Liontamer Posted April 9, 2014 Share Posted April 9, 2014 (edited) OC ReMix Presents Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shell Shocked! April 9, 2014 Contact: press@ocremix.org FAIRFAX, VA...It's PIZZA TIME! The WORLD'S MOST FEARSOME FIGHTING TEAM of remixers is ready to drop some TMNT-goodness on your shells with our 47th album, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shell Shocked!! This two-disc, 22-track album honors Konami's legendary 16-bit TMNT titles, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Turtles in Time for the SNES and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Hyperstone Heist for the Sega Genesis! Led by director Kyle "KyleJCrb" Crouse with epic artwork by Nate Horsfall, 33 musicians from the OC ReMix and Dwelling of Duels communities gathered for this huge tribute to the tubular teens that'll make you scream "I love being a TURTLE!!!!!" Shell Shocked is available for free download at http://shellshocked.ocremix.org. This album was produced to help promote the music of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles games, was made by fans, for fans, and is not affiliated with or endorsed by Konami or Viacom; all original compositions and characters are copyright their respective owners. "I wanted to capture what I had imagined as a hard rock sound in the music of the original Turtles in Time," said album director Kyle Crouse. "The Turtles themselves have always been steeped in the culture of the 80's and early 90's and have a bit of that era's playful cheesiness, so I wanted to reflect that in an album that had a hard edge but didn't take itself too seriously. Despite having a heavy rock and metal influence, the album is packed with variety, with arrangement styles ranging from power metal, punk, progressive synth, glam metal, jazz fusion, blues rock, funk, and even some Vanilla Ice-inspired rap rock." Shell Shocked is Crouse's third OC ReMix community album in a directorial role and his first as sole director following the tributes Tales: Summoning of Sprits in 2009 and Super Dodge Ball: Around the World in 2011. About OverClocked ReMix Founded in 1999, OverClocked ReMix is an organization dedicated to the appreciation and promotion of video game music as an art form. Its primary focus is ocremix.org, a website featuring thousands of free fan arrangements, information on game music and composers, resources for aspiring artists, and a thriving community of video game music fans. ### \m/ Preview it: Download it: http://shellshocked.ocremix.org Torrent: http://bt.ocremix.org/torrents/Teenage_Mutant_Ninja_Turtles_-_Shell_Shocked.torrent Comments/Reviews: http://ocremix.org/forums/showthread.php?t=46707 Edited April 9, 2014 by Liontamer Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CyberSkull Posted April 10, 2014 Share Posted April 10, 2014 (edited) I've put an entry into MusicBrainz for the album. Gonna need some help to put in all the notes into relationships. Update #1: I think I have all of the production and performance credits in. Now on to the much larger task of setting up work ↔︎ recording relations (and populating the works with composer, OCR links, etc as well). Update #2: Disc one is (hopefully) fully annotated by now with both all performance and compositional credits. Update #3: Everything should be fully tagged save for 2.01 & 2.06, there is either missing information or unclear credits. Edited April 11, 2014 by CyberSkull Update 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CyberSkull Posted April 11, 2014 Share Posted April 11, 2014 Is "Time Trial" the same as "Course"? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eino Keskitalo Posted April 11, 2014 Share Posted April 11, 2014 No. "Course" can be found as "Warming Up" on the chiptune download or on Youtube. Not sure if it's on the song list on the game page. --Eino Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CyberSkull Posted April 11, 2014 Share Posted April 11, 2014 No. "Course" can be found as "Warming Up" on the chiptune download or on Youtube. Not sure if it's on the song list on the game page.--Eino It's not in the database. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StigtriX Posted April 12, 2014 Share Posted April 12, 2014 (edited) Excellent on all levels but one: mp3 file quality. I am amazed by OCR's constant failure to deliver 320kbps mp3 files with their releases. You already have FLAC files, so why not have 320kbps ripped from them? /scratch head Anyway... Cowabunga and radical thanks and pizzas to all contributors! 320 kbps mp3 files (feel free to scan etc. if you do not trust me): https://www.dropbox.com/sh/4e94et09c0w2zh5/jA5HK-ElaR - if there are any problems with the files, feel free to nudge me Edited April 12, 2014 by StigtriX Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KyleJCrb Posted April 12, 2014 Share Posted April 12, 2014 Excellent on all levels but one:mp3 file quality. I am amazed by OCR's constant failure to deliver 320kbps mp3 files with their releases. You already have FLAC files, so why not have 320kbps ripped from them? Honestly, I don't really care for 320kbps MP3s. The quality doesn't make up for the file size difference, and it seems a little redundant to have near-lossless 320kbps MP3s right next to truly lossless FLACs. But hey, at least with FLAC you can make the album any MP3 bitrate you want! I'm actually kind of interested in taking a listen to the album at 32kbps now... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StigtriX Posted April 12, 2014 Share Posted April 12, 2014 320kpbs really makes sense, especially on portable players. I do not want to waste space on theoretically superior files (FLAC) that the human ear cannot distinguish from 320kbps mp3. If the files are ripped with a high quality encoding process, they can sound as good as anything at a lower bitrate than 320 kbps. However, the mp3 files from OCR have often been of low quality. I have listened to various OCR album mp3 files and then my 320kbps files ripped from the FLAC files and seldom find an album where the quality is good enough already for all files (I am not talking about the bitrate alone, but the sound quality in general). What I am trying to do is convince OCR to be more concerned with the sound quality because music is best enjoyed when artefacts and low bitrates do not interfere with the listening experience. FLAC is a format that makes sense if you are storing it, so that you can convert it to whatever format you feel like at a later time. This is because upon converting an already converted file, you are losing quality. If one can truly hear the difference between 320kbps mp3 and FLAC, why do people keep failing in blind tests? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bahamut Posted April 12, 2014 Share Posted April 12, 2014 People also fail at discerning the difference between 192 kbps and higher as well. IMO, OCR takes the right stance on encoding. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
timaeus222 Posted April 14, 2014 Share Posted April 14, 2014 (edited) What I am trying to do is convince OCR to be more concerned with the sound quality because music is best enjoyed when artefacts and low bitrates do not interfere with the listening experience. We already are. Any "artefacts" [sic] that you hear are likely not from bitrate, but from the person's mixing. Every submitter is already required to submit in either 192kbps OR VBR1, and VBR1 covers a wider kbps range anyways, down to 32 and up to 320 if the remix goes that high (which it can in sound design). It depends on the song, but generally VBR1 is a pretty flexible encoding for practically anything, and at least, that's what I always use. It's pretty hard to hear the difference between VBR1 and purely 320kbps if they were both converted from the same source WAV/FLAC, even if you're using the best audio system you have (which may cost several hundred to several thousand dollars) since the difference lies in the 18000~20000Hz range. tl;dr: 192 isn't *that* low; it's the bare minimum where the majority of the remixes on the site can sound good enough to the majority of common listeners (whose headphones aren't *that* hardcore on getting super good treble ) while also playing nice with OCR's bandwidth. Personally, as a sound designer, I'd prefer the minimum to be 224, but I really don't mind since VBR1 covers that anyway, and the difference would be, what, an extra ~1000Hz above ~18000? That aside, Kyle covered it. Anyone who wants to re-encode is free to do so, but it's fair to just leave the consumers with FLAC or WAV files so that they can have the original lossless (or pretty much lossless) files to be flexible with. Edited April 14, 2014 by timaeus222 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StigtriX Posted April 14, 2014 Share Posted April 14, 2014 (edited) That is fine I will always convert the FLACs to 320kbps regardlessly, so if anyone is interested, I could make a dropbox account or something like that dedicated to OCR music in 320kbps Less hassle for those who are interested in that. OT: "Artefacts" is not a grammatical error, but UK as opposed to "artifacts", which is US. EDIT: Here we go: https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B6BKIJ8B-gdlckRaVlVCSTRtZDA&usp=sharing TMNT - Shellshocked in my new Google Drive which shall only contain downloads for this community Edited April 14, 2014 by StigtriX Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
timaeus222 Posted April 15, 2014 Share Posted April 15, 2014 OT: "Artefacts" is not a grammatical error, but UK as opposed to "artifacts", which is US. You Scandinavian you. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brandon Strader Posted April 15, 2014 Share Posted April 15, 2014 We already are. Is that the editorial "we"? Any "artefacts" [sic] that you hear are likely not from bitrate, but from the person's mixing. This is not true. Any number of things could contribute to artifacts, from added compression from lower bitrates (like on youtube) to a bad render or conversion. Not everyone owns high end audio systems so I don't think it is seen as as much of an issue even though it kinda is IMO. It's pretty hard to hear the difference between VBR1 and purely 320kbps if they were both converted from the same source WAV/FLAC Well you just said VBR1 can go from 32 to 320. That's a pretty big difference and it varies depending on the song's dynamics whereas 320kbps CBR would not vary. tl;dr: 192 isn't *that* low; it's the bare minimum where the majority of the remixes on the site can sound good enough to the majority of common listeners Who are these common listeners you mention once in a while? Are they the remixers? I wouldn't suggest that 192kbps is good enough quality for all remixers or even listeners who aren't affiliated with OCR in any way. It's frankly a strange thing to assume. We live in an age where people effortlessly grab FLAC versions of albums - why? because they can, they have the storage space and the bandwidth, so why not? It makes no sense to cater to some lowest common denominator of casual listeners in a community of audiophiles while making the assumption that casual listeners are also not audiophiles. it's fair to just leave the consumers with FLAC or WAV files so that they can have the original lossless (or pretty much lossless) files to be flexible with. I'd like to see OCR move towards WAVs and away from FLACs, but I can agree with this. I'm not sure if I would refer to us as consumers, but I get where you're coming from. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Argle Posted April 15, 2014 Share Posted April 15, 2014 I prefer FLAC, which I convert down to 128k. . I have too much music to have anything higher than that on my phone. most of the systems I listen on are too shitty to expose the flaws in mp3 encoding. that's what is nice about flac, people can convert to whatever their preference. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
timaeus222 Posted April 15, 2014 Share Posted April 15, 2014 (edited) Is that the editorial "we"? Yes, 'cause since the specs are on the site for all to see, I think it's pretty straightforward of a dilemma to resolve. This is not true. Any number of things could contribute to artifacts, from added compression from lower bitrates (like on youtube) to a bad render or conversion. Not everyone owns high end audio systems so I don't think it is seen as as much of an issue even though it kinda is IMO.The context I'm considering is if the encoding is the same all across the board. When that's the case (since people *should* be able to follow a quick lil tutorial on encoding, as IMO it's fairly simple. =) ), the MP3 quality itself, unless I'm missing something, would depend on the mixing (or if it's live, the room treatment in conjunction with the mixing). Now if we were looking at youtube compression, sure, that would certainly make a noticeable difference, and it even opens up the possibility of someone normalizing or changing the volume of the music before rendering the video. If you don't upload a video with excessively high encoding (I actually do that these days, because my old videos were shockingly bad audio quality at times ), the audio quality suffers a little, depending on the circumstances. I don't really remember how much treble is cut off in 128kbps, but it's somewhere in the 15000~20000Hz range for sure. Well you just said VBR1 can go from 32 to 320. That's a pretty big difference and it varies depending on the song's dynamics whereas 320kbps CBR would not vary.Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think VBR1 simply is a dynamic bitrate that adjusts to the bare minimum instantaneous bitrate necessary to recreate any particular millisecond in a music file with the maximum quality as designated by the "Quality = 1". If that's the case, I would think that a 320kbps CBR is unnecessarily reproducing a music file at 320kbps the entire time, which is less space-conservative.Who are these common listeners you mention once in a while? Are they the remixers? I wouldn't suggest that 192kbps is good enough quality for all remixers or even listeners who aren't affiliated with OCR in any way. It's frankly a strange thing to assume. We live in an age where people effortlessly grab FLAC versions of albums - why? because they can, they have the storage space and the bandwidth, so why not? It makes no sense to cater to some lowest common denominator of casual listeners in a community of audiophiles while making the assumption that casual listeners are also not audiophiles. Sorry about that; I mean the people who don't write music, don't remix, and don't actively listen critically or somewhat/slightly critically to VGM remixes. So some of the youtube viewers who say "OMG DIS SO GOOD" or "I love this! 100000/5", for example. Like I had said earlier, technically I *would* prefer 224, but I think OCR's bandwidth and (after additional thinking) the evaluation of many of the past mixes were factors in the decision for 192. I *think* I heard Larry say that we're moving towards higher encoding eventually, but I'm not going to 100% confirm that. He *is* storing WAVs somewhere though, and you knew that. I'd like to see OCR move towards WAVs and away from FLACs, but I can agree with this. I'm not sure if I would refer to us as consumers, but I get where you're coming from.Yeah, consumers as in anyone who downloads OCR stuff, or just consumers from the economics standpoint. Edited April 17, 2014 by timaeus222 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KyleJCrb Posted April 15, 2014 Share Posted April 15, 2014 Hey dudes, remember when OCR released a TMNT album? That was pretty swell. Remember how it came in high-quality FLAC and not-as-high-quality-but-still-pretty-awesome MP3s? That was cool. Remember how the quality of encoding didn't really matter because the songs were so good that they blew your face off and melted your brains regardless? Yeah, me too. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mirby Posted April 15, 2014 Share Posted April 15, 2014 I don't remember that happening, Kyle. :\ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brandon Strader Posted April 15, 2014 Share Posted April 15, 2014 I don't remember that happening, Kyle. :\ Me either ! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
timaeus222 Posted April 15, 2014 Share Posted April 15, 2014 Me either ! That's because your brain melted and your memory went kaput. My brain's only partially melted from the head-melting guitars (past the face-melting) cause I haven't even heard the whole album yet. I'm a bad boi. >.< Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
swansdown Posted April 15, 2014 Share Posted April 15, 2014 I still have my face, but my mind is gone. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StigtriX Posted April 16, 2014 Share Posted April 16, 2014 Hey dudes, remember when OCR released a TMNT album? That was pretty swell. Remember how it came in high-quality FLAC and not-as-high-quality-but-still-pretty-awesome MP3s? That was cool. Remember how the quality of encoding didn't really matter because the songs were so good that they blew your face off and melted your brains regardless? Yeah, me too. Sorry, it was not my intention to make this all about the file quality, it was merely a suggestion and a question to the ones responsible for the sound I am grateful for the originality and depth that has gone into the album. "So I say Thank you for the music, the songs I'm singing Thanks for all the joy they're bringing Who can live without it, I ask in all honesty What would life be? Without a song or a dance what are we? So I say thank you for the music For giving it to me" Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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