Liontamer   Judges ⚖️

I'm gonna run slightly counter to CHz's first sentence, as the implication is that ReMixing arrange album tracks isn't kosher. I know what he's getting at, but maybe djpretzel can clarify. AFAIK, there's nothing inherently wrong with that as long as your arrangement is different enough from the arranged source tune, and, more importantly, still connects strongly enough to the original game track as CHz mentioned. I mention that second part, because some pro arrange album tracks can get pretty liberal themselves. A liberal take on an already-liberal arrange track could result in something too far off from the original game music.

*SMACK* I'm a mod. I can off-top ANYTHING I WANT. In all seriousness, I just think it's a double standard how he interacts with people he perceives as higher than him on the food chain, but for the purposes of trolling a n00b, he switches to off-putting, lazy internet speak. As is, no in my opinion. If the drums weren't on auto-pilot, the track would feel a lot more cohesive. The point of it seemed to just be a quick mix though, so on that level I wouldn't change a thing. The style/presentation seems different enough to me, but that would be up to the panel at large in confirming that.

Well, indeed it is. Why thank you, good sir. /clicks stopwatch YES

Why are you typing with proper capitalization and punctuation in this thread, but then: "look kid dont take this the wrong way but i dont care about mario and halo together so stop being rude and immature k" ...basically typing this holier-than-thou trolling nonsense in another thread. What did I tell you? I'm gonna have to kick your ass later. Ugh. Anyway. ReMixes of ReMixes are fine, they're just judged in a tougher manner. Section 6, Part 5 of the standards covers this. That rule is more to discourage ReMixers from submitting mere production upgrades of their older mixes. But we're always open to ReMixing (i.e. substantively interpreting) a previous ReMix or other arrangement as long as there are enough ties to the original game music the existing mix is based off of. Following up zircon's post, we've actually got 2 ReMixes of ReMixes. Yeah, judges come and go, and there's definitely no normal length of time they stay on board. Even I don't keep track of average time on the panel. But we've had many on board less than 1 year, and then you have guys like Vigilante (nearly 5 years) and myself (nearly 4 years) who have been on for a dog's age without stepping down for a hiatus. I'm proud to say that I've voted on 99% of everything put in front of me. Just going with my initial feeling, not looking at any names or lists, most Js tend to give somewhere in the realm of 2 years. Like zircon mentioned, stepping down is pretty much gonna be either lack of time despite interest, or lack of interest despite time, as the job can wear on anybody. If you want a job that pays $0, takes up a fair amount of time if you dig into it, where some will trash your qualifications, your character, and your objectivity, and where the workload NEVER lets up no matter how hard you work, it can eventually cease to be personally fulfilling. For me though, I'm not even close to that point.

THIS IS NOT UNBREAKING MY HEART! :'-(

Animated ones, never. Even custom avatars should be game related, but anime/cartoons/comics/movies, pretty much anything is fair game as long as I like it. We focus on VG stuff, but we have a few others. I think Ty wants Hulk Hogan custom; I can do that tomorrow. Since he made it in the first place, that's cool. Danimal Cannon may kill him though; he's using it too! Will get to the Warcraft stuff when I have more time to sit down and add the group. It's not too laborious, but it does take a little bit of time to add them all in.

Unbreak my heart. Say you'll love me again.

http://snesmusic.org/v2/download.php?spcNow=sm - "Brinstar Overgrown with Vegetation Area" (sm-19.spc) One of my regrets of this past MAGFest was not being able to hang a little bit with Jon, who's definitely one of the promising rock remixers who's checked out OCR and hook us up with some good submission. He's had a good run so far in the DoD competitions, and he told me how he's working on improving his production skills Yeah, I just wanted to panel this to show off to the panel the step up Jon has taken since his CV4 mix, "Death Stroke", in terms of having it clicking on all cylinders this time. One criticism, I thought the synth from :53-1:15 sounded on the amelodic side and hurt that section. Other than that, solid programming and performances, great energy and interpretation the whole way through. I'll leave it to any of the guitar Js to provide legit insight into where your performance could use improvement, but I thought it was above bar, and that's all I'm concerned about. You're only getting better, bro. Definitely looking forward to more! YES

http://snesmusic.org/v2/download.php?spcNow=ts - "Town" (ts-32.spc) Lead at :38-:57 was too quiet, something that's carried over from the DoD listening party at MAGFest. I would have positioned it a bit louder. The separation of parts could have been a bit better, and the sample realism on stuff like the piano stuck out a bit sometimes, but I was loving the textures. Genteel and intricate. Perfect for some green tea with SnappleMan's mom. Great instrumentation and tone variation in the second iteration of the arrangement to build things up with a bit more energy and keep things fresh. I've gotta say, I was impressed. Hopefully you mixed/produced this on your own. While the sound balance and clarity could have been improved, this was a substantial step up from your past material. But other than that, Andrew, no comments; they'll just sound dumb when this gets rejected YES

When in doubt, always ask the submitting artist for more info. Here's Nick's elaboration on the source involvement for you theory majors :

Why would allow anything I thought was too ugly? Nah, they wanted them exclusively for themselves. If you ever want one, you've done some major heavy lifting on the avatar project (and mascots project); I'd have no problem giving you one. I haven't asked, because I've noticed you switch around a lot.

Nah, to clarify, anyone can submit avatars to be added. Doesn't matter who you are. But if you want a custom avatar that only you can use, you need to been established in the community from my point of view. Guys like F4T4L, Dhsu, and The Orichalcon all have custom avatars because they've all contributed to OCR with their ReMixes, and they all made their avatars themselves. No offense, but why am I going to let someone have their own exclusive avatar, if I don't know that they're gonna stick around in the community or give back something in the way of music? It should be noted though that with so many avatars, if you have a pretty rare/esoteric one added, the odds that it will be used by a lot of people are low.

Sure, Daria, I'll give all of you guys an email today to personally let you know what the status on everything is. Since djpretzel basically controls all the web aspects of the site, he's got to be available to make everything happen. There's definitely no harm in asking what the hold-up is, and I agree that results should have been rolled out by now, so that we can give everyone props, and be ready to send out prizes!

The user, though I don't think that was ambiguous.

1. No, and it's not up there on the list of things to do. They already got revised a year or two ago. Unless you have good ideas on names after 10K posts, which I don't think djp wanted anyway, I don't think we're doing anything on that. Dafydd already did a good job answering 2 and 3. Clarifying 3, the only way you can get a custom avatar is to have some sort of standing in the community to me. Then you'd have to make it and have me approve it.

The only overt source usage I'm getting are the sections I acknowledged in my vote. On another listen, I'm hearing the chords being vaguely alluded to and being played over from 1:23-2:05, but that's way too minimalistic of a usage for my bar. For me, the source tune was marginalized to the point of unrecognizability in that section, and I wouldn't count it. After that, the track just seems to break down (in terms of placing any source connection) and I didn't hear anything vaguely "Maridia" until 3:14. I'm glad Vig feels he's hearing the connections distinctly during the soloing, but since I'm definitely not, I'm set with my decision. I'm down with letting the vote ride for more opinions (we certainly could use some), but I'm keeping my vote a NO.

http://www.zophar.net/usf/sm64usf.rar - 09 "Dire, Dire Docks" zircon mentioned Mega Man 3 "Blue Balls" as being an accepted cover-style ReMix in the same vein, but IMO this was more conservative. This is a great solo piano cover with some excellent embellishments and an impeccable performance. I can't wait to hear more material from Johan, I was impressed. But I've gotta agree with the other Js that no matter how solid this performance is, this is not interpretive enough for the arrangement bar here. The structure is just too similar to the original to stand out as a unique enough arrangement. If more creative liberties were taken, I'd pass this in a heartbeat. Don't be discouraged, Johan, I'd love to hear you submit something in the future with a bit more liberty and interpretation applied to the source tune. You're were going in the right direction, but not far enough in that direction. That doesn't say anything negative about your performance skills. NO

http://snesmusic.org/v2/download.php?spcNow=ct - "Memories of Green" (ct-1-05.spc) I loved the overall vibe to start. You could very well be Quinn Fox's bastard cousin, as there was lots from his typical soundset, as well as some of the same compositional sensibilities. But onto the criticism. The drums (not the rest of the percussion) were a little weak; they need a beefier or airier sound to them to fill out the soundfield more. Everything seemed to be pretty solidly put together, though not blowaway for the opening. The electric guitar-like synth at :54 really needed more finesse in the sequencing; sounded way too robotic as is, along with the note intensity always sounding about the same. As SOON as the track went into more freestylish territory around 1:27 though, it started falling apart. The freestylish stuff with the lead sounded terrible, with the sequencing being too robotic sounding, the lead writing being really meandering and unmelodious (mostly 1:27-1:54) and the textures being too thin. Aside from the leads, the sounds chosen for the textures are alright, but the soundscape often sounded too empty. Same from 2:37-2:54, and to a lesser extent with 3:03-3:43; just awkward and unfocused. Definitely agreed with Vigilante on some harmonic clashing due to the notes of the pads. So yeah, nothing new I'm telling you there based on Vigilante's stuff. This would need a lot of work to polish this up and get the writing much more focused. Good concept, but the execution isn't quite there yet. I like the potential here though, so definitely keep working on it, Mike. NO (resubmit)

http://project2612.org/download.php?id=91 - 10 "The Hard Corps" & 19 "GTR Attack!" Decent opening. Percussion sounded weak compared to the harder edged guitar, and the perc wasn't quite filling out the background; could have used some padding. Pretty quick transition into "GTR Attack!" at :48. Lead synth at 1:02 sounded really cheap in tone and sequencing, as well as out of place, not clicking with the other rock instrumentation. Good percussion changeup at 1:48, though I thought the drum tone was not fitting again. I felt the arrangement approach was ok; stuff is still structured a little too closely to the originals, with Palpable making a good point on some of the percussion writing, but this was still going in the right direction on some level. There wasn't enough finesse or polish in the execution. Like zircon mentioned, lots of unnecessary mud with the guitars in the background after 1:02 that just made the background sounded cluttered and undefined. Meanwhile, gotta agree with him on the changes to the source melody are less interesting than the original and undermine the potential of the piece in terms of having a hook, but then again I had no major problem with what was in place. The ending at 2:23 seemed to come out of nowhere and was a weak resolution; just takes all the steam out of the piece without a strong, defined ending. Good base, IMO. Tighten the screws and definitely resubmit. Even if it's not with this piece, I think you're going in the right direction. Keep improving on both the arrangement and production fronts. NO

Seems cool that the thing he created was good enough to merit being a prize, and that he'll have the opportunity to hand it to Nobuo Uematsu. Where's the downside again?

YouTube has a 10-minute limit, so I'm not sure why you can't upload it there. For a non-streaming option, you can host it on Megaupload or Filefront. I would use the email information located in the profiles of Gaffeizil and Jarred Hudson to contact them directly, because they don't regularly browse the forums here.

I definitely agree on the WIP and Compo areas getting the additional attention they need. As for the torrents, I wouldn't die with a top-level link on the tabs or whatever, but I've just gotta keep saying that even if deemed clunky (I disagreed), those torrent downloads will suffer if the list isn't given, in full, on the main page. And it'll be a permanent effect. While I understand general ebb and flow, VotL is now down to 47 leechers. And again, that's down from a very steady mid-to-high 70s right up to the day the torrent listings were taken down. I don't know the exact dropoff for the OCR00001-1000 torrent, but that's the 2nd most popular one, and it's definitely down as well. In the long run, no front page torrent listings just needlessly hurts our reach. If you're starting to lean that way, Dave, toward putting them back up, I'm definitely with that. I don't mind that they got pulled down in the first place. At the very least, it was educational to see the effect this had on the most popular torrents.

Back when the torrents were on the front page, the amount of leechers for Voices of the Lifestream was always in the middle-to-high 70s. For months since the release, that number has been very steady including the day of the removals of the torrents from the front page. If aubrey has those kind of stats available to him, I'm sure he'd verify that. Days later, now the amount of leechers is at 51. And I think it'll keep going down at least a bit more. Let that play out over time, and the amount of people that would have been downloading the album via the torrents but now won't will get bigger. Potentially losing 20 album downloads every few days is just a bad tradeoff. I'm of the conviction that once something is not directly available on a website's main page the relative visibility markedly decreases. No matter what is it, if it's not directly accessible from the main page, it will be more difficult for the average user to discover. Even a big link to the torrents page is markedly less effective than putting the full list right there in plain sight. I thought the torrent listing looked impressive rather than clunky, as it pretty much encapsulates all of OCR's music in one comparatively small block, and also broke up the relative monotony of orange links. It's tough. I understand we want to give more visibility to the Compo and WIP threads, and it's difficult to not feel like there's too much going on with what's being displayed. I'm not even saying let's get rid of those additions to the front page. But we've got a lot of content delivered with those torrents at a lower cost with better ease of use, and I think it would be unfortunate to inadvertently diminish their positive impact.

What's so criminal about a fadeout? You've all graduated from the Protricity school of music!

Front page or die.