I am just interested what do you people like to have and listen more: Gamerips or Original Soundtracks?

As for me, I always liked gamerips a bit more because it would contain everything that a game contains and that I heard in a game, which is mostly not the case with OST's. But on the other hand, OST's mostly have bonus tracks or lyrics or something that would make them especial. In most cases its good to have them both :)

Your thinking:...

It depends.. an o.s.t usually has better quality sound than a gamerip..but, Gamerips if done well can sound just as good..plus you do get all that other "stuff" that will never see the light of day on an ost...It really depends on the ripper.

Yeah it clearly depends on the ripper... Its obvious that Gamerips from PC games are always high quality, but for games from consoles its an art to make a good gamerip :)

Yeah it clearly depends on the ripper... Its obvious that Gamerips from PC games are always high quality, but for games from consoles its an art to make a good gamerip :)

Yep. I usually try and find the O.S.T. if I can't find a good gamerip. A good majority of the people on this forum rip good stuff though. It just depends on where you can find it.

It absolutely depends on what you are looking for.
If you're a collector, OSTs probably will appeal you more.
If you want as much music as possible, you'll most likely go for the Rip.

Also, some OSTs have rearranged versions of the game tunes (such as ZX and ZXA OSTs), and therefore are completely different to the actual game sounds.

Both have their plus points. I find Game Rips to be quite fragmentary sometimes - not that this is the fault of the ripper; merely a side effect of the way the music is used by the game. A proper soundtrack album is generally a more satisfying listening experience, if only for the fact that it has been produced with away-from-game appreciation in mind. Short cues are joined together, etc. Game rips are littered with 20-30 second fragments of music here and there which are looped in-game by software, or overlayed onto other tracks, etc, etc - it's difficult to appreciate on a musical level when you have all this stuff going on.

Of course, if you want every note written for the game, the rip is your only option - but generally I prefer a soundtrack; both for reasons of sound quality and measured presentation. :)

in some casese, gamerips are better than ost's, especially talking about the grand theft auto series. here, it's much more fun to listen to the whole radio station and not only one single track. it reminds more of the game if you hear i.e. lazlow announcing the songs. but for games like ff, ost's are way better.

It have been said before, Gamerips and OST have both "+" & "-".

Gamerips are most of the time more complete than OST, but OST often contains music that is not contained in the game (arrangements, remixes..)

As for the quality of the music, they both varies depending the ripper/the method used/the format of the game/the way used to rip it...

Also note that ~ 90% of games does not get an OST.

Like most people said it depends.

One of the minuses about OST, is that in a lot of cases all of the game music is not included on the Disc. Instead they take the music, they think is most popular, and put it on the disc. A lot of OST are also concept Disc. Meaning, instead of hearing the in-game music, a lot of the tracks are cut-scenes from the game with speech.

On the plus side, the game music on OST are usually enhanced to sound slightly better then what you hear on the game disc. This is especially true when it comes to RPG OST's.

Gamerips if done right, not only sound just as good as OST's, they also include all the game music, and in some cases music that's not used in the game, but is hidden on the Disc.

If I had to choose, I would go for Gamerips over OST's. I only go for OST's when I know all the in-game music is on the disc. Fortunately, a little over 50% of OST's do include all the in-game music.

Gamerips for me as 100 of Western american games do not get an OST.

One of the minuses about OST, is that in a lot of cases all of the game music is not included on the Disc. Instead they take the music, they think is most popular, and put it on the disc.

That's what I sometimes have problems with OST's. SOMEONE puts in the OST the music HE thinks is the best or most popular. Mostly they miss the song I like the most :)

That's what I sometimes have problems with OST's. SOMEONE puts in the OST the music HE thinks is the best or most popular. Mostly they miss the song I like the most :)

no joke..they seem to overlook a lot of good tracks on osts because of time/space

Gamerips for me as 100 of Western american games do not get an OST.

Yeah it seems that the western gamemakers don't see the opportunity that lies here...

Anyway, you people like it more when you download a rip or do you have more confidence in yourself and do it rather yourself?

Yeah it seems that the western gamemakers don't see the opportunity that lies here...

Anyway, you people like it more when you download a rip or do you have more confidence in yourself and do it rather yourself?

For me it depends again.

I have the ability to rip my own game music and convert it to any audio format I want. However, if someone kindly does it for me, then I'd be a fool not to take advantage of their kindness.

I only rip when there's a soundtrack I want, but I can't find it anywhere, or when I want to share my own work with fellow game music fans.

I think the OST is a good organized arrangement of tracks. The gamerips are usually a hassle to manage. The quality is better, and all intended purposes, orders, and effects of the tracks are more accurately reached when in an album format, if album is how it should be listened to. If it's supposed to be all out of order, the OST will have the tracks out of order, or you can just put it on shuffle.

A good example of when gamerips are better than osts are both Megaman 7 and Megaman 8 which were HORRIBLE soundtracks and GREAT gamerips.

Then you get a soundtrack release like Street Fighter III 3rd Strike which merges stage variations together while omitting others. Like Yun & Yang's music omits their stage 2 music and merges 1 and 3 together. The gamerip, on the other hand, ends up having every individual stage 1-2-3 tracks. Yet the mixing in the ost still ends up good anyways, and it's a variation the gamerip doesn't give you (unless you mix it yourself).

Then again, sometimes an ost can get bonus remixes you won't hear on a gamerip.

As it's been also already said, gamerips are good for games which do not get osts. The Rosenkreuzstillette gamerip is passable (loud silence and tiny pops), but since an ost does not exist, it makes it that much better anyways.

I usually combine game rips and OSTs. That way you get the good stuff and the missing stuff together.

I'd say the main concern is hard drive space in fact...

If you start to take every OST and every Gamerips floatting around, you can count space in "Tb", really. (and that means like 2 or 3 hard drives..)

I usually combine game rips and OSTs. That way you get the good stuff and the missing stuff together.

Yeah, that's for sure the best way to go if there was not a tiny little problem...:


I'd say the main concern is hard drive space in fact...

If you start to take every OST and every Gamerips floatting around, you can count space in "Tb", really. (and that means like 2 or 3 hard drives..)

I don't have such a problem as of 80gb music I have, only about 17gb is music from games (OSTs and GR). As I got 240gb space there is no problem. But I am not a real collector, who tries to get everything I can. Guess some of you have TB of music from games...

osts ripped from the original cd > gamerips (except when the ripper did a good job)

As long the game music is good then both forms are fine for me. :)

when it comes to quality i have my doubts that the ost is always better. Reason why is that some games are in 48khz, CD's are always 44.1khz. Of course OST's are better organised and often have 1 good rearranged song on it. I often combine the too and keep the best quality version.
If the files ripped from the disc can be converted to ogg/mp3, i prefer that method.

Gamerips for me as 100 of Western american games do not get an OST.

That's not always true - Enter the Matrix is one, and the Path of Neo got a sort-of release (2 tracks, though) in Juno Reactor's "Gods and Monsters" album.

I don't have such a problem as of 80gb music I have, only about 17gb is music from games (OSTs and GR). As I got 240gb space there is no problem. But I am not a real collector, who tries to get everything I can. Guess some of you have TB of music from games...

I have a 240GB HDD too, and I already have about 100GB of VGM music, and still haven't got all I want. >_>
I'll soon get me an external Harddrive with at least 250GB (if not 500 or 700), and store all of my VGM there.

I don't try to get everything I can, as well, but I would like to get more than what I already have. And I'm close to my limitation already.