Liontamer

If that was my only responsibility here, I'd agree with you.

The opening seemed fine to me, despite being unconnected to the source. Though she went YES, I didn't agree with Deia on the arrangement being almost too conservative. There were a lot of embellishments and interpretive flourishes even in just peforming that verses that I thought showed off creativity basically the whole way. The chiptune-ish percussion brought in at :52 didn't seem like a great fit with the other instrumentation. From 1:19-1:45, the mixing/production was off and the piece really feels very cluttered. And it pretty much stayed like that no matter what was in play from that point on. Really strange, I wish I could articulate the issues better here (the others covered it thoroughly), but really the balance and/or EQing needs to be addressed. I felt like too many parts were stepping on each other. Oh DAYUM, what an abrupt fadeout around 3:36. Definitely poorly done, it faded down way too fast and just came across like you had to just end the song because you ran out of time to work on it further and flesh it out. Even just doing an extended fade would have sounded so much smoother. I thought the arrangement was fine aside from the ending not really being written or properly resolved. Fixing that up along with tweaking the production would easily put this over the top. No shame in a NO here, but a NO it is for now. Hopefully, it's a pretty easy resubmission.

Sweeet. KyleJCrb's responsible for introducing me to Mega Beardo's music. Just a very freaky VGM persona, that's for sure. Good fun. Right off the bat, the instrumentation was distant, but it was purposeful and presented an excellent constrast with the guitar being so upfront at :08. The levels of the percussion at :24 felt a bit too hot though, with the cymbals and beats being way too loud, STEAMROLLING over the leads, over the melody. What was up with that? At :37, that might have been acceptable, but when the verse truly arrives at :50, the levels/balance just don't make enough sense. Your leads need to be louder and more upfront compared to the percussion. 2:12 was a bit repetitive, structurally. It wasn't literally cut and pasted, but it just sounded like more of the same. Beyond that second iteration of the theme, I was hoping for some more substance and interpretation. Luckily, that arrived when 3:20 had a beautiful dropoff, leading to a gradual build starting at 3:59. THe second half here really presented a lot of new original and interpretive ideas with the source to make sure the arrangement creativity wasn't in doubt. I'll be honest, I'm leaning with the conditionals, but if Ryan called this track a done deal, I felt he was able to put it over the top enough with the arrangement and the production was decent enough where I could ultimately live with this as is. That said, I'd prefer the levels of the first half could be touched up. Good stuff! YES (conditional)

Wow, VERY cool source tune. Very interesting, especially the vocals. The arrangement breakdown was definitely much appreciated! Definitely feelin' this arrangement. Lots of Shnabubula-style sounds & samples in there. Can't say the notes bothered me anywhere, maybe I just don't have as sensitive ears as OA. Was definitely feeling the overall minimalism here, and loving the mood and dynamics of the piece the entire way. I love how this one's leaving all the YES's pretty speechless. Count me in, this is strange, awesome stuff that I can't describe. It's interpretive and it works. I love it. JAWESOME!

Yeah, Kyle had selected this for an episode of Nitro Game Injection, so I was already pretty familiar with David's DoD take, although it wasn't the further polished version. Wow. What the fuck? No. I gotta say, this stated rationale for this vote is completely arbitrary and wrong, and it makes the panel look bad. So if music from Super Mario 64 were much more obscure, a pretty straightforward cover of it would make it? That's not how we're supposed to be evaluating anything, giving bonus points or leniency for source obscurity. It shouldn't matter whether the source has never been mixed or has been done to death, the level of interpretation needs to be pretty substantive. I agree with the overall arrangement being too conservative. 1:12-2:00 does some soloing and riffing on top of the foundation of the original. I love the soloing, but that's basically the aspect that made this stand apart from the original, not really any particular interpretation of the source tune itself beyond the adaptation to rock. As was pointed out, the patterns, rhythms, tempo and overall mood were pretty much the same as the original, only a rock cover and upgrade. I love it in a vacuum, and don't mean to disrespect David, who is an awesome musician and really on fire with quality arrangement since returning to the scene. This one just happened to be much more conservative than his previous material, no hate. If you want to come back to it and interpret the theme itself more, David, that's cool. If not, it's a great rock arrangement that everyone should check out regardless. NO (resubmit)

Which, by Liontamer's own admission a few threads ago, was shaky, at best. Fair Use, by NO means, is guaranteed protection for OCR. I didn't say it was "shaky," I said I believe what we do here falls under fair use, and also made clear I'm not a lawyer and won't pretend to have the authority of one.

He answered this: http://twitter.com/waxpancake/status/83928854581874688 http://www.picturepundit.com/2011/06/23/andy-baio-vs-jay-maisel-in-a-fair-use-case-my-quick-question/

Andy had an artist create a pixelated rendition of the album art photo of Kind of Blue for Kind of Bloop. The original photographer said it violated his copyright and sued him. The lawsuit would have been too expensive and time-consuming, so Andy, without admitting guilt and firmly believing the transformative nature of the work meant it fell under fair use, nonetheless felt he had to settle the case to get it behind him. It cost $32,500 to settle. The blog is his story of the case, and an informal analysis of fair use, particularly in regards to transformative visual artwork.

It doesn't really matter whether an artist knows or doesn't know if a source tune was originally written for a game. Just because the artist doesn't know doesn't mean we just toss out our rules. Otherwise, we'd post every mix of that Mortal Kombat techno theme. That said, a community project to make a list of VGM tunes that aren't commonly known as not being originally written for a game would be a handy reference tool.

zircon's right on how the standards have evolved. That said, Rabid is saying that the Doom source only uses one riff from a mainstream song, then goes to all-original material, meaning the majority of the source is stuff originally written for a game, according to him. I'll take a look into this, compare the source and mainstream stuff in question, and get back to you. It's rare we pull back decisions, but obviously if we made a mistake, there's no issue doing a full vote. But if the Doom source is basically a Black Sabbath arrangement, then what zircon said is correct. After our Doom albums, we got a lot more information on what in-game tracks were in fact mainstream music covers/arrangement and thus ineligible to be source tunes for OC ReMixes.

As DarkeSword said, the mix you send should be the final version of your mix. Some people attempt to game the system and replace a file with an updated version before we get to it. Updating the file only works if the filename and path are exactly the same and we haven't listened to it yet. It also leads to some confusion when people assume we haven't already started judging it and we end up judging an out of date version, so I can't recommend it. If you're still in the middle of revising your piece, don't submit it yet. It's always worth pointing out that the # of submissions has increased year by year, so that's why the wait time continues to be long. The judges (no help from me) have definitely been working a lot faster now and are getting much closer to present day. Their goal is to be caught up by the end of July, so we hope to be back to quicker judgements before the summer is over. Also, ALL resubmissions are meant to be fast-tracked back to the panel as a priority, and don't have to wait in line in the process, so just make sure you flag a resubmission as such in the title of your email and link to the post where the original decision took place.

Durr. Anyone who does that obviously isn't in it to win it.

http://ocremix.org/events/distantworlds2011/ It doesn't get much bigger than this. YOU can win the opportunity to meet Nobuo Uematsu OR some amazing Final Fantasy music autographed by the man himself, courtesy AWR Music & Distant Worlds! We recommend to LIKE ALL 3 of the Facebook pages of the folks putting together this contest, including Uematsu-san's official page: • http://on.fb.me/NobuoUematsuFB • http://facebook.com/ffdistantworlds • http://facebook.com/ocremix POST HERE IN THIS THREAD TO ENTER INTO THE CONTEST! Anything you want, just make it about Final Fantasy, Nobuo Uematsu, Distant Worlds, OC ReMix, or the fact that you're in it to win it! Larry Oji, Nobuo Uematsu & Jimmy Hinson at Distant Worlds - Atlanta's Woodruff Arts Center: May 7, 2011 ENTER FOR VICTORY! THIS COULD BE YOU!

Good genteel stuff here. Had a nice intimate sound, but I initially had a hard time making out a lot of the direct sources in this. It's really due to the embellishments being so liberal that I frequently felt like the source tunes were constantly phasing in and out of the arrangement. The piece was 3:48-long, so I needed 114 seconds of overt source usage so that they were the dominant part of the arrangement: :02.75-:05.5, :22-:30, :37-:49, :51-:54.25, :56-1:06, 1:08-1:10, 1:12-1:34, 1:38-1:40, 1:42-1:46, 1:47-1:50, 1:53-1:59, 2:04-2:06, 2:12.75-2:20, 2:21-2:25, 2:28-2:31, 2:49-2:51, 2:54-2:56, 3:07-3:31, 3:33-3:41 That said, even with my stopwatching, the themes were overtly in play for more than 2 minutes (2:07.25 minutes, to be more precise) just off a quick look. There could be other areas that I was missing, even though I'm pretty familiar with both. Honestly, a little too busy for my personal taste, but it's nonetheless a very creative, sophisticated take on both themes. The Theme of Love cameos were nice, and I really enjoyed the brief interplay of the themes. And the VERY quiet opening of the melody from :37-:43 and gradually bringing up the intensity by 1:06? A thing of beauty. Nice work! YES

Hate to buzzkill, but it's still a "best 10"/"top 10 of OC ReMix" list, which we discourage. When we come out with blogs, I'm pretty sure we're gonna find some way to relax that issue and allow for some more formalized discussion on top lists, but until the staff has more time to think through the implications, we continue to discourage "best" lists. Recommendation threads (e.g. "What are good piano mixes?") that aren't geared towards denoting the "best" are still OK.

Ladies and gents of the panel, I realize that my submission is bound to induce nausea in some of you, being a Chrono Trigger remix and a remix of Corridors of Time on top of that. But I assure you, you need not prepare yourselves to run to the bathroom or reach for your barf bags, because this mix presents a rather different take on the source from what is currently posted on the site. The majority of the Zeal remixes can be described as dreamy, chill, and containing ethnic elements, and therefore stay true to the emotions evoked by both the source material and the setting of the game. Perhaps I am committing a sacrilege here by making my mix dancy and groovy, and I anticipate that it might disappoint some listeners because of that. But I am sure that many will find it fun and enjoyable. I originally envisioned a trance remix of this theme, and put together a short WIP that was more trancey. However, since I've been mostly listening to house and electro, those influences soon took over. Then one day I was chatting with DA, and it just so happened that she already had done some vocals for a Zeal remix, and she very kindly allowed me to incorporate her vocal work into my mix. It is safe to say that without her vocals this remix would have never sounded like a complete track, as is the case with our earlier collaboration "Elevation". I really hope that we can work together again soon. Once the vocals were in, I really wanted to have a bridge/breakdown section that was different from the rest of the track. Initially, I wanted to have a piano section, but it didn't seem to work. This is when I heard Britney Spears' "Hold It Against Me", which had a nice dubstep breakdown and served as an inspiration for one in this mix. I know, some people will frown at the mention of Britney, but hey, that track was very catchy and danceable. Anyhow, once the basic structure of the remix was in place, it took a lot of tweaking to get it to the stage when it is finally ready for your enjoyment. I am also hoping that the "90's will not be calling to ask for their production back this time." Once again, I would like to thank zircon for his feedback and especially for introducing me to Paulstretch, which I used to create vocal textures in the intro. Also, thanks to beatdrop for his input. In conclusion, I want to give a shout-out to other mixers of this theme who came before me. Especially mv, Unipulator, Joren de Bruin and Tweek, and Vagrance. Till next time! Remixer: ambient, Dragon Avenger Name: Alex Gventsadze Game: Chrono Trigger Song arranged: Corridors of Time Remix title: Lucid States -------------------------------------------------------------

Original Decision: http://ocremix.org/forums/showthread.php?t=32717 Hi, Attached is a resub of my Ufouria remix, titled "Above the Clouds." I've made a ton of additions and changes since it was rejected back in early May, and I feel like it's a much better, fuller song now, without sacrificing the floaty feel I was going for. I'd list all the changes, but I don't want to spoil everything. They should be pretty self-evident when compared to the original sub. Below you'll find the original submission email, for reference. Thanks, Josh Freund (Drakken) ------------------------------ The sequencing/timing was still a little stiff, but clearly improved. The strings at :32 sounded somewhat pasted on top of the soundscape; once could argue that for much of the new part-writing introduced here, but I thought it was solid enough. I still thought this did a great job adding some more personalized writing ideas to the arrangement, giving it a bit more character and substance, while not disturbing the overall mood of the previous version. And with some of the left-hand writing spiced up and the timing not sounding as robotic, I really thought this clicked that much better. Very glad you were willing to take another shot at this one Josh, you really did a good job of better realizing the potential here. Nice. YES

I WANTED A WOAH-MUN!

http://ocremix.org/forums/showthread.php?t=33686 We don't have much dubstep, but given how many people love the wub-wub, I'll see if the staff wants to add that kind of tag.

The "Set Subtitle" field of the tags (not visible in most applications, unfortunately) has had the OCR ID # I believe for pretty much the entire time.

Recently overheard from Liontamer: I tricked Paige, and she said YES, hahaha!

NICE! There might be a little detail missing from Ken's face, but I realize the faraway perspective makes it a little difficult. I trust you, especially seeing these inked. WOW, phenomenal so far, I'm hyped! This is totally what we're going with.

Leaving a note for myself to get back to this: http://ocremix.org/remix/OCR01161/ I sent Jaron a message, hopefully I get some clarification. EDIT: Confirmed! Lyrics: [x8] You can't stop [x8] You can't stop [x2] (You can't stop - stop) You can't fade the beat (You can't stop - stop, stop) You can't stop the rhythm, my rhymes are concrete (You can't stop - stop) You can't fade the beat (You can't stop - stop, stop) You can't fade the beat, beat You can't fade the beat [x24] You can't stop

Yeah, that's looks like a great concept, Denny!

Nice. Happy 9th birthday!