Yeah, Liquid's the expert on the subject. I just tend to go by a combination of Wavgain measurements, foobar DR measurements and my own hearing. To my ears, FFIV's original release is one of the best sounding albums I own and the same goes for the majority of 16 bit Square releases. There is nothing on those albums that needs any type of altering, remastering, retouching, normalizing, whatever. What we can definitely use are loops, but what is the point if they somehow botch the music part?
Arcubalis/Jayson, look man, I told you years ago you sound like a walking PR machine. You still sound like one and you are confusing valid concerns and discussion about an upcoming release with excessive negativity and trolling. I really want to be happy to have VGM coverage on a mainstream site, but that just kills your credibility to me.
Yes, my initial post in the Jeremy Soule thread was a legitimate troll. I also loathe the man's music (not to mention that general direction for VGM and his own outlook on the industry) and I feel like I'm entitled to take a dig at the man every once in a awhile. You know this, we've gone back and forth on it in the past. No need to "return" and act surprised.
This is an entirely different story. FFIV is one of my favorite soundtracks. Remasters though, 99% of the time, are garbage. I cannot think of one that actually improved the original material. The FFIV soundtrack does not need any type of remastering and the last thing VGM needs is for publishers to start going back and remastering their back catalogues with louder volumes so the iPod generation doesn't have to spin the wheel a few times to increase their volume going through their craptastic $3 earbuds.
The poster did not know what brickwalling meant, so Liquid and I clarified it for him. If you want to talk negativity, how about randomly popping into a thread, grabbing two random quotes from us and plopping down, "Sounds serious. Let's boycott Square Enix for re-issuing an out-of-print soundtrack with bonuses" in a sarcastic, passive-aggressive tone? I mean, I see your Destructoid post and your enthusiasm for the release, but I'm not seeing it in your post here. Congratulations on accomplishing nothing.
You're not dealing with casual newbs here like you probably are on Destructoid. You're dealing with knowledgeable longtime hobbyists here and not everything is all smiley faces and strawberries. I agree, everyone should own FFIV's soundtrack and not having looped tracks on the current release sucks. But there is a very real chance they're going to botch this (especially if they are emphasizing the remastering) and there is no way I'd ever recommend a flawed product.