Liontamer

Mike, I'm not sure what prompted djp's reply, but it looks like he read into the mention of Web 2.0 as the addition of bloated features, plus it was mostly theoretical with no mention of code or programs, which doesn't help Dave as much he'd want. Also, I could see how he read into your post as "that sucks, so do this now," since you used the words "hate" and "obnoxious," but reading between the lines, your idea was presented fine and was respectful. Your idea regarding the submissions process was substantive, and I understand what you're talking about with your ideas for streamlining it. Something like that would be very cool (with pretty much all of the features you suggested) as long as it was stable and thought out well. There would need to be a way to confirm that a submission was from who it said it was from (perhaps emailing the submitting artist based on whatever required email address they use to submit with the form, as well as how to deal with hosting subs, but the overall idea could be doable. Dave would just need to have the time to code it and integrate it into the site, and that seems like something he doesn't have time for in the foreseeable future. It's definitely not that no one would want to implement to idea. In fact, it's something that's been proposed in depth before. But the list of other tasks to do would have to be cleared off before that idea could become a priority, plus the current music selection system isn't broken despite being slow. Again, that's not saying it's great in terms of speed, because it sure as hell isn't. It's just saying that because the submissions process is still doing a good job of actually selecting the ReMixes (i.e. YES or NO), increasing the overall speed of the process is not as critical as some of the other stuff we're working on right now.

Definitely a relaxing listen. Welcome aboard, Justin! Hope to hear more from you!

OC ReMix & GearCrave team up for Soul Calibur IV giveaway!!! ***PLEASE NOTE: The Soul Calibur IV giveaway is open to U.S. residents only. GearCrave Editor-in-Chief Mike Payne recently interviewed djpretzel and Larry "Liontamer" Oji about OC ReMix and and Capcom's Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix: http://www.gearcrave.com/buyers-guide/features/interviews/interview-david-w-lloyd-and-larry-oji-of-ocremixorg/ Now, OCR is teaming up with both GearCrave, the Men's Buying and Lifestyle Guide, and Namco to hook up GearCrave & OC ReMix fans with 5 FREE copies of Namco's Soul Calibur IV!!! Besides covering the hottest technology and lifestyle trends, GearCrave gives you opportunities every week to win the latest gadgets and gear, with recent GearCrave Giveaways including Vestal watches, Dexter: The Second Season on DVD, and huge gift certificates to MollaSpace.com, KarmaLoop.com, and ThinkGeek.com. Here's GearCrave's Mike Payne below with details on how to quickly & easily sign up and enter the contest to win one of 5 FREE copies of Soul Calibur IV for the Xbox 360 OR PlayStation 3!!! You heard Mike! Don't hesitate to join this exciting contest for the chance to walk away with Namco's Soul Calibur IV!!! Thanks, as always, for being a fan of OC ReMix! -Larry "Liontamer" Oji Assistant Soundtrack Director, Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix Head Submissions Evaluator, OverClocked ReMix Creator, VG Frequency http://www.ocremix.org http://www.vgfrequency.com

Yeah, thanks for the save w/time specifics. Even though that's taken from "Succession," it still pieced together poorly with the rest of the track, IMO. It's still about "The woodwinds didn't really seem like they were in the same key as the groove, so there was no cohesion." The groove just didn't click with the strings, woodwind and e-piano to me. "I just wasn't feeling :43-1:11 at all. For an only 2:19-long track, everything's gotta be clicking on all cylinders. I'd say refine that portion in the middle so the track pieces together strongly the whole way and this would be set." Yeah, still the same issue for me. Definitely a well put together track, and I'm the minority on how much that issue seems to mess up the flow of the track, but I'll stick with the borderline NO. If it had been an issue of using the source enough, then it'd be a different story. Even though Heath inherited that section I had issue with from the source, to me it worked in "Succession" yet didn't click here. If the track were longer, and marginalized that more, I'd go YES.

Except that you missed http://digg.com/xbox/OverClocked_ReMix_talk_Super_Streetfighter_II_Turbo

Here you go: http://vgmdb.net/album/10224

No need to get emo.

Yeah, that's right. As for getting Dave's attention by saying the music is soulless and no fun, that's definitely a great way to do it. I could see how he felt insulted by that. Now when you say the site isn't the same as when you found it, that's true. But I don't see why that's automatically a negative thing. Lots of old schoolers dropped out, but new people have come in. And when you broadstroke that it was only "fun and had heart" when it was about Ailsean, McVaffe & JAXX, you're just out of touch with stuff from AnSo, Sixto, Shnabubula and zircon, the new regulars. I need to remind that the interweb is a poor conduit of emotion, so I'm definitely not mad or upset or anything like that. But we didn't get old & busted at OCR because you don't follow it closely anymore and don't connect readily with what's here now. We're doin' fine. Now I agree with you on the broad point that less music "stands out." But I only agree with that because the better creativity and quality consistency from track to track means you don't have an Ailsean or AmIEviL standing out from a crowd of "FL teknoz" like back in the old days. So instead of A-grade stuff shining from a crowd of Cs and even Ds, it's all As and Bs. There's no hate on the older stuff, but the bar's been raised. Not even just by the judges. The community collectively getting better made the bar go higher. But yeah, you're entitled to the opinion, and I'm sure some people agree. On the internet, the shelf life of a website only lasts so long for some people. But when anything's been around for a while and becomes an institution, that's bound to happen. I think we're in good company. I'm sure FARK.com, Homestar Runner, Slashdot, etc. get the same rap from some old schoolers. If you evolve, you're bound to have some old schoolers feel things somehow went to shit. In 5 years, that'll probably be Angry Video Game Nerd, Zero Punctuation and Destructoid: "Old & busted," yet still popular and as good as ever, if not better. Just be sure to read more closely next time. A vocal minority was critical of the album's approach in the first few posts, but it doesn't represent OR typify the community's response, just like Joe Cam's "What happened to the magic? We used to cuddle!" complaint about OCR is a minority opinion. The thing that would be the most annoying is that, despite the staff and several other ReMixers and community looking forward to Retro Remix Revue, a couple of people said "meh" and that somehow becomes "how all of OCR feels about the album." It's not.

I don't agree at all, Joe, and it's not because I spend most of my time on this side of the fence. I judge stuff, my time is supersaturated with these mixes and I still enjoy what the community here puts out. I can see why people miss the old days of 2-3 mixes a day and overall rougher sounding stuff, but if you've been here for years and years and you don't think OCR has that spark, that's fine. Anything that's not shiny and new, including concepts, can seem like it got old. But there are thousands of people, including newcomers, who come here every day, download the latest music and they definitely think it has that spark. The music here generally has equal parts soul, creativity and polish.

I already told you yesterday evening on IRC that there was nothing to discuss about that and that we don't need any rule against that, for the same reasons DarkeSword said now. You can't force someone not to do multiple WIPs, and if they want to do that, that's their choice. That's not something that needs a policy. And the likelihood that people would post enough divergent WIPs is so low, it's a waste of time to even bring it up. Not that I'm mad, but even though I told you it was not worth discussing, you brought it up anyway. Why bother?

If you have any comments or questions related to the Works-in-Progress forum, let's focus them here. We do want to improve the visibility of the forums and ease for artists to receive feedback, keeping in mind that the judging staff doesn't have the free time to step in and do that directly. So let's see what we can come up with.

Awesome. I'm definitely listening right now. Great so far!

That was 6 years ago. As far as staff goes, there's been none of that, and I've never seen that on the boards or in IRC. Where are you getting that from?

Regardless of whether or not VGMix3 was coming tomorrow or later, norg just elaborated that VGMix2's code had a lot of vulnerabilities that were exploited. They're not going to keep using that code when they don't have the people they need to patch it up and make it stable & safe to use.

Sounds nice so far. It's definitely going to turn out well.

He was rebanned (along with Shnabubula and LongeBane) for identity theft from obtaining Dragon Army forum account passwords and logging into OCR & VGMix accounts. He made fake trolling posts over here (for the lulz), while he abused (and basically broke) VGMix's Jamroom system to the point where they turned off some user features and disabled new accounts to protect themselves.

Absolutely, it's about close-mindedness. Dave stresses we're not the be-all-end-all approach to VGM arrangement; interpretation is our way--one way--of tributing the music. So to see others crap on this album for being cover-ish seems pointless, when that was the intent of the artists. They wanted to play it fairly straight and then throw in some embellishments to sweeten the deal, and this is how they pay tribute. There's nothing wrong with this approach at all. Hell, I want that Gambit cover on my project! I oughta holler at them. OCR is really large within the VGM arrangement community, and obviously I think that's great. But who knows how the general public feels in the cover vs. interpretive debate. In terms of what would appeal more to the general public, conservative approaches may be more popular, but then again interpretive stuff wins a lot of people over as long as the source tune is paramount. I'd actually love to know more about what casual fans prefer. Mustin (Joe Cam too, if he's reading), you ever holler at Colin Sanders? One of his bands, Over the Map, had a great cover/conservative version of some Mother 3 tracks. It was too close to the style of their source track from the Mother 3i arrange album, so we had to reject it, but the song itself was pretty cool. They reminded me of The OneUps a little. Tell him I sent you his way if you message him. Well, that's certainly a compelling reason for you yourself not to be interested; I can't take that away from you. But in a vacuum, which is how a lot of casual fans will encounter this album if they promote it right, the variety is there and this is a nice spread of several top games. Sure, if they had a more eclectic tracklist, it might grab your attention, but the fact of the matter is that they're trying to sell this and Super Mario World and Sonic the Hedgehog sell more than Elevator Action and Journey to Silius. Don't hate that player, hate the game.

We've been through this before on the forums. There's nothing wrong with OCR's purpose and mission of interpretive arrangements. The only reason some people feel it should broaden its scope is because it's the most visible/downloaded community of fan musicians, which creates some sort of obligation to spotlight any appealing arrangements. That would be a bad reason to abandon its mission. OCR's popularity is strong because it just features interpretive arrangements and not covers/conservative arrangements.

I was planning to post myself but was too busy adding the album to VGMdb: http://vgmdb.net/album/10191 I'm not trying to be holier than thou, but I just hope everything is licensed. Nothing really justifies stealing the album, but if it was licensed, I could see a handful of people deciding to plunk down the cash to do the right thing and formally support it. Nonetheless, lack of licensing hasn't stopped a lot of people from releasing pay albums, and most companies (if not all) and composers haven't felt compelled to take legal action over something that doesn't cut into their bottom line. (It may even help it, due to conjuring up good feelings about their companies, games and music, but that's mere speculation.) I thought the samples sounded pretty good. Pez, you're smoking something good if this is inhuman-sounding. This didn't have to be the second coming; these were some fine covers. I also don't see what's inherently wrong about doing covers, and I'm the biggest proponent of interpretive game arrangements besides djp. They're not just playing the stuff like robots, they had to learn the parts and perform everything cohesively. Besides, there's definitely some good soloing/new part-writing in the Super Mario World piece to add some more personal flair to the arrangement, so I'm sure that's the case for most of these. Jeez.

Haven't commented yet, so I'll just quickly note that this is niiiiiice. Amber from Nerve.com also agrees. You were able to withstand her vocal-hate!

Here you go, bro: http://vgmdb.net/album/10184

Man those are some super rough vocals. I don't know if the others are being too nice or just don't wanna call it straight up, but the vocals are almost never in key with the music. They really mess this up and prevent the tracks from clicking. As instrumentals, the concept is pretty damn cool. A couple of things (e.g. trying to create a brass-like sound in "Saving the World Barechested") sounded weird, but the overall execution of the instrumentals was pretty solid. But the vocal execution drags it way down. Not to be mean, but you clearly can't tell how off your vocals sound. Regardless: http://vgmdb.net/album/10182

C'mon stragglers! Don't be a hater!

Glad you support Tim Follin. Dirge for the Follin could always use even more tracks so we can release it! 12/31/08 or die!!!

I believe signups at VGMix are disabled right now, unfortunately.