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ESTHER'S DREAMS! Mellow VGM ReMixes & lullabies for gamers of ALL ages!! June 29, 2016 Contact: press@ocremix.org FAIRFAX, VA... djpretzel is the founder of OverClocked ReMix. His first daughter, Esther Fiona Lloyd, was born on December 19th, 2013. To celebrate, artists from the community came together for an album of lighter VGM arrangements, centering on themes of playtime, downtime & sleepytime. The end result is Esther's Dreams -- OverClocked ReMix's 59th arrangement album -- a free tribute to video game music that babies, infants, toddlers, kids, adults, parents, grandparents, and young & old alike can enjoy. Except for teens. ...Okay, teens too. Esther's Dreams features nearly two hours of music, including arrangements of The Legend of Zelda, Chrono Trigger, Super Mario 64 & more. We hope you enjoy it, and we especially hope that new parents get their little ones to sleep & play while introducing them to some of the best music there is - video game music! Esther's Dreams is available for free download at http://esther.ocremix.org. This album was produced to help promote video game music, the cuteness of babies, and the wonders of parenthood. Esther's Dreams was made by big fans, for lil' fans, and is not affiliated with or endorsed by any of the publishers or developers of the original games; all original compositions are copyright their respective owners. "The response to the call for tracks was tremendous, everyone was super-enthusiastic, and we received enough varied tracks to create three separate discs: Playtime, Downtime, and Sleepytime, with a mini-bonus disc of Sillytime," album co-director Kristina "Chimpazilla" Scheps explained. "We've got music for every baby mood!" 33 artists arranged video game themes as mellow music and lullabies suitable for your favorite young gamers and gamers-to-be, with 28 total games represented including: Animal Crossing Bravely Default Chrono Trigger DuckTales Final Fantasy series Gradius series .hack//Infection ilomilo Kingdom Hearts The Legend of Zelda series Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door Pokémon X & Y Secret of Mana The Secret of Monkey Island Skylanders: Spyro's Adventure Super Mario series To the Moon Yoshi Touch & Go; and Zone of the Enders. "Thank you especially to the artists for their inspired work, baby photos (!), and for sharing pieces of themselves in their music," album co-director Larry "Liontamer" Oji said in praise of the contributors. "They've not only come together to do something cool for lil' Esther, her mom Anna, and proud papa Dave as OCR's founder; they've also come together to create music infused with the energy of youth, innocence, love, and family. From our VGM-loving family to yours, enjoy!" About OverClocked ReMix Founded in 1999, OverClocked ReMix is an organization dedicated to the appreciation and promotion of video game music as an art form. Its primary focus is ocremix.org, a website featuring thousands of free fan arrangements, information on game music and composers, resources for aspiring artists, and a thriving community of video game music fans. ### Download it: http://esther.ocremix.org Torrent: http://bt.ocremix.org/torrents/Esther's_Dreams.torrent Comments/Reviews: http://ocremix.org/community/topic/43841-/ Preview it:

Preview Esther's Dreams: http://youtu.be/_RO1P0E2jAM Download Esther's Dreams: http://esther.ocremix.org Torrent: http://bt.ocremix.org/torrents/Esther's_Dreams.torrent Before djpretzel's daughter Esther was born, Dave's sister Emily emailed me wondering if I could coordinate a baby-themed album as a celebratory surprise for the baby shower. I loved the idea and the lullaby focus was an obvious choice. That said, I'm a relaxed kind of guy and took my time; being completely honest, I also didn't want to jinx anything before the little bundle arrived, but envisioning this being released after Esther's successful first year of life really resonated with me and gave the community ample time to come up with some fun and relaxed pieces. We privately shared the community's work with djp for Esther's first birthday, and now that Esther's two AND joined by bouncing baby Sarah, we're finally ready (and possessing enough free cycles -- barely, I've got my own daughter now too!) to release this joyous musical effort to the community at large. When I told Kris about the album concept, she let me know from the start that she'd be involved in a big way, and indeed she was the driving force behind making this happen, always asking for status updates and ensuring things moved forward. In life, the squeaky wheel gets the grease (live by it!), so be sure to surround yourself with good people who won't tolerate you being in a state other than motivated and focused. Kris's idea to segment the album based on energy levels was excellent, and I love how things turned out by going for three different discs, Playtime, Downtime, and Sleepytime. For those of you who are parents with young kids, please let us know if they work as good background or sleep-inducing music for your little ones. Thank you so much to Emily for asking me to make this happen, Kris for reminding me to make this happen, and thank you especially to the artists for their inspired work, baby photos (!), and for sharing pieces of themselves in their music. They've not only come together to do something cool for lil' Esther, her mom Anna, and proud papa Dave as OCR's founder; they've also come together to create music infused with the energy of youth, innocence, love, and family. From our VGM-loving family to yours, enjoy! - Larry Oji (Liontamer) I became a judge on December 13, 2013, and six days later on December 19th, djpretzel became a first-time father to beautiful Esther. During a flurry of new-judge chatting, Larry casually asked if a few of us could throw together some baby-friendly tracks for Dave, to celebrate Esther's birth. Larry was looking for about five tracks, to be completed within two weeks or so. Haha! This was just a few days before Christmas and MAGFest, so the response was lukewarm at best. Busy people, busy time of year. At MAGFest, halc and I hatched a plan to collab on a track from Yoshi Touch & Go that totally fit the bill for the baby concept. We got the track ("Baby Blue Sky") finished by February, but ours was still the only one. Fast forward: one enormous mass-email written by Larry, much bugging of Larry by me, and one full year later, and we had 32 lovely baby-friendly tracks we presented to Dave for Esther's first birthday! The response to the call for tracks was tremendous, everyone was super-enthusiastic, and we received enough varied tracks to create three separate discs: Playtime, Downtime, and Sleepytime, with a mini-bonus disc of Sillytime. We've got music for every baby mood! Congratulations, Dave and Anna, on Esther. She really is the most beautiful kid I've ever seen (besides my own kid, OF COURSE). We hope you enjoy these tracks, and we really hope both Esther and Sarah enjoy these tracks. - Kristina Scheps (Chimpazilla)

The Requests forum is for you to post your ideas and requests for songs and games you'd like so see remixed. This forum is limited to requests for video game music remixes only. Posting a Thread Your thread should have a descriptive title, preferably with the games or source tune names in it. Don't be vague with topic titles, like "please remix this" or "can't believe this hasn't been done yet..." If you can, include a link to the source tunes so that artists can actually listen to what you want remixed. YouTube is a good place to find source tunes, but you can also post Soundcloud link or links to the official OSTs on Bandcamp. Be descriptive about what you'd like to hear. This includes genre/style considerations. Don't post too many requests in a small amount of time. Try to limit it to one or two per week. Use your best judgement. If your request is for a specific artist to make a remix, consider contacting them via PM or social media rather than making a thread. If you're an artist, don't post a thread asking for suggestions of what to remix. Just browse the forum for suggestions, that's what it's for. Conduct Be polite. Don't act entitled. Artists don't owe you anything. Your request might be filled, or it might not. Don't badmouth OC ReMix or any of the music already on the site. For example, if you want a metal remix of a song from Sonic 3, don't complain about all the non-metal Sonic 3 remixes we already have of that song, or that you don't like the metal remix of that song that we already have. Don't act indignant or fake indignance that a game or song you like hasn't been remixed yet. There are plenty of valid reasons for your favorite game or song to have been overlooked. Don't post in someone's request thread shooting down their request. Anyone is allowed to request any game or song to be remixed, even if that game or song already has a lot of remixes. If someone wants to request more Ice Cap Zone or Schala's Theme, that's absolutely fine. Don't ask for or provide links to illegal original and arranged soundtrack downloads.

Honestly don't overthink the rules for Requests. Just make a thread for what you want. "Hey can someone make a remix of Super Mario Bros. Overworld mixed with Sonic's Green Hill Zone? Here are the sources." Done. I've made a new Guidelines thread. Old one is a bit outdated.

Dude, I just realized that my son was born ON THE EXACT SAME DAY as Ester (Dec. 19, 2013). Now I most definitely have to play these for him at night....

Alright, it's finally here!

I just finished my Zelda Metal Medley (featuring 9 songs) from the Zelda series. I also spent a while trying to make the video look as interesting as possible to go with the song.

Very cool! I recognize every track - I'm such a geek. And old, apparently. The sound you chose for the Triforce intro seems ... too synthetic for the sound created after the first ten seconds. The SNES OST used some sort of harp sound, so maybe something lighter would capture that feel a little better. 0:24 to 0:26 seems a little cluttered. Afterwards, however, the harmonies work very well together, flawless timing. Not sure I like the voice clips, but the one at 2:09 is original and not sampled, yes? Definitely points for that. One note on arrangement: Not sure I would end on the Song of Time. I mean, it works, but it might be more effective to end on Zelda's Lullaby and insert Song of Time after the Temple Theme but use that driving drumbeat to get back into Death Mountain. Just a suggestion. This is awesome and already really polished. I like the video, it's like a trip down memory lane. Keep on shredding!

I just subbed. Thanks.

I love your version. NIce work. Main Theme of Mario goes with everything.

Thanks Odai. That's pretty much what I have come to. A vocal cinematic experience. Much like Two Steps from Hell or Thomas Bergersen, but with vocals and songwriting. Our next album will be more directed to fantasy and more marketable. This album was written after a book. You can expect the same for my track with Terranigma of course. Though that will be very almost...trailer like.

If you mean the background images, then no. I included links to them in the video description though. But I did do all the video editing/effects.

Here's the notes that apparently fell through the cracks (though the write-up is now quite funny): "This summer our family has been spotting flowers, which is what this song is about. The lyrics consist of a list of Finnish wild flowers. The arrangement was done together with Birgitta Susi, who sings. We picked some tunes we both liked from ilomilo as sources. She thought Esther might like hearing a child's voice in the song, so there's the daughter and me talking a bit about the flowers in the background." There was a bit in the call-out e-mail about reaching out to artists who weren't exactly obvious choices. I never figured I was one of them! I wouldn't say this was out of my comfort zone but I guess it's different from my previous submissions. Big part of course is that it was co-arranged with Birgitta; we are long-time collaborators. It's great to have the album out!

Right. This is Scoring 101. Melody is often inappropriate in many dramatic contexts. But I have two things to say: 1) Just because you can get by in the career by playing some Omnisphere presets or a piano + harp doesn't mean it's the only way to do it. It's certainly the minimum effort way to do it, sure. Subtlety doesn't have to be simplistic, it can still be creative and designed according to thematic sound identity, and a huge sign of a good score is how good its subtle parts are with respect to the rest of it. 2) There's way more to composition than melody. Like, way more. Melody is actually one of the simplest/most exploitative mechanisms in composition; it's everything else that's really advanced/complicated. And sure, you can argue that stuff is unnecessary to get by, too. But I find the discussion on how to "get by" kind of bland and unnecessary. I guess it's worth observing for those who aren't really in the know, but personally I'd never give advice to someone to settle as a "low-hanging fruit" composer, so to speak. Their careers never really go anywhere. No, they don't have to be Bach. But the great thing about creative work is that there isn't some ridiculous dichotomy where everyone is either a super-smart academic fugue composer or someone who plays some drones. There's a lot of in between talent, you know, and that's a perfectly okay place to aim for. I'm not asking people to be the next John Williams, I'm just asking them to put some thought into their work.

....I like it.

As somebody who worked in digital distribution for over 5 years, I can chime in. Any recording is copyrighted, unless you happen to re-mix Johnathan Coulton or Nine Inch Nails as some of their work is creative commons. There are a number of sites that provide creative commons music. If you use someone's voice recording, you have to get permission and no doubt pay a fee. Some of those famous lines generally come from film or TV sometimes, so you'll have a doozie even getting their attention. There however are public domain recordings you can use. Some government recordings for example all at the Library of Congress. Remixing songs follows this too, if you happen to actually re-mix and use original audio from the original song you'll need permission. If you happen to cover it instead, that is a licensing issue that can be solved with something like Song Trust. Which requires you to pay an amount based on sales, and streams as well. It actually isn't terribly expensive if you are a starting artist. Also if you happen to be copyright matched on Youtube that isn't necessarily an agreement that you are in the clear. It's a fail safe measure to maintain some kind of revenue from copyright infringement (or ..what Youtube determines copyright infringement to be) they could still pursue you if you ended up making enough for it to be worth the court fees. And frankly I feel that system was created for the blatant posts of direct music, and not re-mixes or covers. Also, copyright infringement is still a thing even if you don't make a cent off of it. Fair use doesn't apply to non-profit use. This is all especially important now, after the Gaye vs Thicke case, with more coming (such as Spirit vs Led Zeppelin). So my advice would be to either license properly OR just not bother with it. You could also record public domain writings yourself, as the sound recording rights don't apply. But then you lose the novelty and recognition that you were looking for.

Sounds like a scary movie in the beginning lol This is not bad

Suspense! This one gives me goosebumps. The tuba(?) between 0:50 and 1:00 sounds like 'blat... blat blat' - I can't really hear the notes it is trying to hit. Maybe it's a compression thing, I don't know. Not complaining about the effect, but maybe a slightly higher-frequency instrument like a baritone tuba or bassoon would make the notes sound a little better? Violins come in a little strong for me at 0:54, but I get the effect you are trying to create - it's just a sharp moment when the overall feel of the track seems to be the building of tension. Love the phases of this track, seeming to lead from one bad situation to another. Usually, Star Fox tracks are quite optimistic-sounding, but I actually think this track captures the 'real' feeling the characters would be experiencing - Slippy: "Oh &%$#, how are we going to get out of this one?" Fox: " Quit whining, scramble the Arwings and figure it out!"

This is better than the original.

Awesome! Great to hear an update on that. Hylian and I have been a bit busy ourselves with ye olde life but we're still discussing how to best approach things like recruitment and project management so there's no rush, thank you for still having interest in joining in on this. Also, might I add that both of our current mixers have done a superb work on their tunes so far, I can't wait till the day everyone can hear these.