BardicKnowledge

In case you haven't noticed, Titan Quest got a massive update for its ten-year anniversary.  It includes not only widescreen resolution support (and proper scaling for it -- it looks good!) but Steam-based multiplayer -- no more fiddling around with Gamespy or whatever.  It's also quite possibly the longest set of patch notes that I have ever seen.
Most importantly, if you owned any edition of the game on Steam, you get a free upgrade and already have it in your library waiting to be installed. If you missed out on the fun, or on the various bundles over the years that have had it, it's only $5 for a week, and it will be $5 well spent.  I recommend it especially for those folks who are burned out of Diablo 3, given that we're looking at no new content from Blizzard for the second season in a row.

I don't think that the Shinespark tricks required in AM2R are more difficult than those required in Fusion and Zero Mission for 100%, fwiw.  And though I like the extension of Metroid 1 that Zero Mission offers, I will say that I would have been livid if it were inserted into Metroid 1 proper instead of being placed after, if that makes sense.
As for Metroid Prime: Though you may not be comfortable with first-person movement as much, the reason it's so well-regarded is because it absolutely has the best platforming physics (e.g. requiring jumping) of any first-person shooter ever.  Consider the platforming sections in Turok: Dinosaur Hunter for N64 or some other game, and it's a whole new world.  In 2002, the graphics were also out-of-this-world good, which doesn't hurt at all (seeing accurate reflections, including Samus' own face in the right lighting, was a new thing back then).  The Morph Ball sections are about as good as you can possibly get in 3D as well.
Not saying you have to like it or anything (Newt doesn't particularly care for them either, and he loves 2D platformers), but I'll say that there will probably never be a _better_ conversion of the franchise to 3D than the first Prime game.

I don't think that the Shinespark tricks required in AM2R are more difficult than those required in Fusion and Zero Mission for 100%, fwiw.  And though I like the extension of Metroid 1 that Zero Mission offers, I will say that I would have been livid if it were inserted into Metroid 1 proper instead of being placed after, if that makes sense.
As for Metroid Prime: Though you may not be comfortable with first-person movement as much, the reason it's so well-regarded is because it absolutely has the best platforming physics (e.g. requiring jumping) of any first-person shooter ever.  Consider the platforming sections in Turok: Dinosaur Hunter for N64 or some other game, and it's a whole new world.  In 2002, the graphics were also out-of-this-world good, which doesn't hurt at all (seeing accurate reflections, including Samus' own face in the right lighting, was a new thing back then).  The Morph Ball sections are about as good as you can possibly get in 3D as well.
Not saying you have to like it or anything (Newt doesn't particularly care for them either, and he loves 2D platformers), but I'll say that there will probably never be a _better_ conversion of the franchise to 3D than the first Prime game.

You argue that you're mostly concerned with fair use, and then talk about why you're not being paid -- two completely separate discussions that you yourself identified as such.
I'll get to fair use; as for payment, the Content Policy means that the site is never going to pay you by definition, because any revenue made is explicitly forbidden from anything that isn't "directly associated with the operation and promotion of OverClocked ReMix."  See #1 and #5 under the Content Policy for the full text. 
Fair use aside (wait for zircon's posts :p), I think this is the most valid point anyone has made.  While the Content Policy does allow OC ReMix to do this, it might be nice to explicitly make clear how that monetization occurs, and I understand why an artist might want that.  Updating the language here seems a fair request worthy of consideration.
 
Tom is absolutely correct here -- churches are non-profit but pay their pastors, secretaries, etc.  Charitable organizations can get to be quite large -- Lutheran World Relief has a hundred employees or so in the Twin Cities area alone.  Related: It is my contention that you could pay the site staff and STILL be well within the bounds of fair use; as anyone on staff can attest, there is a high time commitment to be a judge or core staff member here.  Because of how other people don't seem to understand or agree though, let me reiterate that currently, no staff member has ever been paid for their extraordinary volunteer efforts.
For anyone who wants to learn more about a fair use defense (and it IS a defense -- it is always going to go to court if the copyright holder wants to push on it), I highly recommend Fair Use: The Story of the Letter U and the Numeral 2 as your textbook.  It contains a the full court decisions for Luther R. Campbell AKA Luke Skywalker v. Acuff-Rose Music, Inc. and an analysis of it -- the case that established fair use in the music world (more colloquially, it's 2 Live Crew's commercial parody of Roy Orbison's "Pretty Woman.")
 
 

He said it's always been infringement, not it's always been illegal. He said if website ads were ruled illegal, than so would YT ads. And he also said if website ads were ruled legal, than so would YT ads.
Fair Use and copyright infringement are not mutually exclusive. Fair Use is a defense for a category of copyright infringement that has been cleared by a court of law; in other words, it's infringement, but the judge says it's okay if he thinks it's Fair Use. OCR has always operated in this manner. Your own arrangements operate in this manner whether or not you make a single cent on them for ANY reason. 
All of your video game arrangements are copyright infringement, and always have been, and will continue to be even if OCR shut down Patreon, turned off the donation service, and took down all ads everywhere. Nothing you say can get you out of it. It doesn't matter if you release the music for free and non-profit outside of OCR, it's still infringement. Even if it's Fair Use, it's still infringement.
There is nothing inconsistent between what Larry and Zircon said.

No anger implied by it (but it's the internet, so there's no emotion to pick up from what I'm saying), but if your specific question isn't answered, just re-ask the question; there are a ton of posts being responded to. Also, if you have follow-ups, just keep on asking, that's all. Your bad faith aside, Dave has been working to answer all of the questions.

IIRC, you were asking how albums fall under the Content Policy, and it's the same exact policy, but I think the ethics conclusions you're drawing are over the top. I'm not a cheerleader for OCR in the sense that it can do no wrong and I'd unilaterally go along with anything at all, especially something that I felt was unethical. If something like that happened, and Dave was improving his house off OCR funds or anything non-related to OCR, I'd just quit the site and say it was a good run and be the first to publicize that Dave wasn't running things ethically.
That said, the Content Policy has bound OCR to not do shady things with ad revenue, donations, or any money given to the site, even before any talk of 501c3 non-profit status. Even then in 2007, it was simply meant to codify the way he already ran this place to begin with. Everything has been functioning as a non-profit entity would do it, i.e. there's no profit motive, and excess funds are reinvested in improving the website and organization. Staff have also remained unpaid volunteers. I don't know what people are envisioning would be done with Google Ad revenue from YouTube, or how much would be there, but anything beyond operating costs is going to be spent on unsexy things for site purposes, e.g. video software for José to help him make trailers more easily, hiring someone to create a new YouTube video template, buying a new server, getting new forum software. Even the cases where staff have gone to conventions to promote OC ReMix, half the expense would go to OCR, half would be paid personally out of pocket.

From what I understand, believing that what OCR does is a valid instance of Fair Use, we believe the ReMixes do not diminish the original work's value, and that the music is being presented for nonprofit educational purposes to advance knowledge of the arts through the addition of something new and transformative. That would be a scenario where, because of the Fair Use case, OCR 1) would not be required to seek licenses for the music, and 2) would not pay the artists because the derivative works would be created for profit rather than for nonprofit educational purposes. Everything about how djp has looked at this has been to continue the ReMixes as nonprofit fan works.
That said, there hasn't been any decision on YouTube advertising beyond enabling it on a handful of videos to see how it works and if it's disruptive to the listeners; AFAIK, djp hasn't mentioned it yet, but the embedded versions of the YouTubes on OCR are a small enough size where ads are automatically disabled; a lot of his thought has been how to make it unintrusive and non-disruptive, including ruling out unskippable ads, so there's not been any effort to maximize Google ad revenue at all costs. This hasn't been a case of trying to sneak anything past anyone. As far as trying to hide enabling ads on videos, that's silly because how would you enable ads on all the videos, say nothing, and believe no one would notice or have questions? Obviously, djp sees it as a shift of where the Google ad revenue comes from, and it would be treated the same as the Google ad revenue from the website.

Not to make anything personal about Brandon, but I don't believe there is any information or transparency that would alleviate his assumptions of bad faith. I don't think 501c3 status, an audit, an accountant on retainer, eliminating all advertising, or him joining the staff in some capacity would do that. There's a level of paranoia and bad faith that ends up negatively coloring everything, which is a shame because the way he insults people due to his political beliefs and his insistence on insulting the staff he doesn't like (DarkeSword and zircon) are the things that have caused him issues here, not any actual problem from the staff.
A few weeks ago, Brandon tweeted at me that I was in favor of babies being killed because he concluded that I like Hillary Clinton (I don't, for the record); again, it's hard to convey emotion, but I truly didn't take any offense because it's politics and that talk can get heated. But at the same time, was it REALLY necessary to get that level of incendiary and accusatory with people you disagree with? It wasn't that long ago when the conspiracy was that the judges would never, ever approve Brandon's music. 89 mixposts later, here we are with the same bad faith.
Anyway, it's not meant as any attack or an attempt to discredit or disarm Brandon & his concerns, because he's not the only one who's expressed them. But he is the only one that's expressed them with the belief that OCR's descended into a money grab, that staff are being paid -- maybe handsomely at that, that huge checks are being cashed from YouTube, that there would have been an effort to hide the mass enabling of ads on the YouTube channel (has anyone explained HOW would that be possible?), and that everything from djp has been about being slippery or dishonest. I don't understand why nearly everything has to be framed by Brandon that way.
For all the appeals to transparency, this thread and the Facebook artists discussion could have been shut down or erased to discourage this conversation, and all dissenting voices could be silenced easily; this community handles drama with a pretty warts-and-all approach.

I actually agreed with this in the very first line I posted here.  Re-wording the Content Policy is worth a look -- not that my 2c needs to count for any of it, as I have absolute faith in the current staff.

I actually agreed with this in the very first line I posted here.  Re-wording the Content Policy is worth a look -- not that my 2c needs to count for any of it, as I have absolute faith in the current staff.

I actually agreed with this in the very first line I posted here.  Re-wording the Content Policy is worth a look -- not that my 2c needs to count for any of it, as I have absolute faith in the current staff.

Just finished all of AM2R -- what a ride!  Some thoughts now that I'm done (with 94%, incidentally -- will look for the last things on my next playthrough):
First off, there are no real surprises until the 2nd area -- the first area where you get bombs and other starting items looks very nice, but doesn't immediately signal how much of a departure the remake is from the original.  Easing players into it is probably for the best, and it works.  Once you enter into Area 2's water stuff though, you know you're in for a treat.  Metroid II was often cited as the most atmospheric of the games for good reason, and I love that it keeps its potential to scare you if you wander too quickly inside a breeding ground.  The new mechanics -- especially the underwater zone and the electrified walls that prevented weapons fire -- were very well done.
Alpha Metroids are vastly improved, and it's nice that there are two clear variations of them now.  Gammas are bigger without requiring significantly different tactics, though the new moves they have are awesome (if easily avoided).  Zetas and Omegas -- holy cow, what great stuff.  I never did settle into a good pattern with Zeta Metroids, and instead just unloaded a ton, haha.  I don't want to spoil too much, but almost all of the new bosses (and returning ones from Fusion) are excellent as well.  I thought the optional boss above the mineshaft (come back with power bombs!) could have used one more attack pattern, but otherwise everything was stellar.  
The single best moment was an unexpected scripted event that caused a moment of sheer panic on my part -- absolutely brilliant design decision.  Won't say any more there, as I imagine I will not be the only one wracked with nervousness.
I'd place this right next to Zero Mission for quality, though it's worth noting that I did not encounter either of the large bugs (one after a suit upgrade, one after the Queen fight) that some people have reported.

Tara Strong is pretty great as Harley, but let's not forget that she's essentially just doing Arleen Sorkin's Harley.

For what it's worth, it is strongly hinted that Richter's demonic possession by Shaft is what motivates him to give up the Vampire Killer.  He doesn't need it anymore after Alucard has done the job for him, and is ashamed ingame that they came to blows.
I would be interested to hear how Julius Belmont reclaims the whip from Jonathan Morris, though that's likely part of a 1999 story (Morris would be 73 years old then).

Edit 6/10
I can officially announce the presenters and their paper subjects, so here they are!
Tekla Babyak (Cornell University) -- Music, Card Games, and the Play of Sensation: Kant’s Ludomusical Aesthetics

Karen Cook (University of Hartford): Video Games and Chant (specific title TBD)
Steve Reale (Youngstown State University):  Glass Beads and Graphic Analysis: A Ludist Account of Contemporary Music Theory
Carmel Raz (Columbia University):  Anne Young’s “Musical Games” (1801): Music Theory, Gender, and Game Design
Kirsten Carithers (Northwestern University): Not Just Fun and Games: Musical Indeterminacy as User-Generated Content
I am especially excited for Karen Cook's chant paper -- I love liturgy, and I love when chant is utilized in games, the most popular example being the Kyrie in Castlevania: Rondo of Blood's (and SOTN, and others) menu screen that casts Dracula as the Antichrist. All of them should be great though!
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I've looked through all of the abstracts now, and we are going to have an awesome event in Vancouver.  I'll share more once the other committee members have voted and we have official results...

Note: I post these here largely for people's information, so that folks can see how the academy does business.  That being said, if you have a submission, we'd love to hear from you!  I am on the program committee for this, so this isn't just me passing along other people's stuff -- this is what I do, alongside my own research and (hopefully soon) teaching.
-----------
Call for Papers
Ludomusicology Study Group of the American Musicological Society
AMS Vancouver, 3-6 November 2016
Submission Deadline: April 25, 2016.

The new AMS Ludomusicology Study Group will host a session at AMS/SMT Vancouver 2016. This year, we welcome abstracts (250 words max) for 20-minute presentations on any aspect of ludomusicology within or beyond digital games. All AMS members, regardless of familiarity with (or previous research of) video games, are welcome to submit and assist us in broadening the scope of ludomusicology. Critical inquiries might include:

- What makes play musical, and music playful?
- How do the meanings and stakes of performances, choreographies, bodies, and screens play out via sounds and other sensations?
- What is ludomusicology anyway, and how can it interface with current ideas in music theory, ethnomusicology, music education, and music therapy?

Please send submissions (as Word docs) to gamemusicstudies -at- gmail.com by April 25, 2016. Do not include your name/identifying information in the submission itself. The program committee will send out decisions by May 10, 2016.

Note: I post these here largely for people's information, so that folks can see how the academy does business.  That being said, if you have a submission, we'd love to hear from you!  I am on the program committee for this, so this isn't just me passing along other people's stuff -- this is what I do, alongside my own research and (hopefully soon) teaching.
-----------
Call for Papers
Ludomusicology Study Group of the American Musicological Society
AMS Vancouver, 3-6 November 2016
Submission Deadline: April 25, 2016.

The new AMS Ludomusicology Study Group will host a session at AMS/SMT Vancouver 2016. This year, we welcome abstracts (250 words max) for 20-minute presentations on any aspect of ludomusicology within or beyond digital games. All AMS members, regardless of familiarity with (or previous research of) video games, are welcome to submit and assist us in broadening the scope of ludomusicology. Critical inquiries might include:

- What makes play musical, and music playful?
- How do the meanings and stakes of performances, choreographies, bodies, and screens play out via sounds and other sensations?
- What is ludomusicology anyway, and how can it interface with current ideas in music theory, ethnomusicology, music education, and music therapy?

Please send submissions (as Word docs) to gamemusicstudies -at- gmail.com by April 25, 2016. Do not include your name/identifying information in the submission itself. The program committee will send out decisions by May 10, 2016.

Be an annoying bastard, that's how.  His LP spinning attack is safe on block and doesn't look like it, so you can bait out lots of replies that will allow for full counters after you block.

I played a ton last night, working through survival mode.
LOVE how this game feels. Really controls well. I never feel like the technical execution of what I'm trying to do is out of reach, which gives me more of an opportunity to focus on tactics. Sticking mostly to Karin right now, as she's a character I've always loved from Alpha 3.
Not really winning a lot of games online, but I've never been that good at fighting games to begin with. Hopefully I can win some more.
Love the survival mode. Trying to decide which bonus to use between matches really keeps things fresh.
Also gotta say, this game looks insane on PC. I discovered last night I was only playing on mid settings for the past week; I bumped everything up to max and my eyes popped outta my head.
I think @BardicKnowledge said on Twitter or FB that this game feels like 3rd Strike-2; I'm inclined to agree. Considering that 3S is my favorite Street Fighter, that's high praise.

Battletoads (the NES version at least) was a pretty damn good looking and good sounding game for its time. Of course we have David Wise, and incredible composer in his own right, to thank for the sound. I wanted to share this because this video has David Wise talking about the process of how the Battletoads music had to be recorded, and the limitations he faced when composing music for the NES (such as how many notes David was limited to). And you also get to see him playing some Battletoads music on the piano at the end

This sounds like something Chris Hülsbeck would have made. The fact that Chris is in the file name also lends credence to this. He was involved with developing audio compression technology for the GBA which was licensed out to various developers.

I enjoyed the video, but I have something to counter your first proposal.  For instance, when you say that in a looping track the end "should be relatively similar to the beginning," what exactly does that mean?  Why not end your looping track on a half cadence leading back into tonic, which would make the end quite different from the beginning?
I suggest that loops should instead "lead back to the beginning" -- in what fashion that relationship occurs is up to the composer.  See the Super Mario Bros. World 8 map screen for a quick and dirty example of this.  It's a series of chords that leads back to tonic, but it does not arrive there until the beginning of the loop.  Putting a tonic chord followed by the same tonic chord would serve to highlight the repetition, the very thing you want to avoid.
As for reverb trails and not exporting to MP3, that is good advice for a person just getting started with this -- keep it up! 
 

I'm going to maintain this list of resources for game audio for everyone's use.  In order to prevent the thread from becoming de-railed over time, please don't respond here.  Instead, if you know of a resource that I should add, please PM me and I will add it to this post.
 
Qualifications for being listed here:
 
-Books (including edited collections) must be dedicated to game audio specifically (generic game studies don't qualify, as there are so many that we would lose focus on our specialty).  They should be written by either a scholar with a degree in some field of music or an industry professional with credits on multiple video games.  
 
-Conferences must have a reasonable percentage of papers dedicated to game audio.  Just because there happens to be a game audio panel at AMS this year doesn't mean that the AMS writ large is focused on game audio, for example.  On the flip side, NYU's Music and the Moving Image features a significant number of game papers every year -- certainly enough that attending would be worth your while if all you care about is games.
 
With that aside, here's the list!  Again, PM me to have something added.
 
Books (In order of publication)
 
The Complete Guide to Game Audio by Aaron Marks, published 2001.
 
The Fat Man on Game Audio: Tasty Morsels of Sonic Goodness by George Alistair Sanger, published 2004.
  Game Sound by Karen Collins, published 2008.   From Pac-Man to Pop Music: Interactive Audio in Games and New Media.  Edited by Karen Collins, published 2008.   Playing Along: Digital Games, YouTube, and Virtual Performance by Kiri Miller, published 2012.   Playing With Sound: A Theory of Interacting with Sound and Music in Video Games by Karen Collins, published 2013.   Sound Play by William Cheng, published 2014.   Music in Video Games: Studying Play.  Edited by K.J. Donnelly, William Gibbons, and Neil Lerner, published 2014.   A Composer's Guide to Game Music by Winifred Phillips, published 2014.   Composing Music for Games: The Art, Technology and Business of Video Game Scoring by Chance Thomas, published 2015.   Koji Kondo's Super Mario Bros. Soundtrack (33 1/3) by Andrew Schartmann, published 2015.   Ludomusicology: Approaches to Video Game Music.  Edited by Michiel Kemp, Tim Summers, and Mark Sweeney, published 2016   Understanding Video Game Music. Tim Summers, published 2016.    
Conferences
 
Ludomusicology, held annually at a travelling location in Europe.
 
North American Conference on Video Game Music, held annually at a travelling location in the United States.
 
Music and the Moving Image, held annually at New York University.

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.

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.

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.

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.