Liontamer   Judges ⚖️

http://magfest.org http://magfestubersystem.com/magfest/schedule/ THURSDAY, 1/5, 6-7PM - Panels 2 Submission philosophy of OC ReMix vs. Dwelling of Duels The submission policies of OverClocked ReMix are often a hotly contested topic, especially with the rise and fall of VGMix, and the continuing growth of Dwelling of Duels. The moderators of the two sites will sit together on a panel and discuss/debate their strengths and weaknesses. HINT: Our strengths are we love everything. Their weakness is assuming everything here is BOOM HISS BOOM HISS "E" GLOW STICKS HOORAY TEKNOZ PRODUCTION BIAS! THURSDAY 1/5 LATE NIGHT into FRIDAY, 1/6, 12-1:30AM! - Panels 3 OverClocked After Dark! Join David, Stevo, Brian, and the rest of the OverClocked After Dark crew for a live taping of the show. Audience participation HIGHLY encouraged. Featuring: contests with prizes, fanfic reading, "gamerage corner," guest interviews, and a whole lot more! JUDGEHATE FANFIC? OH, BABY! FRIDAY, 1/6, 11:30AM-12:30PM - Panels 2 OC ReMix: HOW I CAN MAKE VIDEO GAME MUSIC REMIXES?!? Join staff & artists from the OverClocked ReMix community for a live one hour workshop, as we discuss how we ReMix our favorite video game music. We'll cover the basics of getting started, including software & hardware, and then BAM take it up a notch with some more specific topics like mastering, dubstep wobbles, humanization & quantization, subtractive synthesis, stutter FX & MORE! LERN 2 MUSIC! GET KILLER STUDIO CHOPS! FRIDAY 1/6 LATE NIGHT into SATURDAY, 1/7, 12AM-WHENEVER WE STOP, NO TIME LIMIT, BABY! - Panels 3 OC ReMix: Having Freaky, Consensual Intercourse with VGM Since 1999!! What do Wild ARMs, Mega Man X, Final Fantasy 9, and Donkey Kong Country 3 have in common? They're all recent or upcoming FREE albums from OC ReMix! Join us for live performances, highlights of community projects, exclusive announcements, the world's second (known) Cheetahmen II championship, trivia, prizes, Larry shouting at people, and so... much... MOAR!! We're taking our talents to late night! --------------------------------------------------------- MOAR VGM & AWESOME STUFF (INCOMPLETE LIST & NOT INCLUDING CONCERTS, GO TO ALL OF THOSE) Video Game Music as a Genre FRIDAY, 1/6, 10-11AM - Panels 1 Indie Game Music Listening Party Hang out with indie composers and listen to their previous and current works. Hear music from and meet the composers of Super Meat Boy, Scrolls, Retro City Rampage, Mass Effect 2 and more! ThaSauce Meet Up FRIDAY, 1/6, 10AM-12PM - Panels 3 ThaSauce is a news portal for the video game remix community. Additionally ThaSauce features a "compo" system to encourage users to hone their composition skills in a friendly competitive environment as well as hundreds of video game arrangements not available anywhere else. This year they will be talking about some exciting new features that will hopefully change the way you experience the video game remix scene. Orchestral Game Music & Society FRIDAY, 1/6, 1-2PM - Panels 4 Join members of the country's first collegiate orchestra dedicated to game music performance for a discussion of various topics surrounding orchestral game music, including its roles in education, popular culture, and the video game industry as a whole! Too Ugly For YouTube: Video Game Radio FRIDAY, 1/6, 3-4PM - Panels 5 Broadcast Excitement! Learn the ins and outs of webcasting heroes Arecibo Radio and 8bitX Radio. Talk shop with the hosts of each awesome show, find out how you can pitch your own idea and get your very own timeslot, and hear all about the pros and cons of internet radio versus terrestrial airwaves. Video Game Name That Tune 8 FRIDAY, 1/6, 5-7PM - Panels 3 Do you know your video game music? Are you sure? Join host Tim Ekkebus and the game-tune spinning Zeiram, to test your memory of some of your favorites, and some that aren't. Will you make it to the final round? Extra Credits Q&A FRIDAY, 1/6, 6-7PM - Panels 2 Daniel Floyd (OC ReMixer sephfire) and James Portnow, the fun guys behind PATV series, "Extra Credits" may not know what they're in for at their very first MAGFest, but you can be sure they'll have plenty to say on the inner-workings of video games. Bad Dudes SATURDAY, 1/7, 9:30-10:30AM - Panels 4 Bad Dudes Music presents their official 2012 panel. Featuring some of the most prominent names in the remix scene, the panel details the group's upcoming releases, side-projects, and more. It'll also provide an unprecedented look at their workflow, from writing and arranging, to managing and producing a full-length album. Grant Kirkhope Q&A SATURDAY, 1/7, 11AM-12PM - Panels 2 The composer of such RARE classics as "Goldeneye," "Banjo-Kazooie," "Perfect Dark" (and other non-RARE titles) will have a wealth of wisdom, stories and information to offer on both his profession and video games in general. Indie Game Musicians Protips and Q&A SATURDAY, 1/7, 2:30-4:30PM - Panels 1 Composers from the Indie Game scene will be discussing topics of their choosing, ranging from breaking in to their tips for great audio execution. Meet the composers for Scrolls, Super Meat Boy, Bastion and more! BRENTALFLOSS FAQ LIVE! SATURDAY, 1/7, 3-4PM - Panels 4 Internet nerd icon BRENTALFLOSS leads a loosely-formatted Q & A with sneak peeks at upcoming projects as well as a buttload of free candy. James Rolfe: The Angry Video Game Nerd SATURDAY, 1/7, 6-7PM - Panels 3 James Rolfe, the Angry Video Game Nerd and founder of Cinemassacre.com answers all your questions.

I like this one in a vacuum, but it always felt too liberal to me. Would love to see an arrangement breakdown of this one. That said, an oldie but goodie cut!

I've heard it already, but make whatever changes you have and hook it up. Mail me at larryoji@ocremix.org when it's done.

Excellent show!

Chernabogue: We did a stealth edit, but added yours to the panel anyway since we just messed up the date we were up to.

I doubt that'll work. Because we're fixing most of the filesnames of everything before, say... #1600, there's gonna be a lot of files in the new torrent where stuff doesn't match up with filenames. Aside from a more technical solution I wouldn't know, the main thing nearly all the old versions and updates versions of the files will share is the "Set Subtitle" field, which is where Dave has always put the unique OCR ID # of the mix. There were maybe 2 or 3 mixes where the ID number was typo'ed that I fixed, but otherwise that's a unique identifier that should be able to be matched up through a program like MP3tag.

You can't just throw it out there like that. I wanna see.

Definitely some smooth stuff. We've have nothing else like it, so this is a welcome debut from both Tryezz & DiGi!

If the new file is different, I believe it would replace existing files by re-downloading. A torrent download isn't smart enough to "update" a file by somehow determine what bytes are different and amending existing files. A torrent will skip a file if the same version already exists in the directory you're downloading the torrent to. In other words, as long as you don't care about iTunes play counts and that kind of thing, you can just bahleet the individual ReMixes you have and get the updated ones when they come out.

That project's coming in 2021.

Hey Niyazi, did any more NiGHTS mixes ever end up getting made?

OC ReMix Presents NiGHTS: Lucid Dreaming July 5th, 2011 Contact: press@ocremix.org FAIRFAX, VA--OverClocked ReMix, in association with NiGHTSintoDreams.Com, today released its 26th arrangement album, NiGHTS: Lucid Dreaming. This album, directed by OverClocked ReMixer and staff member Stevo "Level 99" Bortz, features 32 musicians creating 25 arrangements and two bonus tracks from Sega's 1996 game NiGHTS into dreams..., released exactly 15 years ago today on the Sega Saturn. It also features numerous pieces of artwork by a dedicated group of fans, intended to compliment the music and showcase the creativity and diversity of the original game. The new album represents the first Sega Saturn title to receive an OC ReMix album. NiGHTS: Lucid Dreaming is available for free download at http://lucid.ocremix.org. The album was produced to help promote the music of NiGHTS into dreams..., was made by fans, for fans, and is not affiliated with or endorsed by SEGA or Sonic Team; all original compositions and characters are copyright their respective owners. "To me, NiGHTS into dreams... defines what the essence of the Sega of old was: creative, original, adventurous, and memorable. The music was the most memorable part of the game for me: I've been listening to the soundtrack for 15 years now. Despite being a cult classic, NiGHTS has not received its due attention over the years. Two years ago, I started this album, hoping to pay respect to the music, the game, and their creators through art and sound. I couldn't be more proud of the amazing work everyone put into this album, and I hope you all enjoy it!" said director Stevo Bortz. Ranging a wide variety of genres, images, and dreamscapes, the album also features the recurring theme of the NiGHTS musical motif throughout the album, as well as a song with vocals contributed from thirty NiGHTS fans. Lucid Dreaming will also be the first OC ReMix album heard by both the game's creators and its lead composer, thanks to associate producers Lynne "TRiPPY" Triplett and Niyazi "DiGi Valentine" Sonmez, creators of the NiGHTS fansite NiGHTSintoDreams.Com. "One of the most surreal things to happen was the opportunity to give the completed album to two of the game's original creators. At this year's Summer of Sonic convention, NiGHTS creators Yuji Naka and Takashi Iizuka each received a hand-delivered copy of Lucid Dreaming," said Bortz. "Iizuka was so excited when he was told what it was that he asked for additional copies to give to the game's lead composer, Tomoko Sasaki. Having this album in the hands of those responsible for the game's creation is a feat I never thought would happen, and shows that the process has come full circle: the fans are giving back to the creators." 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://lucid.ocremix.org Torrent: http://bt.ocremix.org/torrents/NiGHTS_-_Lucid_Dreaming.torrent Comments/Reviews: http://ocremix.org/forums/showthread.php?t=35858

Here we go...!

Haha, that's Rank 1 alright.

The opening organ and synth work sounded stiff, but everything was decent to start. Really scratching my head at the percussion at 1:17. The constant beat didn't really click for me, IMO, but I can live with it. Overall, the percussion writing was handled alright. For every vanilla part, there were much more lively, progressive parts. The one pet peeve I have on Brandon's electric guitar work is that his performances always sound stiff and not as expressive as they should. It was like that for his God of War piece from HvV, and it's like that here. That said, he had a lot more instances that were problematic in Random Encounter (IMO), to the point of dragging down the entire arrangement. This was on the better side of all those examples, and he got the job done here, even though he isn't realizing his potential here. And that's a shame because it's like he topped out at "Trapped" (which was great) and never rose to the occasion like that again. The mixing was way muddier than I'd expect and made it harder to appreciate the details. Gladly, I'm not the only one who pointed this out, so I'm gonna be bad cop. Lots of good organ and rhythm guitar writing underneath the leads got muffled as a result of this undeservedly weak mixing job. This could really use another stab at the mixing to clean this up. It's definitely on the lower side on what I can tolerate, really lacking a lot of clarity and undermining the otherwise-passable quality of the arrangement. Tweak it, get it sounding a LITTLE better, and I'll flip my vote. NO (borderline)

No torrent yet. Later this year. http://ocremix.org/remixes/?&offset=0&sort=datedesc

Yes, the older stuff has inconsistent tagging. We know. Where have y'all been? When we do the updated torrents this year, all that will be corrected. http://ocremix.org/forums/showthread.php?t=20433

Just throwing an extra seal of approval on this. Blake has a really smart, poppy take on the original with some solid lyrics and catchy use of Auto-Tune that completely retains "Under Construction's" upbeat energy. Awesome stuff, plain and simple. YES

A lot. We have one on the horizon (that you contributed to!), so I'm too busy to answer your question, as fate would have it. EDIT: Luckily, I'm not the only one on staff (see below!) When it's uncontested, 3 NOs or 4 YESs. If the vote is split, it's usually a difference of 3 votes to close it (e.g. 4Y/1N, 1Y/4N). If it's closer than that, we usually bug every judge who will vote, then resolve if it seems no new POVs are coming in.

Pretty generic electronica beatwork to open things up. Dynamically, there wasn't much going on here. Besides the occasional dropoff, it was this groove for more than 5 and a half minutes. The synth & effect choices were also pretty cookie-cutter. The melody kicked in at 1:24, but the texture was too sparse, and the lead had no body or presence. The mixing would definitely need to be adjusted to make the lead more upfront. For example, the effect thrown in at 2:04 just comes in so loud and over the top compared to everything else, you'd think a spammy pop-up ad showed up in my browser while I was in the middle of listening to the song. It's just like "Where the hell did that come from?" Agreed with OA that the way the melody was handled wasn't very interpretive. The attempt here to personalize it was there, clearly, but this should be more interpretive and creative with it. 3:15's section obviously used the theme in an even more straightforward way before repeating the same gated use of the melody. In short, this isn't the worst thing I've heard, Lee-Roy, but it's nowhere near the level of where it needs to be to get approved. The arrangement of the source tune needs to be more thorough, the textures need to be better fleshed out and balanced, the beats need to be more varied, and the overall composition needs to be more dynamic. NO

Yeah, agreed for the most part on OA's crits regarding some weak transitions, but was on the same page as the others. I could see why someone would think twice on the arrangement, as the structure's basically the same, but there was some smart additive embellishments as well as nuances in the chorused writing to give this a different feel than the originals. I think it comes off personalized enough to just make it there. I loved the power of three motif in here with the 3 different guitars, and the simple, straightforward recordings really made this an understated piece of ear candy where you can really appreciate Alex's performance and pick out details. A nice genteel sound, and a solid take on these Zelda II sources. Always nice to have a great house track on board, nice work, Alex! YES

It's definitely different enough to merit looking at it again. Aside from a couple of sections retaining the same structure of the first version, this is basically a totally different animal. Honestly, this is an easy pass for me. Normally when we have a very straightforward YES, we don't need to redo a vote, and I just go with the revision the artist sent. But since the previous version split the panel, there's nothing wrong with doing another vote again if y'all would like to. Jordan is basically asking us to ignore the conditional YES on the old version in order to send us this version, which is a reasonable request. That said, I was YES last time, and this version is still very cool. I'm more partial to the relaxed nature of the first version, so I hope Jordan doesn't feel like it should never see the light of day since we'd be going with this one. Definitely a lot stranger and a lot more mutated, if you will, compared to the first version. Either way, they're both great arrangements. This one could use a higher VBR encoding to max out the size, and there were still some mixing issues where this could have sounded cleaner, but definitely nothing approaching dealbreaker to me. The timing was loose in some parts, but nothing setting off any flags or killing the experience. Not really any huge issues on arrangement or production, IMO. This here offers something sonicly [sic] unique despite us having over 700 contributors. Jordan, keep us this great work.

For the record, I've only heard the revised version from 6/25. Definitely pretty mechanical from 1:10-2:00. It was the rigid percussion sequencing and unrealistic samples there that were dragging this down. The orch stabs at 1:09 were pure cheese. Tacky, but I think I'll live. The low bowed strings there were also fakey, but not a huge deal. The rest was solid enough, and I really liked the arrangement, dynamics and instrumentation ideas on whole. But that 50 seconds of weak drums was too beginner-ish and a dealbreaker for me. It just sounds too sloppy compared to nearly everything else. Fix that up so that everything is fully clicking and sounding strong. You can do it, Mathew, just get some advice on the percussion, try some things to get it sounding more natural, and this would be golden. It's worth the effort, just tug on a few people's sleeves and see who can offer the help/advice you need on this one. NO (refine/resubmit)

2:30-2:58 of the arrangement vs. 2:21-2:54 of "So Right" I love the track in a vacuum, but nonetheless, the use of the "So Right" writing from the Roadside Romeo film soundtrack with the saxophone from 2:30-2:58 is arguably too much to be called "extremely limited." I had it at a bit over 10% of this piece. Not necessarily looking to formalize something, but what's Dave's & the panel's POV on "extremely limited" outside song usage. 28 seconds may not seem like a lot. Does it matter whether it's 28 seconds of, say, a 2 minute arrangement vs. a 4 1/2 minute one, or it is really just about the length of time outside, non-VGM sources are used? See this past decision and Dave's comments for more background: http://ocremix.org/forums/showthread.php?t=13763

How did this get here? Oh, he put it there. Look at that, he read my mind. Really fun stuff. Obviously has some halc staples, but actually didn't remind me of any of his past work, which was a nice change of pace. It doesn't remind me of flying or anything like that (no hate on the title), but it's a geeky club joint, complete with fireball SFX as a beat. I imagine some YouTube comments will be like "Goomba in the club! Toad in the club!" I'll still facepalm. YES