Dyne   Members

Shit, I can double dip on threads then.

Good news, everyone!
https://williammichael.info/aocc/
The album is now uploaded to the site, please let me know if you encounter issues and I will attempt to fix them promptly.

Eighteen of these. Eighteen years. Holy shitballs, Batman!
Another album is in the books. This year we have seven songs of various moods, genres and tempos, all set for everyone to listen to and as you get deep into the holiday spirit. While we wait for Dyne to update the site, I'll be hosting the zip file. Once he's done, I'll change the link here to go there. Make sense? Good.
A big thanks to the remixers who joined up, and to Dyne for hosting these albums for yet another year. And on behalf of everyone involved, Merry Christmas!
https://williammichael.info/aocc/

Was luckily able to jingle. But from what I gather, unless everyone who signed up suddenly gets a last minute blast of willpower and inspiration (which I hope they do), this is just gonna be Da Coop and me waiting at the bus stop for Mac-daddy Dyne to come pick us up. 😅

Mr. Coop? HA HA! Fuck... now I feel old.
 
You've got four days to finish it and send it if you want to get in on the action. The deadline's 11:59 PM EST on December 20, 2024. If you submit it, make sure to let me know what the remix title is.


And don't worry, Mokram, Souperion will be there with us.

Check your PMs, remixers.

Fourth'd. Go forth. And jingle. Go forth and jingle.
 
Edit: I just wanted to add a note here that I have updated the site just a little while ago. I moved the first ten albums to their own page to make the pages load more easily for anyone wanting to go and grab the currently available albums. Thankfully the site update lends itself to that sort of thing, though I'm sure I could do better with time and more skill. But hey, it's what I have time for.
Really looking forward to this year's album. Can't wait! (Also, this is your reminder that it's currently October and you have about two months or so left to the deadline!)
Edit #2: Right now, the links for the two pages are currently showing as being at the top of the page, I assure you that's not where I put them. They should be after the text paragraphs but before the albums. It works that way on the local site on my PC, but for some reason is not yet showing up on the live site. That said, all of the files associated with the site were updated, including the CSS pages as I had to do some CSS for this as well. So, it should show up soon, and if it doesn't, I'm not sure what to do about it.
Edit #3: The site did eventually update for me, which is good. Hopefully that also makes it easier to load for everyone as well. I should have done it sooner, I may even split it further to five albums per page. But I'll try to make it look nicer when I do make that choice.

If life permits I'll jingle dem bells. 🎄

Starting today, the sharing of music generated by feeding a prompt into AI-software is prohibited on OC ReMix, both here on the forums and on our Discord.
LLMs, AI, and other machine-learning technologies are both interesting and impressive, but the implementation of these technologies in popular usage rely largely on unethical training practices. Copyrighted works are used without artist consent to train commercial AI-models. Moreover, OverClocked ReMix has, over the course of over 20 years, established itself as a place for artists to learn about the composition and production of music and hone their craft. We ask artists to pay tribute to VGM through the art of interpretation; we're looking for the personal spin, the human touch. I, personally, don't believe audio generated by a machine-learning algorithm is doing that.
There are ethical implementations of AI-technology in the music sphere, such as sample libraries, physical modeling software, and audio production suites that use machine-learning to perform complicated tasks that an artist can use in the production process. Sharing music that uses this kind of tech is absolutely fine. But tracks generated wholly or in-part by services like Suno and Udio (among others) do not belong here.
And just to clarify, the discussion of machine-learning, LLMs, and AI here at OC ReMix is not prohibited, but should be tempered by an understanding of the goals of our community, which include artistic development and education and the appreciation of VGM through thoughtful exploration and interpretation.
Thanks.
-- DarkeSword

Hey all! Just some quick updates I wanted to let you all know about.
Site & Forum Updates
If you're an artist, your forum profile now includes a link to your artist page. This also shows up in your little profile box when you post threads. I've been doing a couple of small style and layout tweaks to forum listings in an effort to reduce some whitespace. Guidelines for certain forums have been moved out of the announcements module to the forum's internal rules setting. You'll see a relevant link on forums that have specific guidelines. I did a pass on forum profile fields and deleted a lot of obsolete data (like the field for your ICQ number!). There are a couple of new fields too, like Pronouns and Discord. Make sure you head over to your account settings and keep that profile updated! Tagging has been disabled on forum threads for regular members. We (the staff) weren't seeing a lot of sensical or consistent usage, so we're in the process of cleaning those up. We may revisit forum thread tags later with predefined options. The Ready to Review process in the Post Your Game ReMixes forum has been retired. It served us well for a couple of years but after a while we found that people were not engaging with it, and it felt like another bureacratic layer to the submission process. We've gone back to the older, more open-ended format where you can just post your remixes for feedback. A similar process in the Recruit & Collaborate forum has also been retired. Vote counts on submissions in the queue have been moved out of thread titles and into tags for the purposes of some internal tooling I'd like to try, so you won't see those anymore on the Currently dashboard and I worked on fixing how that data gets pushed to the dashboard, so you'll still see vote counts. Upcoming Events
Do you have OPINIONS about REMIXES? Join us this Thursday at 8:30PM EST on Discord where we run the first-of-hopefully-many Review Bombs! We're going to get a listening party going for OC ReMixes that have gone the longest without having any reviews and rectify the situation. I've heard of Metroidvania, but METROID VERSUS VANIA?! This Friday, we're kicking off the second run of Game Set Mash!!, our long-form team-based remix competition. This run features music from two legendary franchises: Metroid and Castlevania, and two teams will compete to see who can make the best Metroidvania Mashups. They'll have two weekends to get their tracks done, so check back at the start of February and get your votes in! Speaking of competitions, I'd be remiss if I didn't shout-out the People's Remix Competition, which just ended a legendary 20 year run under the stewardship of @Bundeslang. I remember back when PRC started back in 2003 (!!) and it's been a rock solid staple of OC ReMix since then, with a lot of musicians in the community developing and honing their skills through their participation. Absolutely incredible work from everyone involved over these past two decades. Make sure you check out the thread for the last round!
Well, that's all from me for now. I'm still getting a handle on how everything works and fits together here, but slowly-and-surely we're going to continue to inch OCR ever-forward. Thanks!
- DarkeSword

So I wanted to take a moment to say a few things.
First, I want to thank everyone, all of the fans, all of the artists who've contributed to the albums over the years; you have my heartfelt gratitude and it has been an honor to help keep this album series going all these years.
Secondly, about the updated site; part of the reason for the update is that I'm learning frontend development, well trying to at any rate, that said a site update has been long overdue.
Going forward all of the albums will be on the main page, and they will be chronologically newest to oldest. This means no more clicking around to each volume to grab the albums you want. You can do that from the home page. This also has made my life easier and increased the speed at which I can get everything done and posted. I think I just spent about 20 minutes adding all the information onto the site itself, testing it, and then uploading it all to the server. I used to have to go to each and every page to update navigation and that was a very time consuming task. So, there's that.
I've also long wanted to change the color scheme. Initially, I was going to stick with green because I love the color, but also because it featured on the original version of the site. I decided to mix it up a bit and go with a blue color scheme, and I think it's a lot nicer.
The Coop should be adding the link to the site to the top of this thread soon-ish. That said, for now, I'll post the link here: https://williammichael.info/aocc
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you all! Enjoy volume 17!

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'll be driving down on Friday morning just for the OCR panel. I'll probably stick around for lunch or something after, maybe hit up Nando's, and then I've gotta drive back up to NJ. Best bet if you wanna see me is to hit up the panel.

So I wanted to take a moment to say a few things.
First, I want to thank everyone, all of the fans, all of the artists who've contributed to the albums over the years; you have my heartfelt gratitude and it has been an honor to help keep this album series going all these years.
Secondly, about the updated site; part of the reason for the update is that I'm learning frontend development, well trying to at any rate, that said a site update has been long overdue.
Going forward all of the albums will be on the main page, and they will be chronologically newest to oldest. This means no more clicking around to each volume to grab the albums you want. You can do that from the home page. This also has made my life easier and increased the speed at which I can get everything done and posted. I think I just spent about 20 minutes adding all the information onto the site itself, testing it, and then uploading it all to the server. I used to have to go to each and every page to update navigation and that was a very time consuming task. So, there's that.
I've also long wanted to change the color scheme. Initially, I was going to stick with green because I love the color, but also because it featured on the original version of the site. I decided to mix it up a bit and go with a blue color scheme, and I think it's a lot nicer.
The Coop should be adding the link to the site to the top of this thread soon-ish. That said, for now, I'll post the link here: https://williammichael.info/aocc
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you all! Enjoy volume 17!

So I wanted to take a moment to say a few things.
First, I want to thank everyone, all of the fans, all of the artists who've contributed to the albums over the years; you have my heartfelt gratitude and it has been an honor to help keep this album series going all these years.
Secondly, about the updated site; part of the reason for the update is that I'm learning frontend development, well trying to at any rate, that said a site update has been long overdue.
Going forward all of the albums will be on the main page, and they will be chronologically newest to oldest. This means no more clicking around to each volume to grab the albums you want. You can do that from the home page. This also has made my life easier and increased the speed at which I can get everything done and posted. I think I just spent about 20 minutes adding all the information onto the site itself, testing it, and then uploading it all to the server. I used to have to go to each and every page to update navigation and that was a very time consuming task. So, there's that.
I've also long wanted to change the color scheme. Initially, I was going to stick with green because I love the color, but also because it featured on the original version of the site. I decided to mix it up a bit and go with a blue color scheme, and I think it's a lot nicer.
The Coop should be adding the link to the site to the top of this thread soon-ish. That said, for now, I'll post the link here: https://williammichael.info/aocc
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you all! Enjoy volume 17!

Good job everyone who got something done this year. It'll be interesting to hear what you all have come up with.
About this, the server is slow, so you should probably use smaller images on the main page. We're a bit spoiled with most big sites being fast, so a lot of them don't bother will optimizing image size. But it's pretty noticeable here.
I like the general vibe of the new colors, feels more wintry, though the background is a bit too bright for my liking.
Overall, it's an improvement, and should indeed make updating a lot easier. I've worked with php, where you can easily update an element that shows up on multiple pages. Requires a different server setup, though. In html, this is probably the best approach, though in 17 more years the page is gonna be loooong. But by then you'll have learned javascript and can do some show/hide things. And linking to anchors/bookmarks. And more.
Good job.

So I wanted to take a moment to say a few things.
First, I want to thank everyone, all of the fans, all of the artists who've contributed to the albums over the years; you have my heartfelt gratitude and it has been an honor to help keep this album series going all these years.
Secondly, about the updated site; part of the reason for the update is that I'm learning frontend development, well trying to at any rate, that said a site update has been long overdue.
Going forward all of the albums will be on the main page, and they will be chronologically newest to oldest. This means no more clicking around to each volume to grab the albums you want. You can do that from the home page. This also has made my life easier and increased the speed at which I can get everything done and posted. I think I just spent about 20 minutes adding all the information onto the site itself, testing it, and then uploading it all to the server. I used to have to go to each and every page to update navigation and that was a very time consuming task. So, there's that.
I've also long wanted to change the color scheme. Initially, I was going to stick with green because I love the color, but also because it featured on the original version of the site. I decided to mix it up a bit and go with a blue color scheme, and I think it's a lot nicer.
The Coop should be adding the link to the site to the top of this thread soon-ish. That said, for now, I'll post the link here: https://williammichael.info/aocc
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you all! Enjoy volume 17!

So I wanted to take a moment to say a few things.
First, I want to thank everyone, all of the fans, all of the artists who've contributed to the albums over the years; you have my heartfelt gratitude and it has been an honor to help keep this album series going all these years.
Secondly, about the updated site; part of the reason for the update is that I'm learning frontend development, well trying to at any rate, that said a site update has been long overdue.
Going forward all of the albums will be on the main page, and they will be chronologically newest to oldest. This means no more clicking around to each volume to grab the albums you want. You can do that from the home page. This also has made my life easier and increased the speed at which I can get everything done and posted. I think I just spent about 20 minutes adding all the information onto the site itself, testing it, and then uploading it all to the server. I used to have to go to each and every page to update navigation and that was a very time consuming task. So, there's that.
I've also long wanted to change the color scheme. Initially, I was going to stick with green because I love the color, but also because it featured on the original version of the site. I decided to mix it up a bit and go with a blue color scheme, and I think it's a lot nicer.
The Coop should be adding the link to the site to the top of this thread soon-ish. That said, for now, I'll post the link here: https://williammichael.info/aocc
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you all! Enjoy volume 17!

So I wanted to take a moment to say a few things.
First, I want to thank everyone, all of the fans, all of the artists who've contributed to the albums over the years; you have my heartfelt gratitude and it has been an honor to help keep this album series going all these years.
Secondly, about the updated site; part of the reason for the update is that I'm learning frontend development, well trying to at any rate, that said a site update has been long overdue.
Going forward all of the albums will be on the main page, and they will be chronologically newest to oldest. This means no more clicking around to each volume to grab the albums you want. You can do that from the home page. This also has made my life easier and increased the speed at which I can get everything done and posted. I think I just spent about 20 minutes adding all the information onto the site itself, testing it, and then uploading it all to the server. I used to have to go to each and every page to update navigation and that was a very time consuming task. So, there's that.
I've also long wanted to change the color scheme. Initially, I was going to stick with green because I love the color, but also because it featured on the original version of the site. I decided to mix it up a bit and go with a blue color scheme, and I think it's a lot nicer.
The Coop should be adding the link to the site to the top of this thread soon-ish. That said, for now, I'll post the link here: https://williammichael.info/aocc
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you all! Enjoy volume 17!

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/

I'd like to make an announcement that has been long overdue
I recently decided to start a redesign of the AOCC site. My hope is to have the new design live for the release of Volume 17 of the album.
I have a few more adjustments to make to the site, but I feel it's coming along nicely.
That's all for now!

I'd like to make an announcement that has been long overdue
I recently decided to start a redesign of the AOCC site. My hope is to have the new design live for the release of Volume 17 of the album.
I have a few more adjustments to make to the site, but I feel it's coming along nicely.
That's all for now!

I'd like to make an announcement that has been long overdue
I recently decided to start a redesign of the AOCC site. My hope is to have the new design live for the release of Volume 17 of the album.
I have a few more adjustments to make to the site, but I feel it's coming along nicely.
That's all for now!

I'd like to make an announcement that has been long overdue
I recently decided to start a redesign of the AOCC site. My hope is to have the new design live for the release of Volume 17 of the album.
I have a few more adjustments to make to the site, but I feel it's coming along nicely.
That's all for now!

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.