Liontamer

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.

Not sure why this has such a muffled sound. Also, as soon as this opening beat started, you could tell the sequencing was very rigid and mechanical-sounding, all the more obvious when the piano also came in at :21. The piano sounded bone-dry and had no resonance at all. Even if it's just going for a less-organic keyboard sound, there's just no trail-off with the notes, and the rigid timing doesn't sound good. The claps brought in at 1:10 were too loud and too dry and made no sense being so much louder than the other instrumentation. I like that there's some attention to the bassline having presence, but these were very plodding beats overall, and very thin textures. 2:18 was a cut-and-paste repeat of :21's section, and then there's essentially no real ending, the track just hits the end of the bar and stops. The arrangement would need to be developed more with further variations, much more balance and richness with the instrumentation, and some sort of genuine resolution for the ending. Not bad for a beginning effort, Galih, but very far from something we would pass. Make use of the Workshop forums here to get additional critiques and feedback on your VGM arrangement, as well as solicit production advice to improve how you're using your current samples. NO

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Opens up pretty similar in mood/tone to the original song, only starting with the chorus, then showing its electronic hand at :21. Beats arrive at :42, and I'm not disliking anything so far, but haven't heard anything too remarkable or creative with the synth design. Hmm... when the build arrives at 1:04, something's not right about these textures. I'm hearing a lot of high-end sizzle from the cymbals, but the actual beats felt too flimsy, and the rest of the elements aside from the lead seem to just mush together without detail, undermining the energy intended in the writing. I thought the cymbal hits, bass kicks, and overall energy level from 1:04-3:56 dragged on after a while. Varying up not just the writing of the backing beats, but the sounds as well would help vary this up even if you weren't going for pronounced dropoffs or changes. The dropoff at 3:57 was very welcome though; not saying this track has to be cut down, but it may have been even more effective to get here a minute earlier and allow some dynamic contrast to surface earlier. Not diggin' that lead at 6:06, as it has a very robotic sound, but it's not a huge deal. My main issues, Nick, were the track feeling repetitive for nearly 3 minutes due to the beats and needing to create a sharper-sounding soundscape, but this one is well in the right direction. Definitely come back to this one and improve it with some of these criticisms in mind. NO (resubmit) Edit (9/16): It's not often we get two distinct versions of a mix submitted to us a month apart. Checking out the shortened 5:02 version from April, the opening build was more interesting and creative. Once the track kicked in at 1:11, the same dealbreaking production criticisms applied with the sizzling cymbals, overall lack of clarity in the textures, and flat dynamic curve of the arrangement until 3:19. I agreed with Chimpazilla on making sure the middle of the track doesn't stray too far from the source tune; it's not necessarily enough to place original writing on top of a generalized chord progression, so just be careful there. Ensure that the majority of the piece has explicit ties to writing from the original source tune. 3:21 changed things up with a more creative dropoff than in the longer version. The lead writing there was the same, but there was more dynamic contrast than the longer version by dropping out most of the instrumentation from 3:21-3:45 and using the section as a breakdown & rebuild instead. I wouldn't have went back to the same intensity and writing until 4:07-4:28. The sequencing of the lead from 4:06 sounded very stilted and robotic; make sure the timing doesn't sound so stiff. Good close at 4:28. To me, both versions shared the same general issues, but both were very promising and demonstrated that Nick has a fairly good handle on making music. Now he just needs to refine his production so that nearly everything can be heard clearly during the densest sections, and tweak the arrangement to have more ties to the source tune as well as more variation & dynamic contrast.

Started out feeling like a nice-sounding by a good genre adaptation with a more cover-style approach, so we'll see where it goes. Not the most unique sounds I've ever heard, and one could argue the melody got too repetitive, but, after a few listens, I thought this actually did well creating subtle dynamics within a relatively fixed level of energy, with very understated textural changes. There's also the lead synth gradually getting more interpretive with grace notes and rhythmic changes from 1:51-on before going into more of an original comping route on top of the source from 2:26-3:42. Good usage of the shimmering chromatic percussion SFX throughout; some may argue it could have been used more judiciously, but it set a nice mood and I had took no meaningful issue from it. The main Zelda theme reference from 3:42-3:49 sounded awkward, and I didn't thin it made a good fit. It just sounded like a hiccup that should have went straight to the source's chorus at 3:57. That said, it was a minor speedbump. A little long for me given the deliberate tempo, but that's just personal taste. Nice work to Seven X on creating this evolving soundscape. I wasn't sure I'd be on board when this started, but I think it works nicely! Good luck with the rest of the vote. YES

Dear OC Remix, My name is Greg and I really respect what you all do as far as bringing video game music from one artist to the millions of fans worldwide. I'd like to join this community as an artist as well as a fan. I am submitting the first track entitled DestinyDivine from the album i made inspired by "The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time". The album is called "VictoryVirtueValor" and features a variety of genres that fit the parameters that judges from the OC Remix community are looking. I wanted to see if you'll accept the album - complete with artwork - is to your liking. Thank you for the opportunity and the privilege. Greg a.k.a. Seven X https://soundcloud.com/seven-x/destinydivine ----------------------------------------

Just so this doesn't turn into a total dogpile due to the initial tone of the complaint... To defend Yogarine's overall intent, I don't react to his suggestion as if it's an all or nothing scenario required; if there were some way that could work out to get some OC ReMixes on Spotify, that would be great, and we've thought about it. However, like DarkeSword said, it's still time and energy we collectively don't have. Also, I believe that many VGM arrangements available on music services are actually unlicensed and there just isn't enough oversight.

It's more about source tunes than even the number of games. Just a rough check it our database puts the current amount of different songs that have been referenced in OC ReMixes at 2,689 songs. We're definitely not going through that.

Wow, the opening sounds very similar to the original, only sped up... OK. We'll see where this goes. OK, some breakbeats come in at :43, and I'm noticing everything's written with intensity yet the levels are so low. Anyway, the synth design's pretty vanilla, and after the cool drop from 1:03-1:06, I thought something more creative with the arrangement was about to happen, and then it went back to the same treatment of the melody. Another dropoff at 1:28. Well, this isn't a bad cover at all, Jay, but there's not much interpretive going on besides the breakbeats and increased tempo. Synths at 1:49 during the chorus were super dry and exposed. Not sure what's up with that countermelody introduced at 2:13; it just sounded very atonal. In any case, bland/generic/vanilla synths, not enough interpretation, and too repetitive sum up the issues to address. NO

Direct audio sampling is a matter of context. There are almost no context where the audio itself can be extensively sampled yet transformed enough to be considered arrangement, but it has happened. As I've said there, it's a difficult formula to pull off, particularly to use sampled audio in a way that reflects arrangement. I don't feel this Splatoon mix does that, so that option's off the table. The other option is simply having a piece that would pass on dominant source usage with the arranged material even when all of the direct audio sampling were removed. A good example of this outside of OCR that I've referenced before is Juha Kaunisto's "Zoids Revisited" at Remix.Kwed.Org, which samples the original audio heavily for the intro and particularly for the extended outro. Meanwhile, in the middle is a completely developed rock/synth arrangement. In that case, the original audio sampling is extensive but isn't leaned on as a crutch to provide the connections to the original music, and there's already a large piece of the track that's interpretive arrangement. This doesn't meet that kind of criteria, already shown by Gario's breakdown. I timed it out a little differently. The track was 5:35-long (discounting some of the intro/outro without music), so I needed at least 167.5 seconds of source tune usage from the arranged material for the source tune to be dominant. 0:47.5-1:17, 1:19-2:23.5, 4:35.25-5:07.25 = 126 seconds or 37.61% overt arranged source usage I disagreed that 2:23.5-2:53.5 section was directly referencing the source. All I heard were rhythmic similarities, but not the same note patterns as the source. With such a simple source tune, it's easier to veer into soundalike territory when attempting to arrange it. I thought 2:55-4:03's section felt totally disconnected from everything that came before and after it; it broke the flow of the piece and just sounded awkwardly shoe-horned in. The sampled source audio behind it was so quiet that it was practically inaudible, so I don't know why it was even counted in Gario's timestamps. Production-wise and in a vacuum, this is a perfectly fine track (aside from the middle original section feelingly stylistically disconnected from the rest of the piece), but there's too much reliance on the direct audio sampling of the source tune to provide the connections to it. We may need to run this by djp and/or update the Standards language to better clarify what's specifically discouraged, but in order for me to pass this, a decent chunk of the direct audio sampling would need to traded out for more arranged usage of the source tune. What's here is a strong start. Jakub, if you have no interest in updating this to better fit OCR's arrangement standards, that's no problem; first and foremost, you should always be making the music you yourself want to make. That said, if this was something you were open to and you felt like potential updates could also improve the piece overall, then come back to this one. NO

Yoooooooo. Fuuuuuuuck. Niiiiiice. YES

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The arrangement's creative, and I can see the argument that it carries this, but the production quality here's just below the bar, IMO. The chippy synths were thin and could have used more creative processing for a richer sound, as well as more variation in the sounds. Sir_NutS called the production dry and I agreed there; very basic beat writing as well. I thought the beats/kicks added in at 1:21-2:13 overlapped with some of the other lead instrumentation in the same frequency range. I wouldn't be mad if this passed as is, but I think Schtiffles would look back at this down the line and hear how it could have been improved. None of the criticisms by themselves were dealbreakers, but they added up for me, particularly the lack of sophistication in the synth production. Add some flavor & variety to this vanilla production with Sir_NutS' and Gario's criticisms in mind. NO (resubmit)

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Just noting that I've only heard the "v2" version. Arrangement-wise, the RR4 source was adapted nicely for more of a disco approach, and the usage was straightforward enough through the vocals and synth lines where I didn't need to timestamp. The OutRun reference felt a little tacked on, but was integrated reasonably well enough, and pushed the source usage to a point where I could quit stopwatching. I thought the vocal mixing wasn't great. Not sure Jesse's vocals/tone are the right fit here; giving it an even more arier/ethereal sound to mask some of the pitch issues would have been best. That said, I also don't want to put him in a corner based on his tremendous FF6 crooning. In this mix, his vocals aren't entirely dry, and I hear the effects on them, but I felt like they were relatively too dry & upfront and didn't blend into the instrumental enough. They could be produced/processed in a way that sits better in the music. Right now, when there are (minor) pitch issues, it's way too exposed and obvious; it's nothing where you're like "Oh my God, oof", but there's some correction/smoothing out needed. The choruses sound the best in terms of smooth delivery from Jesse, so now it's just a matter of having those vocal sitting correctly in the overall soundscape. I also agreed strongly with Gario that the vocoded vocals should have been more understandable. Perhaps it's an "I know it when I hear it" subjective criticism, but I didn't think they had enough of an aesthetic where it was unimportant that they be intelligible. On a more important note, the mechanical string articulations first used from 1:23-1:37 & 3:46-4:05 strained credibility. And I know it's a disco track, but didn't think they sounded good in spite of that stylistic choice because the strings sounded too dry and weren't masked by anything else. Anyway, I've gone through the litany of issues I had with it. I'm not mega-enthusiastic about a YES because of the production, but we don't make the perfect the enemy of the good. I've given this 9 or 10 listens. What you have here is a reasonably good -- but not great -- execution of a very creative arrangement concept. While I wish the track had more clarity/sharpness and better vocal mixing, the arrangement carries it with good enough production execution. Ideally, I'd love for Jorrith to take another pass at the production if this version passed. YES (borderline)

For a 3:31-long track, I needed to identify at least 105.5 seconds of source usage for me to consider the VGM usage "dominant" in the arrangement, per our Submission Standards :01.5-1:14.75, 2:48.5-3:31 = 115.75 seconds or 54.85% overt source usage I'm not too familiar with 'Adventure Awry", so there could have been sections I overlooked, but it seemed like it was a sandwich approach with the source opening it, moving to an original section, then a shorter close re-referencing the source tune. Pretty grungy, and lo-fi in a way that nonetheless allows the lead guitar work to sound upfront and effected rather than just lossy. It's not ideal, but it works overall. At about 1:06 with another iteration of the verse, I was waiting for something more, but then the changeup happened at 1:15, so that was welcome. Going back into the theme at 2:48, the presentation was repetitive there, but the overall arrangement and performance of the theme was well-personalized and adapted to rock, so I wasn't bothered by the final 40 seconds feeling too repetitive or uncreative. Everything flowed together nicely, IMO. The fadeout ending could have been something more substantial instead, but I didn't mind it. Nice work, Björn, and good luck with the rest of the vote! Let's go! YES