annefrankzappa

Speaking of misinformation - have any receipts or proof that you paid the composers directly for their music? Would love to rescind my previous comments.

DM me your email.

and go follow masuda on twitter. something youll really enjoy will happen soon

also in the meantime, heres a bootleg autographed by some random guy who created the best castlevania game of all time

https://www.instagram.com/p/73jU1_EgIJ/?taken-by=unfortunateface

About the Pokemon record: 'The most annoying being that they list the record is $50, which I did not authorize them to do whatsoever'

Just like GAME FREAK (who have legal digital music here) didn't authorize you to sell in the first place, right.

 

'I do not and have NEVER done this for money whatsoever'

Sure thing, I'm sure it was all going to the Mega Man and Zelda composers from the very start, right.

 

'not shitty vinyl “collectors” that buy records only as trophies to show off to other collectors.'

Half your audience mate.

 

'If all I cared about was ripping off nerds, I could just infinitely repress the mega man 2 or Zelda albums.'

Or you could bootleg a load of other releases.

 

'But Im not trying to be a business.'

Good luck with that Snatcher license.

 

'you can see how many labels have quickly popped up after me'

Ignoring the hundreds of game records released before him.

 

'uninspired soundtrack album design that’s generic as hell' 

Reference to his own bad album art.

 

'though for the record there are still labels like Iam8bit and datadiscs do awesome quality work and everyone should support them'

I'm sure they totally respect what all the hard work Moonshake does too.

 

Ninja Gaiden is coming out? I don't think Keiji Yamagishi/Brave Wave would be very happy about that (who they work closely with) at least they work directly with the original artists, do people actually believe he's sending all that profit from the Pokemon records to Junichi Masuda? Why such the big deal, it's half-ass work made out to be some glorious bootleg revolution. You can't make up excuses until you at least try attempt going legit, and asking your mailing list for lawyer help doesn't make it any easier.

Seriously, what did I do to you personally for you to have such a vendetta against me? Did bootleggers murder your parents as a child? I just dont understand how you can absolutely hate me and everything Ive made with such fevor. They are fucking game soundtracks for christsakes. You speak like Im Al Capone or something. 

Also, meanwhile Do-Jo music repressed the $20 Super Mario Bros 7" for like the 80th time, which is a counterfeit of an actual record that already exists, not even something specfically designed by them, and you are completely fine with that. 

Yeah, I didn't know the whole story, sorry. But I wasn't defending them either. Like I said, they didn't have the rights from Nintendo, but from Sony, so no rights to individual tracks, but I could see, that from their point of view, that they may see your record as detracting from sales of theirs. They went after it really aggressively, and likei said stole your email list, and posted tons of crap on social media, which bothered me. I personally thought their Kickstarter campaign was misleading, and brought up what it actually was on several forums (an arrangement album, with a medley only at the end on a D side). A lot of people were surprised by that, because most thought it was a straight OST. After all that I feel I can't support them.

Sorry to hear you regret it, while I really like that track, it's too bad it's caused you so many problems.

Yeah not trying to attack you or anything Im sorry if it came off aggressive, its just extremely frustrating having to constantly debunk all this misinformation out there. 

The Mother track was Pollyanna, I think, on the NES Greatest Hits record. STS licensed the entire arrange album from Sony, who still had rights to it. Pollyanna is on the D Side medley, but not individually licensed. Essentially people could have bought the Moonshake release for this one track, instead of having to find it on the D Side of the arrangement. I can see why STS wouldn't like this, but technically they don't have the rights to that single track, because that would have had to have come from Nintendo.

Still doesn't make it legal on his end even if they don't have the specific legal rights to one song, but I could definitely see why they'd get up in arms. The other stuff though is what bugs me though.

Ok, this is NOT what happened.

STS emailed me from the start with an extremely hostile letter saying how they had the mother license FROM NINTENDO and that they were going to sue me if I put it out because they now owned the rights to it. This was their first email. Now I hadnt even mastered the tracks to send into the pressing plant yet at this point and was already planning to remove two tracks from the album previously because I felt like they didnt mesh as well with everything else and were too boring in comparison to everything else on the record (the mother track being one of the two). I wrote them and said no problem, I wasnt planning on putting it on anyway and also asked how they got a license from nintendo and if they could possibly forward me any info on how I could get in contact with them as I was very interested in getting licensing as well. Their response was equally as hostile, essentially "sorry we dont talk to bootlegger criminals". The next day I got a ton of emails from people asking if I was now working with STS and found out they took everyones email from the list and added them to their mailer, without anyones permission. This pissed me off so I spitefully put the track back on the album and then let everyone know that they essentially were releasing a literal copy of cd album that wasnt even a soundtrack, but an arranged album being deceptively sold as a soundtrack to people, under a mechanical license (from sony, not nintendo as they had claimed over and over).

I would have never done any of these things if they hadnt been so incredibly hostile from the start with me (and in retrospect wish I hadnt) and I have tried over and over to squash whatever bad blood there is but they continued to spread literal lies (like how I flipped a record on discogs, even though 100% of that sale was for charity) and literally spur people directly connected with them to post my HOME ADDRESS online with a message to "pay me a visit". Thats not just internet trolling or moralistic grandstanding anymore, thats fucking actual real life threats.

Just because the money is "going to charity" doesn't make it fair to the people that created it...

The people that created the music, get NO MONEY from a license. A vast majority of them own no rights to their own music, as almost every japanese game composer pre 21st century was a contractor, therefore a license is a moot point in a paying the creators argument.

Also all my upcoming releases are licensed and Ill still be donating to the creators regardless.

How many other companies with licenses give ANYTHING to the original creators btw? 

I see ShipToShore Phono Company lurking and giving certain posts +1. When will they come out of lurk status and continue the bashing of the non-professional bootlegger like they are constantly doing on social media.

Also - STS what is the deal with 6-Month Pre-orders and $40 price tags?

Ha I wasnt even aware they did this, but heres a funny post they tried to "out me" on where I sold my last copy of mega man 2 on discogs

https://instagram.com/p/3pgGsFp6vq/?taken-by=stsphonoco

which they clearly were unaware that I specifically gave all the proceeds to charity

http://imgur.com/a/UFVYc#0

also I dont want to spam up yalls board with all this argument shit, and ill let yall hate on my stuff as much as you want but Im not gonna sit back and let people call me a liar.

sorry to start such a storm, I just wanted people to know where I was coming from

Honestly, if it was filled in with something other than colored pencil, I wouldn't have a complaint.

Its actually crayon. It was done on purpose to give it texture and to look childlike, like it was made in someones trapper keeper in school cause thats the time period I associate pokemon with. It would have been much cleaner and easier to photoshop all the characters in, but I prefer messy handmade stuff to photoshoped art soooooo yeah. Sorry.

Maybe they just expect someone to be able to draw a circle better than a 6-year old.

 

thats not the final art and was stated as such from where you got that picture, but im sure you could have done a much better job, had you just been given the chance

Ok, I dont come here often (im the evil "bootlegger" btw) , but I was told about a few people here trying to purposely spread a bunch of misinformation and lies about what Im doing, so I have to set the record straight.

First off, I dont make any money personally off my records. I have donated over $6000 to various original artists who actually made the original music and raised over $3000 for the charity childsplay. I have spent almost $4000 on lawyer fees securing REAL licenses (not some bullshit "reprint a CD on vinyl" loophole), which is costly and time consuming as fuck to do, which is why doing it from the start would have been IMPOSSIBLE for me as I am not and have never been a rich man.

Every other cent from sales goes right back into making more albums. I havent even announced the other LICENSED works I have upcoming because I want to wait until they're actually ready to sell and ship to avoid all this retarded craziness of preorders and resellers because I want my stuff to stand on its own because of the quality and care that went into making them, not because people want to just have them cause they think theyll be able to sell them down the road. Im even making a website for them to make purchasing wayyyy easier and also stop people from ordering a shitload of copies just to resale.

Anyway, the main point is, I make these things as a fan of the MUSIC and the vinyl format, for fans of the MUSIC and the vinyl format. If you hate my art, cool, no prob. Doesnt hurt my feelings. Dont like my choices for music? Fine, dont buy my stuff. I make records that I want people to actually play and enjoy, not to have collecting dust on a shelf cause they're "collectable". But when people on here try and claim that Im just trying to make a quick buck off the current video game vinyl trend, its laughable, because for one, Im partly responsible for spurring it on and two how many "bootleggers" would even care to use actual rips from nsf, spc, etc files and have then have them mastered by a real audio engineer, out of pocket, specifically for vinyl? Or spend extra money for heavy paper stock jackets, or have custom etchings specific to the game, carved into the matrix info area? If I was concerned about making a bunch of money I could easily repress Mega Man 2 or Zelda, which would be infinitely cheaper and easier than investing a bunch of money into new releases and licenses, but I have respect the people who use their hard earned cash to buy my releases and I feel like I owe those people who support what Im doing, with keeping promises Ive made to not devalue their purchases.

And as for the people that hate that all the albums are based on classic album covers, there is actually a thought out reason for that. I feel like game music is looked down upon as not being "real" art. The classic cover idea is a direct statement that these soundtracks are our "classic albums" and being on vinyl, I thought it would be a cool idea to make a cohesive running idea, that took the most iconic album covers of the vinyl era and juxtaposed the two, to give weight to the music within as legit works of timeless, real art, and not just some nerdy nostalgic garbage. I know Im not a great artist or anything, but I try the best I can and if you dont like it, then I more than welcome you to come upstage me, cause I would fucking buy it cause I love having game soundtracks on vinyl, regardless of who is making them.

And also for the record for all the haters, the new label, which all the licensed stuff will be on, will all have original covers, not based on anything but the games, so you dont have to worry anymore about "parody" stuff. But they will be all original art assets (not all by me either), so if you just want a bunch of boring stock game art, you will still be very disappointed. Also fuck you, for being a boring piece of shit that allows companies to make the same tired ass stock garbage that takes no effort or creativity at all to make.

P.S. Sorry this is so long yall. But I had to say my piece.

 

 

This has nothing to do with making sure the creators get their money, that is not how music works, that is not how the law works, that is not how the world works. Maybe it should be how it works, but for decades past, and decades into the foreseeable future, it isn't.

This has everything to do with the content owners being paid for their property. Nintendo not owning these particular recordings probably made it much easier for a license to be obtained. The content owners have the right to allow who they choose, to use their content how they choose. It is completely irrelevant if they obtained ownership of that content by creating it or by signing a contract.

It's totally super cool and punk-rock to say "it's for the people! We can create what we want with this. I can sell it as I please. The money should be going to the guy who wrote these songs"

But that is not the way things work. The Easter bunny isn't real either, sorry.

Just because the music isn't owned by who you wish owned it doesn't give you the right to bootleg it, nor does it give you a reason to discredit the work done by others to the fullest extent of the law.

If you're this salty about an official, properly licensed release, simply because it competes with your illegal product, maybe you should just make a margarita with it, and reconsider things. Chill.

 

Not once did I ever think this competed with anything I do. You are literally the only person that thinks that.

And why you are trying to battle me so intensely is mindboggling to me.

If the Mother soundtrack is really bugging you Sean you should just ignore it, so what if they are supporting the official release, the musicians went with Sony for the CD so they had to go with them for the vinyl.

 

Everyone who gets your email loves video game music. Maybe people want the arrangement soundtrack as well as the ripped NES audio, what's the problem? Have the original musicians received money from your rips?

Ok, um, so thats a weird thing to say, seeing as I could say the EXACT SAME THING to you.

First of all, I was not against this release AT ALL (at least I wasnt 3 months ago when it was deceptively announced as the soundtrack to Earthbound Zero and not the 1989 arranged cd)

http://www.reddit.com/r/gamemusic/comments/2mievx/we_are_releasing_mother_earthbound_zero_ost/

I LOVE the idea of people making game soundtracks on vinyl, official or unofficial, and like Ive said before, if I wanted to do this for money, I couldve ripped some shitty quality mp3s online and slapped some random official artwork from the game off google images and cranked out a ton of releases and people still wouldve bought them cause this is music people want on vinyl regardless. But I genuinely care about what Im doing and whether they've been official or not, Ive made them with nothing but care and respect for the people buying them as I wanted to make something that I would personally want, even if I wasnt the person doing it. People that get up in arms about not getting licensing, have NO IDEA what the process involved is like and now that I know, I can tell you that it isnt some point A to point B process like regular soundtrack licensing is.

Also this company attacked ME. Personally and aggressively. They stole emails from my mailing list. They threatened to sue me over a single 1 minute track that they didnt even own, probably purely cause they thought that, somehow, it would cut into their bottom line. And the funny thing is, even if it was just some arranged cd vinyl album I wasnt personally into, I wouldve done whatever I could to help them with their release, because I think game music on vinyl, is only a positive thing. Also, after they spammed my list, I also had 3 separate people offer to hack their website and facebook but I emphatically told them not to do that because, I am NOT trying to battle these people. I just want to be left alone. I am just trying to do put something into the world, that people can legitimately enjoy, at great personal cost to myself because its something I believe in. Thats all.

Oh, and yes 3 composers have received payments and the only reason its not more is because finding contact info for some of these people is extremely difficult, but I will continue to do so with every release, even the licensed ones, as again, they get NO MONEY from a license.

Ive also already had people donate over $400 to the charity childsplay for just test pressings (which I couldve easily sold for profit for the same amount or more). And will hopefully raise over 10 times that with the actual records. So if you think you have some moral high ground on this, fine. But dont talk to me like Im some selfish asshole just trying to get a quick buck.

Sorry if it has already been answered....but, what where the Mega Man and Zelda soundtracks sourced from?

directly ripped from nsf files and directly mastered into uncompressed 24bit wav files. 

Being that game music is a essentially a digital format, it may seem retarded to call out things for "audio quality" but I think if youre gonna make something for vinyl, you might as well make it as high quality as is physically possible and not just rip stuff from already sourced media with an already defined bit rate. 

Also the "original" Mother track on the cd has a bunch of weird post processing on it and an echo filter. So its not the same as ripping it from the game itself. Just saying.

All I was stating was that annefrankzappa (Sean) tried to press the composer's music from the game, he was contacted about the official release asking to take it off his unofficial one, next thing you know he openly mocked the composer's soundtrack as if his work is dirt.

 

Sean said: 'I am trying to do something that treats the music AND the fans of the music with respect.'

So he mocks the company, the composers and thus the fans of the music and he expects us to believe he's doing all of this out of respect?

 

Sean said that he has hired two licensing lawyers, conveniently confirmed ShiptoShore never got the license, and they also secured licensing rights for two his upcoming releases. He says this while he has released two bootleg releases and has another two bootlegs coming up.

 

According to the company behind the the release, the one Sean is stating is fraud :

'This is an officially licensed release. No bootlegging involved.'

'It took us over a year to secure the license for this album! But yes, we did.'

'Due to licensing restrictions we were not allowed to modify the CD artwork.'

Hi. 

So a couple things Id like to point out: 

This company keeps saying this is an "official" release, yet they will not publicly say where it is licensed from. If it is licensed, what danger is there in stating who licensed it? 

Also licensing out a single, already published cd, does NOT give you rights to original masters, which means this is 100% a cd audio release on vinyl, which defeats the purpose of it being on vinyl in the first place. 

There is also the fact that this is a kickstarter. If they are such big "fans" of the game, and not just a horror movie soundtrack label trying to cash in on popular game franchise, wouldn't they have the courage of their convictions to fund it themselves as something they want to see made? 

There is a lot of rhetoric about how its immoral to release something to FANS without giving money to Nintendo or the composers (who again dont own rights to their own music and get zero money from a license anyway), but if this isnt licensed by Nintendo (and it 100% isnt) and they get no money from it and the composers get no money from it, then how is this any more artistically morally sound than a bootleg release, other than giving money to some giant corporation that had no hand whatsoever in the creation of the content other than funding the publishing of it?

Also thanks for following me on my mailing list

Also me. Confused why I did not receive it, considering I was added to the mailing list 3 days ago.

Some people were added to the wrong gmail group in my email. Ill resend the first email out soon for anyone who didnt see it.

My un-asked for thoughts:

Very excited for several of these even if they are boot legs.

Sound quality was good for Zelda.  Would have preferredsome longer tracks instead of so many short tracks.

Please use better mailers next time! My sleeve was pretty damaged, but I was just happy to get one.

Posting info on these releases all over the place, but then complaining that others posted the info other places.....seems non-productive.

Of course I think pretty much the same thing about selling bootlegs and getting upset with someone flipping it....

sorry about the damaged cover, it was not the mailer but the fact that I ran out of the cardboard inner protectors. I was just unprepared for how many I was going to need and ran out of them. 

as for complaining about people posting, it is specially to keep away trolls like https://www.linkedin.com/in/joshuahiggins/nlwho has made THREE separate reddit accounts posing as different people angry about the zelda pressing. I dont care about the info being out there, Im willing to be a martyr for this cause, its more that I just dont like getting attacked by angry gingers for essentially no reason. 

I also dont care about people reselling them, but I feel like I still have the right to think that people selling them for $250 is ridiculous and annoying

I've already made my feelings on these records known multiple times. You have your supporters, so I'll refrain from restating myself. It's nice to see that so many people are interested in buying these in any form. In any case, I'd be very curious on your production process. Pokemon R/G/B, for example, have already had a CD release in 1997, albeit a horrible sounding one, so I would hope that is not what you are using as a source. What is your process in terms of preparing these, and ensuring that these hard edged waveforms are transferred to vinyl faithfully?

All records are mastered from the uncompressed original sound files (nsf for nes, spc for snes etc). Not cd audio or mp3s (defeats the purpose of even making a vinyl at that point). The newest record (comes out in feb/mar) was mastered by a friend who is a well known producer who works for labels like Subpop and Polyvinyl and is going to be as close to audiophile quality game music as I think people have ever heard.

Can I be put on the mailing list, please? [email protected]

 

Thanks!

you got it

Someone put the Zelda on Discogs for $500

that person is banned from all future releases if it makes you feel better. Im not gonna stand for that kind of horrible scalping

I'm really upset bc my Zelda record still hasn't come in the mail yet and this thread is just bringing me down more

PM me and ill find your tracking number

It'll be fine.

I work with Nintendo on some stuff, and they're great to deal with if you know who to contact, but if you don't know a specific email, you'll never get through. No-one mans their social media - it's all automated.

 

Honestly, it'll all be fine. Just hold off on doing anything for a couple weeks and then go back to business as usual. Maybe stay off Reddit/Twitter/VC and keep it to email.

I would love to get a license from them and have emailed a dozen times to no avail so if you have anyone I could contact I would love to know. Im not in this to make bootlegs, I was just kinda forced to because they are such a backwards super japanese company

Ok so someone from here named Josh Higgins @hopsandwax and @one800higgins has potentially ruined all future pressings as they spitefully said that they have alerted nintendo after I said I couldnt sell them a copy of the record (as it is sold out). If anyone knows who this guy is, please let me know

I don't have mine yet either but it shipped like 5 or 6 days ago. Is there a tracking anywhere? 

I have tracking, pm me your name and ill look it up

Got my Zelda OST in the mail. The actual vinyl is bent/warped because the record was shipped with no additional cardboard/bubble wrap. The sleeve is smashed a little too. A little help Sean?

I will send you a replacement if you can ship that copy back. I will pay for shipping

got my zelda ost in yesterday. like others reported, shame it didnt come more protected, my sleeve suffered a minor ding in the corner but i'll live with it..

 

the quality sounds much better than i expected! love hearing great fairy fountain! does anyone have a complete tracklisting?

Sorry I had inner cardboards protectors but ran out of them about 2/3rds though the orders. Next time I will for sure ship everything better (and probably in sleeves). Anyone who got a damaged copy, can send it back if you want and I will replace it as well. I will upload the tracklist to discogs soon. 

Yeah. I've already seen it posted on a couple of big videogame forums too. Only a matter of time before the guy doing these gets a C&D from Nintendo or something. 

yes I would appreciate it if people would not post about it on other sites. I am in talks to get licensing from capcom and would like this to go legit soon.