pixietricks WINS OurStage March finals: zircon in 3rd, sgx in 4th! Thanks all :D

[zircon]

OurStage (www.ourstage.com) is a website which sponsors a monthly music and video competition. Every month, they give away tens of thousands of dollars in prizes to the best entries in a number of categories. Various musicians from OCR, such as myself, pixietricks, and sgx have participated, and it looks like one of the most promising ways for good music to get discovered - a very democratic, fan-driven system for separating the wheat from the chaff.

UPDATE: 3/31/08 - sgx, myself, and pixietricks are in the FINALS. We topped our respective genre categories and are now competing for the grand prize with a handful of other people! VOTING ENDS at 11:59pm EST tonight (Monday)....

The songs that made it:

* zircon - Breathing You In
* Jill - Hajime
* sgx - Coactive (Over My Shoulder Mix)

Thousands of songs were entered... a tiny fraction of those remain.

"So, what can I do to help y'all?"

OurStage is based on a system where anyone can judge. That's right, YOU TOO can be a judge!!!!!1 All you have to do is register for the site, which takes all of 10 seconds, select a category, and judge away. You're presented with two songs at once, and you have to listen to at least 15 seconds of each. I recommend listening to more, of course, to really get an idea of what the song is all about. Once you've listened to a song once, if it comes up in another round of judging (you can judge a LOT of song pairs) you don't have to listen to it at all again, if you don't want to. You then choose which of the two songs in your song pair you prefer more. That's it.

Here's the link to where you can judge: http://www.ourstage.com/judge

We'd really appreciate your votes for our tracks - remember, the songs are cycled randomly, so you can't simply go to ours immediately, but once you get started it's actually really fun. I've judged hundreds of song pairs so far. You get hooked pretty quick.

Can't decide which OC ReMixer you want to win? - If two of our songs are matched up against each other, just judge them "Same" ;)

BUT WAIT, there's more!

Normally I wouldn't post about this kind of thing, but there's actually another contest going on right now. Any artist who adds at least 20 new fans (on Ourstage) will be submitted to AOL for consideration for future promotion, as well as promotion in Ourstage's own announcements.

Becoming a fan on Ourstage is DEAD easy. It doesn't mean that you'll suddenly start getting spammed by us via email. It's just a mechanic on Ourstage, specifically, so you really have nothing to lose. Simply go to our individual artist pages, and hit the "Become a Fan" button, towards the right. That's it. You're done. Here are the links:

http://www.ourstage.com/fanclub/zircon
http://www.ourstage.com/fanclub/jilliangoldin

"wuts in it for me tho"

Besides our love and gratitude?! Well, we're going to select one random person who signed up as a fan of ours and give them one CD from each of us. So, you can pick from any of mine, AND you get Jill's new album when that comes out. But you gotta become a fan of each of ours. Feel free to post here once you've done so, as it will help us figure out who signed up from OCR and who signed up somewhere else (not that we're posting this offer anywhere else - just for OCR peeps)

--

sgx has provided his own incentive as well:

I don't expect to win the grand prize, but if I win the channel (which gets me a $100 credit gift card and a wowowow T-shirt) I will either give 5 people who become my friend and post a comment on my profile saying you voted for me a $10 coupon for my my music store (http://www.protagonistrecords.net/buy/) or, if a LOT of people do it, I'll give $5 coupons to 10 people. $5 is enough to buy digital versions of my new album and several of my older ones, so its free music for you, and you have a pretty good chance of winning it I think. Also, very soon I will be selling music from other artists in my store, so it will work for that too.

--

And hey, to all you other OCR artists. Do you write original music? You should enter the OurStage contest too! You can do it every month, it's FREE, and you can enter in as many categories as you want (though you can only do two songs per category per month, and don't submit things that are off-topic.) It's a lot of fun to not only watch your songs' progress but also to judge other music and help promote the music which YOU like. I've already discovered a bunch of great artists just by judging, and you can even download some of the full-length MP3s for free!

[Jillian Aversa]

I am Jillian Goldin, and I endorse this message! :<

[Katsurugi]

I am me. I endorse pixie as my secret lover.

[Kanthos]

I am Kanthos. I endorse the return of pixietricks' forum so I can get my daily dose of knowledge of what she had for breakfast. It's official!

I will also go judge or become a fan or whatever newfangled nonsense you youngsters are asking for.

[Jillian Aversa]

-_- to Katsurugiiii.

(^o^) to Kanthos.

[Ramaniscence]

I tried to do this for my friend's video...it's an outright bitch. Maybe there's less music on the site than movies, but the odds of landing on the one's you're looking for is outlandish

[kitty]

I am (insert new handle here). I has become fans for free music. Oh, and because I heart zircon and pixie...maybe.

Edit for the butchered English impaired: I am Falchion39. I have become a fan of zircon and pixie because I genuinely love their music.

[zircon]

I tried to do this for my friend's video...it's an outright bitch. Maybe there's less music on the site than movies, but the odds of landing on the one's you're looking for is outlandish

Not in the quarterfinals. There are only twenty songs per category, and since once you listen to 15 seconds of a song you never have to listen again, it's really easy to get to songs you're looking for.

But the "Become a Fan" thing is what we're really looking for here :3 Only one person so far did this and it wasn't anyone who even posted here :(

[kitty]

Not in the quarterfinals. There are only twenty songs per category, and since once you listen to 15 seconds of a song you never have to listen again, it's really easy to get to songs you're looking for.

But the "Become a Fan" thing is what we're really looking for here :3 Only one person so far did this and it wasn't anyone who even posted here :(

Zircon hates me. D: And if my internet didn't suck at the moment I would be trying to vote on your music but I can't even get the pages to load.

Edit: Aha, found your music. Voting now...

[Jillian Aversa]

Hmmm, if you guys decide to become fans of us, can you make sure you mention that in here? We won't be able to keep track of who from OCR is entering our CD giveaway otherwise. :3

[Escariot]

Done... Fan'd both

[jmr]

I've joined both of your fanclubs, and judged a hand full of match ups in the Techno/Club/Dance category.

[Zoola]

I am now your fan.

[mattoco]

The work both of you do is excellent; you could say I am quite the "fan" of it.

[Master_Yoshi]

Long time lurker and fanboy of your music. Totally a fan of both on the site :D

[Jillian Aversa]

Woo, thanks guys!

[Crazyonr1]

Alright, fan'd both of you, and I found and voted on Zircon's stuff, still looking for Pixie's though

[Jillian Aversa]

My track, "Hajime" is in the New Age/World channel here: http://www.ourstage.com/music/channel/25-world

[SotSS]

I "fan'd" both of you and even left a comment wherein I hyphenate the word "headphones" for some reason.

[Thompson]

Another long-time lurker here. Faned both.

[Choccy]

Join'd. I love your music guys (and gals). I like giving every bit of support I can.

I have that image as a wallpaper Manic XD.

[Manic Cinq]

Hey this is fun. 11 battles so far.

*fanfare*

138 exp
2 ap

1 potion

[Jillian Aversa]

I "fan'd" both of you and even left a comment wherein I hyphenate the word "headphones" for some reason.

Haha, this is so funny to me for some reason...

[Inimitable]

Done. But only because we're such close friends.

[The Unsung Plumber]

I joined, as long as we hear what Jill AND Andy have for breakfast tomorrow.:-P

[Jillian Aversa]

I joined, as long as we hear what Jill AND Andy have for breakfast tomorrow.:-P
That's all my forum's good for, eh....? :cry:

[The Unsung Plumber]

That's all my forum's good for, eh....? :cry:

Awww... Don't cry. When it returns, we'll make a pixie lunch thread:<

[Happy Pyro]

I joined both. It seems to be the only way I pass the time until April 22 and the Origins release. </near-rabid fandom>

[mattoco]

Congratulations on your dominance of your sections! This requires obligatory...

http://www.geocities.com/arforfaborb/Midee_NiceWork.jpg

...to both of you and the fans that have gotten you there (and the many battles fought).

[Aninymouse]

Fan'd. The website is actually pretty fun! Here's hoping you guys get the big one!

I'll have to explore a bit more...

[Polo]

Signed up as Polo83 (someone already claimed Polo), voted, and fanned both of you. Your qualifying tracks display quite a lot of arrangement evolution, synth variety, and production polish. And of course heart. <3

Rock on.

[zircon]

Thank you everyone!! It really means a lot that you guys are doing this for us. If any of you are in the Philadelphia area I will personally make you a cheesesteak or bowl of pudding. Your choice.

BTW: There are actually two more rounds of voting coming up, though they're much shorter, with generally fewer battles available - semi-finals (figures out the best of each genre) and finals (figures out the best song of any genre.) So, since we're already at the top now, you don't have to keep voting - as long as we're in the top 10, we'll move on to the next round. THEN we wanna be #1 :D

[Vivi22]

I am now in the process of voting, and have also become a fan. It feels great to be a fan now because I couldn't stand you guys before. ;)

[Jillian Aversa]

Fun fun silly willy!

[cocoelmono]

Just another of these "lurker" folks... fanned you both under the member name "unkle worm". Great job, guys.

[mattoco]

It's semi-finals time, let the voting continue!

[kitty]

Mindbender and Breathing You In both made it to the semis. Not sure about the others since I haven't gone to vote on those yet.

EDIT: Both Hajime and Antigravity made it to the semis in New Age/World as well. Congrats Zircon and Pixie! Ironically I found that out when the songs were set against each other.

[Mindeffects]

Fan'd.

10 char.

[Shael Riley]

Thank you everyone!...If any of you are in the Philadelphia area I will personally make you a cheesesteak or bowl of pudding. Your choice.



I'm kind of just jumping in here, but I would like both of those things.

[sgx]

I'm on ourstage too, and competing in a different genre from pixie and zircon. I'm in the Electronic genre (zircon is in the techno/club genre). My Coactive remix is in the top ten in the semifinals right now, so you won't have to do much judging until mine pops up.

http://www.ourstage.com/banner/image/1/OFKPSIFFYGVI.jpg (http://www.ourstage.com/banner/1/OFKPSIFFYGVI)

I don't expect to win the grand prize, but if I win the channel (which gets me a $100 credit gift card and a wowowow T-shirt) I will either give 5 people who become my friend and post a comment on my profile saying you voted for me a $10 coupon for my my music store (http://www.protagonistrecords.net/buy/) or, if a LOT of people do it, I'll give $5 coupons to 10 people. $5 is enough to buy digital versions of my new album and several of my older ones, so its free music for you, and you have a pretty good chance of winning it I think. Also, very soon I will be selling music from other artists in my store, so it will work for that too.


So, click the image above, click judge at the top of the screen, judge till you get to my track and say you LOVE LOVE LOVE it!!! Then become my friend and post a comment in my profile. Rad! Thanks!

[Kanthos]

Thank you everyone!! It really means a lot that you guys are doing this for us. If any of you are in the Philadelphia area I will personally make you a cheesesteak or bowl of pudding. Your choice.

If work sends me to Pittsburgh (reasonably likely), I may very well rent a car and drive down to Philly. That is, if you and Jill can put up with me :)

[Fishy]

Fan'd.

Thank you everyone!! It really means a lot that you guys are doing this for us. If any of you are in the Philadelphia area I will personally make you a cheesesteak or bowl of pudding. Your choice.

I'm vegetarian, how about some cheeseCAKE?

EDIT: I clicked judge, and the first song that came up was breathing you in, I had to fight myself not to mark the other one as offensive.

[zircon]

sgx!!! I had no idea you were competing in Electronic in the quarter/semi-finals!! Jill and I will be voting for you for sure. Coactive is sick :) I'll edit the topic.

[Jillian Aversa]

Wooooo, let's shoot for an OCR sweep!

How awesome would it be if Coactive won Electronic, Breathing You In won Techno/Club/Dance, and Hajime (or Antigravity) won New Age/World? XD

[kitty]

Wooooo, let's shoot for an OCR sweep!

How awesome would it be if Coactive won Electronic, Breathing You In won Techno/Club/Dance, and Hajime (or Antigravity) won New Age/World? XD

I would say that observing the spectacle of said songs winning their respective genre fields would be quite exhilarating.

[Happy Pyro]

Wooooo, let's shoot for an OCR sweep!

How awesome would it be if Coactive won Electronic, Breathing You In won Techno/Club/Dance, and Hajime (or Antigravity) won New Age/World? XD
Right now, those songs are top in their respective categories.

[zircon]

Yeah, but things could get hairy tomorrow if the other competitors get THEIR fans to vote too. Remember, if you voted in the quarterfinals, your votes are reset for the semifinals (where we are now) so you have another 45 rounds that can be judged. These will also be reset for the finals, which are one day (this Monday) where we'll all be (hopefully) competing for $5,000 :)

[mattoco]

Yes, more votes are always helpful. Earlier today Particle took the #2 spot in Techno, so the battle is far from over. Will be eagerly awaiting the results tomorrow night.

[Chiwalker]

Zircon, you were right, this is addicting...

And Breathing You In was the first song that came up and I voted for it, not because you said so but because it kicks ass ^_^

[SotSS]

So, click the image above, click judge at the top of the screen, judge till you get to my track and say you LOVE LOVE LOVE it!!! Then become my friend and post a comment in my profile.

I fan'd, I'm about to judge, and I left a comment wherein I do not hyphenate the word "headphones" as it does not appear in said comment.

Instead of free credit, as compensation for my cooperation in matters relating to the judging of song Coactive, the fanning of one SGX, and the commenting that took place on one SGX's profile page, I ask only for your unquestioned loyalty.

If that is unacceptable to you, a simple "Thanks SotSS, you jack ass" will suffice, though preferably without the attitude.

[Liontamer]

I've supported all 3 artists. Good luck with the remainder of the voting!

[sgx]

sgx!!! I had no idea you were competing in Electronic in the quarter/semi-finals!! Jill and I will be voting for you for sure. Coactive is sick :) I'll edit the topic.

Thanks dood. I actually was having thoughts about getting the fans to vote and offering compensation for it yesterday, and then today I jump on OCR and see you started up a similar idea heh. Good thing we're in separate channels :).

I've got tracks lined up to compete for the electronic channel for a few months, so if I do win the channel this month, I'll probably be pushing for votes again this time next month. Next month I have the original Coactive competing.


If that is unacceptable to you, a simple "Thanks SotSS, you jack ass" will suffice, though preferably without the attitude.

Thanks SotSS, you kick ass.

If you don't want the credits, then I guess some other person will get yours :). That is, if I win. I'm gonna need votes again on Monday when it will hopefully be me vs some other newbsong.

[kitty]

I'm in this for all the tenderly luv. :P Oh, I also voted for SGX who seemed to be doing fine even without our love conquering all.

[The Unsung Plumber]

THOSE BASTARDS!!!

http://i259.photobucket.com/albums/hh299/TheUnsungPlumber/GASP.jpg

Meh, had to happen, I guess.:banghead:

[Japa]

new to these forums, but I got nearly the entire oxremix collectio on my hd, and I'm a fan!

and I voted a bunch.

[Jillian Aversa]

Doin' good, guys, doin' good!

[mattoco]

Congratulations pixie, zircon, and sgx on your clean sweeps of the respective generes...

...now, duel to the death (or something similarly climactic), May the best win!

[PhiJayy]

Not bad guys. Not bad. Your fanbase is freakin huge Zircon!

We didn't have a chance. :-P

Oh well, good for you guys! It was a heck of a competition, and we had fun.

[zircon]

Hey bro, sorry we had to be competing in the same category, but you ended up pretty high up there!! Way higher than any of my songs got last month. So definitely enter again - you'll have my support :)

To everyone: THANK YOU for all the help! Now that we're in the finals, your votes have reset, so you can vote more. A LOT more, if you so choose (over 700 'battles' available). If I manage to win the grand prize, I will give everyone who became a fan any CD of mine, free of charge. You get to choose which.

[mattoco]

Yeah, I'd have to second you keeping it at; Feelings of Freedom is an awesome track and definitely pulled some votes away from zircon's work :>

[PhiJayy]

Hey bro, sorry we had to be competing in the same category, but you ended up pretty high up there!! Way higher than any of my songs got last month. So definitely enter again - you'll have my support :)

To everyone: THANK YOU for all the help! Now that we're in the finals, your votes have reset, so you can vote more. A LOT more, if you so choose (over 700 'battles' available). If I manage to win the grand prize, I will give everyone who became a fan any CD of mine, free of charge. You get to choose which.

No problem Zircon. Its cool! Hey SGX Congrats!

Yeah, I'd have to second you keeping it at; Feelings of Freedom is an awesome track and definitely pulled some votes away from zircon's work :>

Thanks dude! Glad you liked it!

[Jillian Aversa]

I liked your track too, PhiJayy! Had no idea you were actually on the boards here as well.

If I manage to win the grand prize, I will give everyone who became a fan any CD of mine, free of charge. You get to choose which.
Same offer stands with me - if I win with "Hajime," all you new fans will get a free copy of Origins when it comes out April 22nd!

[mattoco]

Well, I got to 630 battles before I hit the judging limit. Looks like I will be watching from here on out.

[The Joker]

Sooooo, thanks to pixietricks mailing list, I got reminded to sign up for the site. Voted. Also, I think i may submit a track in the future.

[kitty]

Dammit I don't wanna pick between your guys' mixes. And PhiJayy, you had some good stuff in there too.

EDIT: Hot damn I just noticed the number of matchups. Looks like I won't be sleeping tonight.

[Ramaniscence]

Looks to me like Jill's running away with it.

Also: My friends ended up 26th in the CMF 2008 movie category out of 128 entries. That's pretty impressive seeing as the top 10 is people doing stop motion and with professional camera equipment when we filmed the whole thing in a day, with whatever crappy DV camera we had, and editted it in a matter of hours with iMoveHD, lol.

[kitty]

Looks to me like Jill's running away with it.

Also: My friends ended up 26th in the CMF 2008 movie category out of 128 entries. That's pretty impressive seeing as the top 10 is people doing stop motion and with professional camera equipment when we filmed the whole thing in a day, with whatever crappy DV camera we had, and editted it in a matter of hours with iMoveHD, lol.

As of now she's in 12th place. sgx is in 4th and zircon is in 14th. The standings are still volatile though, I watched sgx go form 8th to 4th in about 30 minutes.

[SnappleMan]

Why not encourage people to enter and get recognized instead of urging them to vote for you? Maybe it's just me, but I see asking your friends to vote for you in this type of competition as a form of cheating.

[The Joker]

Also, disclaimer: I voted Pixie, zirc, & SGX as i did, because they wer ebetter than the other tracks they wer paired with. If I liked one of the other tracks... I'd probably (& probably,. seeing as there are still... I'm in for a few dozen more matches) will choose the one I like.

[Jillian Aversa]

Why not encourage people to enter and get recognized instead of urging them to vote for you? Maybe it's just me, but I see asking your friends to vote for you in this type of competition as a form of cheating.
I can understand why you might come to that conclusion not being familiar with the site, but that actually couldn't be further from the truth. (And we have been encouraging people to get recognized with their own music as well. Perhaps you didn't read the first post thoroughly.) OurStage is all about fan support. In fact, they send competitors frequent emails encouraging them to get new fans to sign up and vote. Here are some samples from those emails:

------

"A little encouragement can go a long way Now’s the time to make sure your fans are doing all they can for you. To help facilitate the possibility of you moving up a notch, we’ve included a sample email you can send out to your fans, or post as a bulletin, or have tattooed on your forehead. However you use it, it’s there to encourage your fans to register for OurStage if they haven’t already done so, and to come back and vote again for next round."

------

"Most of you, I suspect, have fans who are not connected to you by DNA or marriage. As much as you depend on your fans, we here at OurStage also need their involvement to see us on to bigger pastures. So here's a special opportunity, offered exclusively to our esteemed quarter finalists. Between now and the end of March, any artist who adds 20 or more new fans into your fan club will be automatically submitted to AOL for promotional consideration (musicians only), not to mention a passage in our beloved newsletters and other promotional announcements.

The best way for you to earn the honor is to tell ALL your friends and devoted fans who are not on OurStage to register for OurStage ASAP and join your fan club."

------

"Notify everyone you’re going for one of these performance slots, ask them to join the fun and judge all content fairly. Our system randomizes all entries, meaning that fans have no way of knowing or controlling who they vote for. This keeps OurStage from becoming a crappy little monthly dustup, instead of the film & music discovery venue that it is, where great artists get a stab at fame without having to kiss unfamiliar buttocks or sleep with people they’d rather just do deals with."

------

Etc etc. I think you get the idea. ^-^ Thanks for your support, everyone!

[Ramaniscence]

As of now she's in 12th place. sgx is in 4th and zircon is in 14th. The standings are still volatile though, I watched sgx go form 8th to 4th in about 30 minutes.

Well, I meant amongst the OCR people, I didn't notice the SGX thing :o


And yea, the voting changes pretty drastically. I figure because your actual entry gets voted on so infrequently. When the competition first started for the CMF thing it wasn't uncommon to watch videos make a 20-40 place jump, but it got a little more stable later on.

[SnappleMan]

I can understand why you might come to that conclusion not being familiar with the site, but that actually couldn't be further from the truth. (And we have been encouraging people to get recognized with their own music as well. Perhaps you didn't read the first post thoroughly.) OurStage is all about fan support. In fact, they send competitors frequent emails encouraging them to get new fans to sign up and vote. Here are some samples from those emails:

------

"A little encouragement can go a long way Now’s the time to make sure your fans are doing all they can for you. To help facilitate the possibility of you moving up a notch, we’ve included a sample email you can send out to your fans, or post as a bulletin, or have tattooed on your forehead. However you use it, it’s there to encourage your fans to register for OurStage if they haven’t already done so, and to come back and vote again for next round."

------

"Most of you, I suspect, have fans who are not connected to you by DNA or marriage. As much as you depend on your fans, we here at OurStage also need their involvement to see us on to bigger pastures. So here's a special opportunity, offered exclusively to our esteemed quarter finalists. Between now and the end of March, any artist who adds 20 or more new fans into your fan club will be automatically submitted to AOL for promotional consideration (musicians only), not to mention a passage in our beloved newsletters and other promotional announcements.

The best way for you to earn the honor is to tell ALL your friends and devoted fans who are not on OurStage to register for OurStage ASAP and join your fan club."

------

"Notify everyone you’re going for one of these performance slots, ask them to join the fun and judge all content fairly. Our system randomizes all entries, meaning that fans have no way of knowing or controlling who they vote for. This keeps OurStage from becoming a crappy little monthly dustup, instead of the film & music discovery venue that it is, where great artists get a stab at fame without having to kiss unfamiliar buttocks or sleep with people they’d rather just do deals with."

------

Etc etc. I think you get the idea. ^-^ Thanks for your support, everyone!

So you're telling me that the people you invite are voting for you purely based on the content of your music and are not at all biased? I wouldn't believe that if you paid me to. I mean, I don't care how you get your votes, but for me personally, I'd feel very wrong asking my friends to vote for me. Just because the site encourages fair play doesn't mean there's any way to enforce it.

[Jillian Aversa]

So you're telling me that the people you invite are voting for you purely based on the content of your music and are not at all biased? I wouldn't believe that if you paid me to. I mean, I don't care how you get your votes, but for me personally, I'd feel very wrong asking my friends to vote for me. Just because the site encourages fair play doesn't mean there's any way to enforce it.

If it weren't fair play to ask for people to rate your own music highly, you'd think they wouldn't phrase things like:

"Now’s the time to make sure your fans are doing all they can for you. To help facilitate the possibility of you moving up a notch..."

"The best way for you to earn the honor is to tell ALL your friends and devoted fans who are not on OurStage to register for OurStage ASAP and join your fan club."

And as they said, you really *can't* cheat in this system because all the rounds are randomized. You are forced to vote on all the songs presented to you - not just on those of zircon, sgx, or myself. I think you're reading too much into it.

[Kanthos]

It's probably a given that people who come to the site through personal invitation from an artist will vote for that person's songs. The value of that for OurStage is that by artists encouraging their friends and family to judge, more artists overall get more exposure. I've only had 30 minutes or so to judge, but I've listened to parts from a number of tracks. While I personally didn't like anything else enough to look into the artist more *so far*, a lot of people would. This is kind of similar to Last.FM's "Songs in your neighbourhood" playlist which, incidentally, has made a pair of artists about $60 total from me, which is pretty significant given that I'd never have discovered them otherwise.

[Escariot]

Voted 275 so far... Before I had to call it a night and hit the sack

[SnappleMan]

If it weren't fair play to ask for people to rate your own music highly, you'd think they wouldn't phrase things like:

"Now’s the time to make sure your fans are doing all they can for you. To help facilitate the possibility of you moving up a notch..."

"The best way for you to earn the honor is to tell ALL your friends and devoted fans who are not on OurStage to register for OurStage ASAP and join your fan club."

And as they said, you really *can't* cheat in this system because all the rounds are randomized. You are forced to vote on all the songs presented to you - not just on those of zircon, sgx, or myself. I think you're reading too much into it.

All I'm saying is, where's the personal growth factor when your friends are the ones boosting your ratings? I know that my buddies like my music, but the point is that I was strangers to vote for it, honestly.

[zircon]

Well, in an ideal world, all listeners would be completely objective, not biased for or against any genre, and without any kind of personal preference. They would vote based on a number of factors ranging from songwriting to arrangement, production, structure, performance, overall musicality, etc. However the world is not like that. When you open up any sort of voting or evaluation to the general public you get massive bias. And if nothing else, the only way to counter bias (eg. some people love country and will never vote for my techno song, simply because they hate techno) is with more bias :P

That said, the first round of OurStage is so random - there are usually 250+ entries per category - it's basically impossible to ask people to vote for you there. None of us asked anyone to vote for us in the first 25 or so days of the month; that was all random strangers, and even then we made it into the top 20 of our respective categories.

[mattoco]

If you want strangers to vote on your music, Ourstage is one of the first places I have seen with a ranking system designed around it.

If one could choose the artist to be judged then one could repeatedly judge that artist higher and higher in the rankings and unfairly influence the outcome. We believe it's critically important that the OurStage rankings reflect the true wisdom of the community by being free of gaming. It is one of the most unique things about our site differentiating us from the scores of other sites that are unable to separate quality from the noise. So on OurStage the artists in each channel are presented at random - to prevent gaming, and to give every artist a fair shot to be compared to every other artist. We know it's different and we know it asks more of our community to do it this way but we believe the results are worth it. Thank you for being a part of our unique community.

[Jillian Aversa]

I agree about that, Snapple. Like Kanthos said, OurStage is really about the exposure. I've only been on the site since February, and already I've made a lot of friends and fans there that have signed up on my mailing list and forum. Last month, I didn't do any of this posting on OCR - and I still won 4th in New Age/World. As Andy said: there are plenty of other people out there boosting our ratings, otherwise none of us would have even made it to the quarterfinals out of hundreds of submissions. :3

mattoco: I hit the limit at 630 rounds as well. Looks like they made a typo when they said there are 741 possibly battles, hehe.

Keep 'em coming, folks!

[SnappleMan]

There's no "prog" section... :( I guess I have to release music under "metal".

[PhiJayy]

I liked your track too, PhiJayy! Had no idea you were actually on the boards here as well.!

Yeah. We've been here for awhile. Just haven't submitted a remix yet. I don't think we have. We're working on one right now.

I guess #4 in the Techno/Dance/Club on Ourstage isn't a bad position. Not too shabby.:smile:

We'll make it next time, with some new material. :wink:

Listen to Feelings of Freedom (Jayy)

Link: http://www.ourstage.com/music/channel/79-techno/WCAQIXRFGSJZ-feelings-of-freedom-jayy

[jmr]

I guess #4 in the Techno/Dance/Club on Ourstage isn't a bad position. Not too shabby.Not bad at all. I remember liking your track a lot when I was judging in that channel.

I'm about 1/3 of the way through judging in the finals now.
edit: I'm at 666 / 741 battles judged, and it says that there are no more entries to judge. Somethin' seems fugged up.

[Jillian Aversa]

jmr: Weird... for both mattoco and I, it limited us to 630 rounds. But you seem to have been allowed more, and both numbers are still significantly under the 741 available battles they seem to quote. :?

EDIT:

Okay, I think I know what's up. All of a sudden, they're letting me judge more rounds... but there's a new track in there: "High" by Pistol Day Parade! I bet they disqualified someone else and replaced them or something, so now there are more battles available.

EDIT #2:

You would probably pwn the metal category if you enter for next month, Snapple. Do you have originals?

[Nutritious]

Slowly making my way through the judging now. 133/741... man this takes forever :)

[Mindeffects]

All done in one sitting, 666 here too. :sleepdepriv:

[Vivi22]

All done in one sitting, 666 here too. :sleepdepriv:

Not sure I could handle that in one sitting. I've finished my voting and for what it's worth, I personally feel that Zircon and Pixie have two of the best songs on there, but it's not looking good for either of them to win it so far. Oh well, it says there's over 7 hours left so who knows; maybe things could change by then.

[jmr]

jmr: Weird... for both mattoco and I, it limited us to 630 rounds. But you seem to have been allowed more, and both numbers are still significantly under the 741 available battles they seem to quote. :?I put what little knowledge I gained from my statistics course (http://www.mathwords.com/c/combination_formula.htm) to use, and it seems 666 is the total number of possible matchups for a set of 37 songs. 741 is the number of possible pairs from a set of 39. So, unless they plan on adding two more songs, we're done voting.
Okay, I think I know what's up. All of a sudden, they're letting me judge more rounds... but there's a new track in there: "High" by Pistol Day Parade! I bet they disqualified someone else and replaced them or something, so now there are more battles available.I noticed that too. I though it was weird for me to be 200+ battles in and seeing new songs for the first time.

[Kanthos]

666 is the correct number. There are 37 tracks, and each must be judged against every other track. Take each of the 37 tracks and multiply it by the 36 other tracks, and then divide that total by 2 because each comparison is done twice; you get 666.

Good luck to all three of you; I'm making my way through and will finish all 666 before the end of the day.

[zircon]

Man, it's more than a little discouraging that the #1 song ("Myriad") hasn't moved ALL DAY... after all our efforts :(

On the bright side, one of the OurStage staffers wrote up a blog post about Jill and I. Really nice of them!

http://www.ourstage.com/profile/quinn/posts/14

[kitty]

Just finished with my voting. Hope the others here can boost you guys to the top.

[Jillian Aversa]

I can't believe I shot up to #3 all of a sudden! I guess the standings really are still shifting around.

And yay for the blog post about Andy and I (http://www.ourstage.com/profile/quinn/posts/14)... That was neat. :>

[Happy Pyro]

Standings as of now (without whininess about my Internet connection):
"Hajime" is #3. "Coactive" is 12, and "Breathing You In" is 14.

[Mindeffects]

Holy crap, Hajime is #1! Well done, everyone. Maybe that blog post gave it a boost?

[mattoco]

Got it. Let's hope it stays up there!

http://img522.imageshack.us/img522/5182/finalsgn0.th.jpg (http://img522.imageshack.us/img522/5182/finalsgn0.jpg)

[Jillian Aversa]

And now Breathing You In is at #7, too! This is unbelievable.

[PhiJayy]

And now Breathing You In is at #7, too! This is unbelievable.

Why is it unbelievable? :|

[Happy Pyro]

And now Breathing You In is at #7, too! This is unbelievable.
Breathing You In moved up to #6! Hajime is still holding as the top song!

[mattoco]

Why is it unbelievable? :|

Might have something to do with being in the 99th percentile out of over 20,000 submissions. Having multiple tracks from this community in the top 37, let alone two in the top 10, is amazing.

[PhiJayy]

Might have something to do with being in the 99th percentile out of over 20,000 submissions. Having multiple tracks from this community in the top 37, let alone two in the top 10, is amazing.

Yeah well that depends on ones opinion. Not everyone has a community of peeps who are ready to jump at the gun at every request.

Put simply it really isn't unbelievable. :?

[Happy Pyro]

Breathing You In moved up to #5! Hajime is still holding as the top song!
Coactive also moved up to 16th.

[Vivi22]

Holy crap, Hajime is #1! Well done, everyone. Maybe that blog post gave it a boost?

Hopefully this keeps up. Good luck to Jill and everyone else.

[Jillian Aversa]

And Breathing You In is at #5!

[Happy Pyro]

The current rankings:
Hajime - #1
Breathing You In - #6
Coactive - #8

[mattoco]

Yes, now all three OCRemixer finalists are in the top 10.

http://img144.imageshack.us/img144/5428/finals2wj6.th.jpg (http://img144.imageshack.us/img144/5428/finals2wj6.jpg)

[Bahamut]

Where do you guys see these rankings?

[zircon]

Just click "Music" on the front page.

[Happy Pyro]

Where do you guys see these rankings?
Here: http://www.ourstage.com/music/channel/38-music-finals

[Happy Pyro]

Coactive jumped up to #2!

[Bahamut]

Don't I feel stupid. I had trouble finding that music button.

[Sole Signal]

How much of the tracks do you have to listen to before it lets you vote on them?

Also, they have this contest every month? :?

[jmr]

How much of the tracks do you have to listen to before it lets you vote on them?
15 seconds each. Once you listen once, you don't need to again.
Also, it appears that Coactive has vanished from the top ten. :puppyeyes:
On the positive side, Breathing You In is now in 2nd!

[zircon]

Yep, it's a monthly contest. Free to enter. Of course no one at OCR has ever done this well before.

You only have to listen to 15 seconds of each song in order to vote. However, once you listen to at least 15 seconds of any given song, you never have to do that again.

[sgx]

15 seconds each. Once you listen once, you don't need to again.
Also, it appears that Coactive has vanished from the top ten. :puppyeyes:
On the positive side, Breathing You In is now in 2nd!
We've all been jumping positions around all day. Pretty crazy.

[Sole Signal]

Dang, I really should give this a try. Congrats to the OCR tag-team so far! Hopefully SGX will pop back up there too.

[mattoco]

At the highest point so far today, all three OCR finalists claim the top spots, with a little under 2 hours left in the voting:

http://img508.imageshack.us/img508/7760/finals5dc4.th.jpg (http://img508.imageshack.us/img508/7760/finals5dc4.jpg)

[PhiJayy]

Hopefully SGX will pop back up there too.

He has. He's #3. Congrats to you guys. Look's like it's in the bag.

Less than 2 hours left.
OCR should be celebrating! Quite a victory!

[sgx]

I just got pwned down to 9. It really jumps every 20 minutes!

[mattoco]

Well there's 4 or 5 more jumps to go, let's hope that all of them are in the upward direction!

[Jillian Aversa]

And I just went down to #8 after holding the #1 spot for almost 4 hours. Still anyone's game!

[Forty-second]

I've voted for all of you on there, my name is Ducky Pirate. I'm cheering all three of you on, and I wish you best of luck for the duration of the contest. Go team OCR!

[Bahamut]

A lot of these percentages really reek of countervoting, which is pretty bullshit.

[Happy Pyro]

Hajime's back on top. Breathing You In and Coactive have third and fourth, respectively.

[mattoco]

Again, we apologise for the fault in the rankings. Those responsible for countervoting the countervoters have been countervoted.

[Bahamut]

I don't understand how some of those songs are so high though - like that cyrus track, it blows.

[Kanthos]

Still seems odd that the swings in position are so huge. I'm also curious to know how evenly distributed the song pairings are; I did all 666 votes and 4 of my last 10 had Hajime as one of the songs. For people who vote as much as possible, that's no problem, but for people who only vote on maybe 100 pairings, that could possibly boost votes for some songs in the long run.

[Happy Pyro]

The ranks are as follows:
Hajime is 1st.
Breathing You In is 2nd.
Coactive is 3rd.

[mattoco]

Here we go again...

http://img384.imageshack.us/img384/7665/finals6bn4.th.jpg (http://img384.imageshack.us/img384/7665/finals6bn4.jpg)

[Happy Pyro]

With 30 minutes to go, the rankings had better stay that way.

[sgx]

Well, I'd like it if I won...... :)

[Happy Pyro]

Well, I'd like it if I won...... :)
I poorly phrased that post. I meant that some shuffling would be okay, but OCR needed to sweep the top three somehow. :P

[big giant circles]

wish there was more i could do. that cyrus guy does not belong in #2.

I gave all "By Far" votes to Andy, Jill, and Danny. Good luck, guys!

http://www.biggiantcircles.com/ourstage.JPG

The rest of you, there's still 6 minutes left! get in those last-minute votes!

[BardicKnowledge]

Well, I managed to get just over 360 votes in -- good luck to all three of you, and be sure to let us know the results when you find them out!

Edit: Cyrus is really #2? I thought Sean Cox's piece in the Christian genre was most deserving after the OCR crowd. Also, I love the dulcimer in "People and Private Music".

Though by far the funniest was the piece Jill warned me about earlier today -- the chipmunk rap song by "Invincible" -- a dumb artist name for someone who sounds like that.

[big giant circles]

Well, I managed to get just over 330 votes in -- good luck to all three of you, and be sure to let us know the results when you find them out!

there's still 3 minutes!!! get in a couple more!

[jmr]

Is it time to break out the champagne yet?

[Forty-second]

I managed about 550 votes... hope it was helpful!
*crosses fingers*


Edit: Whoooo, congrats Jill! Also, great job to zircon and sgx. You all did great!

[jmr]

Let me be the first to say:
CONGRATULATIONS JILL!
http://www.ourstage.com/winners/2008/3
http://img245.imageshack.us/img245/1610/awinnarisuuo9.png

[Mightypoohead]

Vwoot! First place for Pixietricks, and a very respectable third (overall, he was first in his category) for Zircon! Great job to both of you.

[big giant circles]

congrats!!!!!

where's the coop? he needs to do the honors.

[BardicKnowledge]

BGC, I realized that before you posted it -- got a few more votes in for both Jill and Andy's albums...

Congratulations to all!!

[Bahamut]

Good thing that cyrus track didn't win - that would've been some bullshit.

Congrats Jill (& Andy by association)!

[mattoco]

Congratulations Jill, got this last one as the buzzer rang:

http://img384.imageshack.us/img384/3885/finalsresultsye5.th.jpg (http://img384.imageshack.us/img384/3885/finalsresultsye5.jpg)

[Happy Pyro]

Congrats on doing so well, pixietricks, zircon, and sgx!

[The Instrumental Light]

Yo, everbody. I voted for zircon, Jill and sgx in every battle that they were in; I also became a fan on both of the pages. On the website, it says that the $5000 prize for the music finals goes Jillian Goldin for "Hajime." It also says that zircon's "Breathing You In" is in first place for Techno. Congratulations!:wink: Edit: Darn, I didn't know it was already posted.

[sgx]

yes, and I got 1st for Electronic.

Woo. Thanks for everyone's votes! We'll probably be back next month to nag you for votes again if we all make it into quarterfinals!

Rock Band Still Alive time!!!!

Oh, and I shall dole out the store credit I promised for helping me win the semifinals tomorrow.

[Escariot]

yes, and I got 1st for Electronic.

Woo. Thanks for everyone's votes! We'll probably be back next month to nag you for votes again if we all make it into quarterfinals!

Rock Band Still Alive time!!!!
Firstly, Congrats to Jill!
Secondly, Congrats to all three of you for making it to the finals without ridiculous OCR solicitation :<
Thirdly, Congrats for making it to the top 10, and at one point, it was the three of you holding the top 3

[kitty]

Awesome! We did it guys! And by we I mean Jill's awesome track. :D

EDIT: Well I did like that Cyrus track but not better than Breathing You In! And I just have to point out that the last place winner is Myriad which had held #1 for so long today.

[OverCoat]

I'm entering two songs in the Experimental category for April.

What I've listened to so far in that category totally blows, but that never means I'll do well. Might as well give it a shot though. I'm entering Pieces from my Tanasinn EP and Evaporative Air Coolers from Cyberpunk Adventure. I entered Emotica to the Electronic channel but eh.

[Kizyr]

Congratulations!!!

I didn't even realize sgx was in there before signing up.
...I also liked the one by Cyrus, plus several of the other ones really stood out.

Of course, some of the decisions were really tough... (http://www.lunar-net.com/kiz/ourstage-toughchoice.jpg) KF

[Bahamut]

Well, I managed to get just over 360 votes in -- good luck to all three of you, and be sure to let us know the results when you find them out!

Edit: Cyrus is really #2? I thought Sean Cox's piece in the Christian genre was most deserving after the OCR crowd. Also, I love the dulcimer in "People and Private Music".

Though by far the funniest was the piece Jill warned me about earlier today -- the chipmunk rap song by "Invincible" -- a dumb artist name for someone who sounds like that.

Personally, I wasn't impressed by that track. The few others that piqued my interest was the Skinner and Divination songs - that artist was called Mixture btw, Invincible was the name of the track heh.

[kitty]

Oh I really liked Sean Cox's song. I'll probably look into him later on when I get some more time.

[PhiJayy]

[quote=sgx;391870]\ We'll probably be back next month to nag you for votes again if we all make it into quarterfinals!quote]

If that's the case than fine, we'll just pull our track out of the Techno/Dance/Club competition for April. No use trying to win a forever losing battle.
The next time we compete we'll make sure we have a nation cheering for us.

[Jillian Aversa]

I can't thank you all enough for your support!!! Congrats, of course, to Andy and Danny who made it all the way to the top - this has truly been an epic month for OCR. And as promised: those of you who joined my OurStage fanclub this past week and voted for me *in the finals*, as I mentioned before, will receive a free digital copy of Origins when it comes out later in the month. Just shoot me an email (mail@jilliangoldin.comSPAM) with your full name and the handle you used to join the club, and I'll verify you through the site.

If you missed out participating this time around, the album will still be released on the 22nd, and preorders are already available! (http://www.jilliangoldin.com/music)

I will also be making a donation to OCR from the prize money, because it's really because of this community that I've made it this far. You guys rock!

[Aninymouse]

Congrats, Jillian. It was kinda fun, actualy.

I'm not sure it was necessary for them to make you rate every possible pairing in one session, but oh well.

Hopefully you, zircon and sgx will get some well-earned recognition outside OCR through this project.

Good luck to y'all!

[sgx]

[quote=sgx;391870]\ We'll probably be back next month to nag you for votes again if we all make it into quarterfinals!quote]

If that's the case than fine, we'll just pull our track out of the Techno/Dance/Club competition for April. No use trying to win a forever losing battle.
The next time we compete we'll make sure we have a nation cheering for us.

Nah, I wouldn't not participate...the judging before the quarterfinals is finicky and is hard to influence by telling your fanbase to go vote because they could be judging for hundreds of battles before your song comes up once. I've had a few songs get nowhere. It is likely that we will have months not getting to quarters. I'm in Electronic channel anyways :).

[Torzelan]

Congratulations all of you!!

[rAnDOm_rOguE]

Woo! Congratulations Pixietricks, and also to Zircon and SGX!

I only found out about Ourstage last night when I got Zircon's email about it, but I had a good time judging (I may have lost a couple of hours sleep judging all 666 battles, but that's nothing new ^^) I gave you all "By far's" of course.

Besides your tracks, which I really liked, I also quite liked "I'd fly to the moon", "People and Private Music" and "Tanks Made of Orchids".

[Vivi22]

Congrats to Jillian, and some high fives to Andrew and Danny for also doing very well. You guys should be proud. You all make great music, and it's great to see it pay off.

[Dhsu]

Haha, "Ha-YEE-may." Congratulations to all. :)

Also, Beatdrop and I are newcomers this month (I submitted "Prelude" to the Instrumental category), so be sure to keep up the judging and watch for us!

[Japa]

Booyah!

Gratz

[Neo Samus]

Congrads guys! I never got a chance to vote, but glad to see the results positive.

[Dhsu]

Well, you can vote in the April contest. :)

In fact, I just saw zircon's "Art of Zen" in the Instrumental category...I totally have no chance now, haha.

[zircon]

Haha, that didn't make it anywhere last month. Here's what I entered this time around:

Techno/Club/Dance
* Breathing You In
* Mindbender

New Age/World
* Antigravity
* The Koto Chill

Electronic
* Throwdown
* Warhead

Instrumental
* The Art of Zen
* Drum and Bossa

[tgfoo]

Huzzah!

Congrats Jill! Congrats to you too Andy! Not to that Danny character... He's a little sketchy. :-P

[Jillian Aversa]

Hey... I haven't seen you in forever, tgfoo! Thanks. :D

And for anyone interested, my interview with the OurStage team was just posted. Lots of VG discussion, and a shoutout to OCR! (http://www.ourstage.com/profile/quinn/posts/17)

[danimal cannon]

Oh man congrats Pixie you deserve it!

[Neo Samus]

I signed up. Now I shall proceed to vote!

[zircon]

I encourage everyone to register for OurStage. If you're a listener, by judging (or simply browsing the top 10 of your favorite genres) you'll almost assuredly discover some great new music. Plus, you'll help promote the best indie artists who might not otherwise get attention. If you're an artist, for exactly $0.00 you get the chance at winning lots of cash, and you get to show off your music to tons of people who might not otherwise hear it. Even if you don't make it to the later rounds, because of the way the system is organized, your song will still be heard all through the month until the end.

All that being said, if you want to vote *only* to support OCR artists (including new entrants like Dhsu, Star Salzman, and Beatdrop) it's a LOT harder before the quarter-finals. There are hundreds of songs per category so it's significantly harder to get to a specific person.

[Nutritious]

All that being said, if you want to vote *only* to support OCR artists (including new entrants like Dhsu, Star Salzman, and Beatdrop) it's a LOT harder before the quarter-finals. There are hundreds of songs per category so it's significantly harder to get to a specific person.

True, but I just started judging the electronic category for this month and have already heard two of your tracks :).

[Kizyr]

If you're a listener, by judging (or simply browsing the top 10 of your favorite genres) you'll almost assuredly discover some great new music. Plus, you'll help promote the best indie artists who might not otherwise get attention.
...
There are hundreds of songs per category so it's significantly harder to get to a specific person.

On that note, I'm really impressed by how they set up the judging process. It really is difficult for any artist to move up by filling the judging pool with their friends/fans/supporters, since you'd have to go through dozens or hundreds of other songs in the process. (I might've actually done just as much good for, say, Sean Cox or a few of the other artists that really stood out, as for the three OCRers who were up.)

It tends to be a good thing across the board. Since, well, if OCRers could win that way, then so could anyone else. It sort of makes that victory all the more worth it. KF

[zircon]

Nutritious: Oh yeah? Awesome :) Thank you! I guess probability can be in our favor sometimes. I also think that the system might give preferential treatment to higher-ranked tracks, in terms of playing them more, so more people can have a say on whether they deserve to be higher ranked or not.

Kizyr: Agreed... while having OCR's support in the finals was definitely cool, I can't imagine that more than 40 or 50 people from here actually signed up to help vote. One of the other bands in the finals had over 150 fans registered in his fanclub (definitely more than me or Jill, almost more than both of us combined.) But even that considered, according to Daniel Palmer (founder of the site), there were literally millions of votes cast last month, a record number.

[Kanthos]

In the pool of 37 songs in the finals, if you were voting explicitly to help pixie, zircon, and sgx, there were only 36+35+34=105 out of 666 judgings that included at least one of those songs, which is just under 16%, so the fact that you three all did so well isn't attributed to fan votes alone.

[PhiJayy]

According to this message Zircon and Jillian will be recieving some cool promotions, and suprisingly we are included.:) We have no idea what the promotions involve though.

Check it out.

OurStage is making fans, and our artists must be praised (http://www.ourstage.com/profile/danielpalmer/posts/15)

"Last week we issued a serious challenge to our artists: Recruit your fans to join OurStage and we’ll give props to the tops with awesome promotionals. This list of elites rose to the occasion and brought fans in droves. It helps us. It helps them. Check them out, then emulate them by making fans of your own, please"

Link: http://www.ourstage.com/profile/danielpalmer/posts (http://www.ourstage.com/profile/danielpalmer/posts)

[Jillian Aversa]

Hey, awesome!

[Sole Signal]

Congrats to the winners!

Just entered my name into the fray. I've got:
"Visions" in Techno/Club/Dance
"Rising Impact" in Electronic

Appreciate any fans adding me to get this started. :)

[Nutritious]

Congrats to the winners!

Just entered my name into the fray. I've got "Visions" in the Techno/Club/Dance category now and I'll add more very soon. Appreciate any fans adding me to get this started. :)

Did you make it into the April voting or is it for next month?

EDIT: Nevermind, right after posting this, your song came up :)

[Sole Signal]

Yep, it applies to this month. Just entered Rising Impact in Electronic too.

[Chiwalker]

Gratz to all! :-o

[Bahamut]

According to this message Zircon and Jillian will be recieving some cool promotions, and suprisingly we are included.:) We have no idea what the promotions involve though.

Check it out.

OurStage is making fans, and our artists must be praised (http://www.ourstage.com/profile/danielpalmer/posts/15)

"Last week we issued a serious challenge to our artists: Recruit your fans to join OurStage and we’ll give props to the tops with awesome promotionals. This list of elites rose to the occasion and brought fans in droves. It helps us. It helps them. Check them out, then emulate them by making fans of your own, please"

Link: http://www.ourstage.com/profile/danielpalmer/posts (http://www.ourstage.com/profile/danielpalmer/posts)

Interesting - apparently zircon and pixie both didn't have as many fans as those others, yet still came up well at the end. Goes to show that a good number of people voted on merit as well.

[sgx]

I sent messages on Ourstage to those folks I said I would who voted for me and posted a message saying so in my profile. I sent 10 $5 coupons out. Check your messages on there. Thanks!

[Nutritious]

Ok, throwing my hat in the ring. I submitted "Run" in the Electronic category, keep an eye out for me :)

[zircon]

By the way, Master_Yoshi was the winner of our free CD giveaway, as we promised :)

Looks like OCR may be getting into the quarterfinals again this month. I'll make a new topic for when that happens. Thanks all for the support, again.