Poll on Hybrid loseless/lower quality soundtracks.

I just wanted to get a general opinion on how people prefer certain music being released in the case of the publisher not releasing a complete soundtrack or music not being available in loseless to convert to FLAC.

Lets say, I compiled a soundtrack from a game, and about half the tracks were loseless but the rest were just 320 kbps mp3. In this case I would always create a full mp3 version of the audio for download, but in addition, would you prefer:

A hybrid release with both Loseless FLAC and lossy mp3 compiled into the same tracklist?

Or would you prefer that the FLAC release simply didn’t include the tracks that were lower quality at all?

Thanks!
~ Iron_Ian

FLAC only.. People can then choose to convert to a lower quality like mp3 320 or mp3 v0 using their favorite converters.. I prefer dbPowerAmp to convert my files. Fast and easy. No point in uploading the extra files.

Me personally.. I don’t do MP3.. cuz FLAC > MP3 😀

i agree flac only. but if some tracks not there available, and only lossy, i would like those too. lossy is better far than none!

Thanks for weighing in guys! If anyone else has any thoughts on this matter, I greatly appreciate your feedback! I’m looking to be releasing a couple pretty large compilations in the not too distant future!

this site is too obsessed with FLAC. nothing is wrong with FLAC btw (save for the huge filesize) but 99% of people on this board can’t tell the difference between FLAC and V0 mp3. sorry but it’s true. hell, most people can’t tell the difference between 128kbps and 320.

and what make it’s even dumber is when people want only FLAC of chiptune stuff. a 10mb filesize of a gameboy track doesn’t make sense to me haha. i don’t have a problem when keeping the original quality (with no converting), but it’s the "I only want FLAC!" thing that you see on these boards all the time that irks me, espcially when the majority of the board are leechers and never upload anything themselves. 😛

Having been around here for a while, I’d have to say that we’re getting more and more folks which should "re-learn" what sharing is about. I see mostly greedy and arrogant users which tend way too easily to ignore/forget a very basic ‘piece of information’: you don’t have an actual copy of the CD (whether it is a game or soundtrack album doesn’t really matter, point still stands)? You shouldn’t even be able to enjoy a lossy copy of it, lossy files aren’t the consequence of a spell from Hogwarts, they too have to be sourced off something. Belittling a share simply because it’s in MP3, or another lossy format… A lot is wrong with leechers and downloaders, nowadays. Accept with gratitude whatever gets thrown your way, whether it is lossless or not, if not as a form of respect for the awesome and kind person which shared with you (something which he/she isn’t forced to do, remember), at least for the previously explained fact that you aren’t supposed to enjoy anything without owning the actual product.

All this to say: offer the community what you want, and give the middle finger to those who complain about the quality of your share, that’s all they deserve. The board doesn’t really have rules about the quality of one’s share(s), such person is only asked to specify exactly what’s being shared, 128kbps (heck, even smaller encodes) are still welcomed on the Final Fantasy Shrine.

While I definitely prefer having songs in FLAC, I can live with mp3 128-320 kbps. It’s not like you’re able to hear the difference between them. No one is. They only think they do, and therefore I dont understand the need for others to demand lossless quality. But I will mention that lossless gamerips, in comparison with an official CD release, do actually have a discernible difference between them, the CD rip sounds much more crisp and clean, whether it’s lossless or not.

Thanks everyone for your thoughts. Seems the poll results (while limited) are a pretty big landslide in one direction. I think I will stick to my current strategy of keeping the file formats separated into two releases!