Frederic Petitpas Posted March 8, 2016 Share Posted March 8, 2016 It hasn't changed much for me in term of compo and I don't really fit the OCR mold, but the ressources here to get tricks and advices is great. Talking about gears, visions/approaches, goals and whatnot, with the people here does impact the music somehow. Helps you understand why and how to get better. It's a collective influence for me. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nabeel Ansari Posted March 8, 2016 Share Posted March 8, 2016 4 hours ago, Brandon Strader said: I disagree with any assertion that "OCR did _________ to my music" OCR will help you learn to write more interesting and concise arrangements. But it doesn't force you to write that way any more than you have to "unlearn" how to write enjoyable, concise songs later on because OCR ruined you and those people on Youtube know what they're talkin' about, why did I ever listen to the judges when fetuspuncher13 and kardashianfan69 is around? I have to unlearn everything I know so I can go back to making something "pure"! Haha alright dude! Meanwhile the only thing you unlearn is the idea that someone helped you get where you are You basically said nothing. I checked the train of logic; it goes nowhere. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
djpretzel Posted March 8, 2016 Share Posted March 8, 2016 OCR HAS RUINED MY MUSIC DREAMS. There I fixed it. Seriously though, working within some basic & flexible artistic boundaries is what brought us some of the best art the world has ever known... including a massive swath of the most iconic VGM ever written. To complain about the limitations of (comparatively) flexible guidelines such as our own when arranging music that was itself composed with (comparatively) far more specific/restrictive technical boundaries seems... odd. And by "odd" I mean "OMG WTF"... But I wouldn't use those tactless words, because I represent the site in an official capacity... Pavos, shadowpsyc, timaeus222 and 1 other 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
timaeus222 Posted March 8, 2016 Share Posted March 8, 2016 Honestly, the most satisfying mindset IMO when it comes to writing what becomes an OC ReMix is to write for yourself, and then choose to submit something to OCR after-the-fact. I don't write to conform to OCR standards; the OCR standards helped elevate my own personal standards. I find that once you assume that you have to adhere to the OCR standards before-the-fact, it doesn't feel right. Now, I integrate the basic framework into how I write music: be interpretive, be creative, and flesh out the piece until it can't get any better for the amount of skill I have at that moment in time. shadowpsyc, Jorito, Pavos and 2 others 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MindWanderer Posted March 8, 2016 Share Posted March 8, 2016 When trying to recruit for CastleMania, Slimy went over some sample pro wrestling theme songs I sent him and replied, "It sounds like I'll need to get some worse orchestral samples." And he was absolutely right, and not just about the orchestral themes. These are professional songs, and, while I'm not a judge, I would be grossly surprised if anything on their level of quality passed the OCR bar. They're largely pretty awful from both an arrangement and a production standpoint, and mostly from a creative standpoint as well. When CastleMania is completed, I'm confident that the main thing that will make it unrealistic as a pro wrestling music album is that the quality will be way too high. Unrelated: I think we're geared towards being OK with repetition because the objectives of an OC ReMix are very different from what we'd expect in other music. Music with lyrics, which is what we're mostly familiar with, all but demands a repeating structure, where only the words change, except for a bridge. OC ReMixes with lyrics often follow that pattern as well, and don't get dinged for it by the panel. EDM is, obviously, intentionally repetitive. Orchestral (including film scores) actually comes pretty close to OCR expectations, since it's largely about variations on a theme, but using an orchestral arrangement style for rock or electronic music is counterintuitive. It makes sense, though. Eino Keskitalo 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shadowpsyc Posted March 9, 2016 Share Posted March 9, 2016 18 hours ago, timaeus222 said: Well, tbh, not all dance music is repetitive to the extent that I find it excessive. A few people have mentioned it here and it seems to always come up with the subject of OCR being anti-repetition. I really don't get it, a lot of dance music isn't excessively repetitive and there's no reason you can't have a solid groove and musical variety, as a lot of artists on this site have done. You can do a trance track that isn't 10 minutes of copy pasted unts and 4 bars of basic arps and that bassline we've all heard 1000x, you're better than that. In my own musical philosophy I don't even see that as being very dancey, high repetition is more meditative, you need variation so the energy of the track is dynamic. Just my opinion and admittedly it's not really my area of specialization, but OCR having it's own vision is totally ok, if you want to make different stuff there are many other avenues for that timaeus222 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frederic Petitpas Posted March 9, 2016 Share Posted March 9, 2016 I can say that a lot of (old) remixes here have the same dance/trance drum loop tho lol.. ♪♪♪♬♬♪♪♬ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DaMonz Posted March 9, 2016 Share Posted March 9, 2016 52 minutes ago, Metal Man said: I can say that a lot of (old) remixes here have the same dance/trance drum loop tho lol.. ♪♪♪♬♬♪♪♬ Everyone knows OCR has nothing but techno shit EDIT: More seriously, to answer the original question, OCR is basically the main reason why I know how to make music. shadowpsyc and YoshiBlade 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Liontamer Posted March 9, 2016 Share Posted March 9, 2016 Dunno when OCR got a reputation for being anti-repetition, when we have a lot of mixes with some manner of it. We're just against lazy and excessive repetition, usually when it involves minimal changes or (worse), the dreaded cut-and-paste. djpretzel and timaeus222 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DeathlesSNESs Posted March 9, 2016 Share Posted March 9, 2016 I'm not a musician myself, so that's my opinion as just a humble fan/listener who knows this site since many years ago and tends to visit this forums "in lurker mode". To be honest: I had some unfair prejudgements about OCR and repetitive music in a past. Even worse: this absurd prejudgement leads me to blame electronic music as if everything included in so wide and varied genre was like that. Obviously I was totally wrong with this nonsensical idea. Maybe it was similar to that in some point of a far past, I don't know. But now, with a more open mind and after listening to much more of the giant OCR database of music, I can say there are actually LOTS of really great musicians here, in all genres, styles and whatever. I also liked the attention people pays to technical issues and details and all that stuff that me, as a simple listener, don't understand so much at all. So, obviously in terms of musical skills OCR did not influnced in anything (because I'm not a musucian and never was able to do something great, in relation to music xD) but as a simple listener it strongly changed something on me. I listen to more variety of VGM remixes and I learned to like some things and styles I used to prejudge before. And now I should apologize for all that unfair opinions. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
YoshiBlade Posted March 9, 2016 Share Posted March 9, 2016 Is it possible that VGM is cyclic in nature, perhaps it's strongest asset is not conducive to what others would listen for in a stand alone song? I listen for the blend of the game with the music, If I was interested in only stand alone music to remix ( or just produce), I wouldn't be here. I love the synthesis of two feelings, musical satisfaction and nostalgia, both have requirements that need to be fulfilled, sometimes at the cost of the other, but that's the balancing game we play, isn't it? Quote “So be sure when you step, Step with care and great tact. And remember that life's A Great Balancing Act." -Dr. Seuess Bowlerhat 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brandon Strader Posted March 9, 2016 Share Posted March 9, 2016 8 hours ago, Liontamer said: Dunno when OCR got a reputation for being anti-repetition, when we have a lot of mixes with some manner of it. We're just against lazy and excessive repetition, usually when it involves minimal changes or (worse), the dreaded cut-and-paste. Yup that's pretty dang true. There's a lot of stuff that gets passed even with cut and paste. (looking at Trance type stuff!) But the key word here is "lazy and excessive repetition" -- if it's not enjoyable then that's not a good thing. And making stuff less repetitious is as easy as changing up a drum beat for the second repetition. Why copy/paste the drum track when it's so easy to play the drums in,or heck, even click them in? /shrug I do have mixes with some repetition. But I repeat parts I think are enjoyable. Too much is too much, if people really want to hear something again, they can listen to the song again. That's how I keep out of excessively-long mixes, tho it depends on genre too. So I dunno I think I disagree with the ideas put forth about OCR, or the accusations? Whatever you'd call it As for whether my stuff sounds samey, you try making 80 songs and having them all sound completely different. Besides, I make music that I want to hear. I could make the same song over and over if it's what I like. shadowpsyc 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shadowpsyc Posted March 10, 2016 Share Posted March 10, 2016 31 minutes ago, Brandon Strader said: Why copy/paste the drum track when it's so easy to play the drums in,or heck, even click them in? /shrug I guess the argument would be that it's a stylistic choice, but as a composer you should already be well aware that not every potential direction you can go in will be one that other people want to listen to for very long. I think this is a danger of becoming too entrenched in one (niche) genre and losing the bigger picture, something being the norm in a particular subgenre doesn't mean that a particular audience such as OCR is going to like it. That and people take rejection personally. It's natural for people to just blame OCR instead of reworking their music into something that THEY would also probably like more. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WillRock Posted March 10, 2016 Author Share Posted March 10, 2016 14 hours ago, Brandon Strader said: Yup that's pretty dang true. There's a lot of stuff that gets passed even with cut and paste. (looking at Trance type stuff!) But the key word here is "lazy and excessive repetition" -- if it's not enjoyable then that's not a good thing. And making stuff less repetitious is as easy as changing up a drum beat for the second repetition. Why copy/paste the drum track when it's so easy to play the drums in,or heck, even click them in? /shrug I do have mixes with some repetition. But I repeat parts I think are enjoyable. Too much is too much, if people really want to hear something again, they can listen to the song again. That's how I keep out of excessively-long mixes, tho it depends on genre too. So I dunno I think I disagree with the ideas put forth about OCR, or the accusations? Whatever you'd call it As for whether my stuff sounds samey, you try making 80 songs and having them all sound completely different. Besides, I make music that I want to hear. I could make the same song over and over if it's what I like. I think that for many, variation = lack of repetition. The general public are very used to hearing songs with more repetition than OCR offers overall I've found. Many songs follow a verse/chorus format and often, other than lyrical content in the verses, much of it is cut and paste, with exception of instrumental performances (same parts, just recorded again). Sure there are exceptions but generally, I find OCRs standards require a bit more effort to keep things interesting. Plus, because we're dealing with (mostly) instrumentals, track structures can tend to be a bit more open. Thats just my take on it. timaeus222 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chimpazilla Posted March 10, 2016 Share Posted March 10, 2016 On 3/9/2016 at 7:51 AM, Liontamer said: Dunno when OCR got a reputation for being anti-repetition, when we have a lot of mixes with some manner of it. We're just against lazy and excessive repetition, usually when it involves minimal changes or (worse), the dreaded cut-and-paste. ^THIS^ Also, I learned how to make music here on this site. All my motivation and a lot of what I've learned and certainly all of my music friends and contacts came from here. Recommend 10/10, would OCR again. Brandon Strader and timaeus222 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Unknown Alias Posted March 10, 2016 Share Posted March 10, 2016 There's definitely a negative influence it's had on writing songs with a lot of repetition. I've been writing music for a movie the past couple months, and the director is wanting a lot of repetitive and ambient tracks. However even with this I still run into problems with thinking "The chords need to change now to something completely different" or "If I don't put a new instrument in here it's going to get boring" Even though that's completely untrue. The real truth to everything is that you should be able to have diversity in your writing. Having an ability to be complex when you want and simple when you want is probably the biggest freedom to composing songs. Doing work on this film has taught me that you can make something beautiful and interesting with only 3 tracks. Or with repetitive rhythms and lines (I will say though that if you're writing repetitive music, having a melody that's complicated will get INCREDIBLY grating after a bit). The problem with repetition is when it's done on accident or out of laziness. Like a rock song probably needs to be developing a melody in a very obvious way, but a trip hop or ambient song can develop one slow and subtly. I guess it all comes down to the context of your track, if that makes any sense. And yeah, I agree that OCR doesn't hate repetition. I've heard a couple things from here that sound like they take influence from groups like Boards of Canada. If you listen to MHTRTC at first it seems like everything is just cut and pasted for 6 minutes a piece. But if you really listen to it you can hear that things are changing and developing, it's just happening very slowly. Like a different chord every once in awhile, or the drum sample being cut up and moved around just slightly. You shouldn't be confusing that for somebody who just copies and paste's a generic drum loop they made with some vengeance samples for 3 minutes and calls it a house song. EDIT: Also a couple of people on OCR have seriously helped me a lot with my mixing abilities. It's a great place to learn and develop and people really shouldn't be scared of posting mixes here. timaeus222 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nabeel Ansari Posted March 10, 2016 Share Posted March 10, 2016 3 hours ago, Unknown Alias said: There's definitely a negative influence it's had on writing songs with a lot of repetition. I've been writing music for a movie the past couple months, and the director is wanting a lot of repetitive and ambient tracks. However even with this I still run into problems with thinking "The chords need to change now to something completely different" or "If I don't put a new instrument in here it's going to get boring" Even though that's completely untrue. The real truth to everything is that you should be able to have diversity in your writing. Having an ability to be complex when you want and simple when you want is probably the biggest freedom to composing songs. Doing work on this film has taught me that you can make something beautiful and interesting with only 3 tracks. Or with repetitive rhythms and lines (I will say though that if you're writing repetitive music, having a melody that's complicated will get INCREDIBLY grating after a bit). The problem with repetition is when it's done on accident or out of laziness. Like a rock song probably needs to be developing a melody in a very obvious way, but a trip hop or ambient song can develop one slow and subtly. I guess it all comes down to the context of your track, if that makes any sense. Yes, if you attempt to score anything how you would write a track that meets OCR standards, it would seldom work. There's only a simple principal behind this, it's nothing very nuanced or complicated. It's that in media, music is meant to augment something that is the focal point. For songs you release on an album, for songs you release on OCR, etc. it's not augmenting or filling the gaps of anything; it is the main point of itself, and so it is okay for it to do whatever it wants without ruining or derailing something it's supposed to support. In scoring, something as simple as a chord change can re-contextualize a scene, and can make a director very angry if you seem like you don't understand why. It's not about your vision, it's about his; granted, it's not as if this is a rule, and sometimes directors choose to heed a composer's ideas. AngelCityOutlaw 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SystemsReady Posted March 12, 2016 Share Posted March 12, 2016 Adding myself to the "OCR is what prompted me to start trying to make music" pile...though in my case OCR was one of the major factors! timaeus222 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Palpable Posted March 15, 2016 Share Posted March 15, 2016 The biggest effect OCR has had on me is that I barely make original songs anymore. When I saw the difference between the outreach/love I'd get for my remixes vs. my original music, I opted to put my energy into remixes. Maybe sad, but definitely true. On a related note I kinda hate the trend of everyone and their mother covering the Game of Thrones theme or whatever song is popular and having it get more attention than their original songs, but it seems inevitable given how much music there is out there. Something familiar is going to get more attention. Can't blame anyone for doing it either, since I have basically done the same thing by foregoing original music for remixes, and have likely clicked on a 100 "'Uptown Funk' played on a pinball machine!" Facebook links myself. Skrypnyk 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chernabogue Posted March 17, 2016 Share Posted March 17, 2016 OCR has ruined my musical skills! I was able to create real masterpieces and now, I'm just doing simple stuff. I hate OCR so much, 0/10, wouldn't recommend, BBQ. Jorito and timaeus222 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sumie Posted March 17, 2016 Share Posted March 17, 2016 5 hours ago, Chernabogue said: OCR has ruined my musical skills! I was able to create real masterpieces and now, I'm just doing simple stuff. I hate OCR so much, 0/10, wouldn't recommend, BBQ. My God sir, how you have declined. I could listen to your first masterpiece all day. Chernabogue 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brandon Strader Posted March 17, 2016 Share Posted March 17, 2016 I can do what Chernabogue did too Before OCR: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eyDZasJG0fY After OCR: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=URFvXTAVlc4 I don't think my stuff was bad as before ocr though Definitely stinkers the farther back you go tho. I still have the 1st song I ever wrote: http://rainwound.bandcamp.com/track/sentient-the-task edit/ real song, not fruity loop techno Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jorito Posted March 17, 2016 Share Posted March 17, 2016 Heh, a hall of shame, very cool I actually have an example of a the exact same song before I became active on OCR and started taking music more seriously: before OCR and after OCR. I definitely sense a difference in variation, arrangement, own influences and overall progress in my own work (yes, I know, that 'after OCR' version could have been better still but that's not the point) Brandon Strader 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WillRock Posted March 18, 2016 Author Share Posted March 18, 2016 GUNNA JUMP ON THE BEFORE/AFTER OCR BANDWAGON Before OCR After OCR I'm not gunna lie. OCR made step up my game in a big way timaeus222 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
timaeus222 Posted March 18, 2016 Share Posted March 18, 2016 It's crazy how much of a difference OCR has made! Before OCR After OCR It's honestly no comparison Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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