Liontamer

Yes, he's always been the only webmaster of the site.

Do you want that for your forum name as well, or are you keeping it as is?

Source Breakdown :00 - "Dr. Wily Stage 1" :25 - "Stage Start" :50 - "Stage Select" 1:08 - "Air Man" (with "Stage Select" backing for the first few seconds) 2:55 - "Bubble Man" 4:13 - "Crash Man" 7:28 - "Dr. Wily Stage 1" The arrangement was relatively conservative, but expansive, and the performance was strong overall. However, there were too many abrupt changes from one source tune to the next (:43, 2:55, 4:12, 7:28), and not enough where everything flowed together seamlessly like 1 cohesive song (:25, 1:08, 5:43). It's suffering from medley-itis, so while it's an enjoyable track, it doesn't sound like one cohesive piece, it sounds like too many source tunes loosely connected together, which is a shame given that separately they were all decently developed. If you could figure out better transitions from theme to theme, I'd say this was an easy pass, but that's the one big drawback as far as our standards. NO (resubmit)

Artist name: SuperFX Dario Montanino http://www.youtube.com/user/SuperFXmusic User ID: DarioMontanino Submission Information Song: Mega Man 2 Remix name : Mega Man 2 Medley Original Composed by Takashi Tateishi

On the production side, the string articulations was pretty solid, and everything was mixed nicely. The soundscape was filled out well, and I liked the background string padding in particular. Not an innovative arrangement, and it can seem overlong and repetitive, but I felt it flowed and evolved fine for a purposefully chill approach. While there were some original writing ideas in the background, it took until around 5:56 to hear any good original foreground writing combined with the source material. That said, despite being straightforward in handling the structure of the source tunes, the mood and instrumentation here helped add the interpretation factor we're looking for. IMO, a solid arrangement here by Damon that gets the job done. YES

Contact Info: ReMixer Name: CrimzonWolf777 Real Name: Damon Barlow Website: http://soundcloud.com/crimzonwolf777 User ID on Forums: 24939 Submission Info: Game: Super Metroid Song Title: Depths of Maridia Songs Used: 'Brinstar - Red Soil Wetland Area', 'Maridia - Rocky Underground Water Area' Comment: So I've been really scared to attempt to submit ANYTHING to OCRemix because I still feel like I'm not good enough. But because someone screamed at me telling me to just do it, here it is. I've remixed alot of game songs, and this one is my 1st submission. What made me put these two songs together was when I was playing Super Metroid and I was humming part of the Maridia area when I was in Brinstar. So I had to do it. I really hope everyone enjoys this song! ( )v

Got it. Did you want to still use SonicThHedgog as your ReMixer name, BTW? I noticed you're using Aires and Air3s a lot, so I wasn't sure if you're trying to move to a new artist name now. Let me know if you need a change for your ReMixer and/or forum name and I can do that if you need.

All of that, yes.

As far as the first 8 minutes, aside from 3:03 the transitions sounded fine to me. Not ZOMG great, but nothing that screamed poor. One could argue 7:12's switch-up in particular with the jingle was abrupt, but it was also fine upon repeated listens, IMO. I didn't hear anything big UNTIL 8:33 that indicated this arrangement wasn't reasonably (and fairly cohesively) structured. There were three very jumpy transitions in quick succession in a little over a minute (8:33, 9:21, 9:46) that didn't flow, and that ultimately makes it a tougher call, but it didn't seem like enough to tip the scales in the big picture. The mixing felt somewhat cluttered most of the way, but the overall production quality seemed OK. The arrangement of the various songs I recognized was certainly personalized, and while there were some jumpy points with no flow late in the game, this felt overall like an extended piece where the focus changed every so often. Most of the theme usages seemed brief, but there were a few extended segments that showed off good development. I'd need to break this down and compare it to the list of songs just to verify the source usage, but I didn't get the sense of it being a dealbreaker merely on account of it being a mega-medley. Will come back to this. EDIT (8/16): I checked out the "loledly" MP3 Nicholas provided that featured all of the sources stitched together just to verify all the source usage, and everything checked out fine. The final section from 9:46-10:32 was a bit of a disappointment, as that was a super close cover, both in structure and mood, but it wasn't a big deal given the overall length of the track. Giving this a few more listens, I still recognize the issue the NOs are taking with the medley structure, but I also still feel the sources were substantially personalized in their performances, and the structure flowed more than adequately enough for the first 8 1/2 minutes. The structure sounded a lot like a rock opera style piece, where there are a lot of twists and turns that nonetheless worked well in the big picture. Again, it's a shame that the final 3 minutes, at least in my opinion, didn't have the reasonable transitions like the first 8 1/2, but at the end of the day, this was cohesive ENOUGH for me to give it a YES. Not the strongest YES given the structure, but it's above the line for me just the same. The performances and production was very strong, and the level of interpretation was solid enough given the expansive treatment each source tune was given.

Did a quick arrangement breakdown, since there were several extended sections that seemingly didn't use the source: A 7:37-long arrangement needs 228.5 seconds of source usage for more than 50% of the track the source material to be dominant. :20-:46.25 (background drum pattern), :47.5-2:10.25, 2:48-4:30.5, 6:35-7:07.75 = 245.25 seconds or 53.67% The arrangement did a passable job going the expansive route, basically keeping the source material intact, but with a different sound and with lots of writing built around it. There were some weaker sections in terms of the execution, but the overall structure and dynamics got the job done, even if I wasn't as enthusiastic as the others. The main issue though was the production. Not sure what supporting instrumentation was going on from 3:14-4:30. The sequencing sounded too stiff (particularly the drums), and everything was competing for space; it could have been pizz strings or a dog barking, I don't know. The soundscape was cluttered, a problem that stood out more during fuller sections like that one. Same with 5:37's section with the faster tempo and crazy drumming. The drumkit being more prominent at 4:42 was pretty suspect, IMO. The rigid timing made it an awkward fit within the rest of the instrumentation. Not a huge deal in the big picture, but there were moments where things didn't lock together as well as they should have. A very underwhelming interplay of the source tune with the original writing at 6:35. Compositionally and conceptually, it's good stuff. However, it just muds together too indistinctly, obscuring BOTH lines. Once the mixing is cleaned up a little and the drums have some more punch, we're good to go, because the arrangement is strong enough, but the mixing was a weak point. It's definitely got merit, and this will probably pass (no problem here), but there's some polish this could use on the sequencing and mixing to sound meaningfully stronger. NO (borderline/refine/resubmit)

I sent an update to djp on this, so if it doesn't get updated soon, you may call him a lazy miscreant.

That's (not) the plan.

Yeah, Deia talked to him too at a con, MAGFest 10 I think, and he thought his comedic mixes didn't fit the site. I think she tried to tell him that's not the case, but hey, gotta let a brother know again! No hate if Brent simply doesn't want to submit anything or doesn't care, as it's his prerogative, and he's always been great on a personal level too. But everyone SHOULD know that as long as an arrangement is substantially interpretive and reasonably well-produced, it's not disqualified or scrutinized extra for being a comedy track.

What...EVER. The clips are cheesy/great (Posting on Friday the 13th ReMix on Friday the 13th, FTW.)

Personally, I love the arrangement. Once you compare it to the original, the differences are appreciated. Cool tempo change, taking the faster guitar rhythms of the original and slowing it down to be the foundation of this mix. Gotta agree with the production criticism though. The intention is good, and we all know Matt, Steve, and Brandon are great at what they do, so hopefully none of them take it as an insult. In the beginning, the intentional static/artifacting quickly became too pervasive in the song once it picked up at :15 and just sounds messed up, despite us knowing it's 100% intentional. It ends up sounding like the file's unintentionally corrupted. Brandon's vocals coming in at 2:44. You definitely have to know the original to appreciate that fully, because you can't obviously tell what the spoken words are in this version. I was tolerant of the mixing for maybe the last 2 minutes, especially because the static wasn't as noticeable. At least according to Winamp's visualization (not pretending it's cutting edge ), it just seems like whatever instrumentation was always screeching in the mid-range was too dominant in the soundscape and ended up crowding out too many of the other elements of the piece seemingly beyond what's necessary in terms of technique and crafting this overall sound. Basically, I'm cosigning with DA; her vote nailed the standout issue, IMO. If the mixing was similar, but without the static interfering so much and without the blaring mid-range crowding out the soundscape, I'd probably go with this in a minute. Obviously this is a more noise-oriented track meant to have distant-sounding instruments and muddier leads, but it's not constructed in a poorly done way, so stuff like the vocal and drum placement sounded fine to me. All of that is purposeful and not inherently detrimental. I just felt the balance among the parts should be refined. I really hope we can post this in some form and that it can be done in a way where Matt, Steve & Brandon remain pleased with it and don't feel they had to compromise their vision. I think it can be done, and hope they'd be willing to go for it! NO (refine/resubmit)

No worries about maliciousness. We're dudes, bro-sister. This stuff's a blip in the bigger picture, so I'll probably split off any drama from the main thread, which is the progress of the Kickstarter. But since a lot of the talk is about how the site seemingly functions according to another large community and now Justin, who's a quality ReMixer and a part of this community also, I think it's fair to reply publicly and be upfront about it, messy as it is for bystanders sometimes. I think in his case, there was a misperception from him leading to him feeling slighted when he shouldn't have, but I'd rather address his points and hopefully hold hands later.

You don't know the fucking half of it. Let the drams roll! I had nothing to do with this situation, but I didn't realize there was a case of taking offense due to some sort of protocol we didn't follow for you. It seems like you've filled in the gaps with your own explanations or got really bad secondhand information to explain these situations to yourself. Sorry, but in creative communities, the development of everything isn't required to be broadcast to the public, even for you. We also made the Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix soundtrack privately. Not everyone needed to know, that's just how it is. 1. This FF6 project started in late 2011, not 4 years ago, so that's not true. McVaffe and zircon compiled a list of people they had previously worked with (e.g. from Voices of the Lifestream) and invited them to the project. No politics involved in wanting to work with people you already have a good relationship with as the starting point. 2. This project has nothing to do with the other FF6 project on OCR. We didn't shut it down, so that's not true. When zircon saw that Prophecy (the director of the second FF6 project) was interested in starting one, zircon spoke to him and asked if he was interested in collaborating. He wasn't, so they decided to work on our projects separately and amicably. 3. No hate, we're cool (love playing Street Fighter with you; I always win), but I think you overreacted there. We ran a very public remix contest to get more people on board, and invited a whole group of new people on. If you weren't invited, that doesn't mean you're hated, you could have participated. zircon has also been messaged by people whose work was stellar and who he invited because they politely asked and expressed interest. If you weren't invited, you could have asked nicely to join up. It seems like you're more offended you weren't invited, as if someone inviting you was the most important protocol about this whole thing, thus "it's all politics" to explain it away. Seemingly, it was not on your radar or beneath you to try to get on the album by either participating in the contest or just asking zircon or McVaffe in a chat or email, and thus you "quit" OCR. Well, you didn't have to do all that, and I'm not sure why the protocol or formula of you being invited was the only way you'd be willing to join, but that's certainly one way to react. Morals differences over money or licensing was NOT one of the main reasons for the VGMix/OCR split at all, says djp: I was only a lurker in early 2002, but morals differences over money or licensing had 0 to do with the creation of VGMix. Neither OCR nor VGMix were advocating selling unofficial arrangements. Where did you even hear that? Whoever gave you that info is full of shit.

Noooo, I didn't get to bust out "I misspoke and I apologize!" :'-( EDIT: At the end of the day, people are going to claim bullshit things about the site and what the artists are creating. I can ignore the subjective comments, but I'm going to have to just ignore the ones that are framed as being objective and fact-based, even though they're not. Basically, this: "The FFVII album was mostly nonsense techno filth." http://twitter.com/atbigelow/status/223088927945400320 = Jon Kyl Tweets Not Intended to Be Factual Statements Stephen celebrates Jon Kyl's groundbreaking excuse-planation http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/381484/april-12-2011/jon-kyl-tweets-not-intended-to-be-factual-statements And that's no hate/drama redux on atbigelow, as there's no way I should have insulted him, but it's just acknowledging that sometimes e-people are going to say WHATEVER, facts be damned, and we're just gonna have to realize it's not necessarily grounded in any reality. So I overreacted, and took what was framed as factual at face value.

Thus replacing our idea to buy Cuban cigars for the staff. I'll miss 'em. :'-(

Except that's 100% wrong and we've never done that here. They're probably confusing us with KFSS Studios or OneUp Studios (Project Majestic Mix/SquareDance/Xenogears Light/etc) as far as sold Square arrangement albums. And those were licensed indirectly through services like Harry Fox, IIRC, as they were being sold for profit. Worth repeating, since I'm seeing the claim, but no one's being "paid" for this Kickstarter. The excess will go to improving the album (both the digital and physical), expanding what the supporters get for rewards, and then anything left would go for bandwidth/site costs long-term. No one is achieving personal gain with a cent of this fundraising money, otherwise we'd have musicians with pitchforks coming. We've not sold or profited from promoting free arrangements for 12+ years, but if you're going to complain about this as far as a Kickstarter, you might as well criticize what little we get from the Google AdSense ads. They don't make much money, but you could argue we're getting "paid" by Google, when everything is fed back into costs for the site (bandwidth, printing albums, promoting OCR and the albums that come out). If we can afford to do printed promotional copies of future albums after FF6 because of this Kickstarter, for example, it's worth it, but it would be used as a helpful cushion for future costs, not money that's being pocketed by staff or artists. Always annoying when fake hyperbolic stats get thrown out there. Anyway, this boils down to... *** "I couldn't play the game with this version in it." *** So what? That's not necessarily not the point of an interpretive arrangement. It's not designed to be dropped into the original game as a replacement for the original music, so no one should be looking at it that way. The point is to creatively interpret the game music with different ideas, oftentimes in new styles and genres. If you need something to sound like the original music, go listen to the original music. But it's silly to criticize the arrangements for something they're not trying to be. Truly spoken like someone who has absolutely no idea what music has been posted here, but spoken with conviction.

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!