Liontamer

O, ye. Of little. Faith.

OC ReMix Presents Mega Man X: Maverick Rising! March 14, 2012 Contact: press@ocremix.org FAIRFAX, VA... OverClocked ReMix today released its 33rd arrangement album, Mega Man X: Maverick Rising. It features sixty-two tracks from forty-nine artists. Directed by Wesley “Bahamut” Cho with assistant directors Wes “Emunator” McDonald and Stevo “Level 99” Bortz, Maverick Rising is available for free download at http://maverick.ocremix.org. Maverick Rising features 4 ½ hours of music from a variety of genres with a hard rock and metal focus, and now ranks as OC ReMix’s largest arrangement project to date. It is a MASSIVE tribute to the music of the core Mega Man X series, spanning nine games released on the Super Nintendo, PlayStation, PlayStation 2, and PlayStation Portable. Maverick Rising is not affiliated or endorsed by Capcom; all original compositions are copyright their respective owners. “This album is meant to be a massive collaborative effort from members of the video game music arrangement community at large. I started this with the goal of covering the music of what appears to be a generally sparsely covered set of popular games, and to bring exposure to quality artists that many may not be aware of. I also wanted to see artists grow with their music,” explained director Wesley Cho. “I am proud of what these musicians have accomplished on this album, and immensely thankful for all of those involved. I hope the album is just as enjoyable for the listeners as it was for those who worked on the music, artwork, video trailers, and website.” Forty-nine artists collaborated on musical tributes to the entire core series, including: Mega Man X (SNES) Mega Man X2 (SNES) Mega Man X3 (SNES) Mega Man X4 (PlayStation) Mega Man X5 (PlayStation) Mega Man X6 (PlayStation) Mega Man X7 (PlayStation 2) Mega Man X8 (PlayStation 2) Mega Man Maverick Hunter X (PlayStation Portable) Exclusively included in the torrent download are the 28 entries in OC ReMix’s Grand Maverick Remix Battle 2010 competition, organized by Shariq “DarkeSword” Ansari. The 2010 GRMB featured sixteen ReMixers, representing Maverick robots throughout the Mega Man X series, facing off and creatively combining the themes of two dueling Mavericks into unique arrangements. About OverClocked ReMix Founded in 1999, OverClocked ReMix is an organization dedicated to the appreciation and promotion of video game music as an art form. Its primary focus is ocremix.org, a website featuring thousands of free fan arrangements, information on game music and composers, resources for aspiring artists, and a thriving community of video game music fans. ### Preview it: Download it: http://maverick.ocremix.org Torrent: http://bt.ocremix.org/torrents/Mega_Man_X_series_-_Maverick_Rising_v2.torrent Comments/Reviews: http://ocremix.org/forums/showthread.php?t=39233

Sigma defeated!

Need more details on what's going on there. Is it that when you attempt to hit "Submit Message," the button isn't working in your browsers? Or are you sending messages which apparently are vanishing into thin air? Does it also not work on Firefox or a smartphone?

Just unlike it right now, that's OK. (EDIT: I've done it for you.) This isn't a coercion campaign, it's an awareness campaign. Coercion is forcing someone to do something under physical or psychological duress, i.e. serious business. Putting up a menacing picture of Sigma, parodying some game quotes of his, and rallying folks to playfully pretend they're in a Mega Man X scenario to help kick Sigma's ass as a not so serious tie-in to a free upcoming Mega Man X album is NOT serious business. Again, if doing something violates your interweb comfort zone, then DON'T DO IT. You'll live. We'll live. You're still wrong about the intent of the whole thing, and made a mountain out of a molehill. That goes for others who implied this was a spam campaign to nag people who are uninterested in VGM or likened it to a hostage situation. If you feel "coerced" we don't need or want your like, it's not that deep. The only goal is spreading awareness for a community's hard work and creative music. We've seen, what, 10-15 people feel it's a miscarriage of justice and maybe 3 incorrectly claim to speak for a significant amount of offended people? While a truly significant amount of people, 2000+, are simply having fun with the pretend Sigma scenario. We'll stay on the "having fun" side.

That's also why I'm a judge! Gotta crush those DREAMS!

Thank you for the ONLY constructive, practical feedback I've seen in this entire thread. It's a nice change from negative absolute nonsense basically saying "You have no right to do a Facebook campaign to promote the album." I actually learned something from you Bagel, thank you. Because we've conditioned people to expect the next news after every trailer so far to be "HERE YOU GO" since album #14, and this changed that, it felt like waiting in line at Disneyland, seemingly reaching the front of the line ("Trailer!"), only to turn the corner and see another line they're now at the back of ("Dohhhhhh!"). Even though that shouldn't be the reaction, since this was my idea, I'll own that. Thanks for that insight. It doesn't justify OTHER unjustified reasoning behind people's negative reactions, which are just insane and assuming bad faith in ludicrous ways, and have been most of the negative reaction, but your insight was eloquent & helpful, cheers!

This. Is. DELICIOUS!

I love you.

No one's coercing you to putting a gun to your head to compromise your VALUES in order to get the album out, or for anyone else, so let's not be "ridiculous" and pretend that that's what's being asked.

Again with the assumption of bad faith. We have one more thing we'd ideally like to include at the time of release that we'll simply try to get done ASAP later on if we hit the mark early.

There are some minors who can't use Facebook, so... don't do a Facebook campaign? Do we have to fill the album full of swears to undermine that argument? We can if you want. It's not possible to take far-fetched issues like that seriously. Saying "You can't promote on Facebook like this, because not everyone can or wants to use Facebook" is silly. That's like saying "don't advertise online, because not everyone uses the internet." That's not a valid reason not to do it. Wanting the album right NAOW is all well and good, but we're not we're even ready to release it right now to begin with, because there's still other stuff to get done, campaign aside. The trailer being out means the trailer was done, and we're planning to release the album in the near future. "Why didn't you start this earlier, before everything was ready?" People ASSUME the project is 110% ready to release and we're somehow not releasing it, which isn't even true to begin with. If that's a big part of the issue, then it shouldn't be, because we're NOT holding a ready-to-release-we-have-everything-prepared-ready-but-oh-well-for-you kind of campaign in the first place. We'll have everything in place by the time we hit the goal in 21XX. Saying "As it stands, people who don't use Facebook are being unfairly barred from accessing this hyped album" is nonsense. Nothing's being banned, and that's entitlement. Even if you didn't like anything, when it's out, it obvious not just going to be out for people who are on the Facebook page. And to say that doing a campaign to build awareness of an album project, which will help us reach more people to be aware of future projects as well, is now some sort of dystopian descent into "frenzied link-spamming" (which isn't even possible if you just LIKE a Facebook page) is over the top. Already was the plan. And not just 1. Everyone be patient. We've been trying different things to hype this one.

Of course there's an ulterior motive. Beyond promoting the MMX album now, the ulterior motive is that more people will hear about the new free mixes and new free albums later on TOO. It's extremely shady and shadowy.

For the handful of people who don't like Facebook publicity campaigns, welcome to Issues! Yes, there is no way we could be attempting to reach both types of people at once. How that makes one go "A-HA, CAUGHT YOU IN LIES!" is beyond me.

You don't even understand how Facebook works. Pages can be automatically created by search terms linked in people's profiles as well as automatically generated by Wikipedia pages. So of course there are going to be other pages automatically generated for "ocremix", "ocremix.org" and "OC ReMix". That doesn't mean we created those Pages, nor are we asking anyone to go there. The link's pretty clear on the homepage. We're not going to make people be required to donate money to access ReMixes. These are free fan arrangement albums. Charging money for unofficial fan works is not how we operate. Yes, we are "punishing" you by attempting to encourage more potential fans to check out and appreciate this album as well as future ReMixes and albums by joining our page so they're more likely to know when even more new music is out later. All I've heard is vague vagueries of moral wrongdoing over daring to promote free music you're instead recommending we charge people for. Quoted for truthz.

Hahaha, yes, why are we trying to get everyone's music more exposure? Better stopz!

Fixed. Which you'd think was implicit and understood, but ah well.

The point is that when Dave started the site in 1999, there were other chiptune and MIDI enthusiast sites, but no sites focused on MP3 arrangements of all games, so a specific point was to use more modern sounds and productions applied to older game music to explore it in ways outside of those traditional limitations. So that's why, if you use MIDI or chiptunes stuff in OC ReMixes, it has to be paired with more modern sounds and modern production techniques. Founder's discretion, and that's the way it's been done.

There was no build to the over-the-top synth soloing only 26 seconds after the song truly kicked off, so the synth noodling during the very first section (:59-1:18) sounded VERY awkward, especially because it only dresses up an otherwise super straightforward melodic arrangement. It also ends up sounding out of place on top of such a simple, laid back groove. Some of the other soloing sounded a bit more measured at least, but the first shot was too much and too soon. I'd expect to hear something like that in a closing section, not the very beginning. Fairly nice piano at 1:23. Agreed with OA about the mechanical-sounding sequencing, but compositionally it was very nice and the tone was very beautiful. More super-busy soloing from 1:37-1:50. At 1:53, the piano sounded a little too distant and lo-fi, but not a big deal; nice composition there. Realism aside, nice little piano flourishes at 2:21 & 2:32 as well. The left and right hands of the piano along with the synth at 2:38 sounded pretty dischordant until 2:51, obviously on purpose (to create a sense of foreboding as the leadup to the "Secret of the Forest" usage). Though I'm not sure the dissonance quite worked, I see what you did there, and I'm ultimately cool with it. Never been a fan of key changes, like at 4:01, but nothing that affects the vote. This kind super-busy synth soloing is better suited near the end, but it still doesn't click, IMO. This is more subjective, but be careful of this kind of soloing that doesn't sound focused. It's easy to go off the rails just trying to create something "different" from the source for the sake of satisfying the arrangement requirement and not copy-pasta'ing the source melody exactly. But it's gotta have more direction than this. I think a great example of pulling off memorable synth soloing is WillRock's "Waking the Fish," which you could check out for some guidance. The source usage is apparent and things are fairly solid on that level, which is why I didn't comment too much on that. On that front, you just need to reign in and refocus the soloing parts so the positioning and flow of everything makes more sense. This isn't far off from being passable, IMO, and I wouldn't be upset if it did, but I'm in the OA/Palpable camp that this needs some added direction and production TLC for the synth & piano would really get this over the bar. Nice work so far, Jordan, and hopefully you give this one more shot if it doesn't make it; this is coming along nicely. NO (resubmit)

More like, send us an easily passable mix so you can join this compo. No hate, but it's not looking like this is a go for you this time around, unfortunately.

Too conservatively structured, IMO. 10 years ago with "Icarus Orchestrated," that close of a cover had a shot, but as of 7 or 8 years ago, that's no longer the case. I'm not saying tossing original ideas over the foundation of the original song is how you get the arrangement passed, but treating the arrangement a lot more like the second half (more interpretive, more personalized) instead of the first (which sounds like a souped up MIDI copy with the same tempo and structure and similar instrumentation to the original) would seal the deal. Here, it was only at 1:36 when it sounded like new writing was truly being explored and combined with different enough instrumentation ideas for the source tune to present something unique and substantially interpretive. Really awesome to see you again in the Turntable.fm room and hearing you submit more stuff. The second half sounds awesome, now just add more interpretation to the first half as well. NO (resubmit)

The beats at :34 were pretty tame and didn't give much energy to the piece, and the overall production quality sounded like it lacked high-end clarity and sharpness throughout. The fullest sections (1:49-2:02 & 2:36-3:30) sections in particular sounded pretty lossy, muddy and cluttered. The arrangement was OK, but the energy was never really there, and the track never felt driving due to the really lackluster mixing job. Gonna have to play devil's advocate, Liam, and ask for another pass at this to get the mixing right. NO (resubmit)

I was worried the second source, Kokubo Sosho Battle, adapted from Tobin's non-game original "Cougar Merkin" (a live version here) was an ineligible source but it's basically an entirely new track made by cutting up elements of that other song. Thanks a LOT for the source usage breakdown as well. This was pretty sweet. It seems like without the over-the-top crunchy distortion, this could be a pass, but I definitely couldn't pass it as is -- the first section in particular was too much. You could tone it down and retain the same overall statement and effect without it being that crunchy. Didn't agree with the drum criticism; they weren't perfectly produced, but were thick and full enough to add power to the track and fill out the background well. Yet again, we have judges saying there's no flow to the arrangement to Brent when the arrangement and flow are JUST FINE. Don't listen to anyone who said that. It's only the massive levels of distortion on some of the parts being a non-starter. Tone that down some and send it right back, and you'd definitely have my vote. Awesome arrangement, Brent, can't wait for you to tweak this so it can go on the front page, this is strong stuff. NO (refine/resubmit)

Short and sweet, the arrangement's there, but production-wise, this was definitely too hot, too loud, and too overcompressed, which bothered me more than the disjointed timing. And the disjointed timing ALSO bothered me. It's purposeful, granted, but the timing's WAY too loose, and the song ultimately suffers as a result. Fix the mixing and timing and you're good to go! NO (refine/resubmit)

Definitely a little frustrated at this second combination mix of themes across a couple of games with 0 breakdown. It's kind of annoying people aren't going to the trouble of explaining how these source tunes are used or piece together. This is Nathan's second mix compo mix apparently using Elec Man's where I don't recognize it in here at all. And it's a catchy source, so WTF? JUST the ending? Anyway, I heard some bits of MM5 Wily, but would appreciate some further arrangement insight, as that theme is NOT memorable. That said, Palpable and OA had my comments about the production down. The mixing's off from moment 1, unfortunately. NO EDIT (3/21): Fixed. That said, SOURCE BREAKDOWNS FROM THE SUBMITTERS ALWAYS WANTED AND APPRECIATED. We're men, not machines. That said, the sources were used here more than amply now that I've had a chance to wrap my head around the MM5 source and hear Elec Man's theme slowed way down in the bells. Following up on this, the percussion at :48 needs a harder tone, more of a snap, IMO. The pad-like instrument at :48 sounded a bit flat and bland as well, and didn't combine well with the other writing from 1:24-1:41, making some of the writing sound off-key; I'd probably drop the volume on that since it's generally a supporting part. Elec Man's theme was used nicely from 1:51-2:56. I could see people having a problem with it, as it's more of a background player to start, while original writing is the main event in the foreground. But Elec Man's referred to in the foreground thanks to the string writing from 2:26-2:53. Not a bad transition into and out of this section, though the mixing of 3:17's section (when more parts came in at 3:44) sounded very uncohesive. I'm not inherently bothered by the warbly effects, but from 3:44-4:01 the warbly effects combined with cluttered mixing to create a brief sore spot. Not a bad transition at 4:20, but back to the bland backing writing of :48's section that ended up dragging this down. Interesting final section at 5:26 for a decidedly different sound for the finish. Initially, I thought the overall structuring wasn't cohesive enough, but I was wrong. I'd looking into refine that drumwork and see if there are other sounds that fit a bit better and have more impact, change that one pad into something that doesn't undermine the energy, make sure 1:24-1:41 doesn't sound off-key anymore and clean up the mixing for that brief section (3:44-4:01). It's little things that are adding up into enough to NO it for now, Nathan, but I hope you make some tweaks to really get everything clicking. You're clearly on the way to getting something posted, very clearly on the right track, so don't be discouraged if this doesn't pass yet.