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I tried to keep this brief, but as you might know, that's not my forte. FIRST, the facts... On October 28th I informed staff that I was stepping down from my role as president/admin/owner/etc. of OverClocked ReMix, and on November 1st I also stepped down from the board of Game Music Initiative, the 501c3 non-profit organization that funds OCR. In short, I no longer feel I have the bandwidth to do these roles justice and to not only maintain, but advance, the missions of both projects. I will be working with Shariq Ansari (DarkeSword) to transition my responsibilities and ensure continuity of operations. The (excellent!) mix posted on Halloween was published without my direct involvement, subsequent posts up to the milestone #OCR04500 have been superbly executed, and I am confident that staff will continue the work necessary to operate - and evolve - OCR in my absence. I will be even less available than I have been, lately, so I apologize in advance for any lack of responsiveness. THEN, the feels... Where to even begin? It's hard to encapsulate over two decades of history; omissions are inevitable. What began as a neat side project I started in my parents' basement in 1999 snowballed into something far beyond my wildest expectations, due to the blood, sweat, tears, and unbridled, rampant creativity that thousands of you have contributed. Much of this happened before social media was even a thing and before the platforms/services we now heavily associate with the modern internet had come into being; it was a frontier, and we were on it, and we took it pretty seriously because we knew how amazing VGM is, how creative arrangements could effectively convey and explore that vast musical landscape, and how a small fandom communicating via email, IRC, & forums could collaborate to build mighty, new things. We took it seriously, often too seriously, but we ALSO played more than a few rounds of Shaq-Fu at conventions, made some truly ridiculous (but always musical!) joke mixes, and developed internal circles of lore with our own memes & jargon. NOT in strictly chronological order: there was some drama with now-legendary composer Jake Kaufman; VGMix entered the fray; we added a judges panel so it wasn't just me making stuff up; we released our first community album; the unmoderated forum birthed its own sort of... subculture; the site itself evolved to be database-driven and not just two giant dropdowns sorted by game/date; we posted mixes submitted by composers George "The Fat Man" Sanger and Jeremy Soule; we met/interviewed Hiroki Kikuta and Nobuo Uematsu; our album trailers by the incomparable José the Bronx Rican started blowing minds; we started appearing in person at Otakon, PAX, MAG, others - much love to all for having us; we bumped into Leeroy Jenkins at ROFLcon and gave him a hoodie; we started hosting from our own server and managing the technical side of things ourselves; thanks to Mr. Shael Riley (among others!), we got to remix the music for an actual Street Fighter game (!!); we released fifteen more albums... ...and then we turned ten, on December 11th of 2009. Quite a first decade, and I missed hundreds of things I shouldn't have. Hundreds of firsts, some tragic lasts, and millions of memories that can't quite be conjured by words. In 2011, we stood up for Fair Use at World’s Fair Use Day, an event organized by the non-profit Public Knowledge. In 2012, we launched our kickstarter for Final Fantasy VI: Balance and Ruin, it was taken down, we talked with Square lawyers directly for a couple hours and made the non-profit project structure clear & contractual, and we relaunched a successful kickstarter. That's not always how those things go! We launched Game Music Initiative in 2016, creating an official 501c3 charity to formalize the finances around OCR and potentially support other VGM-related projects, too. On a related note, I’ve absolutely loved seeing OC ReMixes featured by charity speedrunners Games Done Quick (GDQ) - it’s exactly the type of thing I always wanted to see, that synergy. Things do start getting a little quieter from then on out, and I think there are a ton of reasons for that, but it has been an incredible and improbable journey that I wouldn't have missed for the world. Thank you ALL for making it possible; OCR was always yours, I aspired only to stewardship of something I wanted to exist for everyone. FINALLY, the future… It's time - some would say past time - for OverClocked ReMix itself to be ReMixed. That's the point, right? Infinite permutation; endless possibility. You don't always know the day, month, or even year when your influence on something starts holding it back, or when the waning amount of time and energy you can dedicate becomes a liability. That type of certainty is often elusive; it can be a difficult diagnosis to even contemplate, and you need to look for & listen to signs. In addition to just being too much of a single point of failure for OCR (sorry, engineering mindset), the last year I've been asking myself whether it was time to let go, and I think the answer is sometimes in the asking. I have been stretched thin, like butter scraped over too much bread, and that's when you leave the Shire. Beyond representing what I genuinely believe is best for the future of OCR, I absolutely confess a personal wish to redirect reclaimed time & energy to my family and my own music. Being a husband to my wife Anna and being a father to our daughters Esther and Sarah is my meaning; I have always put them first, but now I can put them even MORE first. Esther just started learning trombone, so in a few years, expect a collab! Sarah is building her confidence learning piano & makes me proud every day. I want to write new music for them, and with them, and that requires more time than I've had. I believe the principles that have driven us - embracing all games & all styles of music, emphasizing interpretation & creativity, offering both curation and critique, and providing a non-commercial platform for those who seek it - are truly timeless, but there are many ways to honor them. I look to the new leadership/staff to galvanize, streamline, diversify, and re-imagine, within that immense space. I'll be leaving them with some ideas of my own; please let them know yours. I ask the community to support them, embrace change, provide guidance, and be patient; I believe it will be worth it! Thanks, - djpretzel

Well it's been about a week or two, so as the new guy in charge, I figure I ought to say something, right? When djpretzel started the process of handing over the keys to the family car, I have to admit I was pretty overwhelmed. OCR is one of the oldest and most rock-solid sites on the internet; I've often said that we're older than YouTube, older than smartphones, and older than a lot of things on the internet that, by virtue of their ubiquity, feel like institutions. OCR is an institution. There's a lot of weight in those keys. So what am I going to do with OCR now that I'm in the driver's seat? In the short term: keep driving. Our main goal is going to be continuity; that is to say, keep posting ReMixes on a regular basis. We've got a pretty big backlog of ReMixes that are ready for the spotlight, and our excellent and talented community continues to send us new music all the time, so we're not worried about running out. But there sure is a lot of behind-the-scenes process involved with getting these tracks in your ears, so bear with us while the staff--with djpretzel's help--figures all of this out. I still believe that there's a case to be made for the curation model that we've developed and adhered to for 20+ years, so we're still going to have a Judges Panel that's going to evaluate submissions, and the bar for quality that the judges look for isn't shifting in any direction. One of our goals in this changeover is to decentralize a lot of process off of one person. djpretzel did a lot on his own, and as we look at some things behind-the-scenes, maybe he didn't have to. I want OCR to be a place that can be run by a trusted group of people without a single point-of-failure. Case-in-point: literally one week after I take on leadership at OCR, my 8-month-old son brings home COVID from somewhere and gets the whole house sick, and we're having OCR staff meetings and figuring out how to post ReMixes while I'm coughing up a lung. Unbelievable. So I'm also hoping to bring more people onto the OCR staff. I've already pulled in some folks from the community, and we're going to figure out how to provide avenues for more people to help out if they're interested. Keep an eye out. Beyond that though, I've got a couple of ideas for improvements and features that have been brewing for a while that I'm going to start to pursue, leveraging some existing tech we already have and also exploring some new tech. For those that are unaware, my day job is working as a web and application developer at a major university. It's something I've been doing for 15 years and I have a pretty solid handle on building database-driven web applications. I'm going to bring a little of that experience to OCR, and hopefully we can eventually have some cool toys and tools in place to help move the site forward. Some things to look forward to: I've already put together a Currently in the Judging Process dashboard for ReMixers and hopefuls to keep an eye on. It's a live view of the judging process without having to wait for a Judge to update a forum thread. We're actively developing and testing a proper Submission form for ReMixers and hopefuls to use when sending us music. We've been asking you to send us an email for far too long. That's going to change. We've put together a "stream team" to evaluate how we can do more with our YouTube channel and even get things going on Twitch in some capacity. There are a lot more things we're talking about internally as well, but I don't want to over-promise anything right now. If you have ideas for OCR, feel free to share them in our Site Issues & Feedback forum. I'd also love for folks to come by and join our OC ReMix Discord server. I know the forums have been pretty sleepy for a few years now, but the chat server is lively and active. Hope to see you there.

Hey folks. I've decided to continue on with the compo. I'll be posting Round 3 match-ups tonight, and Round 1 and Round 2 music together tomorrow night for voting. For those wondering about my family emergency, my mom passed away last week while visiting India. While I certainly appreciate any condolences you have to offer, please do not post them in this thread; I'd like to keep the thread on-topic. A "like" on this post would be fine, though. Thanks for understanding! I'm looking forward to everyone's entries moving forward.

The purpose of this thread is to give people a clear idea of how OCR operates, how revenue is generated (and where that revenue goes), and the relationship between OCR, its operations, and the people that contribute to it. Is content on OCR licensed? No. We do not license the ReMixes distributed on our site (and through channels like YouTube). (There is one exception, which is described below.) Why aren't the remixes licensed? It's simply impossible to do this for several reasons. 1. Mechanical licensing via the compulsory licensing permission (the one that does not require publisher permission) requires that the source material be published commercially in the United States prior to licensing. Many remixes on the site are of source material never released in soundtrack form in the US, therefore they cannot be licensed. 2. Even if the music could be licensed, since OCR is founded on the concept of distributing music for free, it would be impossible to support the massive licensing costs necessary for all remixes on the site. To use some napkin math: assume 3400 remixes are each downloaded 100 times per month, which is a gross under-estimate. At 9.1 cents per copy downloaded, this would require licensing fees of over $30,000 a month - for downloads alone. 3. No established license mechanism could cover free downloads of MP3s and ad-supported streaming. Compulsory mechanical licensing only covers downloadable copies; as a result, custom licensing agreements would need to be made with every publisher (which they could simply reject, unlike a compulsory license.) For total emphasis, there is no conceivable way that the content on OCR could be licensed, and especially not while remaining compatible with the site goal of distributing free music. Does that mean OCR is illegal or infringing copyright? By default, any use of copyrighted material without express permission of the copyright holder is considered infringement. However, US copyright law makes provisions for "fair use" of copyrighted material as a defense to infringement in a court of law. Fair use is the legal principle that allows for things like educational usage, commentary, parody, and satire, among other uses. While fair use cannot be established except in a court of law, and there are no strict guidelines allowing anyone to decide whether a use is fair or not outside of the court system, it's possible to make an educated guess as to whether a use is fair or not. This educated guess is based on an evaluation of the factors evaluated for determining fair use, and precedent. The biggest of these factors are whether a work is transformative, and whether it is 'commercial'. These are both loose and nebulous terms, but that being said, our strongly-held belief (reinforced by the belief of consulted legal counsel) is that OCR's distribution of fan-created arrangements for non-commercial educational purposes is fair use. This has been discussed at length in other posts but suffice it to say that when analyzing all these factors, we've made a very strong case for this if a court case were ever to happen. Isn't it worse to upload music to YouTube, especially if it's monetized? No. If fair use applies to OCR's activities, it would certainly extend to YouTube. If it doesn't apply, then the site's current activities (on and off YouTube) would be considered infringement, in which case it's a moot point. YouTube is actually a better place to address issues of infringement than elsewhere, because Google provides content creators with several tools: the ability to claim a video (which grants the publisher/claimaint all further revenue from the video) or issue a takedown. Both of these would not entangle either party in the court system, as Google/YouTube mediates any disputes, avoiding a costly legal battle. In short, we'd much rather defend ourselves to YouTube, ON YouTube, with the assistance of YouTube specialists who have extensive experience in copyright disputes. Also, keep in mind that on YouTube (and off), a creator can claim infringement regardless of whether someone is generating revenue from a work or not. My own personal experience with YouTube claims and takedowns has exclusively been with un-monetized videos. In short, if a publisher took issue with OCR, not running YouTube ads would not protect us in any way. Does OCR generate revenue from its content? Yes. Since the early 2000s, ocremix.org has run ads throughout the site. Other revenue is generated from sales of OCR merchandise (not music; music on the site is not sold commercially) such as t-shirts and hoodies. Within the last few years, OCR launched a Patreon page which also generates revenue. Ads were also enabled on <1% of videos on OCR's YouTube channel from June-August 2016 for testing purposes, which has also generated a small amount of revenue. Until OCR officially becomes a registered non-profit organization, and YouTube ads are discussed further with the community, YouTube ads will only be served on the videos of ReMixers who have given OCR their explicit permission. Why does OCR need to generate revenue? OCR as a website has technical costs, such as the cost of a dedicated server, mirrors, and bandwidth. These expenses are necessary for the basic operation of the site. Revenue is also needed to create promotional materials for the site: that includes merchandise like t-shirts and hoodies, as well as strictly-promotional physical copies of album projects. (These promotional physical albums are not sold, and the content on them is available for free on ocremix.org. They are given away at conventions). OCR has also been attending conventions such as Otakon, MAGFest, and PAX (among any others) to evangelize video game music, promote recent album releases, and give away free stuff. Expenses directly related to OCR panels at these conventions (such as technical equipment needed for panels) are sometimes covered by OCR as an organization. There are also many plans for the organization that require revenue to achieve. For example, the OCR YouTube video template has not been updated in many years and looks dated. We're in the process of commissioning custom visualization software to produce better-looking videos strictly for the enjoyment of viewers and fans. Also, we're looking to obtain true non-profit organization status, which we believe will take a substantial amount of money to file and maintain properly. Where does surplus revenue go? For a long time, there was no surplus revenue. Expenses were often paid out of pocket by Dave and other staff. Now that revenue is exceeding expenses, the revenue... isn't going anywhere. It's staying in OCR's accounts until it is used for purposes like those described above. The aforementioned non-profit filing process will likely take most if not all saved money. So is OCR a non-profit organization? From our submission agreement: OCR legally cannot distribute submitted materials for for-profit endeavors. Furthermore, OCR is legally bound to spend any revenue on costs directly associated with operation and promotion of OverClocked ReMix. However, OCR as an entity does not have true non-profit status - 501(c)(3) - which is why achieving that official status is a major goal. Are any ReMixers or site staff paid for their work? No. Nobody has been paid for their work contributing to the site either as a remixer, staff member, or administrator, djp included. (Fine print: OCR has released one commercial album, For Everlasting Peace: 25 Years of Mega Man, as an officially licensed release in partnership with Capcom, with Capcom retaining ownership of the music. ReMixers were paid for this release, which was licensed directly with the publisher. This music is not available on the site and was not submitted through the normal channels, so it's an outlier.) Will ReMixers ever be paid? Not for regular submissions to the site, which are distributed for free. Not only would the logistical overhead be unmanageable, but it would invalidate our fair use case, as it would be impossible to justify those payments as necessary to the direct operation of the site as a non-profit entity. However, we'll continue to explore separate licensed projects like MM25, or officially licensed commercial albums through our sister site OverClocked Records. We view these as separate from the core work that OCR does: distributing and evangelizing free music. Will site staff ever be paid? There is absolutely no plan to do this, nor has it been seriously discussed among site staff in all years of operation. It's conceivable that it could happen someday, after 501(c)(3) status is achieved and we're complying with all regulations for transparency, corporate bylaws, etc. djpretzel wants there to be a plan for the site should anything ever happen to him, and operating a 501(c)(3) will require more administrative duties for things like bookkeeping and accounting. Again, if it were to ever happen, it would be executed properly to the letter as per federal guidelines for non-profit organizations and in full compliance with our own legally binding submission agreement. Is there anything to prevent revenue from being distributed as profit to staff now?! Of course. Just because OCR is not a 501(c)(3) yet does not mean our submission agreement isn't legally binding: it is. And that agreement, which applies to OCR as an organization, strictly limits how revenue can be used. Again, site staff have never been paid nor are there any plans to do so.

Have to include some new stuff from Brandon that continues to assume the worst about how OCR is run, including the belief that mixes from popular games were posted in order to maximize YouTube revenue (ignoring all the less popular games we posted mixes from). I want to be sure people can see these accusations. My responses below: Most of you probably don’t know that recently, OC ReMix attempted to monetize videos to get revenue on YouTube. They started doing this on June 14th, 2016 but recently were forced by public response to take it off until such a time that their ducks are in a row. The monetization had been active for 2 months without any of the artists being informed or asked permission, and none of the remixes were legally licensed so that revenue made would be shared with the publisher or rights holders of the music. There were a lot of issues with this taking place, but the most glaring issue is that they did this without asking or informing anyone. They did it in a really shady manner, and tried to justify having done it by saying “nobody noticed for 2 months”. When confronted with this betrayal and questions of legality and ethics, some staff shared their opinions, while others — such as site owner djpretzel — became very defensive, and ultimately brushed concerns aside. At the end of the short discussion, I was blamed for “misrepresenting” the situation, or making OCR “toxic” by airing my concerns, speculation, and grievances. My biggest problem from the start was that they had gone behind our backs — we, the artists, who essentially provide all of the content for OCR — and did this without asking and without permission. Then, when confronted about it, they justified generating revenue on this platform outside of OCR (YouTube) by saying it’s “the same as advertisements on the OCR website.” I personally don’t see it that way. YouTube is a free service, and “remixes” need to be legally licensed so that the rights holders get their fair share of the revenue. If the YouTube aspect had been in the agreement to begin with, or if we had simply been asked if it was alright, this probably wouldn’t have been such a big deal. Site owner djpretzel has stated that the Content Policy will rightfully be updated to reflect changing technologies, as the original policy had been written in 2007. The second thing that bothered me about the situation is that rather than apologize, and simply state that they’re going to try to work harder to appear ethical and work more diligently to adhere to legality as much as possible, I was demonized and scapegoated by site owner djpretzel. I was, more or less, accused of “poisoning the well” as he brushed aside the negative concerns surrounding the situation. I have often, for multiple years, been critical of OC ReMix’s lack of accountability and transparency. Going forward, I will probably also be critical of their lack of trust and good will. As someone who provides content for the website, and essentially a customer (if you would consider OCR to be acompany), I am in no position to be scapegoated any more than any other customer would be for asking questions. That’s unprofessional, and demonizing me over the situation is embarrassing and shows a lack of character, something that has been coming more to the forefront with how OCR conducts its business. As a result of this whole disrespectful display, and waste of mytime, I am ready to remove all of my personal content that I produced alone from OC ReMix. However, I decided to do what OCR was not capable of and leave this decision up to the fans. Only 8 people voted in the poll I pinned on Twitter, sadly, which is hardly a sample size worthy of note. But in an age where people don’t really care that much to begin with, this is probably the best I can do outside of running the poll for a month and publicizing the situation in other ways. So in brief: I’m not going to request my content removed from OC ReMix. However, as a result of this petty, inept nonsense, I am going to be seeking other avenues to release and promote my own content — legally, and in a manner that I can’t be exploited in some way. This may mean many less submissions to OCR, and more legally licensed, high quality projects released through Loudr, available on iTunes and Spotify, in addition to original music released through similar platforms. (ed: I forgot to mention YouTube. I will still put all my new mixes on YouTube unless they’re made for a project.) I have no intention to end any of my current projects. The only difference you might see is less fresh content going towards OC ReMix from me personally, yet the projects that are currently active (FF3, FF8, others) should ultimately not be affected. I can only hope that the revenue generated by upcoming projects allows the staff to look past their grudges, as the artists involved deserve to have their content heard if they agree to release their content through OC Remix. Thank you for reading, Brandon E. Strader Sagnewshreds, on 15 Aug 2016 - 01:46 AM, said: Need to be clear that Brandon wasn't blamed for "misrepresenting" the situation, as if it were just a difference of opinion. Despite pages of discussion and details, he's continued with over-the-top conspiracy theories, fake claims of evidence, and conclusions in bad faith that were literally libel. We believe the Content Policy gives OCR the permission to republish the mixes on other sites and present advertising in the context of the submitted materials, that fair use allows us to do this without licensing the music, with the revenue going to OC ReMix as an organization and that all revenue is disallowed from being used for profit. He doesn't agree with that point of view, and that should have been the focus of his issues. But negative concerns weren't brushed aside as he claims, and Brandon wasn't the only person who shared them. He also claims there were no apologies and that no commitment was made to transparency and legality. People can read through this thread and see all of the back-and-forth. Everything brought up was addressed. I will say that Brandon is very good at projection, since demonizing people, being disrespectful, and displaying a lack of trust & goodwill are things he was great at in this discussion. One thing not mentioned before is that enabling YouTube ads increases the search ranking of the content, the same way that enabling ratings does. Back when we started the YT channel, we actually disabled ratings for everything to match how we didn't do polling or ratings of the mixes. It turned out that disabling ratings made YouTube reduce the visibility of the videos. But enabling those things makes YouTube increase their visibility, so we're trying to get the mixes heard by more people. That may explain why the SM64 mix, which was the first one with monetization turned on, received greater views; YouTube actually gives more weight in discoverability to content that's monetized and allows ratings. That said, I'm the sole person that decides mixpost order these days (because I'm tagging them up and staging them), and claiming that we were just posting popular mixes to maximize YouTube revenue is silly and needlessly overthinking things. Sagnewshreds called your suspicions "tinfoilly," and he's right. For posting your Chrono Cross mix out of cycle, sometimes I do that. I just noticed you hadn't had a mix posted in about a month and didn't know you had anything else waiting besides some tracks on the FF9 project that were going to be posted on 9/9. We can't state enough how we're not actually motivated by money and don't profit, but in any case, in the 2 month period where ads were enabled on 43 out of 3,000+ videos, we also had mixes from Gradius Gaiden, Jazz Jackrabbit 2, Yoshi Touch & Go, Skylanders, ilomilo, To the Moon (yours), Global Gladiators, Lufia II, Rollerball, Alex Kidd in Miracle World, Tyrian, Vectorman, After Burner, and R-Type for the C64. Have to say this over and over again: we don't care what game something is from. At all. It doesn't change how we evaluate anything. If the submission is creative and interpretive enough with the arrangement, and produced well enough, we'll post it. We don't post stuff from certain games to boost ad revenue or social media metrics or whatever. Also, all ads were off since the 14th, including when that Chrono Trigger album trailer went up (plus we had already decided not to monetize trailers (which is why you yourself noticed the Esther's Dreams trailer wasn't monetized). Brandon's also saying that even BEFORE YouTube monetization, we were ALREADY strategically weighting mixposts to heavily popular games. This is despite publishing an album from him for the super-obscure game Teen Agent. As I've said many times, we don't pick what games are mixed, the ReMixers do. And it almost goes without saying that Chrono Trigger or Mega Man 2 or Final Fantasy VII is more of a nostalgia and popularity draw among the ReMixers themselves, which is why they arrange those games more than others. We don't control that or try to steer anything in that direction. If OCR could have 1,000+ more Tim Follin arrangements, that would be awesome. The last thing I'd say is that I don't know why Brandon put up a poll on keeping his mixes up on OCR. It's very obvious that he assumes the worst about the staff, thinks we're pocketing the ad revenue, maybe buying cars or comics or anything & everything non-OCR related with it, that it's some money-making cabal, that all the staff are complicit in said cabal, and that we'd love to illegally and unethically generate YouTube revenue in the shadows and willingly anger hordes of artists. Since he's convinced it's run like that and unethical like he claims, why would a poll convince him to keep his ReMixes up? Like I said before, no amount of transparency or actions can make Brandon believe that OCR is run honestly, ethically, above board, and without a profit motive. Weighing that, I can't imagine why or how he'd convince himself not to request removal of his mixes. Due to his overly suspicious, paranoid, and imaginative nature about all of this, I think that's inevitable.

OC ReMix & Impact Soundworks are pleased to officially announce the release of SUPER AUDIO CART, the definitive retro game instrument and a project eight years in the making! Instrument Page: Read More & Purchase Super Audio Cart features eight legendary video game systems recorded in exhaustive detail using a slew of specialized cartridges and hardware: Atari 2600 Commodore 64 Sega Master System Game Boy Sega Genesis (Mega Drive - Model 1, naturally) NES Famicom (w/ VRC6, VRC7, FDS) SNES (Super Famicom) These samples combine to form more than 630 multisampled sound sources: everything from pulse oscillators and noise generators, to essential FM patch layouts, true lo-fi PCM drums and hacked/circuit-bent setups. When you play a Commodore 64 PWM patch or an NES drum kit, you aren't hearing an emulation: these are the real sounds coming straight from each console. But Super Audio Cart goes far beyond authentic game sounds. We created an incredible KONTAKT PLAYER engine (with full NKS compatibility) pushing Kontakt to its limits to provide a huge range of sound design features and 1200 factory presets in total. This engine lets you transform simple pulses, saws, and 10kb samples into monumental pads, dirty EDM basses, hip hop leads and anything else you can think of. SAMPLE CONTENT Over 5,800 meticulously edited samples in total All-new bank of custom SNES samples (400+ instruments) 120+ classic FM instruments from the best Genesis soundtracks Hundreds of sound effects, both sound sources + presets Synthesized and DPCM sampled drumkits Tons of waveforms and circuit bent oscillators ENGINE FEATURES Up to 4 simultaneous and independent sound source layers Five total FX racks (one per layer and global) with a custom "SNESVERB" module Independent arpeggiator/sequencer & gate, including wave sequencer Full control over envelopes, mapping range, keytracking and tuning Customizable portamento (including poly portamento) Over a dozen filter models (LP, HP, BP, notch) MIDI learn / CC links to any parameter or control XY controller for layer blending or modulation (also MIDI learnable) And the crown jewel, a 64-slot custom mod matrix built from scratch. We'll be making a video just for this since it can do so much - create and assign custom LFOs to virtually any parameter, use MIDI CC, random numbers, velocity, key position, and aftertouch (to name a few), modulate FX and controls globally or per-layer... etc. And you can bet the factory library makes great use of it! AUDIO DEMOS https://soundcloud.com/isworks/sets/super-audio-cart-demos Super Audio Cart was produced as a collaboration between Impact Soundworks and the OverClocked ReMix video game music community, and is available now for the MSRP of $149 with FULL Kontakt Player and NKS compatibility! Get the library here! Let us know what you think! VIDEO TUTORIALS (Playlist) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n_kB2z4rCmo QUOTES "Super Audio Cart is so much fun, and absolutely spot-on for simulating retro game sounds. This is absolutely a fantastic sample library for all game music fans." -Yasunori Mitsuda (Chrono Trigger, Chrono Cross, Xenogears) "It's extremely convenient to be able to create arrangements with such diverse sounds so quickly, just using MIDI. Of course, Super Audio Cart isn't just for 'retro' sounds - it's also very useful for modern music as well." -Yuzo Koshiro (Streets of Rage, ActRaiser, Revenge of Shinobi, Etrian Odyssey) "Super Audio Cart is without doubt the best plugin for all your chiptune needs, it's got the lot and they're all glorious!! Having all these authentic sounds in one place is the best idea since someone said, 'Let's put a rap in Donkey Kong' ... oh wait." -Grant Kirkhope (Donkey Kong 64, GoldenEye, Banjo-Kazooie, Civilization: Beyond Earth) "Super Audio Cart fills a niche in my chiptune arsenal that has been sorely lacking. The SNES-style patches sound so authentic, and the multi-chip patches bring usability and versatility I haven't seen in a chiptune instrument before." -Danny Baranowsky (Crypt of the NecroDancer, Binding of Isaac, Super Meat Boy)

Introduction Past and future collide as two factions clash in the greatest musical battle the world has ever seen. Armored heroes meet metal warriors on the battlefield of wailing guitars, dirty drops, and soaring strings. Get ready, ladies and gentlemen, it’s time for Robots vs. Knights! Current News MUSIC FOR THE FINAL BATTLE IS UP! Round 9: One vs. One Final Battle Team Robot Team Knight Squad Artist Source vs Source Artist Squad Rush Squad Gario Ballade vs Wandering Travelers JohnStacy Armor Squad Rush Squad Starpheonix Enker vs Shield Knight GCJ Armor Squad Rush Squad Thirdkoopa Mercury vs Shovel Knight Jorito Relic Squad Tango Squad Chiwalker Uranus vs Polar Knight theshaggyfreak Shovel Squad Tango Squad Yami Pluto vs Plague Knight akalink Armor Squad Tango Squad Ronald Poe Mars vs Propeller Knight Anorax Shovel Squad Beat Squad Trism Saturn vs Spectre Knight PlanarianHugger Shovel Squad Beat Squad Xenonetix Punk vs King Knight Dewey Newt Relic Squad Beat Squad MegaDrive Venus vs Mole Knight Arrow Relic Squad Remixes are due Sunday, June 18th at 9 PM EDT. All competitors will compose and produce remixes that combine both sources into one, cohesive piece of music. Collaboration with teammates is allowed, but the primary artists should be the competitors listed in the table above. All competitors are encouraged (but not required) to share WIPs with teammates in order to get constructive feedback. Good luck and happy mixing. A lot of team discussion is happening on the OC ReMix Discord, be sure to make yourselves available. As always, all participants (competitors and voters) are expected to adhere to the Competitions Code of Conduct. Scoreboard Battle Team Knight Team Robot Ballade vs Shovel Knight 2 0 Uranus vs Propeller Knight 0 2 Saturn vs Plague Knight 2 0 Enker vs Polar Knight 0 2 Pluto vs King Knight 0 2 Punk vs Shield Knight 2 0 Mercury vs Spectre Knight 0 2 Mars vs Mole Knight 0 0 Venus vs Wandering Travelers 0 2 Boss Battle vs Tinker Knight 0 9 Total 6 19 Teams Team Knight Artist Source Squad Anorax Propeller Knight Shovel Squad theshaggyfreak Polar Knight Shovel Squad PlanarianHugger Spectre Knight Shovel Squad akalink Plague Knight Armor Squad GCJ Shield Knight Armor Squad JohnStacy Wandering Travelers Armor Squad Jorito Shovel Knight Relic Squad Dewey Newt King Knight Relic Squad Arrow Mole Knight Relic Squad Team Robot Artist Source Squad Gario Ballade Rush Squad Starpheonix Enker Rush Squad Thirdkoopa Mercury Rush Squad Chiwalker Uranus Tango Squad Yami Pluto Tango Squad Ronald Poe Mars Tango Squad Trism Saturn Beat Squad Xenonetix Punk Beat Squad MegaDrive Venus Beat Squad Releases Round 1: Squad vs. Squad Block 1 Round 2: Squad vs. Squad Block 1 Round 3: Squad vs. Squad Block 1 Round 4: Boss Battle 1 Rounds 5-8: Block 2 Round 9: One vs. One Final Battle About Robots vs. Knights (RvK) is a Team vs. Team competition. It’s a new format that I’ve been developing for a couple of months now, combining elements of the head-to-head battles of the Remix Battle tournaments (GRMRB, etc.) with the teamwork aspect of Gauntlet tournaments (WCRG, etc.). Here’s the full breakdown of how it’s going to work. Sign-ups 18 people sign up. I’ll divide everyone into 2 teams of 9. I’ll be assigning people to their respective teams in order to ensure a balanced competition. Each team will be given a pool of sources to select from. Team members will decide how to assign sources themselves. I won’t be running a draft. Team Robots will be given a selection of sources from the Mega Man Game Boy games. Team Knights will be given a selection of sources from Shovel Knight. Each team will form 3 squads of 3 members each. The squad will be your group that you’ll rotate with throughout the competition, similar to the teams from gauntlet competitions. Squad-vs-Squad Battle 1 The first 3 rounds are squad-vs-squad battles. Each squad will decide their remixing order for the first three rounds and provide that to me. Each round, I’ll post 3 match-ups between squads on opposing teams. Each squad’s artist will submit a remix that uses their selected source and the opposing squad’s selected source. At the end of each round, artists send their remixes to me, I’ll put the tracks up, and people will vote. Each victory will earn points for the team. Boss Battle 1 The 4th round is a boss battle. I’ll post a boss theme source. All 6 squads will submit a remix that combines the boss theme with one of the squad’s sources. Any member of the squad can be the primary artist. The primary artist is not required to use their own personal source; they can use any of their squad’s 3 sources. At the end of the round, voters will select their 3 favorite remixes, unranked. The team that has the most selections at the end of the voting period will choose between two rewards: a chunk of points, or the right to counterpick in the next block of squad-vs-squad battles. Break 1 While votes are being collected for Boss Battle 1, we will take a week-long break, using the time to review remixes from past rounds. Squad-vs-Squad Battle 2 The next 3 rounds are squad-vs-squad battles. If a team has the right to counterpick, they’ll be provided the opposing team’s remixing orders first before determining their remixing orders. I will still determine the actual match-ups based on the updated remixing orders. The 3 rounds of squad-vs-squad battles are conducted as before. Boss Battle 2 The 8th round is another boss battle, conducted in the same way as the previous boss battle round. Break 2 While votes are being collected for Boss Battle 2, we will take a week-long break, using the time to review remixes from past rounds. One-vs-One Battle The 9th and final round is comprised of 9 one-on-one battles. If a team has earned the right to counterpick from the previous round, they’ll be allowed to determine the 9 match-ups; rematches of previous battles from the squad-vs-squad blocks are not allowed. If no team has counterpick, I’ll determine the match-ups. Each artist will be responsible for writing a remix that uses their selected source and their opponent’s source. At the end of the round, remixes will be submitted and voted on. The team with the most victories will earn a large chunk of points. The team with the most points at the end of the competition wins. Submissions and File Name Rules Submission All entries must be sent to me (DarkeSword) via PM on the forums. Please include your team name, squad name, and the round number in the subject line of your PM. I encode all MP3s myself, so please send me your submissions in 16bit, 44.1KHz WAV format. Don’t send MP3s. Please do not use MediaFire, RapidShare, or any other ad-ridden public sharing site as a host for your entry. There are many better options you can and should be using to host your music. I recommend Dropbox or SoundCloud. Make sure your files are downloadable. File Names If you worked on the remix without the help of your teammates: Team Robots - DarkeSword - Be Cool, Man (Ice Man vs. Polar Knight).wav If one team member helps you with your entry in a significant way and you want to give them credit, add their name as follows: Team Robots - DarkeSword feat. Neblix - Be Cool, Man (Ice Man vs. Polar Knight).wav If more than one team members help you with your entry in a significant way and you want to give them credit, add their names as follows: Team Robots - DarkeSword feat. Neblix, Liontamer - Be Cool, Man (Ice Man vs. Polar Knight).wav Notes Make sure you’re using proper capitalization for team names and character names. Put spaces on both sides of the hyphens between Team Name, Artist, and Title. If your remix’s title has special punctuation that you can’t include in the file name (e.g. \ / : \* ? " < > |), please let me know in your submission PM so I can include the correct title in the tags. Please follow the file name format exactly; I use the file names to make sure that all the metadata is correct when I tag the MP3s. It’s a massive pain sitting there renaming, re-spacing, and reformatting so that everything works properly with mp3tag’s file-name-to-tag tools, and ultimately it means that when you all do it right, I can get the music up for voting way faster. Voting Rules and Guidelines Voting is conducted publicly in the Public Voting forum. Every week, a thread will be created for the most recently completed round of remixing. Because RvK has two different types of rounds (squad-vs-squad and boss battle), please make sure you read and follow the instructions in the voting thread. Things to keep in mind when voting: The most important thing to consider when voting is how well the remix incorporates and arranges both themes. Production and enjoyability should also be considered, but this is primarily an arrangement competition. Everyone is allowed (and encouraged) to vote, including competitors. Everyone must adhere to the Competitions Code of Conduct. FAQ This is pretty interesting, but why are you doing this instead of just another Tournament or Gauntlet? The philosophy behind RvK is to create an environment where more artists will be working together to help and learn from each other. I want to tap into the spirit of teamwork and collaboration in a bigger way this tournament. Rather than just having two friends working on tracks with you week to week, you’ll have eight other teammates that you can use as resources. What do you mean by resources? In the past, I’ve tried to limit the amount of collaboration allowed in competitions because I wanted to make sure that people were putting forth a concerted effort to grow as artists on their own. While we’ll still be adhering to the idea of a Primary Artist for each remix in RvK, some of the limitations will be relaxed. Artists will be able to get help from all 8 of their teammates. This includes production help, session instruments, and arrangement feedback. The Primary Artist will still be responsible for the bulk of the work that goes into a remix, but they’ll have a lot more help in getting that remix polished up. How many remixes do I have to write? You will be responsible for at least 3 remixes: 2 remixes from the squad-vs-squad battles, and 1 remix in the final battle. You may also be responsible for any of the boss battle remixes, but that will be up to your team. Why can’t we choose our own teams? I’m going to determine the teams based on skill level in order to ensure fairness across the board. I want both teams to have a healthy balance between novices and veterans. Do we get to pick team names or squad names? No. The two teams will be known as Team Robots and Team Knights. I will also be setting the squad names which will be revealed once we get the competition started. I really want to be on Team Robots/Team Knights! Can you put me on that team? I’ll consider your preference but I can’t guarantee anything. Notes Stardroid sprites used in Team Robot sigs were colorized by onyx801.

I don't think you have. I don't think you've done your best to present "the facts as stated"... Here's why: "I think the major problem here is that the trust of the site is so far beyond gone that nobody has a legitimate reason to believe any staff or owner of OCR is not profiting from this." - this is not a fact, this is a thought that starts off personal, but then you assert that NOBODY has reason to believe anything we're saying w/ regard to profit... which is not only NOT a fact, but is in the proximity of libel... "Disregarding the unethical and potentially illegal aspect of them profiting off of the music itself" - right, as stated, we aren't profiting. The funds are earmarked solely for site purposes. Continuing to call this profit is synonymous with claiming that ANY money OCR *ever* takes in would be profit as well, in which case... no more OCR. So not a presentation of fact... "I'm going to assume from now on that each staff member is making a fair amount of income from the site." - this is you doing your best to present facts? "Your content policy doesn't stretch to youtube usage." - not a statement of fact; your opinion. Hinges on the word "context" which I happen to think most people would have a pretty good idea of... "Your own policy prohibits you from doing what you did" - not a statement of fact, ditto as above. "Were sales of Super Cart not too good? That's unfortunate." - not a statement of fact, just kinda douchey. It's sold pretty well, FYI... this is you doing your best to present facts? "We need an audit, we need someone to go over the financials, and the horrors within need to be disclosed." - which horrors? The ones you have absolutely no evidence of? So that's doing your best to present "facts"? "I have more reason to believe the site will be dead in a year because the financials weren't properly held and OCR falls into legal hell, than anything else. There's more evidence of that." - now you're talking about "evidence" that we'll fall into "legal hell" because financials weren't "properly held." This is actually libel, FYI. I have no intent to act on it, but I believe it would qualify. You're literally claiming that evidence exists of fiscal wrongdoing. This is not only not presenting "facts as stated", it's a statement for which you could be legally held accountable. "since it was hidden from us for 2 months, there is no way I will ever support this regardless of an audit." - this isn't a statement of fact, it's just you doing a full reversal of your above call for an audit. You literally said "we need an audit!" and then "I won't support this regardless of an audit!" - this isn't presentation of fact, it's schizophrenic. "And probably the reason I didn't find it sooner is because I was banned for over a month due to questioning OTHER shady stuff that occurred and staff behavior from the past." - this is misleading. You were informed why you were banned. If you want us making all of that public on this thread, we can. It wasn't related to "shady stuff"... "You say nobody but OCR should worry about legal issues, but the content policy clearly pushes liability onto the remixer." - this is not a statement of fact, and is again misleading. We CANNOT indemnify the submitting artist because our license is non-exclusive - they could post it elsewhere, they could sell it for $10,000, who knows. We can't indemnify that, and we're making that clear. "This really isn't about me in any way though" - sure... So... just to be clear... all of that was you... doing your best... to present the facts as stated? Anyone wanna defend that claim, or is it as egregiously false as it seems to me, based on the above?

Hi all, This is Digital Coma, the "director" or organizer for this album. It's been more than a decade since I was last involved in OCR and Kong in Concert feels like a lifetime ago, but I thought I'd drop by and say a few words after all these years. It's pretty neat to see that KiC still has an audience almost 12 years on. Looking back, it's safe to say that I didn't always know what I was doing with what was to be the follow up to OCR's very first remix album. We did things on the fly, we struggled to put together a team, and there were plenty of mistakes made along the way. But what started out as a small summer side project with no lack of naysayers and haters ended up a surprisingly big hit, and in the end we had a solid homage album whose impact in the community I'm happy to see continues today. I won't say much more since I like that there's some legend surrounding how everything came together. But I do want to give thanks to everyone who's enjoyed the music over the years, and a special thanks to the remixers, djp, and OCR for making it all possible. Cheers, DC

Welcome to the Album Thread for Final Fantasy VIII: Collision Course. The concept for this album stretches back to 2010 where a tracklisting and title were chosen for what one would have dreamed would be a great Final Fantasy VIII album. With your help, I'm hoping to make that a reality. Right now is the recruitment phase, so if you are a posted ReMixer, feel free to make a claim -- first come, first served on any source. If you are not a posted ReMixer, you are still welcome to join the album roster if you can produce high quality mixes, or are capable of producing a high quality arrangement and structure, then delivering your stems for mixing/mastering. Please submit an audition. Mixing/Mastering would be handled by me for anyone who requests it. There is no genre restriction, however please give much consideration to preserving the spirit of the source. tldr: first come, first served for posted remixers other artists, please submit an audition! mixing/mastering available on request if it's an emotional piano source, I reserve the right to bounce back your gangsta dubstep screamo mix Also if you're going to claim something like The Extreme, keep in mind it's gotta be excelsior TRACKLIST ReMixer Works in Progress posted here First Half Liberi Fatali (claimed by HeavenWraith) Balamb Garden (claimed by Chernabogue, Tuberz McGee, Furilas) Blue Fields (claimed by Chris Porter) Don't Be Afraid (claimed by Tuberz McGee) Find Your Way (claimed by Wiesty) The Landing (claimed by Sagnewshreds) SeeD (claimed by Manji) Breezy (claimed by RiverSound) Force Your Way (claimed by Ivan Hakštok) Waltz For The Moon (claimed by XPRTNovice) The Man with the Machine Gun (claimed by Gario) Julia (claimed by Geoffrey Taucer) Roses and Wine (claimed by Brandon Strader) Junction (claimed by DjjD) The Mission (claimed by jnWake) Only A Plank Between One and Perdition (claimed by shadowpsyc) Slide Show Pt. 2 (claimed by bluelighter) The Stage is Set (claimed by Larsec) Movin' (claimed by fxsnowy) Martial Law (claimed by JJT) Succession of Witches (claimed by Vled Tapas ft. Lord Bif, Na'r't, Dolkins) A Sacrifice (claimed by Careless Juja) Premonition (claimed by DusK) Wounded (claimed by Jackson Alexander Parodi) Fragments of Memories (claimed by Jorito) Second Half Fithos Lusec Wecos Vinosec (claimed by Vled Tapas) Blue Sky (claimed by theshaggyfreak) Drifting (claimed by XPRTNovice) Galbadia Garden (claimed by Trev) Shuffle or Boogie (claimed by Hashel05, Deiselc1) Heresy (claimed by Random Encounter) Fisherman's Horizon (claimed by djpretzel) Dance with the Balamb Fish (claimed by Sebastien Skaf) The Oath (claimed by audio fidelity) The Spy and Under Her Control (claimed by OC Jazz Collective) Trust Me (claimed by Brandon Strader) Silence and Motion (claimed by ZykO) Eyes On Me (claimed by Jivemaster) Where I Belong (claimed by Cyril the Wolf) Mods de Chocobo (claimed by Hat) Ride On Lunatic Pandora (claimed by Hipnotyk) Compression of Time (claimed by ZykO) The Castle (claimed by Fishy) Maybe I'm A Lion (claimed by Amphibious) The Extreme (claimed by Jason Covenant) Overture (claimed by Derek Oren, Jeremy Robson) Wanna claim something not listed? Do it! Once the recruitment phase is well underway and the roster is filling out, details on WIP dates and other plans will be made clear. Hoping to finish by 2018. Announced January 28th, 2016 Directed by Brandon Strader with personal consultant BONKERS

Friends, I have awesome news. At long last... after five years of talking about it... American Pixels is here. The project has just landed on Kickstarter for the final push, this 4th of July in the year of our Lord 2016. https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1265656914/american-pixels-a-game-music-tribute-album-by-maze This has been a labor of love, blood, sweat, and tears... and damn the music came out awesome, if I do say so myself. Now I just need that last little nudge to cover the cost of mastering, licensing, CD duplication, etc. Any and all help from the OCR crew to spread the word would be vastly appreciated; let's make this thing EPIC together!

When posting a new topic, ou can choose one of the four preset prefixes. The default prefix is 1. work-in-progress. As you get feedback and develop your track, change the prefix accordingly to indicate the status of your track. This helps the evaluation team keep tabs on your track. Here are the prefixes and what they mean: work-in-progress Your track is a work-in-progress and you need feedback from the community. This is the default prefix. ready for review Change your prefix to this when you want a workshop evaluator to give your track an official look. Once they provide you with feedback, they'll change your track back to 1. work-in-progress. completed Change your prefix to this when you feel you're done with your track. submitted Change your prefix to this once you have submitted your completed track to the Judges Panel. As you can see we've numbered the prefixes to help you iterate through the process, but if you want to jump ahead and just post a completed track that doesn't require review, you can do that with the appropriate prefix as well.

e.g. http://ocremix.org/artist/4628/zircon Uses Bootstrap 3 More visual layout YouTube playlists! Emphasis on artist links is front and center, including support links for patreon, oc records, etc. Definitely a work-in-progress, but since it was better than what we HAD, we're going live now and will iterate Other pages will be updated to kinda-sorta match, as time allows This pushes us further towards an overall site redesign by getting pages laid out in Bootstrap, semi-responsive, etc. in a piecemeal fashion Feedback welcome

I have to call this out. What total bullshit this statement is. You started this, which ultimately I think was a good thing because it got the ball rolling on some good things, but you set the angry and accusatory tone right from post #1 and maintained it for 14 pages of thread. We are all getting too old for this. Are you even serious? Dave began providing solid, undeniable answers right from the start. You continued screaming. They are pissed at you because you made incredibly insulting and darn-near libel-worthy accusations claiming you had actual evidence. You dragged OCR and Dave specifically through the mud, and not just here. Whatever. You need to clean up your act in a very big way. You had Dave on the border of insanity yesterday and I'm REALLY not ok with that. I'm sorry but this just needs to be said.

Alright, I think I'm caught up on the thread. I want to respond to the above comment from @Garde first because I've already apologized, and while apologies are nice, the simple fact that I made one at all DOES indicate that I agree that this could potentially have been handled better... ideally, our "experiment" would have been shorter, and we would have stuck with the original plan to make an announcement after the first week, kick off a discussion, and time that to coincide with 501c3 filing status and/or updated artist pages, where we hope to emphasize artist promotion more. Filing for 501c3 means having at least SOME of your ducks in a row, and while @Chimpazilla put some materials together that I've reviewed, most of my OCR time these days is consumed with posting mixes, coordinating albums, and trying to work on several different projects to improve the site, all at the same time. I'm not going to lie, being a father of two has affected the time I can devote to OCR, but I'm still doing everything I can. We were always intending to discuss this with artists BEFORE enabling the back catalog, and I want to emphasize this... the number of videos on our channel with ads enabled right now is less than half a percent of the total videos. That's not an explanation for not telling anyone about the experiment (which is more about observing the effects in a normal context), but it does hopefully support & make clear that our intention was to wait for this conversation to take place BEFORE enabling 99.5% of the rest of the videos. It might FEEL like back-pedaling... I get that, I do... but if you think about this point, and actually believe we were never going to tell anyone, then why have we NOT yet enabled ads on 99.5% of the videos? Okay, I did want to clear that up, because at least on the surface it's a legit point. Now, the current concerns seem to break down along these lines, with the following explanations: This isn't right, because OCR staff shouldn't make money off the mixes. We don't; our 2007 content policy stipulates how funds will be used (site operation and promotion), and banner ads have been in place for over a decade. Artists should have been informed prior to ANY videos being enabled with ads. We apologize for this being a surprise, but we DID want to observe the impact of ads for a small percentage of mixes in a neutral setting before discussing this with artists and then, eventually, enable it for 99.5% of the rest of the videos... we also wanted to time that discussion/announcement with 501c3 filing, which in retrospect has delayed things for too long. YouTube ads are different from website ads because they feel different, play before the actual music, are embedded, etc. A video ad IS different from a website ad in terms of the medium, but the end result is often the same. Having to "skip" an ad CAN feel more intrusive - which is exactly why we wanted to monitor the impact with a "test batch"...our observations have been that very few noticed or were adversely affected by this change. It's worth noting that we do not enable "unskippable" ads, and NEVER will. They are Satan. We've also never enabled certain types of website ads that are more obnoxious - "pop-unders" and full-page timed skippable things.... uhh, because we hate them. YouTube ads aren't covered by the current content policy, or it's not clear. When we worked with artists back in 2007 on our content policy, we very intentionally tried to make it "future-proof" by using flexible language, where it made sense. Regarding ads, we used the phrase "advertisements presented in the context of submitted material" - I personally feel that is clear enough to convey that we were NOT just talking about banner ads on websites, that it meant ads could be presented before, after, alongside mixes in a video, on a stream, or on whatever technology the future throws our way - VR, 3D, augmented reality, whatever. Who wants a policy that's out of date every time a new & relevant technology comes out? Nevertheless, it has been proposed that the content policy should be modified to clarify this point. This would not be a modification of substance/meaning, simply one of enhancing the clarity with real-world examples. I think this could definitely make sense. YouTube ads expose OCR and/or artists to additional legal risk. First off, you should know that I've poured tens of thousands hours into OCR and will thus always seek to protect it. I do appreciate the concern, but I don't appreciate the idea that I would somehow intentionally pursue a reckless course of action just to enhance revenue potential to support site operations. As @zircon has repeatedly indicated, YouTube makes it very easy for IP owners to assert their rights without going through traditional legal channels, and this happens quite often. OCR should be more transparent about how it handles its finances. The best thing we can do right now is get the 501c3 ball rolling. As many have pointed out, a 501c3 organization can still be corrupt, can still compensate its employees, etc. - simply having this status doesn't mean we couldn't be the evil, maniacally deceptive people that @Brandon Strader suspects But it's a good faith step in the right direction, it will involve something kinda-sorta like an audit to attain, and it will lay a foundation for decoupling OCR from, well.... me. Right now we're a sole proprietorship LLC, and while all OCR funds are kept in separate accounts, those are still MY accounts, and it all ends up on MY taxes. Attaining this status may actually be rather expensive for us, so when people ask what on earth we could possibly need a budget surplus for, this type of thing is a great example. It's also worth mentioning that while most of the cost is upfront, there is also a cost associated with MAINTAINING 501c3 status from year to year. I think that covers everything. If people feel the above six points are incomplete, I'll be updating this post with anything additional that isn't covered.

I'm happy to announce a couple of staffing changes here at OCR. First up, I wanna welcome @Hemophiliac to our Judges Panel! Hemo's been putting in the work for the last few years as one of our Workshop Evaluators, and has also stepped up in the past few months to handle a lot of the visualizers for the remixes you see on our YouTube channel. He's an active presence in our community and has a lot of helpful advice in the Workshop. We're glad to add him to the panel. Look forward to getting some fresh new NO votes on your tracks! Speaking of Workshop Evaluators, a few months ago we retired our Ready for Review process in the Workshop because we felt that it was a cumbersome extra layer of evaluation prior to submitting to the Judge's Panel. Our Evaluators did a lot of great work over the years but we're retiring that role. In it's place, we're introducing our new team called Sages! Sages are active artists in our community who'll be in the Workshop giving feedback on remixes, posting tutorials, and coming up with their own ways to revitalize and energize the Workshop. Our three new Sages are @Xaleph, @pixelseph, and @paradiddlesjosh! We're glad to have some fresh faces on staff, and I'm personally looking forward to seeing what these folks have in store for us. -- DarkeSword

Happy New Year, everyone! Just wanted to check-in and let you all know that we've got a new submissions process for remixes. Since the inception of the site, we've been asking you to host your file somewhere and send us an email with a bunch of information about your remix. This has lead to a lot of headaches on both your end and our end, but now we're finally moving forward with a more modern method. Introducing the new Submissions Tracking page! We've used our forum software to build out a custom form where you can upload your track directly to us. This post will get a status and linked to a decision thread, and it also features a comments section where judges can communicate with you about issues with your remix. Submissions are private, so only you and the judges can see them. In the coming months we'll be retiring the old email method of submitting remixes with an auto-response that'll direct folks towards the new system. This new form, combined with our recently revamped Currently in the Judging Process dashboard, will help you keep tabs on your submissions. A big shout out to all of the ReMixers and Judges who helped me test out this new system. I've had ideas for years for turning our submissions and judging workflows into a fully integrated piece of software, and while the limitations of our forum software prevent us from hitting that goal 100%, this is a huge step in the right direction. I'm looking forward to hearing what you all are going to send us. — DarkeSword

I don`t know exactly what I want to say, and none of this is planed out, but I think its wild this place is still around. For one reason or another Ill check the remixes and get a wave of "the good old days" and not just from the music but this community, Which Ill admit, I was not super active, but from the time when I first came across it, I think maybe a TechTv show sent me this way? Its wild people are still mixing Aquatic ambiance, and it still puts a smile on my face. I remember the first album I watched get released was Kong In Concert, I burned it to a disc (mp3 cd players were so cool) and would listen to it in Algebra 1, perhaps its why took algebra one twice. I always wanted to be musical I would love to be able to contribute in that way. Thank you to everyone that still makes music for this community even If it gets said once or thousands of time it's very appreciated.

Well ladies and gents, it's the time of year again. The time when a group of ragtag remixers comes together and makes a Christmas album for everyone to freely grab and (hopefully) enjoy. This year, we're offering up 14 remixes of both traditional Christmas carols and video game songs, all done up to give that holiday vibe to everyone. So feel free to hop on over to the website and grab yourself a copy of An OverClocked Christmas v.XV. A big thanks goes out to Dyne for once again hosting the album, and to those who made the mixes this year. And of course, Merry Christmas from all of us involved in this project! https://williammichael.info/aocc/

It's time for BadAss to return! David L. Puga and I return to direct BadAss: Paragons and Renegades (title may change). But this isn't your "regular" BadAss; this time the heroes get the spotlight! From the grittiest anti-heroes to the most determined heroes, it's time for the protagonists to show us what they've got! The album itself will have genre restrictions like previous BadAss albums, but with a twist: there's one 'Paragons' disc (mainly directed by me) and one 'Renegades' disc (mainly directed by David), each with a different genre. So let's see who wins while still being a BadAss doing it! The Paragon disc is about adventure, determination and courage. Think of the Chrono Trigger theme, "Flameheart"by Two Steps From Hell (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQMpRWuT6hk), and the 'X-Training' theme from X-Men First Class (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BUCA6w0Zz-k) but it is certainly not limited by orchestral. Rock themes like the 80s/90s cartoons and shows (Biker Mice from Mars, Power Rangers or Airwolf) are also good examples and electronic music is certainly appreciated as well! Base line: getting you pumped up and ready for adventure! Make sure to send me an example of the vibe you're going for to check if it fits the album! The Renegade disc is more "regular" BadAss style, especially BadAss II. In other words, not the big epic or symphonic rock from BadAss 3 (which is perhaps better suited for the Paragon disc), but raw and gritty is the name of the game and rock and dark electronic music will be the go-to style here. We want to show the world that protagonists can be at least as BadAss as the bosses, so let their inner darkness out on this side of the album! For references (and awesome music), check out BadAss 2. Be sure to check in with David if you want to make a mix for this disc! More details will follow, but we're aiming for about 20 tracks (balanced between the discs) and we want to complete this in about a year (BadAss 3 took 14 months to be sent to eval, so let's see if we can do it in 12 this time around!). And suffice to say, only (anti-)hero themes are eligible this time around! Are you going to be part of the next BadAss album? Let's see if you've got what it takes! Directors: David L. Puga (The Joker) Pavos Audio Engineer: Stevo Bortz (Level99) Tracklist (18): Paragon (9): "The Hidden Ones (Assassin's Creed 2 & Origins - Ezio & Bayek)" by Pavos "Time Warrior (Chrono Trigger - Crono)" by Sam Dillard "Chariot of the Moon (Final Fantasy 4 - Cecil)" by Rebecca E Tripp "Revenge on the Terror From The Deep (Chrono Trigger - Magus)" by Audio Mocha & Pandora's Bread "Human After All (Sundered - Eshe)" by David L. Puga, XPRTNovice "Part of Me (Celeste - Madeline)" by HeyMagurany "Whip of Justice (Castlevania 4 - Simon Belmont)" by HoboKa, sykozealot "Apex Predator (Metroid Series - Samus)" by Chernabogue "Spirit of the Sword (Zelda Skyward Sword - Fi)" by McVaffe Renegade (9): "Devils Lament (DooM Series - Doom Slayer)" by Lashmush "Fire Cleanses All (Gargoyle's Quest - Firebrand)" by Mak Eightman "Blood is Everywhere (Blood - Caleb)" by Clem "Eternal Shadow (DMC5 - Nero)" by Steele "Bassbag (Duke Nukem 3D - Duke Nukem)" by bLiNd "Righteous Ragemaster Rocketship Rampage (ToeJam and Earl - Toejam and Earl)" by Garpocalypse, Willrock "The Butcher of Bavikin (Witcher 3 - Geralt)" by Gunderslam "City of Lost Things (Earthworm Jim - Earthworm Jim)" by Justin Lassen "And Hell Followed Him (Darksiders 2 - Death)" by David L. Puga, Mak Eightman

Just chiming in - no matter what Soule did, this game's soundtrack is a part of many folks' childhoods, and nothing changes that. However, deciding to participate in this project is one of those topics where, personally, I don't think there's a right or wrong answer. I've explained my personal reasoning, and how I conceive of art in the abstract, but I'm not offended if anyone finds it unpersuasive/disagrees. Key thing is that no one gets judged, either way, for their decision on this, or attempts to equate others' decisions to participate with a tacit endorsement of the behavior in question.

About Rise again, Robot Masters! The year is 2018, and the battle for musical supremacy returns! Bring your phattest beats, your wailingest guitars, and other superlatively described musical elements! Current News Round 7 is over. The matchups were as follows: Remixer and Source VS Remixer and Source Arceace - Air Man vs Garpocalypse - Tengu Man Voting is live and will last until November 14, 2018. Past Rounds Music downloads for past rounds are available in voting threads. A tournament archive will be provided at the conclusion of the competition. Round 1 - Mega Man Bracket Round 2 - Proto Man Bracket Round 3 - Mega Man Bracket Round 4 & 5 Round 6 - Proto Man Bracket Round 7 - Grand Final Eliminated Competitors Eliminated competitors are welcome to challenge other eliminated competitors to friendly matches during any mixing stage. I will encode, tag, and host any friendly matches and provide voting along with tournament entries. Remixer and Source AxLR - Metal Man Ronald Poe - Cut Man pixelchips - Tornado Man Supercoolmike - Shade Man Realme - Wind Man Gario - Cloud Man Trism - Top Man Starphoenix - Grenade Man SuperiorX - Ground Man Ridiculously Garret - Crash Man Chalis - Flash Man PlanarianHugger - Freeze Man Mak Eightman - Fire Man Jamphibious - Charge Man Submission Instructions Submission All entries must be sent to me (DarkeSword) via PM on the forums. Please include the round number in the subject line of your PM. I encode all MP3s myself, so please send me your submissions in 16bit, 44.1KHz WAV format. Don’t send MP3s. Please do not use MediaFire, RapidShare, or any other ad-ridden public sharing site as a host for your entry. There are many better options you can and should be using to host your music. I recommend Dropbox or SoundCloud. Make sure your files are downloadable. File Names Filenames must be in the following format: Your Artist Name - Your Remix Title (Your Robot Master vs. Opponent's Robot Master).wav For example: DarkeSword - Be Cool, Man (Ice Man vs. Blizzard Man).wav Notes Make sure you’re using proper capitalization for Robot Master names. Put spaces on both sides of the hyphen the Artist and the Title. If your remix’s title has special punctuation that you can’t include in the file name (e.g. \ / : \* ? " < > |), please let me know in your submission PM so I can include the correct title in the tags. Robot Master names have a space between the element and Man; e.g. it’s Ice Man, not Iceman. There should be a period (.) after vs. Please follow the file name format exactly; I use the file names to make sure that all the metadata is correct when I tag the MP3s. It’s a massive pain sitting there renaming, re-spacing, and reformatting so that everything works properly with mp3tag’s file-name-to-tag tools, and ultimately it means that when you all do it right, I can get the music up for voting way faster. Voting Rules and Guidelines Voting is conducted publicly in the Public Voting forum. Every week, a thread will be created for the most recently completed round of remixing. Things to keep in mind when voting: The most important thing to consider when voting is how well the remix incorporates and arranges both themes. Production and enjoyability should also be considered, but this is primarily an arrangement competition. Everyone is allowed (and encouraged) to vote, including competitors. Everyone must adhere to the Competitions Code of Conduct. How Does it Work? Theme Selection Choose three Robot Master themes from any of the following classic Mega Man games: Mega Man 1-6 (NES) Mega Man 7 (SNES) Mega Man 8 (PSX/Saturn) Mega Man 9-10 (PSN/XBL) Mega Man V (GB) (This game has Stardroids instead of Robot Masters, but that’s okay) Mega Man & Bass (SNES/GBA) Post your list of three in order of preference. A draft will be run to determine your Robot Master theme assignment. This is the theme you’ll be remixing as you progress through the tournament. The Tournament The GRMRB is a single-elimination style tournament, with scrambled match-ups every round. The tournament will have 3-4 rounds (depending on participation). Each round is divided into two stages: the Mixing Stage and the Voting Stage. At the start of the Mixing Stage, you’re matched with an opponent. You and your opponent have one week to write, produce, and submit your own respective remixes that arrange both of your Robot Master themes. Once the week is up, all remixes are submitted to the Competition Organizer (i.e. me). This is the end of the Mixing Stage. At the start of the Voting Stage, the remixes are uploaded and made available for voters to download. Voters will listen to the music, and decide which remix in each pair “wins the battle.” As the GRMRB is an arrangement competition, the primary criteria voters should look at is how well the remixes incorporate both themes. Production quality and enjoyability should also be considered. After a week of voting, votes are tabulated and the winners of each remix battle are declared. These winners are scrambled and new match-ups are posted for the next Mixing Stage. Defeated competitors are welcome to challenge other defeated competitors to “friendly” matches while the tournament progresses. These matches won’t affect the outcome of the tournament and won’t be tracked in any kind of bracket, but I will collect, upload, and provide voting polls for friendlies. The tournament will continue until one remixer remains. That remixer will be crowned the Grand Robot Master Remixer.

It is submitted.

Hey all; just wanted to share some pretty cool news, for everyone here who didn't see the buzz on Facebook. This past Friday, my hometown of Syracuse held their annual "Syracuse Area Music Awards," also known as the SAMMYS. Local artists were celebrated per albums released during the previous year. Considering my remix project of American Pixels was launched last January, and I crafted it in Syracuse, I was nominated. I'm blessed to be able to announce that I actually won the award for "Best Electronica," and was able to use the platform to showcase the world of video game remixing (and game music in general) to a whole new audience! It was awesome to be honored where I grew up, but it was doubly cool to take game music to a place that typically focuses on rock, jazz, and folk, ya know? It was a fun night.

Not sure if this tidbit of advice will help, but here's how I finished American Pixels. That was a 5+ year project, tons of excitement at the front-end, and then it turned into... work. And here's the problem, I have a family and a full-time job, so I kept hitting the snag where I'd work all day, spend time with the family, have a pocket of free time at night, and then... not have any energy left. That, or there'd be this sense of "yay, I have time to work on music... and oh no, I feel obligated to work on that project and I'm really not in the mood..." So, that happened over and over, and occasionally I'd have a magic day off (holiday, whatever) where I'd get a wonderful 4 hours in a row to myself... and during those moments, I could tap into the creative juices and get it going again... but man, those little magical windows were rare. Like, once every few months rare. It got really frustrating seeing an album inch to completion in those sporadic bursts. The answer for me: wake up earlier. I'd set my alarm for 4:30am, be in my studio by 5am, and get in a solid hour, hour and a half every morning. My brain wasn't yet tired from the day job, I was rested and fresh, and the stuff that seemed like work before now seemed fun again. And, it actually helped my happiness level, so even though I was sleepy, I was giddy at work considering the progress I made in the early morning hours. And then I just had to ride and chase that feeling until things were done. It was tough to get started, but then it became strangely addicting.

Sup OCR! Journey to the Centre of the World is my second full length original album, and is available for download at Bandcamp! Journey to the Centre of the World is a 10 track album, which i've been working on for the past 2-3 years. The album is a big fat 80's inspired Chiptune/Rock fusion. It has authentic chiptunes, less authentic chiptunes, and big fat 80s production with operatic singing and crazy synth/guitar solos! And it's FREE!!! https://willrock1.bandcamp.com/album/journey-to-the-centre-of-the-world Track 1 features the Vocal Talents of Valentino Francavilla (Best known as the vocalist of ShockFront) and the famitracker chops of @DaMonz and the album also features a Remix by OCRs @DDRKirby(ISQ)! You can download it on Bandcamp, or on overclocked records for the small price of free, but every donation helps me support myself and continue to make great music! If you end up enjoying the music, please consider paying what you think is a fair price for the download Thanks guys! REALLY hope you enjoy this one, a lot of effort went into it!

Welcome to our brand new, upgraded forums! After many years, we've made the switch from vBulletin to Invision Power Board. This is a huge deal, as it's going to allow us to finally move forward and do a lot of things we've been planning to do with the site. As with any big changes, there will be some growing pains. You're going to have to get used to how the new forums work and there are probably going to be some things that we might have missed, or functionality that's different and weird. We're all in the same boat here and we're going to try to figure it all out together. Please use this thread for reporting any issues you come across with the new forum software. If there are things you were able to do that you can't do now, those issue reports are of particular use to us right now. While we certainly welcome them, any opinions about aesthetics are probably not going to be high priority for us right now. We want to focus on functionality. One thing you should all do is head over to your Settings page and make sure everything is set to your liking. There are a lot of default settings with this new software that you might want to change, such as notifications and email settings. Forum avatars were also not carried over from the old boards. You're now able upload your own user photo which functions as your avatar across the site. These user photos are subject to the same general guidelines that you have to follow with your sigs, which means nothing inappropriate, i.e. porn, violent, gross, etc. Please also note that any thread subscriptions you had in vBulletin have not been carried over to Invision. If you were relying on thread subscriptions to keep track of certain things like WIP threads, you need to resubscribe. Thanks to everyone for being patient with us while we adapt to the new forums, and a special thanks to our Patreon backers for making this possible. We'll be upgrading again to IPB 4.x sometime this year as well, which means even more new features. Have fun guys! __ Issues we know about that will remain unresolved for the time being: Reverse-Chronological Post Order (newest post first) is not supported out of the box with Invision. Discussions on Invision's site indicate no options available on the per-user level that enables this. We'll keep an eye out for plugins in the future that provide this functionality, but I recommend getting used to first-post-first.

This particular saga is ended; Brandon has requested removal of his mixes from OCR, and we have decided that it makes sense, given his continued reluctance to admit any wrongdoing and continued insistence that we are in some way at fault / corrupt / whatever. Put frankly, I don't trust him, I don't believe he learned anything from any of this, and I believe he'd just do it all over again in a heartbeat the next time something came up that he didn't like, didn't understand, misinterpreted, etc. As much of a fan as I am of the music he personally has released via OCR, which we have stood behind, and the albums he has coordinated... if I'm taking time away from my daughters to work on OCR, it has to be for the music, for the site, and for the community, not for the twisted ego & paranoia of a single artist intent on stirring up drama, baiting people, making unfounded accusations, etc. I am willing to endure quite a bit for the betterment of OCR, and I realize that not ALL of the tasks that I'm responsible for are going to be fun, or enjoyable, or without controversy, but I cannot be expected to indefinitely babysit the fragile ego/psyche of someone who continuously makes bad faith accusations without evidence and sees no fault in his own actions, not to mention a LONG history of claims of harassment by other community members, abusive behavior on the forums, etc. We will be mailing FF3 artists as well as collaborators who have worked with Brandon on posted mixes, as those will remain on the site unless a consensus decision to remove is reached by all parties. Existing published albums are unaffected by this process. It's sad, but my goodness... I can't be expected to have unlimited patience and tolerance, nor can our staff. Long time coming. Time to move on.

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:

In the interest of making the forums easier to sign up for and more accessible to everyone, we've made some changes to registration. In the past, we've had it so that new accounts had to be manually vetted and activated; this was to avoid spam accounts and the like. This worked, but a side-effect was that new members couldn't engage in the community immediately and would become discouraged from participating. To move forward, we've done the following things: Updated our manual registration form to use the latest reCAPTCHA. This is to help fight spam accounts. Removed administrator approval from the registration process. New members will be able to post immediately following email verification. Enabled new members to register using their social media accounts. New members can now use Twitter, Facebook, and Google+ to register. If you're already registered for the forums, you can link your existing forum account to any/all of your social media accounts by going to your Account Settings and clicking the relevant links. Once you do so, you'll be able to use your social media account to sign-in, as opposed to a traditional username/password sign-in. If you have any friends who are interested in OC ReMix but haven't joined the forums, get 'em over here and get 'em involved! Between album projects, competitions, and gaming discussions, there's a lot to do here. If you run into any registration or account linking issues, please let us know right here in this thread. Thanks!

DaMonz, Sir_NutS, and Gario! We also have a NEW Workshop evaluator, Amphibious, giving WIP feedback & advice! As I like to say, welcome them aboard, and/or express your anger and skepticism!

Thanks to feedback from @Daniel Caton (thanks) & OCR staff, we've made some substantial improvements to the workshop skills pages, e.g.: http://ocremix.org/workshop/skill/studio-one http://ocremix.org/workshop/skill/vocals-female http://ocremix.org/workshop/skill/french-horn Changes are as follows: Switched to bootstrap tables Switched to font-awesome icons "join date" is now "joined" and is just the year "last visited" is now "visited" "real name" moved under user name user name larger "real name" column replaced with "skills / tools" column, including DAW & instrumental Secondary sort added on visited (sorts by collab status first, then visited date, DESC) Made additional instrument links clickable Made DAW links clickable icons The last four items are bold since I think they represent the biggest improvement - now, when looking at members who have specified one skill, you can see the other skills they have specified as well, and you can click on those skills to jump around a bit. Plus fancypants DAW icons. And the sorting based on last visited (most recent first) gives you a good idea of who's more likely to be around/available. Feedback appreciated, although this was kind of a "burst" of energy for these specific pages, knowing full well I might not get back to updating them for awhile given more pressing concerns GET COLLABORATIN' Y'ALL!!

Please keep in mind that right now, the draft, the submissions gathering, the encoding, tagging, and uploading; the voting, vote collection, and tallying; it's all done manually by either you guys or by me. There's very little that's automated about this process for gauntlets, and it's why scoring hasn't gone up yet (I have spreadsheets to help me tally but it's still some manual labor on my part to get everything in there). In my spare time, I'm working on a database-driven web application that will help me manage and automate practically everything having to do with the competitions I personally run on OCR. This is a large-scale, complicated software development project and I'm still in the data design phase of the whole thing. These kinds of ideas can certainly be incorporated into that, but it's a long ways off. I don't anticipate this application being done any time soon. It's also worth noting that the more complicated you make the voting process, the less likely people are to vote at all. VGMix had a lot of these problems with their review system. They attached scores and weights to reviews (through meta-ratings on reviews) which ended up intimidating people from participating, which led to a total crash of the entire system. Building the kind of things you're asking for into the current competition's scoring system is pie-in-the-sky; it sounds great and I understand the intent, but to be honest it's needlessly complicated for the purposes of this competition. If you're interested in detailed feedback about your track, please feel free to ask for specific feedback either here or in the Workshop forum. Nonetheless, I appreciate the comments and aware that feedback can be an issue. Perhaps next Gauntlet we do (rest assured, we will be doing one next year), we can have a one-week break in between blocks where people can be encouraged to review and dissect tracks from the previous three rounds. Maybe setting up a separate review thread per round could also be beneficial next time. On a related note, this December 18th will be 6 year anniversary of the first Grand Robot Master Remix Battle, which is the first of the large scale choose-your-theme competitions that everyone has enjoyed so much over the years. I'm happy to say that I've seen so many awesome artists who've either gotten started or gotten better by competing in these large scale events, many of them honing their skills to the point of going pro and making careers out of music. I'm not pretending to take any credit for any of that, but I will say that I'm proud of everyone that's given the compos a shot and have managed to push their skills higher and higher.

Yeah, I'm a little tied up see you in two weeks, hopefully!

This thing again? Yep. Another year, another album of various songs done up in a Christmasy style in multiple genres. There are 15 remixes for you enjoy this holiday season, making for just under an hour of tunage. And on behalf of everyone involved, thanks for listening and Merry Christmas. https://williammichael.info/aocc/

With the go ahead from @djpretzel, I waited until their OCRemix Panel was complete this past Saturday at MAGFest where they would premiere this exclusive preview of this album: Arcadia Legends! Now that the MAGFest panel is over, it is time to unveil the trailer to the rest of you who didn't make it to MAGFest this year! Hopefully you all enjoy the sneak peek soundbytes in this trailer and get hyped. For those who were on the fence of contributing to it, guess what? We still got a few more tracks left to claim! By all means, shoot us a note and we can get things started! We're almost to the end! Kudos to my co-director Modus for building off the base trailer I had created and making a fantastic version of it!

Hey ocremix pals. Just wanted to let you know I'll be playing SNL this week with my new gig, Father John Misty. Check it out. I'll be the guy on piano. http://jammcard.com/jon-titterington-books-father-john-misty-gig-playing-snl-and-coachella/

Tangledeep is now on Kickstarter! We're raising money for extra animation polish like walking & attacking animations, plus special guest composers like Hiroki Kikuta (Secret of Mana / Seiken Densetsu 3) who is already onboard!!! If you want to get access to pre-release builds after April, get the digital soundtrack, Steam key, or immortalize yourself in the game, check out the campaign! WHAT'S TANGLEDEEP It's a 16-bit, FF/Square-inspired dungeon crawler. A true roguelike that takes inspiration from classic western games and JRPGs alike. Tactical turn-based combat, procedural generation, deep customization, lots and lots of loot, and monsters to battle. I've been working on this for over a year now and I'm about 40% done - your feedback is appreciated! The game is playable on Mac and PC right now, but eventually will be on Linux and possibly consoles/mobile too. I'm doing all the code & design for the game (along with music, of course) while @OA is doing beautiful UI, environments and tiles, and a couple other artists doing characters, battle FX, and items. We're hoping to release the game by the end of the year! As of now, though the game is definitely shaping up, it's still pre-alpha with some placeholder art and lots of content yet to be made (and balancing to be done). Tangledeep Discord: https://discord.gg/4q5kjUm Bug Tracker: http://git.impactsoundworks.com:617/isworks-andrew/tangledeep/issues Twitter Dev: http://twitter.com/tangledeepgame Full Dev / Change Log: https://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=57600.0 WIN: http://tangledeep.com/builds/Tangledeep-LatestWinBuild.rar OSX: http://tangledeep.com/builds/Tangledeep-LatestOSXBuild.zip Today we have a wide spread of new art, polish, bug fixes, balance tweaks, and content. The biggest game experience changes are that you now start in the town, and you now have a permanent 'town portal' item that can be used anytime to return to town. You can then take a portal back to where you were. We're also experimenting with walking sprites - starting with the Hunter - which look pretty amazing, in my opinion! The current cast of characters, monsters and NPCs. Some new art + palette improvements here! A snapshot of the world as it looks now. Improved grass, trees, better lighting, better fog of war. Walking animation!?

First things first, I'd like to thank everyone who's come forward with their support for the site & staff, in spite of the toxic way this has been introduced by non-staff and the accusations that have accompanied it. It means a lot. As the father of two amazing daughters, the only way I can justify spending time on OCR and not with them is when I'm doing work that speaks to me, releasing kick-ass mixes & albums, and making the site & community stronger behind the scenes. This isn't that... this is dealing with a small contingent spreading bad faith accusations, paranoia, misunderstandings, and in some cases belligerence. As an adult, I realize that leadership DOES involve dealing with those types of things as well, but as a father of young children it is VERY hard to use my limited free time for this... If you've been reading closely, you'll recall that our limited "trial run" of video ads was an experiment to see how intrusive the ads were and whether they would noticeably impact the user experience. We have indicated that our intention was to contact artists and hash this out once we had gotten the ball rolling on 501c3 status, and now it also seems like a revision to the content policy makes sense as well. It's been a long, unnecessarily stressful conversation, but ultimately tomorrow we're going to post a mix & continue operations... So what will that look like? Our experiment is now effectively ended as we can no longer observe the impact of ads in a neutral setting. We will not be enabling ads on additional videos UNTIL we can: Submit a filing for 501c3 status AND obtain this status, or reorganize into something more appropriate than a sole-proprietorship LLC. Modify the content policy with agreeably clear language. Present this change to artists and solicit feedback in a more civil setting, without toxic misinformation and accusations disrupting that dialogue. We will proceed with removing ads from videos posted since June 13th. Exceptions will include any videos from artists who explicitly indicate they're cool with the ads staying, even prior to the above steps being taken. We would like to continue gathering analytics/metrics and seeing how everything works as we proceed with 501c3, etc., so this WILL be helpful to us. This removal will take a bit because to our knowledge, there's no batch mechanism for changing these settings, it has to be done one-by-one. Not awful, just a little monotonous. (UPDATED: Done!!) If you wanna help us get some more data in the meantime & have ads enabled on your videos, please let us know... as I said, we could use the additional insight. So yes, this is still a thing & it's still happening - assuming the three steps outlined above can be completed and that artist feedback points us in this direction - but for now, thank goodness, we can take a break and wait until our ducks are in a row, we've made an historic step towards 501c3 status, we've updated the content policy to make things clearer, and we've had a more informed & productive conversation.

Youtube ads aren't nearly as intrusive as shitty forum signatures.

Hi everyone...this is Aubrey Hodges and I am the original composer for several Quest for Glory titles as well as many others over the last 3 decades. I have recently released the soundtrack for Quest for Glory: Shadows of Darkness http://aubreyhodges.bandcamp.com/album/quest-for-glory-shadows-of-darkness-official-soundtrack and thought it may be of interest to this site. I would be willing to provide a few of the newly recorded and arranged versions if that is something you would appreciate. I am not really sure if the original composers are supposed to be involved in the site or the remixes as I am new to ocremix. (I found out from a fan who sent me a link to the forum). Almost all of the new versions of the songs included are played with live instruments and are now what I had envisioned when I composed them originally. I do plan to release 3 more of my Sierra titles as well: Freddy Pharkas Frontier Pharmacist, Shadows of Yserbius (working on currently), and Robin Hood: Conquests of the Longbow. I have also release a 20th Anniversary Edition of my Doom Playstation Soundtrack that includes a ton of new material, longer tracks with new arrangements and 8 brand new bonus tracks. http://aubreyhodges.bandcamp.com/album/doom-playstation-official-soundtrack-20th-anniversary-extended-edition I sent a message to one of the staff but have not heard back yet. With the deadline approaching so quickly I thought I should post here to try and get an idea of whether or not I should provide a few tracks for this and if so, how exactly to provide them. Thanks for your help and thanks so much for your appreciate and support of game composers! -Aubrey Hodges aubreyhodges.com (info, blog etc.) http://www.aubreyhodges.bandcamp.com (album streaming, sales)

OC ReMix presents Final Fantasy V: The Fabled Warriors ~II. WATER~!! April 25, 2016 Contact: press@ocremix.org FAIRFAX, VA... OverClocked ReMix today released its 57th community arrangement album, Final Fantasy V: The Fabled Warriors ~II. WATER~. The album consists of nine arrangements of composer Nobuo Uematsu's original score to the 1992 Super Nintendo game, Final Fantasy V, developed and published by Square. It is available for free download at http://ff5.ocremix.org, and is the second of a planned series of five albums honoring the game's soundtrack. The long-awaited second volume of The Fabled Warriors, WATER finally arrives after OC ReMix's initial 2010 entry, WIND. WATER features eight artists employing mariachi, chiptune, rock, experimental, EDM, Middle Eastern, acoustic guitar, and Celtic elements into their musical tributes. The Fabled Warriors was made by fans, for fans, and is not affiliated with or endorsed by Square Enix; all original compositions are copyright their respective owners. "It's filled with awesome music from a really talented bunch of guys. I'm grateful that they've been so patient with me, and I'm happy that you're all going to finally hear their awesome arrangements," said Shariq "DarkeSword" Ansari, director and creator of the album series. The first four albums will follow the four crystals in the game, with themes arranged for all of the corresponding jobs, and the last album will cover new jobs introduced in the 2006 Game Boy Advance release, as well as serve as an endcap to the project. The artwork of The Fabled Warriors: Volume II, featuring Lenna as a representation of water, was designed by Maya "rnn" Petersen, who also created the art of For Everlasting Peace: 25 Years of Mega Man, OC ReMix's commercial album in partnership with Capcom. rnn also fashioned the artwork for OCR's Mario map theme EDM album Super Cartography Bros., and has been featured in UDON's series of video game tribute art books, including Mega Man Tribute. "Now that WATER is finally out, we're going to move on to putting together Volume III: FIRE. I've got big plans, and while it would be irresponsible of me to promise a release date, I will say that after everything I've learned about running all these albums over the years, things are going to move along at a better pace," Ansari affirmed. "Keep an eye out, and in the meantime, enjoy The Fabled Warriors: Volume II: WATER." 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://ff5.ocremix.org Torrent: http://bt.ocremix.org/torrents/Final_Fantasy_V_-_The_Fabled_Warriors_~II.WATER~.torrent Comments/Reviews: http://ocremix.org/community/topic/43318-/ Preview it:

Instead of doing 10 remix albums, why not do one with a track from every anniversary game? Could be cool.

It's that time. Once again, some of the folks who post on OCR have come together to make an album full of Christmas-y remixes for you to enjoy. This year, we've got 10 tracks that touch on a number of genres and moods, along with some pixel cover art by yours truly. You can download the project from the link below, so feel free to grab it... along with the other 13 albums As always, thanks to everyone who participated, tried to participate, and to Dyne for continuing to host it. http://williammichael.info/aocc/aoccv14.html http://williammichael.info/aocc/

Well hello there, folks! Yes, the time has once again come. As has been the tradition for over a decade now, remixers new and seasoned have come together to make a Christmas album for everyone to enjoy. Featuring songs from video games that were given a little yuletide twist, and traditional Christmas carols that got a kick in the genre, this year we have 10 songs for you get into the spirit with. Once again, a "thanks" goes out to Dyne for hosting this. And from all of us involved with this project, we hope you have a merry Christmas http://williammichael.info/aocc/aoccv13.html

It is with great pride and joy that I release the tenth An OverClocked Christmas album today. Thank you to everyone who participated and tried to participate. Thank you to everyone who listens to the wonderful work of every single musician involved. Without all of you, there would be no An OverClocked Christmas! Thank you, and enjoy the album! Get it here: http://williammichael.info/aocc/index.htm

So, I figured this would come up at some point, and I don't think many people are arguing the profit angle so much, but let me chime in with my experience: First of all, as far as I know, I'm the one of the only people doing this "game arrangement community" type of thing anymore. Jake has his own business going on and doesn't have time to worry about game arrangements too much. Most other people got out, or handed off to me. Arguably I don't even do too much anymore, at least visibly. We're constantly working on things, but 2 things keep anything from moving forward at a decent pace: time and money. Right now, my yearly operating costs, on the low end, are about $1,000. Between servers, web services, domains, etc, I spend about $1,000 per year. Like OCR those go through a sole proprietor LLC which comes out of my taxes. $1,000 a year isn't that much, but that's still a flat screen TV I put into, basically just hosting things, every year. Obviously OCRs operating costs are way more than that, and yes, apparently they're making more money than it costs to run the site, but that, in no way, means they don't need more money. Do you know what I would do if I had more money? I would put it back into the site, which is what Dave does. Advertising, event presence, etc. More importantly than that, I would outsource my job in a second, if I could afford it. Every hour I have to work on any one of the sites, is an hour I can't spend doing something else. Whether it be working on a freelance project, or just actually not working on anything for sanity. If I made a huge surplus I would hire people, paid people, that would work on maintaining sites, updating sites, adding new features to sites, for me, as a job, so I could do my own job which is a thing I get paid to do separate of this that pays my bills. Real scenario if I had to get control of OCR and Patreon and ads weren't a thing? It would close. Simple as that. I wouldn't be able to cover the operating costs, the government would desolve the LLC for not being a profitable company, and I would eventually drain my own bank accounts trying to keep everything afloat. tl;dr: It's very easy as someone on the outside, or someone who hasn't managed a project like this, to say "Well it costs X so you should get paid X to keep it up", and sure that's true...if X is the only cost ever, and if absolutely no work or time goes into growing or maintaining it. At the moment it requirements more time or man power, then you are operating at a loss. That an opportunity cost. I have no comment on the legal issues because I don't know anything about fair use or copyright law.

Much of this has been stated, but I thought it be helpful to have the ethics spoken to by another remixer who isn't on staff. Regarding whether remixers should trust the staff --- the fact that 501c3 status is being voluntarily pursued by the staff should be enough to inspire trust. If you didn't know, it would mean that OCR would have to report publicly a lot of financial information, including revenues, expenses, and information on whether/how it compensates staff. And it would be a federal offense to intentionally misreport that information. Regarding profit --- as has been pointed out, it appears that many of us here are unaware of what profit means. Both for-profit and non-profit companies would love to grow. Both would love to generate more money than they spend. The difference comes in what happens to that extra money. Both can chose to pour that extra money back into the company for it to grow (marketing, research and development, staffing, etc.), but only the for-profit has the option of distributing the profits to the owners/shareholders. That's the difference. Non-profits generate profit... they just have to pour that money back into the organization's stated purpose. And we have no reason to believe the OCR staff has done anything other than this, especially in light of them wanting to attain a certain legal status that requires them to publicly report exactly how they're doing this. Regarding paying remixers --- that is immediately a for-profit situation, as zircon stated, and that immediately endangers fair use issues. "But wait, why is it legally OK for OCR to do it for themselves but not OK for them to pay Patrick Burns?" Because OCR is an organization with a stated public/artistic mission, no shareholders who profit from dividends or the sale of the organization, and uses the money in a certain fashion (soon-to-be legally obligated to use that money in a certain fashion, as the staff voluntarily desires). Patrick Burns has no binding, stated purpose for the greater good, and can use the money however he pleases---most likely a burrito bowl that will contribute to his BMI and increase the public healthcare burden (but even if I used it for my kids, it's still for-profit). In other words, the money going to OCR is fair-use because that gathered money has no other outlet than the further promotion of OCR's fair-use mission. I, on the other hand, can take the money anywhere. Regarding testing the monetization quietly --- the entire idea "that someone should've asked us" is based on the unfounded assumption that OCR is doing something selfish. On the contrary, we have no reason to believe the money isn't going precisely back into the function which inspired every single remixer here to submit to OCR in the first place: visibility and community. (And soon we might have public documents to verify this, as the staff obviously desires.) Give me proof that anyone on staff is using the monetization for personal gain, and then I would agree that we should have been asked. My feelings: OCR provides a platform which isn't within my skill set---a platform which would not exist through my own self-promotion, nor through the collective, individual self promotion of all remixers here. Even if you assume that the homepage's value is minimal, social media buoyancy doesn't come easy. I have been given no reason to distrust the staff, and the staff seems proactive in making their non-profit status official, thus providing some transparency.

Come one, come all, and do some reviews! This is the time of year when many needy mixes need extra love and attention, because it's a good month to do it! It's cold out, you are inside, now is the time to listen to some of the millions thousands of mixes that you can download for FREE and then write something about them. It can be a sentence, it can be a paragraph, it can even be a sentence AND a paragraph! GET YE TO THIS PAGE AND START REVIEWING! TRACK THE NUMBER OF REVIEWS YOU DO SOMETHING GOOD HAPPENS?! * COMPLIMENT MY REALLY PRETTY TYPOGRAPHY * There are bribes presents for people who review! There will be little signature badges for people to show off their awesomeness, and if you review MANY SONGS, there are even better presents! 50 Reviews in December: Download code for Mega Man 25th anniversary album 100 Reviews in December: add a Physical copy of Final Fantasy Random Encounter 200 Reviews in December: add a Physical copy of Final Fantasy VI Balance and Ruin OR Final Fantasy VII Voices of the Lifestream 500 Reviews in December: I will come to your house and act like your dog. I could be your dog! Helpful Review Forum Links: ReMixes with the Least Number of Reviews ReMixes that Haven't Been Reviewed in a Long Time

Well, I am blown away by the gift that I received. Wes really doesn't want me to finish my dissertation, haha. In all seriousness, this is very humbling and I don't know how best to express how thankful I am except to say thank you. This unboxing pic of me looking way more excited than I usually do (I intended just a very pleased smile, I confess) comes via a joke by Addie, who took the picture right after she said "Now look like I didn't schedule you a vasectomy for Christmas," causing me to laugh really hard and create an embarrassing picture of myself for everyone's enjoyment. As an aside, I have a large pile of digital goodies for my own person, but they haven't accepted my Steam friend request. If they don't respond by the end of the day I'm just going to spoil the surprise and PM them since I should not be sitting on gifts after receiving my own.