Super Audio Cart: The definitive chiptune instrument, available now from ISW & OCR!

[WillRock]

12 hours ago, Brandon Strader said:

I do not approve of the OCR name being used to sell products for a profit -- a commercial album featuring multiple compensated artists, and legally licensed music, is one thing that is fine as an infrequent endeavor. This is something completely different, which brands a product with a name that was bolstered by a dedicated community of hobbyists who have gotten no financial compensation. It's not about the artists sharing in the patreon, or the VST, or the childrens book, or whatever other product gets promoted and funded using the OCR name. Using the name to promote products and services goes against the spirit of the website and shows a lack of respect to the community that built the brand's strength to begin with, and worst case borders on exploitation. 

Of course my thoughts aren't going to change anyone's mind, or the current / future condition of the site or community. But they're said out of a respect for what OCR stood for. 

Whats wrong with OCR Releasing VGM style synths? Does it go against promoting VGM? No? Ok then. From my perspective, the "spirit" of the website is just promoting VGM. Remixes is one part of that, and the main focus but generally, the goal is a bit more broad than that. Also, who said people who worked on this aren't getting financial compensation? I didn't work on this so I don't know honestly, thats not mentioned here did someone tell you that? Even if they aren't, they entered into it willingly, its not like everyone was all held at gunpoint and were told "YOU *MUST* CONTRIBUTE TO THIS FOR FREE WHILE WE TAKE ALL YOUR HARD WORK AND TURN IT INTO MONNNNIES". If you personally don't like it, w/e, you weren't involved anyway so why does it matter.

7 hours ago, Brandon Strader said:

It was made by probably a handful of people who had an idea of how to profit while using the name, and claiming to be the community. It's not me. I don't want this associated with me. There's hundreds of other people you need clearance from before saying this is the community. But calling people stupid and scaring them away from sharing their opinion has to date allowed certain people to get away with a lot of undesirable stuff. 

"Claiming to be the community" - Naaaaah. I don't buy that. There are loads of projects with OCRs name on that don't involve everyone. Half the projects on OCR probably have 15 people involved max and you're ok calling that the "community" so why is this any different? What about one man remix albums like AnSo's the Answer? halc's pilotwings album? I KNOW you've shown support for them before. What about the Original Soundtracks with one person involved? They've got the community stamp on them. I'd be more willing to accept your criticism of it not being the full community if it didn't come out of nowhere

[Nabeel Ansari]

This just in, zircon and djpretzel claim to be part of the OCR community, BUT DO THEY REALLY WHIP THE LLAMA'S ASS?

[DrumUltimA]

As the ISW tech support guy, I had nothing to do with the development of SAC other than general cheerleading.  That being said, I can't wait to answer YOUR emails when you can't figure out how to extract a RAR file!

 

(Also this library is going to be awesome and I can't wait to start playing with it)

[José the Bronx Rican]

I always wondered what the llama did to deserve it.

Anyway, my interest in this - apart from a sound library that leaves Mega Drive well-represented - is seeing how capably it can emulate the sort of things that happen with chips that is more difficult to capture through samples, even though authenticity is only one feature of this project. For example, LFO control should obviously be a given, but MD's chip has a small range of possible settings that I think should be simple to reproduce. Some of Streets of Rage's instrument sounds are distinct partly because of the LFO settings, and the .tfi rip won't cover that. In fact, the reason I've been missing for a while is a heavy research project definitively and quickly identifying MD instrument use, which happens to be totally relevant to this product: the TFI collections out there are nearly useless without proper vetting and organization.

[Bleck]

3 hours ago, DrumUltimA said:

As the ISW tech support guy, I had nothing to do with the development of SAC other than general cheerleading.  That being said, I can't wait to answer YOUR emails when you can't figure out how to extract a RAR file!

once I've extracted the RAR file from my computer should I just leave it on the counter or does it need to be refridgerated

[Supercoolmike]

20 hours ago, zircon said:

Here's a little bit about how this instrument came to be. Way back in ~2007-2008, Dave had the idea to do a sample library based on arcade sounds. "Samplecade" was the original title. I expressed some interest in helping, since at the time I had just worked on my first sample library project w/ Impact Soundworks. He recorded some source material but we didn't get much further at that point. We talked about it from time to time.

Back in 2012, there was this vst," Plogue" that did similar things but stood more with the arcade machines instead of home consoles. Its priced at $95 and that's probably the only thing closest that I could fine that's similar with super audio cart.

website :https://www.plogue.com/products/chipsounds/

 

Its pretty interesting either way and hope its successful since so many people worked on it. Only question I have for it is, will there be a demo?

[HoboKa]

On 5/23/2016 at 9:40 AM, zircon said:

 

I'm thrilled to officially announce the upcoming release of SUPER AUDIO CART, the definitive retro game instrument! This project has been in the works for three years now, but Dave and I have been talking about it for nearly a decade. We're so excited that it's very nearly released!

Super Audio Cart features seven legendary video game systems recorded in exhaustive detail using a slew of specialized cartridges and hardware:

Atari 2600
Commodore 64
Sega Master System
Game Boy
Sega Genesis (Mega Drive - Model 1, naturally)
NES (Famicom)
SNES (Super Famicom)

These samples combine to form more than 600 multisampled sound sources: everything from pulse oscillators and noise generators, to essential FM patch layouts, true lo-fi PCM drums and hacked/circuit-bent setups. When you play a Commodore 64 PWM patch or an NES drum kit, you aren't hearing an emulation: these are the real sounds coming straight from each console.

But Super Audio Cart goes far beyond authentic game sounds. We created an incredible KONTAKT PLAYER engine (with full NKS compatibility) pushing Kontakt to its limits to provide a huge range of sound design features and 1000 factory presets in total. This engine lets you transform simple pulses, saws, and 10kb samples into monumental pads, dirty EDM basses, hip hop leads and anything else you can think of.

We will be sharing more details soon but here are some highlights of what this engine can do:

* Up to 4 simultaneous and independent sound source layers
* Five total FX racks (one per layer and global) with a custom "SNESVERB" module
* Independent arpeggiator/sequencer & gate, including wave sequencer
* Full control over envelopes, mapping range, keytracking and tuning
* Customizable portamento (including poly portamento)
* Over a dozen filter models (LP, HP, BP, notch)
* MIDI learn / CC links to any parameter or control
* XY controller for layer blending or modulation (also MIDI learnable)

And the crown jewel, a 64-slot custom mod matrix built from scratch. We'll be making a video just for this since it can do so much - create and assign custom LFOs to virtually any parameter, use MIDI CC, random numbers, velocity, key position, and aftertouch (to name a few), modulate FX and controls globally or per-layer... etc. And you can bet the factory library makes great use of it!

Super Audio Cart will be coming in June 2016 as a collaboration between Impact Soundworks and OverClocked ReMix.

Let us know what you think!

HELLS TO THE YES DUDE-MAN-BRO!!!!!!  Can't wait!!

[Brandon Strader]

I didn't really intend to argue about it. This was probably not the right place to bring up the issue of the OCR name becoming a brand over time. It's possible nobody agrees with me because the people who would have are all gone. I think that merits some reflection at least, and that my concern shouldn't really be brushed aside as being paranoid accusation. That seems like a disingenuous response.

To clear up what I meant by not being the community;

Be honest -- if I made an album, put the OCR logo on it (brought to you by OC ReMix!), and sold it for $20 on iTunes that'd be perfectly fine, right? Or nah? What you're suggesting is that because people from OCR worked on this, it's fine for the OCR name to be affixed. Where does that stop being fine, at the bottom of the staff list, or at DJFrog's fan arrangement concept album on iTunes? Or it's all fair game? DJFrog is just an example that represents X member of the community, could be anyone.

Random Encounter wasn't an OCR Community production, it was recruited for outside of OCR. People who liked FF1 didn't get the opportunity to be involved from here, and that was sad. That basically happened because at the time I felt run out of here by the swapping of power behind FF9. Ancient history, but relevant to the story. I'm overjoyed that FF1 was released here, but the community involvement was not ideal, and saying it was a community album I personally feel would be dishonest. That's what I think now anyway, I am sure at the time I was giddy as hell about just having the OCR name put on it and on the trailer, because that was the dream. In reality, it was probably a Shizz community album. 

Releasing it here and having people see that it was real and trust it was a big step towards recruiting people from here for FF3. When I started FF3 I specifically said I wanted it to be a bigger community album, I believe I actually used that language. I was aware of the distinction and specifically wanted to recruit for it in public here as an OCR Community effort. So I don't think using FF1 album as an example was all that fair.  And maybe this story to explain that was a bit long-winded.

And yeah, you didn't get clearance for FF6 Kickstarter (either from the community or Square-Enix at first) and that was drama.... but also, ancient history.  However if anything it shows that having transparency or an open dialogue with the community about big decisions, especially involving money, could be a good thing, not a burden.. it could actually help avoid mistakes. 

I was told not to respond and that I didn't have to, and to some extent that's true, my thoughts stood. But there was some clarification that needed done, and it would have been unfair to do a drive-by opinion without clarification, especially when requested. Please don't mistake my serious tone for being anger. I'm just being serious -- this is my third and probably last post, and at no point was I attacking anyone or saying stuff to hurt peoples' feelings, at least that wasn't my intention. And no, this isn't all directed at SAC in particular which is probably why it was wrong to post here, but this just happened to be the latest rock thrown on the beach, and it hurt my foot as I was walking by.

edit: Something I forgot to touch on but is implied, is that people may be hesitant to be associated with a product being sold for profit, specifically... none of us have a problem working on free projects for VGM and as a representative of the ocr community, but selling a product is different.. I think I said that earlier, but in less clear terms

Edited May 25, 2016 by Brandon Strader
forgot something

[Nabeel Ansari]

Something is affixed the OCR name when djpretzel approves of affixing the OCR name to it. That's really all there is to it. It's how it's worked for... almost 17 years now. No one is allowed to represent OCR with a project without djpretzel's approval.

Super Audio Cart was naturally approved by djpretzel, considering, you know, he designed it.

[DusK]

I really don't get this mindset of it not feeling like a community effort simply because you weren't involved in it directly. Personally, I'm proud of the fact that I belong to -- and contributed to -- a community full of people talented enough to create stuff like this. I put out remixes that were re-upped as content for the site, directed an album, bought shirts, and advertised, and all of that helped OCR grow. So maybe I feel that, on some level, I actually did help with this.

As should every OC ReMixer and community member, because you all did the same.

[Chernabogue]

Or maybe we could stop discussing this and hyping how awesome this looks?

I personally cannot wait to see the "puns" djp and zircon put for the presets. ^^

[Sir_NutS]

3 minutes ago, Chernabogue said:

Or maybe we could stop discussing this and hyping how awesome this looks?

I personally cannot wait to see the "puns" djp and zircon put for the presets. ^^

I don't know about puns but I called dibs on the stupidest names.

[Manji]

This looks awesome and much more cost-effective than assembling all the various equipment necessary to capture those sounds from the actual hardware! Plus I've spent ages pounding my head against LSDj and just can't get the hang of anything more than simple melodies, so being able to just throw midi files into Kontakt is literally a dream come true  Watch out judge's panel, you're going to get a whole bunch of brutal chiptune death metal songs from me once this is out in the wild 

[djpretzel]

7 hours ago, Brandon Strader said:

Be honest -- if I made an album, put the OCR logo on it (brought to you by OC ReMix!), and sold it for $20 on iTunes that'd be perfectly fine, right? Or nah? What you're suggesting is that because people from OCR worked on this, it's fine for the OCR name to be affixed. Where does that stop being fine, at the bottom of the staff list, or at DJFrog's fan arrangement concept album on iTunes? Or it's all fair game? DJFrog is just an example that represents X member of the community, could be anyone.

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...

7 hours ago, Brandon Strader said:

edit: Something I forgot to touch on but is implied, is that people may be hesitant to be associated with a product being sold for profit, specifically... none of us have a problem working on free projects for VGM and as a representative of the ocr community, but selling a product is different.. I think I said that earlier, but in less clear terms

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.

[DarkeSword]

Nabeel's been showing me how powerful everything is over the last couple of months. I'm looking forward to this. I have an album that I'm working on and I want some SNES textures in there. I'll have to update Kontakt though, I'm still on 4. xD

[Nabeel Ansari]

2 hours ago, DarkeSword said:

Nabeel's been showing me how powerful everything is over the last couple of months. I'm looking forward to this. I have an album that I'm working on and I want some SNES textures in there. I'll have to update Kontakt though, I'm still on 4. xD

SAC is licensed. You can just download the free 5.5.2 player.

[Cole Train]

Yo! A dude is rubbing his hands together like Birdman waiting for this right now.
I'm out here looking like a hungry Donkey Kong walking towards his banana horde really. Tl;dr. I'm VERY HYPE for this and can't wait to get my hands on it.

[big giant circles]

On 5/24/2016 at 10:17 AM, Neblix said:

This just in, zircon and djpretzel claim to be part of the OCR community, BUT DO THEY REALLY WHIP THE LLAMA'S ASS?

Fixed that for you

[Nabeel Ansari]

On 5/30/2016 at 10:22 AM, big giant circles said:

Fixed that for you

Don't know how I fucked that up. I feel ashamed.

[Bleck]

something something 350$ hat

[Argle]

cool, looks awesome and fun, maybe this'll help get me back into music.

[Nabeel Ansari]

more like SOONER WOWDIO CART amirite

[Torzelan]

Owww... Super stoked about this one (looks awesome guys!) and would have been a done deal up to $100, but at $149 (plus cursed VAT)... Angst, my friends. Angst.

Don't know if hopes of an introductory price (mailing list?) are realistic..?

Regardless, congrats on releasing another awesome library!

[big giant circles]

7 hours ago, Torzelan said:

Owww... Super stoked about this one (looks awesome guys!) and would have been a done deal up to $100, but at $149 (plus cursed VAT)... Angst, my friends. Angst.

Don't know if hopes of an introductory price (mailing list?) are realistic..?

Regardless, congrats on releasing another awesome library!

$100 is what Chipsounds costs. And this has WAY more to offer than Chipsounds. (I am a long-time Chipsounds user). 

[Nabeel Ansari]

MORE LIKE SUPER NOWDIO CART AMIRITE