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I also want to thank everyone for participating, and—more importantly—I want to thank everyone for making this a drama-free compo. Usually there's at least one instance of someone being a total poop, whining about how people are voting or complaining about other teams'/artists' music. This time around, we had none of that. Everyone was a good sport and supportive of each other. I'm glad that people had fun and were able to learn things and grow as artists. Also, just to reiterate something I said a few weeks ago: if you're planning on submitting tracks you made for the SFRG to OCR, please include a source breakdown for the judges' benefit. I'd also like to suggest someone (not me) maybe organize an album project using select tracks from this competition. There's a lot of insanely good music that came out of the SFRG, and I think that a pretty good package could be put together and dropped as a proper album (as opposed to the standard archival release I put out of compos). Give artists maybe a week or two to make any necessary revisions, gather updated and remastered WAVs, etc. I can put together some album art too, and we can drop this as an OCRI release.

Alright, in less than 24 hours, the Vampire Variations Trilogy will be over! I can't wait for everyone to discover the epic music the artists created for you, and the neat artwork from Andrew Warwick. It's truly the best VV album in my opinion, with a strong theme that all artists followed. You can really feel the adventure while listening to the album. I can't realize what we accomplished during those 5+ years. Dracula never rests but I think I'm done with Castlevania albums for a while. Thanks to everyone who participated, helped, and made it possible. I'm far from good with long speeches, so get ready for da bomb tomorrow.

Let's do it again, then. And we'll try and organize some prizes, too! Indeed, if you look at mixes submitted/posted, albums released, and total engagement over social media, things are great. The MAIN thing we're seeing less of is forum activity, and almost ALL of my plans for the future of the site surround the forums and what we can do with them, so I'm not too worried.... I just need the time to implement these changes, and support from staff in planning it all out. I've actually been thinking about how that might work. Does anyone have experience doing comment aggregation and representation across multiple social media platforms? On its surface, it seems like a CRON job that does API calls and caches results back to a table we can use to then present the data on the mix page... would actually be kinda cool... just not at the top of my priority list at the moment...

Well I think this thread has proved 1 thing, the lack of reviews isn't because OCR is dead or nobody's here, it's because you're all asses

I really think a big part of it is the rise of social media and YouTube. Forums - in general - are way less popular than they used to be. Facebook and Twitter have supplanted forums as a way to have discussions. Not to say that all forums are dead, but any younger remixers are going to be from a generation where forums just aren't really a thing. From what I've seen, the forums that are still thriving tend to have an older audience and are not frequented by young adults, teenagers, etc. (which is what many of us were when we came here.) What has also changed is how people listen to music. There's been a dramatic shift away from downloading MP3s and having a music library, to just streaming your music. YouTube is one of the top, if not THE top, places where people discover and listen to music. OCR's presence on YouTube is very significant with over 100k subscribers and 40m views. If you're consuming your music on YouTube, you're going to leave a comment there and not bother to register on a forum. There's nothing wrong with that, though the nature of YouTube does not lend itself well to in-depth reviews. In short, OCR isn't dying. The decline in activity on the forums can be seen across many forums as people move to social media for discussions. Also, people aren't leaving as many reviews here because many more people are discovering and listening to ReMixes on YouTube.

So it looks like this is the wrap-up of the wrap-up. So as this was my first Remix Gauntlet and I just want to reiterate how much fun it was working within a time frame! My only grip is also my favorite aspect of the RG. On the one hand It seems there is a natural pairing of skill level and ability and the heavy hitters pair up together and tend to dominate, while the newer or less versatile remixers, who are still finding their voice, tend to pair up and have a more difficult time standing on two feet, especially when everyone is on their best game. On the other hand I, love toeing it with the Titans of OCR, stand and deliver, firing line....eighth level Mario Bros. !!!! I realize that these compose were around long before me, but If there is a suggestion box somewhere I'd ask if there was a way to have independent floating champions that kind of rotate from one team to another offering helping to those who need it or just adding that little extra zest to those who are more confident, allowing the more nascent remixers to glean some wisdom from the pros. Or maybe randomized teams? IDK, I still had ​a lot fun and am surprised at what I was able to concoct in realtime. As for an Album project, if there were any of my tracks that piqued any ears, let me know and I'll have another look at them and tinker and toy. PS Are there any plans for another Remix Gauntlet, if so I can certainly give a preemptive "Yes" to any sign-ups

*WIP*WIP*WIP* OK so it's been a while. Here's a recent work in progress. In this image, the tones and values are way off, the linework needs cleaning up and the shadows and colour blending are non-existent. But you guys need to see an *idea* of where this album cover is going. I've moved a fair amount further since here, but I'll save showing the next step until it's completed.

But as I said, OCR on YouTube and social media is thriving. We've been putting out lots of great albums and remixes almost every day and YouTube is now a major way that people consume that music (we went from ~400k views per month to ~1m per month). OCR is not just these forums, it's an organization. The organization is not dying.

Bored, had time; thread so far, summarized: Problems/causes/observations: Will: you wait for about a year, and get a writeup from DJP and about 2 comments on the site. BS: William Harby, who has not reviewed a mix in months. ACO: OCR seems super dead in general compared to when I first came here a few years back. ACO: I notice even in the workshop, it's not uncommon now for mixes to get over a hundred views but absolutely no response. timaeus222: Maybe it's the idea that the 'classic' ReMixers are in high demand for moar moar moar STUFF, and people want stuff from Sixto, zircon, etc. timaeus222: Maybe with the newer ReMixers coming in, people don't know what to expect because the person's brand new or rather new. timaeus: Maybe it's because there have been ReMixes from "new" games that people aren't as familiar with, like Guild Wars 2, Beyond: Two Souls, and Fittest. timaeus: Maybe people are more busy these days; I know I'm really busy these days. Will: Seems like "classic" ReMixers are not exempt from lack of reviews so I doubt thats it. Will: I also doubt its due to games, since again, popular games are not exempt either. Will: Lack of new members? Garpocalypse: A significant part of OCR is the nostalgia factor. [...] But the nostalgia wears off quickly when you have to live it everyday. Psychologists call the decrease in response to a stimuli over time "habituation" ACO: Lots of the newer games don't have music that is as simple and melodic as the older ones, so it's tough to remix or when remixes of it pop up on the site timaeus222: it looks to me like there's a lack of new members. [...] statistically, less people are joining the OCR forums per year, at least since 2010. :/ pu_freak: I have much less time than a few years ago. When I look at the active people at the forums [...], I have a feeling that the average age is higher than when I first joined these forums pu_freak: YouTube and Facebook. [...] I listen to the ones from there. That means I never visit the OCR homepage anymore BS: it might be hard for a site that takes 6 months to a year for judgements to maintain an active member base. BS: it's time that we get replaced with the new generation of remixers, but it's harder than ever for them to actually be a part of OCR Patrick Burns: I think there are a lot more avenues to find and share nostalgia these days Patrick Burns: our arrangements don't add nearly as much in the post-redbook audio era. [...] Appreciating arrangements of already well-produced material requires a listener who's much more fixated on the music than the average listener, imo. Patrick Burns: We've just got so many other options to fulfill our music/digital/social/creative needs these days. SystemsReady: Holy shit, it takes 6 months to a year for remixes to be judged now? [...] that does make me FAR less inclined to submit anything. djp: I sense some defeatism, here, and I can see where it might stem from, but this is when we need people stepping up, not stepping back Skryp: why are the number of reviews relevant? Or even why are reviews themselves relevant? Skryp: The forums themselves have gotten very slow, very boring, very dead and dying, and so the question should be "How do you suggest bring the overall forum activity back up again?". Skryp: I don't think asking or having one person try and lead a march in improving reviews will have any long lasting effects around here. k-wix: Don't have as many personal connections as i used to on the site. k-wix: If you make it onto the site, the mix is probably awesome and worth listening to, so I don't feel like feedback is needed at that point. Bowlerhat: it's actually really important to see as much reviews as possible to your remix [...] because it can be really motivational to see people like your music. Garpocalypse: the environment where students and working professionals were nearly reduced to tears [...] I was initially attracted to OCR because it got me away from that into a more stress free environment. Now, with all of this music out there, it's no longer a similar minded group of people who care enough about their art to want to help each other [...] and instead it's a lot of people who all want praise for their work [...] people should be encouraged more to speak their minds on the forums here as long as it has a constructive purpose to make the remix better. Garpocalypse: The length of time it takes for a person to get judged and posted is an issue Garpocalypse: I jumped if someone I knew such as Brandon Strader, Willrock, Darkesword, Avaris, Gario or other posted remixers whose work I enjoyed took time to comment on mine. Even if the comments were harsh they were much easier to take because I was familiar with who they were beyond their name just showing up in the forums. Now we are at a time when most of the remixers from earlier days of OCR have all moved on Garpocalypse: the panel is separating itself too much from the community it once created and it's having detrimental effects. BS: I could comment more in workshop, [...] people usually reply and/or PM you with new versions always asking more more more The Damned: sarcasm Rozo: Back when I was active here, there were more of the big names around. When they posted, [...] it inspired us. Rozo: I've had less energy for the wip board, and now just do my duties as a workshop mod, and not much else there. Rozo: I think the wip board's current slow pace is because it's become less of a community. There's not the wip crew of the old days. [...] Everyone has their own circles now, whether Facebook or YouTube or SoundCloud or something else, so the comments are spread all over the place Rozo: I think the ability to drop a brief "nice work" comment on Facebook gives people a reason to not bother giving something more in-depth Rozo: Now that I'm staff, I feel I have to get permission to do stuff, so that dampens my initiative. Not maybe for reviews or posting on the wip board, but for doing more overall. zircon: a big part of it is the rise of social media and YouTube. Forums - in general - are way less popular than they used to be. zircon: What has also changed is how people listen to music. There's been a dramatic shift away from downloading MP3s and having a music library, to just streaming your music. Best Dude55: I don't feel I have enough experience to where I could give any helpful constructive feedback. Best Dude55: Also as a new member I can agree with others that the time it takes for submissions to reach the panel also kind of deters me from being more active. Jorito: I grew up with 8 bit home computers and a PSX, and that means a lot of the newer games don't mean anything to me. That also means I typically won't review and comment. Jorito: I don't really care about the number of reviews (of my own tracks). I'd to like to see a more active community here, but I'm not convinced focusing on the number of reviews is the way to get there. CelestialSonata: Looking at everyone's post count is like looking at an XP bar. It's hard to tell myself that my critique or advice will be worth anything compared to someone whose posts are in the thousands (high XP). In my mind, how can I give advice if I don't have any arrangements published? -- Suggestions: pu_freak: copy the write-up to YouTube as the first comment? djp: We upgrade our forums to IPS 4.X djp: We build the workshop out to integrate with the rest of the site djp: We thus allow content creation & promotion on two tracks - the instant gratification, "look what I made" track for anything posted on the workshop AND the featured, canonized track for accepted mixes djp: We automate the submissions process via the forums djp: All of these changes serve to reinforce the forums and the benefits of registering & participating djp: We consider some form of trackable reputation points or awards or whatever for the most active/helpful members djp: every review helps! Will: All it takes is one person to start doing some reviews and it might kick things up a gear. k-wix: When the song gets posted, it could be posted with all of the information that the judges talked about, might spark some conversation and debate. Would be great to actively discuss the track WITH the judges. k-wix: Featured Comments [...] Could have its own section on the main page to encourage people to actively comment and get featured. Bowlerhat: I've never left a review myself [...] I think that after reading this topic I just might start doing it. The Orichalcon: Is there a way to integrate comments on remixes posted to Youtube into the equivalent comment thread here? [...] Now the comments are split up amongst different media, thinning out the numbers. Jorito: Include the Facebook comments and Twitter replies too, in that case. Effectively you'd centralize the discussion on the site. Txai: I think the basic core of solving this is lifting listeners' tastes and opinions. Txai: I wonder if every poster could include their top 10 favourite ReMixes in their profile page. This was a feature in VGMix and OLR, too. And OLR turned into a barren ghost town after many user listening features were gone. Rozo: We can encourage reviews. OA and DA had a reviews month back when, [...] maybe it'd create a feedback loop, where people can piggy-back on other people's reviews. Rozo: Just start reviewing. Rozo: I would also like to be able to read all comments an artist has received on their posted mixes. Rozo: I'd also like to see the design of the forum posts get a trim so there's less whitespace, [...] That would make it feel more like a conversation than disparate posts. Rozo: the no-favorites policy could be revised to allow for "here are my favorite collabs from the past 3 years, check them out, give them a review; what are your favorite collabs?"-type threads Rozo: We could do a monthly podcast, talking about the remixes posted that month. Rozo: We could make awesome music videos to get more YouTube presence and maybe draw people here. Rozo: We could raise ocr's profile on reddit. timaeus222: Another judge tryout to get more on the panel? timaeus222: Tell your friends about OCR Jorito: embracing all these platforms and combining them in stead of trying to force the audience (back) to the forums. The community is probably still there, just more scattered and, in today's society, also more fleeting. evktalo: I wonder if reviews could be [...] not just posts count, but also review count, why not also "workshop comment" count.. [...] Not as much to reward people who do the reviews, but highlight the importance of the comments. evktalo: I really like to read "readings" of pieces, what they say or seem to mean to a particular listener. You don't have to understand music in a technical/theory level to do this, which is nice (though you have to be able to write about what you think or feel) evktalo: if you said something controversial perhaps, more people would hopefully join in on the discussion. It should only be a good thing, right?

Definitely looking forward to it! Apart from being my OCR album debut, it's also gonna be my listening party debut

In essence that's what it is. I've done a ton of work with these kinds of Social Media platforms, and conceptually have a pretty good idea of how one should do this. In general it means following the accounts (or particularly for Facebook the Page, for Twitter the account, and for Youtube the channel due to the way these APIs work) find the correct OCReMix post(s) you're looking for, get the comments (potentially with some extra API requests) and store them somewhere. With some glue, rate limit handling, oauth access tokens and (if needed) some kind of strategy to backfill this data for older remixes I think you're good. I could even build it, but the last programming language I touched is Node.js; haven't touched PHP in years. But I'm happy to advice and assist if somebody is up for it.

I'd be down for an album project! That would be a great place to do that rap collective using my first entry like people were suggesting.

It's me and KingTiger right? If anyone is super super mad about mine not being done, I'm sorry! I will be working to finish it ASAP. I told that to The Darned but figured everyone might as well know. Transparency is a good thing. Problem is, I dunno if it'll be finished today, and I work 7am to 11pm tomorrow, and the following afternoon. I'm gonna do my best

That Rozovian guy clearly has enough free time to comment more on remixes, rather than making those long posts. More seriously, I think the social network/YT argument is the main one. People shifted to social networks rather than forums, OCR did too.

What you've described sounds exactly like it's "dying". What else is substantially decreased activity because there are "better" alternatives and a shift in public interest supposed to mean? It's like saying "Sure, people don't really go to video stores anymore, but that doesn't mean they're dying. There are still some left, but with a smaller customer base. Most people just prefer Netflix now, is all." Nothing that's "dead" ever truly goes away most of the time as far as technology is concerned. When I worked for a movie company, brand new movies we'd get were often sent directly from Dreamworks or whatever on VHS. So VHS still around...but it's definitely a dead format.

I did the thing. Song starts at :06 just an FYI Hope you enjoy and stuff or w/e...

I have to comment on this now that I got namedropped. THANKS WILL. WHY ARE WE YELLING? I think it's all about pace. Back when I was active here, there were more of the big names around. When they posed, whether on a wip, on a posted remix, or in the community overall, people saw that these big names weren't celebrities in their ivory towers, but regular forum folks like us lowly unposted wannabes. And it inspired us. The wip board specifically became a place for me to help others get past the hurdles I had gotten past, and in the process develop a more critical ear and improve my own work. So the place became important to me. Still is, but running the sd3 project has eaten a lot of the enthusiasm over the years, so I've had less energy for the wip board, and now just do my duties as a workshop mod, and not much else there. I'm hoping I can make a comeback and fill a couple of pages with predominantly "last post by Rozovian". I think the wip board's current slow pace is because it's become less of a community. There's not the wip crew of the old days. There's evktalo and timaeus222 and others who are active and do a great job at giving people feedback. There's the whole mod review thing. But I think we're missing the community we had back then. Everyone has their own circles now, whether Facebook or YouTube or SoundCloud or something else, so the comments are spread all over the place, and they don't show on the forum, so forumites don't engage with them, Facebook folks don't engage with Soundcloud comments, and the whole thing gets spread too thin. I like Soundcloud. But I don't like their comments system, specifically because it draws the comments away from the thread on the wip board. On that note, back to reviews. pu_freak's completely right about how remixes appear on social media and get a lot of their responses from there instead of in reviews. That's a big part of it. I think the ability to drop a brief "nice work" comment on Facebook gives people a reason to not bother giving something more in-depth, no matter where that comment would end up. We can encourage reviews. OA and DA had a reviews month back when, and gave out a little badge to everyone who made it to 500 reviews. And there's been those initiatives to get every remix at least one page of reviews (we need a new one, with the new forum having more posts per page). Maybe it's a bandaid. Or maybe it'd create a feedback loop, where people can piggy-back on other people's reviews. Will had questions for us. 1: Why, if applicable, don't you comment on new mixposts on OCR? Back when, it was that I spent so much time posting on wips. Then it was that I didn't have time or energy for it. Now it's that it's not a habit for me to hang out here. I drop by to check for new things to mod review, but that's about it. I don't think I was ever the one reviewing the new mixposts. Rather, I'd make playlists, listen, and comment on the ones I really liked. Which reminds me, I need to review April Rain, if I haven't already, because it's spectacular. What just happened to the formatting? 2: How do you suggest the number of reviews is brought back up again? Just start reviewing. Find someone to agree or disagree with, and create a discussion about the mix. Make a list of your favorite tracks and review them. Just get more activity going overall. I think there'll be a feedback effect from this. I would also like to be able to read all comments an artist has received on their posted mixes. It's a convenient way for the remixer to find comments on their most recent works, which might lead them to reply, thus posting more in reviews and getting the activity up. I'd also like to see the design of the forum posts get a trim so there's less whitespace, making threads easier to read when there's not row after row of whitespace. I posted about this somewhere before. I think it's detrimental to forum activity that you often can't see more than one post at a time on a laptop screen. That would make it feel more like a conversation than disparate posts. I think the no-favorites policy could be revised to allow for "here are my favorite collabs from the past 3 years, check them out, give them a review; what are your favorite collabs?"-type threads, probably monthly themes and very specifically crafted by staff so as to not flood the community with various favorite threads. "Remixers having made their debut here over the past year", "remixes of games released in the past 5 years", anything that reminds listeners to drop a line on any remix is good, and once there's more of a culture of reviewing, I think we'd see more reviews on new mixposts as well. We could do a monthly podcast, talking about the remixes posted that month. We could make awesome music videos to get more YouTube presence and maybe draw people here. We could raise ocr's profile on reddit. We could do lots of things. But I think it all comes down to a few people leading the charge, and building a community out of the people who follow. ...which makes me wonder what actually happened back in whenever I allegedly single-handedly kicked the wip board into high gear. Now that I'm staff, I feel I have to get permission to do stuff, so that dampens my initiative. Not maybe for reviews or posting on the wip board, but for doing more overall. Speaking of which, I'm apparently not a workshop mod, just a music boards mod. Is that intentional?

Is there a way to integrate comments on remixes posted to Youtube into the equivalent comment thread here? The issue I see is that in the past, the forum thread was the only direct way to comment on a mix. Now the comments are split up amongst different media, thinning out the numbers.

OBVIOUSLY, what needs to be done is to label all remixes by genre(s), and also institute a favorites system. That way, people can pick and choose what they want to hear, and avoid anything nasty like new styles, or games they don't know about, or even anything outside of their personal comfort zone. They can then rank their favorites, and all rankings will be public for remixers to see. This will create an atmosphere of popularism, one that will drive all remixers to strive for even better work. The weak remixers that can't handle this will die out (or go to another site, same thing), resulting in a purer race of remixers. The strongest will survive, and then repopulate the decimated members list with their uber-spawn. Nay, their ubermixers. Truly, this is the only way.

Tallies are complete. Check the first post for results. Congratulations to everyone on a great competition. You guys can change your sigs back now. XD

Yeah man that was an awesome set! You guys, Mountain Chiefs and The X Hunters totally killed it. I am indeed the guy who convinced you to take the sri racha shot, and I think Travis from Viking Guitar also took one as well as a few other people. Contra races were a blast and my buddy speedrunning MMX was also rad. All in all a pretty sick weekend. I was way too hungover once to make it out to Brooklyn to catch you guys again once I got back to the city though Hopefully we'll all party at MAGFest again!

I never want to hurt butts when I point this out but that's inevitable... it might be hard for a site that takes 6 months to a year for judgements to maintain an active member base. A year is a long time, by the time those judgements come out, people could have either given up with music entirely, or the feedback is irrelevant because they've improved. I would love nothing more than for this community to be large and thriving, and there to be music spilling out of every corner of the site, but that's not the way it's going right now We're all busy and getting old (I'm 28 now) and it's time that we get replaced with the new generation of remixers, but it's harder than ever for them to actually be a part of OCR

I think it's a symptom of a larger problem. OCR seems super dead in general compared to when I first came here a few years back. I don't know, it just seemed like this place was really happening around 2011-13. Now, the top threads in almost any part of the forum remain unchanged for days and some of those threads don't see a new post for quite some time. It's like everyone is either not here, or just lurking. I'll admit that I don't really listen to a lot of the new mixposts, but that's due to my decreased interest in game remixes. I don't venture too far from the production and community forums these days, but I notice even in the workshop, it's not uncommon now for mixes to get over a hundred views but absolutely no response.