Liontamer

Fuck that. I keep it REAL. [/Chris Rock]

Thanks to those who are confident that we're gonna do a great job with our FF6 album. We're very confident we will, especially based on zircon's track record directing the Final Fantasy VII: Voices of the Lifestream album back in '07! I'm gonna reply at length to what got brought up in this NeoGAF thread, which brought up some fun stuff about the Kickstarter, some factually incorrect opinions/assumptions about OCR, and some concerns. Thanks to Billiechu for spreading the word in the first place, and SgtRama for taking me to task on Facebook for HOW I reacted to a BS claim. So let's speak to everyone instead of just a few off-base comments. Thanks to Franklinator for liking the cover art! That's by Andrew "OA" Luers, who put a lot of thought into a great way to represent the Balance and Ruin album title. It's cropped a little bit on the KS page, but hopefully you'll like the full view once that's out. For shira, glad you're looking forward to the free download! For anyone that can't afford to part with $50 to donate at the level to receive a physical album, or just are skeptical or even cynical about how the album will turn out, that's cool, we're not expecting anyone to donate under those circumstances and hope you'll enjoy all, or at least part, of the upcoming album. The price of FREE is right, and you'll find SOME things you end up liking. For B.K. and one other who said we do "too much arranging" and some source tunes become "unrecognizable," that's not something we actively go out and do, and we have standards requiring arrangements to be mostly comprised of observable & direct connections with the source material. Those requirements are a little looser for albums (but not by much), since not every track is intended to be held to our standards for individually posted mixes. Sometimes our community's arrangements are fairly straightforward compared to the original. And sometimes, the interpretiveness of an arrangement is pretty in-depth and can seem unconnected to the original song even though it is, because the genre, key signature, tempo or rhythms are different than the original. There are definitely some listeners who can't or simply don't want to wrap their heads around that, because they're looking something closer to a cover, where the structure, instruments and mood closely resemble the original music. But we're an open-minded community about arrangements, so we welcome all kinds of arrangement approaches as long as they're sufficiently interpretive, understanding from the get-go that there are a lot of VGM fans who may end up disliking MOST of what our community does as a result of that inclusiveness. In short: your mileage may vary, but that's on purpose. As far as the comments from some people who just made blanket comments like the Wild ARMs album was bad or the FF4 album was bad, there's no way we agree with that, but it's subjective criticism, which doesn't make me heckle someone on the Tweeter. The artists that contribute to our albums give it their all, and we've done our best to show that we maintain a fairly high but inclusive bar when it comes to the music we publish. If you feel like the tracks and albums on OCR, particularly in the last 7 years on, are poorly made, that's more a listener's personal preference for music or VGM arrangements than the skill level of the ReMixers. Nekofrog mentioned "drama/politics is the worst part of the site," with Mr. Saturn adding "the politics that go on behind the scenes for submissions is outrageous and petty." Like I said on Twitter, if those things were even remotely true, Nekofrog wouldn't have EVER made past the judges panel. Going from previously being viewed by the community as a troll and banned (before he ever submitted music), and then being unbanned and having several ReMixes approved by the judges and praised & promoted on OCR sounds like a lack of politics and drama to me. When dealing with artists, there's lots of opportunity for friction. But we don't let it affect our submissions process, otherwise it would discourage too many people to submit music. Even zircon, who's directing the FF6 project, used to be a very outspoken critic of OCR and what he perceived to be issues with inconsistancies in the music approval process, yet he later joined the staff. And for anyone who a REAL old school fan, we're cool with virt and Protricity after extended dramarama with them. Even if an artist has or used to have friction with the staff, the submissions process or something else about OCR, that hasn't prevented anyone from being fairly evaluated, which is important to us. Zeer0id said, "I'm not sure how comfortable I feel contributing for this. I trust they will use the funds in appropriate, not-for-profit ways, but it still seems like paying for something that legally needs to be free (and will ultimately be free, should the Kickstarter succeed)." We covered this earlier in the thread, but there's no pressure to donate, so it's OK if you choose not to. We included a breakdown of the estimated costs in the Kickstarter FAQ, but we don't have much "profit" going on, and anything beyond the goal will be reinvested into improving the album, Kickstarter stretch rewards, and lastly, when we run out of ideas for the Kickstarter, towards the site in some fashion. Thanks though for trusting that we won't use the money in an improper way. The staff and artists certainly wouldn't take ANY profit off this campaign, otherwise everyone would hate us forever. Really. kiunchbb said "it is kinda hard [to decide to support] without showing me a few soundtrack." The video in the Kickstarter has some brief samples of in-progress mixes to check out. zircon also directed Final Fantasy: Voices of the Lifestream album, so if you like the styles you hear in some of the music at http://ff7.ocremix.org, then we think you'll like the FF6 album! chickdigger said "if it's anything like the other albums, pretty much every theme is done by a different artist, so naturally quality would be all over the place (plus personal taste)." A bit more even-handed of a criticism. They better understand the concept of "your mileage may vary." We don't believe "quality" will be all over the place for this album, nor is that true for our other albums. As I said earlier, a lot of people conflate quality with their own personal taste, e.g. "I can't stand XYZ genre, it's low-quality music," which just isn't true if you're open-minded to a genre or a big fan of it. Also, regarding some people saying the track flows of OCR albums aren't cohesive, that's also subjective. We don't mind people feeling that way, and we generally leave track flow to the judgement of the director of an album to determine the track order and flow, so your mileage as a listener may vary again. For FF6 (and for FF7 in the past), zircon is VERY adamant about having good track flow from piece to piece, so that's something that will be very actively paid attention to with this FF6 album. In other words, we believe you'll find it flows, and we hope you'll be optomistic about that. atbigelow, an FF6 album backer, said "a lot of OCR albums are not great. The FFVII album was mostly nonsense techno filth." THAT set me off on Twitter, and I called him an idiot. Sorry, atbeigelow, that IS wrong AND a lack of tact. You're a better man than I am for still being willing to back & promote the project, thank you. Really, it's just your opinion framed as an objective fact that I should have criticized. That said, I've got to stand by the criticism of your made up claims. They're just made up, so you shouldn't stand by them. We actually don't mind more subjective opinions or disagreements just generally dissing an album or the site. It's all just chatter, and we expect negative comments, naturally. But the dismissive distortion about the content in VotL ("mostly nonsense techno filth") went a step beyond that, which set that off. There are probably only 6 out of 45 tracks on the FF7 album that could be considered "techno." VotL's mostly rock, jazz, orchestral, acoustic performances, and fusion pieces. When I see our community's music and artists criticized with something that's just objectively and factually UNTRUE, I'll publicly fight that. Some NeoGAF users thought I was a dick in ridiculing that comment. Especially if they haven't heard the FF7 album, my reaction can seem like a simple butthurt pushback against a subjective opinion, but that's not the case. I'm here to defend the artists from BS when they can't necessarily be there to defend the facts behind their own music. Even if the person saying it is a backer, I'd like to think that other people would still call out something that's simply untrue and not be pressured by money. I'll be more diplomatic going forward, but WOULD DEFEND THE TRUTH AGAIN! For anyone CURIOUS, http://ff7.ocremix.org, go through the 45 pieces, and you can see for yourself how much "techno filth" is on the album. Objectively, there's not much techno on that album, that's the reason I pushed back so hard. Mr. Saturn points to the albatross of the FF5 project: "I would never ever ever ever give them money on the promise of an album. They are a year behind on the release of the second part of their five-part FF V series, and that was slated to release over a year after the first part. Would you pay money for this kind of follow-through?" DarkeSword, who's directing that project, got too aggressive with his timetable for it, but his group of artists are actively working on part 2. That said, we're not doing a Kickstarter about THAT. There's definitely more incentive to finish and deliver the FF6 album given the goals and community participation of this whole effort. I wouldn't compare FF6 to the structure of the FF5 album though, which was an experiment in a staggered album release that we were open-minded enough to try but wouldn't do again. We bust DarkeSword's chops about it too, you're not the only one. orioto says "Hm let say i respect their work but it has always been too "pop/techno" oriented for me. I don't want to .. dance to FFVI songs, i want soundtrack style music." - We don't post much poppy techno/electronica nowadays. Maybe in 2001 you could claim OCR was mostly pop/techno. Even that wouldn't be right, but you'd have more of a case. In the past 5-8 years, that's not been the case AT ALL. Powerful computers, home studios setups, and quality samples are so much less expensive, so it's really opened up the range of genres a hobbyist musician can credibly execute. This "OCR isn't just techno" FB post from 2 years ago is still true today no matter what our recent mixes are. Feel free to hit our , and just work your way backwards. Anyone should be pleasantly surprised by the diversity of genres AND the techno (it's good, don't genre hate!) - Again, all the "nothing but teknoz" nonsense can be denied with the actual evidence if you bother to check. As far as what orioto meaning of wanting "soundtrack style music" on the FF6 album, it won't primarily be a dance album, but I can't tell if "soundtrack" refers to wanting it to sound like a cinematic score or a lot like the FF6 SNES soundtrack. There's the chance both orchestral and chiptune stuff could be represented in some form, but if you're looking for a one-genre album, it's not going to be for you. Holy Order Sol said "I can't recall a single time where I didn't recognize the original material if I was familiar with it in the first place." Having been a submissions judge here for 8 years, that's generally how it turns out, so thanks for affirming it. There are definitely some arrangements where, even giving it a much closer comparison than a casual fan would, the connection can be hard to piece together. But those are rare, and we still vet them to make sure those connections to the source tunes are in fact there before we post them. We like VGM TOO and don't see the point of posting original pieces of music with little or no connection to the source VGM. So we don't.

We've been against selling unlicensed arrangements since day 1. Can't speak for djp, but at the end of the day, no one's being paid to either make the album or maintain this website, so there's 0 profit motive and no one's pocketing money, that's the main difference. djp would point to it whenever he replies that you'd basically have to take us at our word, but he's been putting time, energy and money to run OCR for more than 12 years, and nobody's getting paid. Basically, we're bad at capitalism. Anything made above the costs is going to go to enhance the album production further, fund more rewards for stretch goals and lastly, after anything we think of for the Kickstarter, help the site. But there's no case where if we went, say, $1000 overboard, then HEY HEY, I pay off some of my car note. We run this site like a zero-sum game, as in every cent goes toward the site.

It's up to floss to submit it, not that I have my judge-hat on. That opening FL Slayer-style guitar synth isn't the strongest opening, but it's brief. Just clarifying -- because your question makes an implication -- there's no different bar based on whether a song's funny or not. It could be hilarious, but if the arrangement isn't interpretive enough or the production is weak, it wouldn't pass.

Thanks a lot for the help, Beverly! I ended up snagging that HP since it wasn't much more expensive than the Toshiba and had some strong reviews. The onboard speakers are weaker than any laptop I've ever owned (super muddy), and for whatever reason the Enter key is hyper-sensitive, but it's a great comp. Hopefully it'll last me at least 5 years!

(Not interested in a desktop or Mac, no hate, just noting personal pref. Hoping to buy something in the next day or two.) Kyle pointed me in the direction of http://www.officedepot.com/a/products/551347/Toshiba-Satellite-L755D-S5163-Laptop-Computer/ with a deal that expires 7/7, though zircon mentioned not being a big fan of a past Toshiba he bought a while back. Don't care about it being a gaming comp (clearly), just want good reliable speed for the laptop that won't degrade too badly over time. My current Gateway was great for 5 years, but the wireless network card is failing and causing recurrent BSODs, and I'm without interweb on the comp, so it's basically dead. Had a Sony VAIO way back as well that worked well. Preferably hoping to buy from OCR's Amazon store to help the site, but a good deal's a good deal. Here are the specs of the Toshiba with the silly ad copy. Basically wanting to know if that's the best I can snag now for $500 or if anyone's got better suggestions. Hierarchy of needs goes RAM/memory's > processor speed > hard disk space. Thanks! EDIT: More specific specs:

A little early to be asking, but props for your optimism.

Since we have so many mixes, I'd wager a guess on this, to give an alternate opinion. ;-P EDIT: Moved to Community.

You should be. You are kind of a douche. TL;DR: Stop whining.

Correct! Always important to make the important stuff stand out. Congrats on reaching the 250 votes to qualify! Good luck, y'all, and I hope Ember Lab ends up winning one of the grants!

Can't get to it; same error issue others are seeing. EDIT: Got it. Assuming you did a Kickstarter update for this?

As long as no one's threatening or trying to harm anyone, SHAME is a great tool of the OCRAPS. If you need to let someone ELSE influential in that person's circle, family or friends know, and that works to get the plagiarism taken down, then that's WONDERFUL. People, Facebooking his mom with a non-threatening plea or a heads-up about the theft isn't a big deal. If it leaves a bad taste in your mouth, it's because it should. He shouldn't steal the music and we SHOULDN'T have to notify his parent that he's an idiot. But if you're going plagiarize artists' music in 21st century ways, be prepared to have it reported in 21st century ways. Stealing our community's shit and selling it was dirty, but OCRAPS, we get dirtier. EDIT: TL;DR - Harassment and threats are always douchey, so never do that. But it's fine to contact anyone about getting plagiarism halted as long as you're respectful. "Yeah, but don't tell my mom, that's embarrassing..." DON'T STEAL OUR COMMUNITY'S MUSIC, STUPID.

I agree with this entirely. Going that route was ultimately effective AND he deserved it. Fuck him. And no one needs to waste time arguing otherwise. "Oh, but don't tell his mom, he might get in trouble with her, that's too much, that's not right." This asshole stole over 200 OC ReMixes across 5 different websites, AND sold them on Bandcamp for prices as much as $15. And when he was initially caught, he decided to try and delete and block people from revealing it to keep whatever money he got from it coming. Fuck that, fuck him, and fuck his apology.

This is some good stuff! Absolutely encourage you all to check this album out, as well as his previous one!

No hate on taking a risk with the vocals here, but the vocals at :51 were flat, IMO, and deserved another take. However, the harmonization at 1:22 to help accentuate some words, followed by the extensive harmonization from 1:38-1:50 and 2:37-3:30 helped the singing sound a LOT more cohesive after an underwhelming start. As far as the instrumental, the brass articulations were certainly solid enough but were probably the most lacking element as far a realistic sound. That said, it wasn't a huge player by any means, it's difficult to work it anyway, and practically everything else sounded strong. The buildup, variation, and dynamics here were all great, really taking a pretty minimalist source in a grandiose direction. Just great pacing and overall execution here by Brandon. YES

For the record, I've only heard this version. The track sounded kind of off-key at :33 in a way that was different from the source. Side by side, I see where it came from, but it definitely sounded awkward on the first listen in a way that the source did not. Oh well, not a big deal. Pretty straightforward arrangement once it kicked off at :26. Pretty good approach here slowing down the theme, and creating a different mood, Very nice dropoff at 1:54, then changing gears completely by isolating the piano and sticking with that for a bit until 2:56. The latter half felt like it dragged a bit due to the deliberate pacing and tempo, but the arrangement clearly stayed strong overall and kept presenting new creative variations of the source. Good stuff, gradually getting way more energetic and over the top with melodic embellishments as things went on. Read Shariq's comparison of the closing section to Gitaroo Man after my vote, and I totally get it. Pretty easy call here! YES

Not really a fan of the opening synth, which is kind of obnoxious, but we'll move past it. Oh wait, it turned out nearly everyone else didn't like it either. Yeah, you probably want to refine that, and/or change it up for a different lead later on to give it later areas of the song a different feel; otherwise it feels like it's repeating a lot with that same lead with the same melodic treatment. Pretty liberal opening for the first 36 seconds. Playing around with the rhythms of the source from 1:05-1:21 before getting a bit more straightforward. I was thinking this would get aimless, but the source was used pretty straightfoward from 1:46-2:48. The energy level's on the static side until 3:19 had a good brief dropoff until 3:25 to create some much needed contrast. The beat patterns were nice and varied, BUT overall groove felt a bit underwhelming and could have used more energy and dynamic range. Right now, the dynamic curve was fairly flat. I'd say this is around 80% of the way there with a great base to build upon. The arrangement and interpretation were definitely there, even during the more conservative sections as far as creating a different mood. Along with the other criticisms, I'm actually probably closest among these NOs to actually YESing it. There aren't any single dealbreaker flaws, but a lot of smaller issues preventing this from sound cohesive and as varied as it should for the 4+ minutes. I wouldn't drastically alter this arrangement, but tweak some sound choices and mixing, and see how you can add more dynamic range to the piece. Cool stuff so far, Ben. NO (resubmit)

Could BARELY hear the mallet percussion from :25-:50; boost that up. The vocals brought in at :50 were a bit too loud compared to the instrumentation (not a huge deal, they sound pretty good), as well as dry. Source FINALLY came into the picture at 1:15, but was pushed back under the vocals from 1:17-1:41. During the arrangement chorus at 1:45, the melodic part of the instrumental's arguably too obscured under the vocals and drumkit. Then back to the dry vocals at 2:10. The source tune was at least a bit louder from 2:35-2:59, but it's still being obscured somewhat. All stuff I'd tweak with the mixing, and worth pointing out, but not a dealbreaker by any means. The source tune's not being used overtly enough throughout this piece. It sounded like mostly original composition with some bits of the source tune added in: 1:15-1:41 (source melody), 2:35-2:59 (source melody), 3:24-4:13 (source chorus) = 99 seconds or usage during 34.74% of the track As it says in the standards, the source material must be identifiable and dominant, which it is not here. So yeah, good song, cool lyrics, cool Asimov sampling idea, solid mixing and performances, but the source usage isn't dominant at all in this arrangement. If you can add references to the source during other areas of the backing instrumentation to get the source tune used in over 50% of the track (i.e. the majority of the piece), then I'd be all over this. If y'all are willing to revisit this, and think you can weave in more of Elec Man theme without compromising the quality and vision of this arrangement, I'd love to hear and would be eager to pass it, or at least have y'all submit another arrangement with more source usage down the line. The talent's definitely there, so don't take a rejection as an claim that the track is bad; this track just happens to fall outside of what we're looking for. NO (resubmit)

Opening piano sequencing was stiff but solid enough. The beats and pizz strings brought in around :20 were too loud. The soundscape was decetly filled out when the main melody kicked in at :41, though the instrumentation was kind of simplistic save for the effects. The electrosynths were pretty loud as well. The production was weird in that everything was pretty loud, except the countermelodic writing (mostly the bowed string parts; also the bass-like part from 1:39-1:48), yet the balance was off. The beats needed to be toned down instead of rolling over other instruments. Not a fan of the some of the generic synth sounds used here as well. Arrangement-wise, this was actually pretty decent, IMO. It can be viewed as aimless, but it's almost a quasi-improvisational arrangement that I wasn't too bothered by. It does come off pretty liberal aside from the one straightforward section, so grounding it with more source usage would be nice. Ultumately, I felt the balance among the parts was the main thing that held this back; the beats shouldn't be so loud, the loudest parts all need to be pulled back and the countermelodic writing needs to not be buried. Fixing those along with sprucing up some of the more generic/out-of-the-box synths in there could hook this up. NO

Finish dat shit!

Annnd we're back. Thanks!

While I don't mind what basically sounds like direct sampling, the lead at :49 basically sounds like the NES original and could stand to sound a bit more unique compared to the original. Not necessarily a huge deal IF there were more substance going on with the rest of the arrangement; sometimes that's the case, sometimes that's not the case. Agreed with the others that the structure ultimately is repetitive. The stutters at 2:51 were cool, but the track still felt like it was just being thrown on a loop with the stutters merely obscuring that there wasn't much else in the way of developing or evolving the arrangement further. I thought the production and balance were decent, but once the track picks up at 1:10, it's basically repeating itself until the end, and you need more dynamic contrast/variation than the what's there now, which is good and clearly headed in the right direction. In the effort to include some more ideas, you don't need to go crazy with over-the-top stutters or wildly changing what's here, but some subtle dropoffs and variations in your instruments and patterns could push this over the top. This is a good foundation here, Mike, so don't be discouraged! NO (resubmit)

Cool intro. Would have loved to hear more bitcrushed kind of stuff going on later. Well, there's definitely some personalization, and some more notable expansion via the freestyle guitar in the second half, but ultimately the structure still feels a bit too close to the original. It's tough to break off from the original when the tempo's the same and the instrumentation sounds chippy much like the original. It's really a matter of whether or not one thinks the arrangement, while possessing some legit interpretation, is still too conservative or not. It goes in the right direction, but IMO not far enough once the main portion of the theme arrives at 1:07. There are still more things that can be done with structure, or tempo, or rhythm, or instrumentation, or mood, etc. to make this stand more on its own. Good stuff so far, and I won't have a fit if this passes, but I don't think it's there yet on the arrangement/interpretation side. Just a bit too structurally conservative for me without enough compensation elsewhere. NO (resubmit)

Never a fan of those extremely generic electrosynths like the ones opening the track. Good stuff with the piano that came in much later on at 1:46. Whoa. Bass at :14 is definitely loud, but sounds rather muddy. The bass being so beefed up fills out the soundscape some, but the overall mixing sounds needlessly lossy. Would love to hear that tweaked a bit. You can have that beefy punch to the bass while clarifying the other instrumentation. That said, the annoying electrosynths only were a big issue in the beginning. This one's on the lower tier of what I could pass, just being transparent, but ultimately the sound quality was barely serviceable enough and the arrangement was solid, which carried it. YES (borderline)

I've only heard the resubmitted version, for the record. From reading the decision threads of the previous submissions, the production and mixing of your sounds are what's mainly holding this back, Ben. That's still the case now, though everything's seemingly improved from version to version. The arrangement approach is in the right direction, but the instrumentation choices and mixing still don't sound quite cohesive enough. The intro sounded pretty sweet, though the bass around :48 felt a bit lacking in body (but got the job done). The electrosynth introduced at :53 was kind of vanilla-sounding, but serviceable. It didn't quite click with the other instrumentation. The electro-kicks started to stick out as too loud and busy at 1:27. It's got good body, but is (at least to me), too far upfront. Interesting use of the synth pad around 1:38; it should sound warmer, and so should the piano, which are both kind of dry. Basically a repeat of :52's build and verse around 3:24 (though the different lead and the addition of the chippy sounds was sweet). The dynamic curve of this piece was also relatively flat. The generic synths at the foundation of the mix never really changed up much once they gradually came in around :53; it was basically the synth padding, kicks, vanilla synths and piano hovering at around the same energy levels for about 4 minutes. I'd definitely need to hear the input of other Js to better articulate these issues and may come back to this afterward, but what I can say for now is that this still isn't quite there yet. Don't be discouraged, because I think you're already maybe 75% of the way there. Your arrangement creativity is there; now the harder part is getting all the sounds and articulations to click together properly and create more dynamic contrast in the way the piece develops over time. NO (resubmit)