[SotW] Song of the Week - WEEK 187 Voting/WEEK 188 Nominating

3 points: Kirby of the Stars 64 Original Soundtrack - Ripple Star
2 points: Cosmic Cop (Game Rip) - Zone B (Stage 2)
1 point: uh, let's go with Okami (Game Rip) - Wep'Keer, I guess

Ripple Star is why Jun Ishikawa is my favorite VGM composer, and while I readily admit that I will eat up every Kirby soundtrack full of repackaged melodies with fanboyish glee until the day I die, I eagerly wish for the day when the Kirby series returns to the musical legacy started in Kirby Super Star with a few tracks (RoMK ending and MWW final boss in particular, GCO title somewhat) that Kirby's Dream Land 3 and Kirby 64 expanded upon into brilliance (Kirby Air Ride arguably as well; it's rather different stylistically from those two, but I tend to group them together).

And while there are quite a few reasons to dislike Ripple Star, as well as an exactly equal number of reasons why doing so makes you a terrible person, I do kind of resent being "pedestrian" being used as one of them, when it's the track this week that that adjective is least applicable to.

In other news, I find myself liking the I themes from Okami more than the II ones. It's kind of weird how my favorite tracks from the soundtrack are either the simplest (Curshed Shinshu I) or the most over-the-top (battle themes).

How ya doing, buddy?

There are a few different points on gaining that I need to cover, so I've divided this post into sections.

Why we do this in the first place

The intent of gaining the tracks is to get them all at roughly the same volume. Louder music is generally perceived as sounding better, which is why I'd prefer to keep the tracks at the same level so that they can be judged on an equal field. I don't want someone's indifference in adjusting the volume dial to become a factor in deciding what places.

Game rips can vary wildly in volume based on the method the ripper uses, and ungained tracks have been complained about in the past. Conditionally gaining any particularly loud or soft tracks may help with outliers, but tracks will still be at different volumes in a range, so it's still basically the same as not gaining. For a music competition like SotW, where the pieces are directly judged against each other, I think the benefits of a consistent volume outweigh the downsides of adjusting the audio data.

What the gaining actually does

Theoretically, the gaining process is literally a volume change. The program calculates how loud someone will think the piece sounds and applies a constant volume change throughout the whole thing to match a target loudness. The process is reversible, because all it does is change the overall volume, not re-encode the file. There's nothing it does that shouldn't be able to be undone by playing the piece louder or softer.

I don't usually listen to the tracks before gaining, but I'm usually already familiar with 2 or 3 tracks in any given week, and in all the time I've been here, I can't think of a single track I felt was affected in any way that turning up the system volume a few notches wouldn't fix. That includes the ixion track this week, which I've listened to a few times gained and ungained. (I even gave it to a friend who has much better audio equipment than I do, and he agreed.) But, quite obviously, some people have had issues with the gaining of some tracks, or else we we wouldn't be discussing this at all.

From here on out

While gaining the tracks each week, I've noticed that pretty much every track gets moved down rather than up. I checked the gain settings for the last ten weeks' worth of tracks, and out of the 78 tracks, 71 had their volumes reduced. I'm fairly certain a similar ratio would hold if I were to check more weeks. To me, the numbers suggest that we could increase the target volume of the gaining process, so that the INCREDIBLY LOUD TRACKS (that ixion track is seriously hella loud) aren't turned down as much while still maintaining a consistent volume.

Of course, if I'm the only person who still wants gaining, I guess we could ditch it entirely, since my management style here is pretty much "eh, whatever you guys say," but I think the gaining is kind of important.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Yeah, I don't usually gain my music either; I just do it for SotW for comparative purposes. I've never noticed anything that didn't sound to me like just a volume change, including my own noms, but again, just my personal experience (I do listen to music with the shittiest pair of headphones that have ever existed on this planet). Others have clearly had problems where they can hear a difference, even if I can't.

Is this the common sentiment? Is anyone okay with the gaining? Had problem-free experiences like I've had? Please validate me.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Voting is closed and nominations are restricted!

1). [28] Osaisentoka no Karaoke - Alice→Dere (Karaoke Ver)
2). [23] Okami (Game Rip) - Wep'Keer
3). [18] ixion - End of a dream, false memories -others-
4). [15] Kirby of the Stars 64 Original Soundtrack - Ripple Star
5). [12/10.5] Alphabet Planet - T
6). [12/9] Cosmic Cop (Game Rip) - Zone B (Stage 2)

Seems like the general consensus on the number of tracks is "yeah, six tracks works, but I'd prefer eight, so let's only do that when nominations get low," to which I am inclined to agree, although what "when nominations get low" means is open to debate. Only when we can't cover a batch of eight tracks, or some higher bar than that? My personal bar for a low number of nominations has been when someone has a track in consecutive weeks (so < 16), although others may be okay with that.

Also, I did some experiments with increasing the gain volume. The problem with increasing the target volume is that, the higher it is, the higher the chances that it'll be too high for pieces for the softer pieces to reach without clipping. I tried Rimo's suggestion of 94 dB with a group of very soft and VERY LOUD tracks, and none of the soft ones could get that loud without setting off the program's clipping alarm (I didn't listen to them all, but I did check out one and there was some faint but noticeable clipping). There's a setting that will get the piece as loud as it can get without clipping, but that works only to the benefit of the louder tracks, because they have the headroom to stay loud while the softer ones will stay put at their limits.

I reduced the target to 92 dB and threw a bunch of random VGM tracks at it, and for the most part the tunes seemed to be able to reach that volume. I'm not sure how substantial a difference that's going to make for everyone, because it's not a big jump up from 89, but I'll try it with next week's batch and we'll see how it goes. For the heck of it, I regained this week's tracks at 92, if you want to see if you can notice a difference:

Get the Flash Player to play this audio file: Alphabet Planet - T
Get the Flash Player to play this audio file: Cosmic Cop (Game Rip) - Zone B (Stage 2)
Get the Flash Player to play this audio file: ixion - End of a dream, false memories -others-
Get the Flash Player to play this audio file: Kirby of the Stars 64 Original Soundtrack - Ripple Star
Get the Flash Player to play this audio file: Okami (Game Rip) - Wep'Keer
Get the Flash Player to play this audio file: Osaisentoka no Karaoke - Alice→Dere (Karaoke Ver)

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?