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OC ReMix is neither dying nor becoming irrelevant. We get plenty of submissions, lots of listeners, and tons of engagement on social media. Also, don't try to back up your point by speaking for other people who "wish to remain anonymous." There's absolutely zero value in saying something like that. Make your own points and back them up. We're not going to dump curation. It's just not going to happen. OC ReMix has been very clear about being a curated catalog of arrangements that meet a standard of both artistic interpretation and technical execution. We have never—and I can't believe that this has to be said again—claimed to be the end-all-be-all source of VGM arrangements, and we're not trying to be. We've consistently supported other communities and initiatives like DoD and Materia Collective. OC ReMix can afford to be selective; we've built up a catalog of quality arrangements over the course of nearly 18 years by setting some standards and pushing artists to hone their skills. Our philosophy at OCR has always been "share your music, get feedback, and make your music better." You'll be hard-pressed to find any other art community that does that. Getting a track posted to the front-page is a soft goal that fosters that growth. There are obviously instances where an artist will disagree with those standards and make an exit, or honestly just outgrow the process altogether because they've found their artistic voice and don't need to take part in the loop anymore. That's fine. We have no problem with people who decide OCR isn't for them anymore. There are plans in place to integrate the workshop deeper into the site's game database so that people can find WIPs and non-posted releases by browsing game pages. But OC ReMix will continue to examine and curate submissions from the community against our established standards because having that goal in place improves artists. We're comfortable with where those standards are and comfortable about the direction the site is taking.

Click here to join the discord I help

Same here. Some more cash for you, but @HoboKa, come join the Discord channel. It's a great way to chat in more of a 'live' setting, and hopefully it'll help you feel like less of an 'outsider', as you call it. I've yet to find a more friendly community than OCR.

Ooh, you want to analyze some remixes for your paper? I can help a bit there when you pick any tracks; I've got quite a bit of experience on the analysis side of things. As far as the history of VG remixes, I'm not sure when the concept began, but if you want a good starting point of when they really started taking off look no further than file sharing programs like Napster and MIDI sites like VGmusic.com for the American boom. I'm not sure when it started in other countries (like Japan), though, so you might need to do more homework for remix's even earlier roots. OCReMix is at least one of the oldest sites of it's kind, as well (pushing more for high quality Mp3 arrangements over MIDIs to contrast it from other sites of it's time) and gathering them in one place (in contrast to tools like Napster sharing all sorts of music), so looking into OCR's history and influence will be helpful for your paper, as well. I'm less a musicologist and more a music theorist on these things, so I probably can't help on this topic further than that, but I do hope it's a start. Good luck!

Listening back to the remix now, I have to agree with the comments about the mixing. I did this track way back in 2014/2015, and it's quite cool to listen back and hear the mistakes/not so great choices you made back then and how you've improved over time (and how much there's still to improve) .

Very nice, very pleasant. I see the point about harp and violin competing for the same sonic space, though I kind of perceive them as the same part rather than different parts I was needing to hear separately. Overall the mixing was impeccably balanced, background instruments in the background and leads alternating with clarity and variation. The bass sound is surprisingly treble-y, it kind of calls for attention to itself and made me expect it making some more active movements, like fills and what not here and there. That was a slightly missed opportunity I felt. Can't really think of anything else to criticize here. I like the fake string section taking lead in places, it's a mushy instrument but the rest of the arrangement ducks away to give it the space it needs. Violin sounds lovely, the (subdued) trumpet sounds lovely. Lots of participants in this mix but everyone is following the same shared vision. Nice game/series/platform pick as well for sure.

Definitely join discord. The community is pretty active, and we have a workshop channel as well where we post resources and offer advice.

The thing is, those other choices aren't as attractive options. While it's true that like I said, OCR isn't the end-all-be-all of VGM remixing and that a lowered bar wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing for a hobbyist website, it is by far and away the VGM community — a very niche thing btw — that cares the most about what it does and I think this is mostly thanks to being somewhat of a "gated community" as you describe it. An anecdote that I think demonstrates this, I very recently managed to get offered a deal with a new production music company. That's a great example of a "gated community" in music as many don't generally accept unsolicited submissions at all. Sure, I COULD have gone to AudioJungle or something like that (which I think only recently added some sort of quality control) where library-music composers go to die and have my tracks buried among a sea of others, BUT this way I'm among people who are pros at what they do, can and will give me real advice because they and their clients demand a certain standard from them, they have connections that can get placements in stuff that people will actually enjoy, you have people representing you across the world, etc. and your odds at success are a lot better than if it was just you out there in the wilds — alone. Now you might say, "Yeah, but that's about music for money and OCR isn't about that!" To which I say, ignore the $ aspect and you'll see it's the same thing — a somewhat exclusive community creates opportunity and is a more enjoyable experience. OCR is the only VGM community I am aware of who: Hosts panels at things like MAGfest, puts out multi-disc albums of remixes for free, has had numerous of its users go on to become professional composers; has what easily amounts to thousands of hours of music from nearly 20 years back available on YouTube, with millions of plays total, each one DJP has written a mini essay on, and all for $0.00; launched its own record label, collaborated with Capcom to produce the first official fan-made community Megaman album; it supported the development of the definitive VGM virtual instrument, developed by community members; and about *ten years ago, they made the first entirely fanmade soundtrack to a video game. This is only made possible by having a power structure of some kind. While it's true that OCR is a gated community, they are always willing to let people in. Everywhere else? It's either an open floodgate or the gate is electrified. *OMFG I was 16 when this came out and was before I actually discovered the community. Holy shit, I'm getting old fast.

On another news the Judge Process thread has been updated thanks to @Nutritious. I'll try to keep it updated again.

Oh... Woooooow, guys, this is super dope. Such folk tunes are always love-or-hate for me, and this one is certainly what I can listen, listen and listen repeatedly for a loooong time Very beatiful stuff with a smooth soothing vibe. Nailed it!

When I joined the panel, the wait time for a sub to appear on the queue was about a year and a half. Yes, If you submitted your song today, the ETA for it to arrive at the queue would be around spring 2019. This year around july / august, if you submitted your song there was a good chance it would get on the queue (and possibly out of it) that very same week. So yeah, it's a bit faster now. I took this process over from Larry because the thread has been a personal grudge for me for years, since it usually went without updates for months when the queue was ridiculously long. I used to update it weekly or more often but since we had reached parity with the inbox (and I have too many responsibilities this year) I stopped updating it, since things are a bit slower now (the most recent mix on the queue is from around mid october) I'll try to update it again. This thread is a pain in the ass to update though, takes a considerable amount of time, so yeah. This has been a topic of discussion internally and is brought up a lot. To make this process visible it requires a better submission process and integration with the site. This is a major project which requires, you guessed it, a lot of time to implement, free time from the staff. I know you're perfectly aware of all of this but a lot of people, perhaps understandably don't see the amount of time that is put on the site behind the scenes to keep it running, release projects, work on evaluations, implement forum features, organize panels, etc. I personally would love to see this whole process to be updated, but it's not happening overnight with the current resources we have. I was very surprised by this as well, I thought we were rejecting far more than we were passing. But after thinking about it, it makes perfect sense. The bar has been around the same place for about a decade now, and it has become increasingly easier to make good music. I remember the FL compo mentioned by Larry, and at the time this compo was made, FL and most DAWs used to come with very poor quality samples and the tools they came with were pretty vanilla and basic (3xosc, i.e.). Compare that to the current FL studio which comes with many more powerful tools out of the box, plus a more comprehensive sample library of better quality. Same with other DAWs like Reason, Ableton etc. You can get Reaper nowadays for free/cheap, grab a bunch of high quality free synths/effects/samples and get going without spending a dollar.

As can we all I know what you mean. I was a "Jack of all trades" type, but the problem was is that it's really expensive to get all the instruments or good virtual instruments to do a lot of different genres and there is a lot of esoteric knowledge involved in producing any kind of music. As such, I cheaped out on a lot of things and never spent enough time trying to get really good at anything in particular and I definitely paid for it...I'm also just never satisfied with my guitar sound and my passion for the instrument and metal music has died out, so I just play guitar for fun now and only occasionally feel like listening to rock. I spent the last year and some change working on improving my skills with composing contrapuntally, orchestration, cinematic sound design and buying quality libraries. As of one month ago, I at last have a template that I'm really happy with and it can easily play anything I throw at it and it sounds great. I may not be able to compose every genre of music, but what I can do I have a lot of fun with and always feel inspired to compose more and while those VSTis may have made my wallet cry, it really is awesome not having to surrender so many musical ideas to the mercy of mediocre samples.

That's a good writeup and I think it frames things nicely from a listener's perspective too. Nowadays, VGM remixes and covers are a more common thing than they used to be, and I am not sure how listeners do perceive a song from OCR versus a track from, say, Materia Collective. Do they mind, do they care, or do they just like to listen to a nice remix and are they not too bothered with the remixing criteria OCR upholds? Production quality is a bit different IMO, because there is like a common lowest threshold if I am to judge it by e.g. Materia Collective or random (popular) VGM artists on Youtube. Do I take OCR (too) seriously? Perhaps, but I also used it as a motivator to improve myself, and having this decent threshold helped stimulate me to do so. Maybe that's not for everybody because not everybody is as crazy as I am, but your point on listener perception is a valid one, because I also do this because there's other people besides myself who enjoy what I do. I am not sure what the common issues with the current bar are. Maybe it would be interesting to have a look at the more recent NO'ed tracks and see what the common patterns are. Makes it also less anecdotal and personal if you go beyond just fussing about your own NO'ed track.

Here is a quick look at how I enhance Super Nintendo music while still keeping it as original as possible: