Liontamer

Lemme hold of on this until after MAGFest. Not that I'm lazy on it, but I wanna give this my full attention, and think the possibilities through. We might actually be able to incorporate a collapse-able deal to allow extended bios on the same pages as the regular bios, BUT that stuff has only been programmed on Wikipedia proper and may require templates that we can't simply cut-and-paste into MediaWiki in order to have work on our side. In terms of pages redirecting to extended bios via the mascot #s, I don't think we would offhand, but again, lemme figure out how we're gonna approach this. If I can get the collapse-able stuff working, it would be a moot point. As for a sort of group/main page for the DarkStalkers, that sounds fine to me, but we may be able to just do that as a Category page rather manually creating a new page, so don't move forward with any of that yet.

Absolutely. It's all in the shadows! But yes, this project's going to be going strong and finishing up. I've got plenty of people to nag, including hopefully Mazedude. I'll see if he's come up with anything. But don't worry; we'll have a project, even if it's only 10-12 pieces, which is still very solid! Thanks for tugging on my arm, Martin, it's appreciated!

Yeah, clearly all desktop musicians have to do is "press buttons." This comments only shows there are still ignorant listeners out there who don't know anything about what makes good music.

You can use [[OCR Mascot xxx|Character Name]]

Indeed, using the redirection pages to link to other characters is how we should do it.

With MAGFest (1/3-1/6) so close, we're going to have to handle the final calls on everything shortly after the convention is over. Sorry for the delay, y'all.

Responsible parties, get in touch with me regarding the status/release of ze album. Good times!

at OCR, there's a PayPal donation button right on the top of the sidebar on the left. Trenthian's website has a donate button at the bottom left side, with a symbol of two interlinked stars.

A lotta slow: http://www.ocremix.org/remix/OCR00022/ You meant to say "Ocarina Boogie", but I forgive you.

This mix is awesome! Tre bien.

Joe Pleiman, most know around here as half of The Rabbit Joint (LoZ "Rabbit Joint Cover") and a member of The Black Lodge (Z64:OoT "Ocarina Boogie", since removed) was part of a band called Hip Tanaka, named after the composer and another side project of Pleiman's. The band even owned HipTanaka.com at one point, but the band/project died off. Nothing listed at archive.org works after the 2003 stuff. AFAIK, the band did originals despite their name, not game arrangements, just to clarify. Last but not least, they were based in the Boston area. With the contact info at the Rabbit Joint artist page here, you can contact Joe and (hopefully) ask him whatever you want about Hip Tanaka. Who knows, maybe he has some leftover stickers. They also have some material possibly still available from CD Baby. Hope that helps!

For any of those, SNES or N64, you could have them loop for a long time on Winamp with the appropriate video game music format plug-in, then output a WAV or MP3 file and make an extended version that way.

Remix link : ReMixer name : Scaredsim Real name : Simon Sternis Email address : scaredsim@hotmail.com Website : http://ssternis.free.fr Userid : 20011 Name of the remix : Daily Training Name of game ReMixed : Crusader of Centy Name of individual song(s) ReMixed : Rafflesia Training Grounds, Place of Peace Original soundtrack : http://project2612.org/download.php?id=16 Composer : Motokazu Shinoda Publisher : Atlus, 1994 System : Sega Genesis Here's a pop arrangement from Crusader of Centy, two songs : Rafflesia Training Grounds & Place of Peace. I recently played this game again, and each time I love listening this awesome soundtrack. I just can't believe it has never been arranged before (as far as I know). So, I tried. And hope you like it. Thanks, - Simon. -------------------------------------------------------------- http://project2612.org/download.php?id=16 - 07 "Rafflesia Training Grounds" & 21 "Place of Peace" Soft opening with the piano, following by some bowed strings. The strings didn't sound particularly realistic. Neither did the drums brought in at :21; that snare almost never sounds right in any given track, but it's serviceable. I would have softened the snare sound more, as I felt it was too loud/punchy compared to the leads during the whole track, undermining some of the dynamic contrast you were going for with the composition. OK, so none of the organic instrument samples sound particularly realistic, but they were decent enough, while the arrangement itself was strong enough to carry things. The dynamics were there, though not as pronounced as I thought they should have been given the writing, as I alluded to before. Good idea to layer the clavient (?) and woodwind for the melody at :39, creating some good synergy there. I was definitely enjoying the e-piano/organ/wuteva (1:31) and bassline action going on as well. The source material was on the bland side and the sample quality did drag this down a bit. The arrangement could use a bit more effective dynamic contrast, and some textures felt on the sparse side in the background, which could probably be tweaked. I'll admit I'm not wow'ed compared to say Simon's Brain Lord/Illusion of Gaia combo mix "Will is the Lord." What was here was decent, but I have the feeling Simon could make this twice as effective in a couple of years with more experience. I would just refine this by pulling back the snare shots so they aren't so much louder than the leads and perhaps beefing up one of the supporting sounds to fill out the background more during the verses (e.g. :39-1:30), which felt spartan in a negative way. The rest of the panel might feel I'm being too picky, but I'm just feeling like this is 80% of the way there, but needs some refinement to nudge this over the top. Hopefully another J can better articulate what I'm getting at. Good luck on the rest of the vote, Simon. I look forward to your future material, both here and at DoD! NO (refine/resubmit)

ReMixer name: halcyon Real name: Andrew Wheeler Email address: andrew@joename.com Userid: 13226 Name of game arranged: Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy Kong's Quest Name of individual song arranged: Forest Interlude Comments: Wrote this song specifically for submission. Originally, this was going to be a straight-up trance mix of the forest theme from DKC2. Well, it sounds a little different than I planned on it sounding, but I'm happy with the way it turned out. Please enjoy! ---------------------------------------------------------------- http://snesmusic.org/v2/download.php?spcNow=dkq - "Forest Interlude" (dkq-10.spc) Opens up with some really abrasive beats. I see the concept there from :07-:23, but the end result was too abrasive. Otherwise, cool techno-style build leading up to :56. After :56, I wasn't feeling the sound choices or texture of the piece. Lots of loud, whiny sounds that didn't combine well, and a fair amount of empty space in the back despite the effects and volume. IMO, the end result didn't sound melodious enough, with many spots where the harmonies sounded somewhat off. The changeup at 1:36 started sounding better, but not by much. Heh, I recognize that drumloop used at 1:52. These electronic textures weren't really getting any more cohesive as the track went on. All of a sudden the track completely changed at 2:59 to some NES stuff, then went off on its own thing until 3:24. I've got no inherent problem with original sections, but when they don't thematically connect well with the arranged material, we've got a problem. Moved back into arranging the original until 3:42-4:11 had an original section with some allusions to the source, then wrapping this up with a little more arrangement for the finish. To me, the whole thing wasn't particularly cohesive at all, even minus that weird part at 2:59. I liked the cameo of the hand drums, xylo(?), piano, and sitar from 2:13-2:38, which was a highlight. Things were a lot more cohesive on that level. Other than that, it seemed like you meant well, but were kind of throwing ideas on the wall to see what would stick. The end result was just busy without being focused, plus grating and tough on the ears. Too bad, because when the texture were more organic-sounding, you had some brief but good grooves going on. Perhaps you need to stick with some core sound ideas, then have them evolve into different things, rather than change the texture every few bars, usually to something that doesn't quite work. JigginJonT mentioned in the judges channel that the sound was really raw, which definitely summed it up well. You gotta improve your ear toward picking sound combinations that work, as well as watching that notes aren't clashing in your attempts to interpret the source material and have that interact with the other instrumentation. NO

ReMixer name: Capers Real name: Nick Capewell E-mail: Sheepguy_2000@hotmail.com Name of game: Kirbys Dreamland Song name: A Very Green Rocktacular! Hey there! This is taken from the Gameboy version of Kirbys Dreamland, the Green Greens level. I found myself humming the tune one day for absolutely no reason and decided to throw down a mix just for fun as I had a day off work. My best friend, a fellow avid games enthusiast and OcRemix fan, having listened to the track told me about this site and persuaded me to submit it. I created the drum track using Fruity Loops and put down three seperate guitar tracks and a Bass track in Cubase. As I said, it wasn't really meant for public ears but i'm amazed to see so many people with the same love of game music. Its truly awesome. I hope you enjoy it, if it goes down well I may have a crack at another Rock Remix. Cheers Nick --------------------------------------------------------- http://www.zophar.net/gbs/kirbydl.zip - Track 2 ("Green Greens") Yeah, I can definitely tell you're new with a n00b mix title like that. Not too much to the arrangement. Nothing terrible, but basically two and a half iterations of the source tune with a pretty straightforward rock cover. The sound quality was pretty rough and definitely needed some better balance and separation of parts. The overall textures and arrangement style were arguably too basic and by-the-numbers. All that's there are the melody, some guitars on support (basically a non-factor, too), and some drums that are active but not particularly unique or innovative. One's left with a pretty vanilla end result that's just "there". You've gotta get more interpretive with the melody, and more varied and evolving with the overall style. Keep at it, though; although you have a ways to go, this was a good first try with some noticeable enthusiasm. Keep learning more and pushing your creative limits. NO

Oops, late on some potential Xmas stuff; might be too much on the mainstream source usage referred to in the sub letter - LT Well, this is my first time submitting material to OCR, so please bear with me if the general format of this email is slightly amiss. Hopefully 'twill not be too... lengthy. Remix title: "Carol of the Belmonts" Remixer name: Apollyon Email address: fiendishlyevil1@yahoo.com Game arranged: Castlevania: Symphony of the Night Songs arranged: "Dracula's Castle", "Moonlight Nocturne" Composer: Michiru Yamane System: Sony Playstation Original Soundtrack: Comments: Well, where to start? I have been remixing videogame music for quite some time now, but have never gotten a project to the point where I deemed it OCR-worthy. Most notably, whenever I remix any of Mitsuda's work, I find myself perpetually engaging in minor tweaking so I do not completely mutilate the feel of the original; as a result, nothing significant ever gets accomplished, and the mix stays in a sort of barely-altered stasis. This is the first time I have ever had an objective deadline (Christmas), so I had to work a little faster than usual. This track, like all my non-midi work thus far, was done on the computers at school with a relatively outdated edition of GarageBand (the closest I can come to a remixing program on my budget), and was all done over the course of about three weeks. GarageBand is often somewhat lacking in the instrumental department, so the sound production may be a tad lacking in this mix; I can only hope the extent of the arrangement (particularly the shift from the original 4/4 song to this 3/4 mix, and the resultant alterations of melody and rhythm) will be enough to redeem this flaw. The other major downside of working with GarageBand is that the Macs at school have drastically different sound setups than any other computers I have ever encountered, so I must save the song, drive home, and play it on my home computers before I can judge whether I have the leveling right. As you can imagine, progress is rather slow using this method. As for why I chose these specific songs, I have always been a huge fan of Michiru Yamane, and the SotN OST is arguably her most brilliant work. There were parts in which I tried to emulate the feel of the original songs (for instance, crafting simulated "wind" sounds in the intro), but overall I just went with whatever sounded good on the spur of the moment. The most difficult facet of the remix was the leveling of the lead guitars; because they have such a distinctive tone, it is easy for them to overpower the rest of the song, but if you tone them down too much, you lose the melody line in certain parts. I would like to have included part of "The Tragic Prince" (another SotN classic) somewhere in the remix, but I knew there was no way I could do justice to that one, so I decided to just leave well enough alone. I suspect there are those who will not notice this (I obscured the instrument in question slightly more than I intended to), but the fast-paced, vaguely Ecco-esque little instrument underlying most of the song is actually playing the repeating section of "Carol of the Bells". Originally, that was all I intended to do with the holiday-oriented part of the song, but one of the friends providing feedback on the song pointed out that the pun in the mix's title would make no sense if no one noticed the "carol" part, so I decided to insert a more obvious "Carol of the Bells" reference later on. Anyhow, thank you for taking the time to listen to this mix, and possibly read through the comments (although I would not blame you had you skipped them - I have a tendency to ramble). Have a productive day. ------------------------------------------------------------ Regarding the "Carol of the Bells" usage, we now generally discourage mashups of mainstream/non-VGM music with the arranged VGM. For this particular arrangement I think I could let this amount of usage go as the major majority of track was CV, with CV source usage even during some of the Xmas music. But if most of the judges panel or djpretzel said this was a NO-go on that level, I'd roll with his call. Just keep that issue in mind for the future. (Section 3.3 of the Submission Standards). Akumajo Dracula X ~Nocturne in the Moonlight~ Original Game Soundtrack - 06 "Dracula's Castle" & 04 "Nocturne in the Moonlight" Decent base here, but some stuff stuck out as pretty poor. At :26, the lead instrumentation need more presence; right now the lead and support instrumentation are basically at the same level, with the melody not standing out at all. 1:07's section was a great example of that. The guitar synths have no meat or power to them. The drum programming at 1:08 is extremely bland and weak-sounding, like the only requirement is that it simply has to be there, not that it sufficiently fills out the background. The piano at 1:51 sounded nice overall, but it was too quiet compared to the rest of the sounds. The rock portion returned from 2:12-2:37, combining with a little bit of piano and some really fake-sounding guitar synth. Same issues with poor balance and the soundscape being too murky (e.g. 3:19-3:49), with the bowed strings, harp-like strings and vox and melodic synth. Also heard some weak drums along with some MIDI-grade hand drums in there from 3:50-3:59; oof, just a bad quality disparity with some of the other more refined elements you had. Basically just more of the same arrangement ideas and textures for the last few minutes, with the same sample quality and production issues. I'll leave it to some other Js for more specific production criticisms as they'll do a better job; I was just relaying the gist of the problems I heard. Better sample quality for some of the instruments would help this out (and there should be better free stuff out there), as well as better sound balance. In terms of a first sub, not terrible, but clearly leaves a lot to be desired. The arrangement was decent at least in terms of changing the mood of the source material, but was hindered a lot by the weak execution. NO

You'd be better off suggestions to individual artists that they make their music with your suggestion in mind; as far as OCR goes, suggesting this idea to album project coordinators would also be something you could do to promote this. But the short of it is that we presently wouldn't consider implementing anything like that as far the regular remixes. MP3 is a standard near-universal format, so we stick with it. FLAC, correct, is for audiophiles, but it's not for the average users, and nothing is seemingly taking over the MP3 standard any time soon. OGG/FLAC standards have been suggested and considered in the past, but unless there is a new industry standard, then it won't be considered, even on just a torrent level. We cannot reasonably expect all submitting artists to provide FLAC versions of their mixes or send us WAVs, and enacting anything like that would only limit our submissions pool.

Your ReMixer name: Joren de Bruin Your real name: Joren de Bruin Your email address: ayato_kamina1@hotmail.com Your website: http://desumetaru.googlepages.com (doesn't contain anything substantial yet) Your userid: 16286 Name of Remix: He Came From The Surface Name of game(s) arranged: Cavestory Name of individual song(s) arranged: Last Battle (Here's a link to it ) Link to Remix: Alternate Link: Comments: What I always try to do with each mix I make is to break new ground for myself, be it in terms of sequencing, concept, musical genre or arrangement technique. For this mix I tried to contain myself and leave it to a relatively limited instrumentarium to fill out a relatively short mix, while I did my best to improve yet again upon the standards I have set out for myself with drum and synth sequencing . My main inspiration for this mix are the archetypical Scandivian Power Metal bands, in the vein of Sonata Arctica and Stratovarius. I tried to incorporate the typical elements of a wailing keytar, epic synth strings, distorted bass, harmonized lead guitars and rapid-fire drum work. Besides that, I'll admit that I've incorporated some other elements that could be traced back to the likes of Dragonforce (the high tempo and some of the machine gun rhythm guitar riffs) and Children of Bodom (Most of the drum patterns). I have to add that this was a new genre for me, and my improvised soloing style doesn't really lend itself to such a high tempo, which is why the guitar solo is a bit on the sorry side of things. Mixing and Mastering was entirely done in FL Studio, Synths are self-made Reason presets, Bass is the Broomstick Bass demo ran through Guitar Rig 2, Drums are from the Addictive Drums VST and Guitars have been recorded with an USB-interface ran through Guitar Rig 2 and Amplitube 2. I hope you like it, it's my fastest completed mix to date (did the whole arrangement on the 12th of December, last wednesday.), and I can finally say I'm somewhat confident in the mixing and mastering department. -Joren --------------------------------------------------------------- Cave Story (Game Rip) - 31 "Final Battle" Your production still needs a lot of work in terms of balance. When the track opened up (:00-:21), except for the drums, not one instrument sounds like it's taken any position in the foreground, most notably the "Final Battle" melody. It was a little better at :59, but not by much. For those areas, you need to push up the melody more and EQ some of the other parts so the overall sound doesn't get too cluttered. From what I can tell, the supporting guitar and drums/cymbals are using up most of the space. The machine guns drums were arguably overdone in some brief spots when they were more exposed (e.g. 1:29-1:31, 1:34-1:36), but overall I felt things were strong on the arrangement side; on the cover-ish side, but IMO pretty personalized and expansive. I'd give this a YES if the production were solid, but I'm not convinced that it would just take some brief tweaks to get the production where it needs to be. In that case, don't change a thing about the arrangement, but work on positioning your leads more in the front of the soundscape, and having better balance/separation of parts. I'm OK with a grungy sound, but not when it's poorly balanced. Any good production J who weighs in, specific tips on how to fix this up would be greatly appreciated, I'm sure. Good stuff so far, Joren. Just give it the spit polish for the win. NO (refine/resubmit)

Yeah, that's fine as long as you follow the Content Policy. Terms of Use Section B is the most important information re: properly crediting the artists and site. Have at it.

No Christmas-y type font for the album art? The devil's in the details.

Short and sweet, this was lush. Great atmosphere and something I love looping. Great stuff from Brian, and one of my legit favorites in all of OCR.

No, because whenever we add a game into the database, we associate it with whatever platform the submitting artist attributes it to. After all that's what version of the game inspired the mix. In Prot's case for MS3, it was the Arcade version. Yep, gotta nag djp on that, but it'll get done yes. Definitely appreciate the reminder.

http://www.zophar.net/gsf/KirbyTAM.rar - 02 "Legend of the Mirror World" Just giving a source usage breakdown before I get into things. The track's 4:08-long. Counting the areas where the source tune was in play but easy to hear: 1:32-1:55, 2:18-3:11 & 3:22-4:08 or 122 seconds, almost 50% of the arrangement. Counting the areas where the source tune was in play but difficult to hear in the background: :00-:16, :23-:45, :45-1:03, & 3:11-3:22. There were maybe some other areas, but it was a toss-up. Nevertheless, those harder to hear moments were certainly enough to nudge this one in favor of having enough overt source usage. I'm just glad it wasn't buried the majority of the time it was in play. I don't know if my little side note from last time did the trick, but I'm just glad that we didn't receive the same mix only with 10 other instruments added on top. I was put off by the lead-in stuff from 1:09-1:32, as I didn't see how it connected well with the next section, but I'll let it go. The source tune is in a more peripheral role here compared to maybe 99.9% of the arrangement's we've ever received, but it's there most of the time, and Jacob's built some really cool Ninja Tune-style textures around it while also interpreting the style of the original. Awesome new idea with the slowdown section from 2:18. That's the kind of stuff I was talking about in terms of offering something new with this one, nice job! Like I was saying, especially with something like this where it would have easy to bury the source tune, you had to think on how to rework this on a horizontal level, not vertical. Smooth stuff re-upping the tempo at 2:57 before the last minute or so hit another iteration of the main verse and went for the subtractive finish. Nice stuff, Jacob. Cabbageboy would be proud. YES

Funny, the opening vox in the source tune reminded me of Jill for some of the notes. http://tzone.org/~llin/psf/packs2/Chrono_Cross_psf.rar - 301 "Garden of the Gods" Yeah, not much to add that DarkeSword and pixietricks haven't covered. The arrangement is too cover-ish with too little interpretation for the standards here. It's not enough to give it more of a rock treatment. I also thought the electric guitar tone was weak and there wasn't enough meat on it; I don't feel the lead had to sound this fragile, not to mention stiffly played. 1:21 picked things up pretty well with some added instrumentation including some nice grungy backing guitars. I thought the sound balance was a bit sloppy though, in that it was hard to tell what was supposed to be standing out with the thick electric guitar, the strings, e-piano and drums. The instruments need some EQ love to occupy their own space a bit more. I see where the criticisms of the drums came from; they didn't sound off per se, rather just too busy for the style you were going for with the rest of the instrumentation. Your production quality could use more polish, but yeah, you've definitely got the basic musical skills here. Like the others mentioned, we're also looking for interpretation of the source material with the submissions we receive. This had 2 fairly straightforward iterations of the theme, and then it was over. You've not only got to interpret the material, but you've got to offer something that sound more developed as an idea. Check out some other recent Chrono Cross mixes posted to the site and compare them with the original tracks to get more of an idea of what we're looking for on that level. NO

BEEN THERE! DONE THAT! I'll have comments later!