but I among some other people probably had a few problemos with the innuendo.

Vigilante is still awesome regardless of what he put in the lyrics.

[Protricity]

I"ve dealt with ogg vorbis for years. In my experience, ogg 75-80kbps is certainly as good as 128kbps mp3 and usually better. Typically if I'm going for 128kbps mp3 quality, I'll use 64kbps ogg.

well i've dealth with ogg for years as well.

i used to hang out on the developers mailing list too, and i know the developers tweaked the -q3 setting deliberately to produce 128kbps mp3 quality (typical lame encoder as reference)

my own experience with ogg reflects their exact intent.

btw, the settings you posted are the ones i used when i originally listened to the KiC oggs.

cheers.

And I built an ogg vorbis playback dll for c and vb. So we both have experience. Thats already been given.

To go any further, you're going to have to show why "75-80kbps range ... doesn't quite reach 128kbps mp3 quality", cause as far as I'm concerned, thats an absurd claim. I do negation tests on just about every song I encode for release. I've always found far more negation loss in mp3s than oggs at those levels. Always. I can perform the tests on any wave. Occasionally the content of a song may vary the results up and skew the data, but on the average, I've found 64kbps ogg = 128kbps ogg, and 94-104kbps ogg = wave quality + irrelevant dismissible loss.

It is also important to note, as I've said, that if you compare the latest lame with the earliest ogg, you may get closer to the results you've found in your experience.

Its also also important to note that thare are crackpot audio tests out there on the web that claim everything from ogg vorbis = 3x quality of mp3 to mp3 is better than ogg vorbis at the same rate. Highly subjective issue, for sure. Nevertheless, I still think your claim is very biased in favor of the archaic mp3 format.

[analoq]

So we both have experience. Thats already been given ... I do negation tests on just about every song I encode for release.

then, you should be experienced to know your negation tests don't mean a thing, right? these are perceptual codecs we're talking about here, they work because of psychoacoustic processing.

the only way to properly compare is with your ears. anything else is only useful for development purposes such as finding bugs in the codec (like that nasty one in Xing-based encoders)

It is also important to note, as I've said, that if you compare the latest lame with the earliest ogg, you may get closer to the results you've found in your experience.

i use the latest stable versions.

though, i have grabbed and compiled ogg from the cvs tree before, but i tend not to use those much.

Nevertheless, I still think your claim is very biased in favor of the archaic mp3 format.

well you don't know me very well then.

if anything, i'm biased in favor of ogg. but i'm far from being a fanboy -- i go by what i observe.

and what i have said, is what i have observed.

basically this runs down to the accuracy of my ears & referencing equipment vs. the accuracy of your ears & referencing equipment.

even though i feel confident in a victory of that debate, i see no value in it.

do you?

cheers.

[Protricity]

Not really, but ignoring the fact that the db level of the loss in a negation test is actually a very good way to determine loss is simply absurd. I'm talking about actual loss here, not 'what sounds good'. I've seen mp3 loss artifacts make songs sound better if you would believe that. To me, the negation tests are very critical. Mp3s tend to sacrifice or distort high frequencies more readily than ogg vorbis. It becomes very noticable on high end systems or very good earphones. Sure the songs stilly might 'sound good' without the high freqs, but that doesn't change the fact that they are certainly suffering loss.

This whole topic is pretty much my arguement in favor of the ogg vorbis codec because I would rather have the blame placed on the encoder user or the original artist for loss and artifacts rather than the ogg vorbis encoding rate. Remember there were at least 4 tracks that binnie never got waves for and had to deal with high bitrate (but lossy) mp3s. This pretty much disqualifies this soundtrack as any kind of test subject. The ogg vorbis codec should not be responsible for the artist's shortcommings etc.

Rotc was 100% wave submissions, and the vorbis encodes for that soundtrack sound great. I went through them on many earphones, speaker systems, and negation tests to qualify a certain degree of quality. Obviously this soundtrack did not.

[analoq]

my listening tests don't go by what sounds good?

they go by what sounds more like the original?

and that's how you do these things.

i didn't entirely dismiss the usefulness of negation tests, these things are useful. and they have their place in the scheme of things,

but they don't help much in this scenario.

frankly i don't think you have a good grasp of how perceptual encoding works if you think your negation tests are 'very critical' for what you do...

cheers.

[A-RoN]

A few songs I can take or leave, but most of it is awesome. I especially loved Jiggin'JonT's West Coast Swing and Clouded Mind and Ringing Ears. Good work guys. I'm going to try and get another song back up here.