Liontamer

I've got no issue with the NO votes. But I did want to iterate in light of the criticisms that I'm still solid with a YES on this one. A medley format can restrict developement of the individual sources, and most medley submissions we receive are unable to coherently weave the themes together. But there was a reasonable degree of personalization in the performance and the themes were skillfully pieced together, enough so that I remain firmly ok with the YES.

Is Jeremy taking a jab at stuff like VG Live in his sub letter? I hope it's not PLAY! though, since Uematsu was the most heavily involved in that concert series. Maybe he can give some more background on that; I know I'm interested. http://snesmusic.org/v2/download.php?spcNow=ff6 - "Dancing Mad (part 1)" [ff6-314a.spc] Honestly, I wasn't overly impressed by the sound quality. That's not to say it's bad at all. It's fine, and the samples are clearly good. But I've heard more cohesive, deeper-sounding, richer-sounding stuff. It could partly be an issue of the low volume making things seem a lot less impactful. Like djp mentioned in #judges, the choral work is where this shines. The vocals are very realistic. The rest sounds ok, but not blowaway. Wouldn't have minded a more extended transition to the next section of Dancing Mad at 3:38. I know it's mimicking the original, but it also ends up sounding a lot more abrupt than the original. Ha, a "Terra" cameo at 5:20. The changeup to the cameo felt a bit choppy/abrupt; will listen more. Very minor crit. For the most part, the arrangement held fast to the structure of the original, but the writing is nicely expanded and personalized with epic-sounding spices. But of course... YES

Yeah, stuff really has to be well in progress or very assuredly going to be finished to get the custom title. Everything updated in the first post of the RD thread to show that it's getting close to completion? And how's the overall song quality? I can check out whatever you need me to.

Tell your friends, relatives and significant others. If you'd like your forum name updated, please drop me a PM or reply to this thread. Gimme your current forum name and the change you'd like. As soon as I'm available, I'll provide you with the new name and email you your current password just in case you're somehow logged out of the account. This is not a service to be abused, so if you're not intending on using a name permanently, don't press your luck.

My custom titles are my e-penix.

There's no option. The post counts no longer appearing on individual posts was an unintentional effect of a recent vB upgrade, but at the same time, post counts aren't important and the character title underneath the name give enough info. In short, it's not a bug, it's a feature. They may come back. It's only my one opinion, but I wouldn't care if they stay gone.

Indeed, he has one waiting. For the record, out of the 10 no's so far, 6 are from ReMixers. Of the 60 yes's so far, 39 are from ReMixers. Fun stats! FUN!

Just saw this through a MySpace Bulletin courtesy of the band: If you've seen these guys at MAGFest or anywhere else, you know they can tear it up. "Armcannon" is at the bottom of the list, so swing by and give them some support.

I'd say Ronald Reagan National Airport. If you want to fly into Washington-Dulles, good luck getting a ride.

The composer's Nobuo Uematsu?!? And why's a 3-minute song at 112kbps? - LTRemixer: smartpoetic E-mail: smartpoetic@hotmail.com User ID: 12824 Composer: Nobuo Uematsu Game: Zelda: Ocarina of Time System: Nintendo 64 Copyright: Nintendo, 1998 This is an arrangement of Serenade of Water and Zelda's Lullaby from The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. This piece is a simple, waltzlike melody--the chord progressions reminiscent of Serenade of Water--with the serene sound of the lake's calm water and the sound of birds chirping. However, this piece has a feel of darkness to it--is Zelda dreaming of a brighter day at the shore? Thanks for Listening! ~Smartpoetic

Nice work, Dain. Great plugs for that crappy remix site. Onward and upward from here, bro!

Cover + extended solo, but the quality's not bad; Besides, Power Rangers? We never get that - LT GAME: Power Rangers The Movie STAGE 1 From the SNES console Comments: All instruments sampling and recorded by Patricio Stiglich, Mixed and mastered by Patricio Stiglich at P.S.C. Studios, Bogotá, Colombia. I have been contributing to vgmusic archives since 2000 with many transcriptions, but never made an arrangement with all instruments recorded and sampled. as a sesion guitarrist I decided to create a solo to give te theme more "power". This arrangement is dedicated to my girlfriend LAURA ---------------------------------------------------------------- OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOZE! http://snesmusic.org/v2/download.php?spcNow=prmv - "Shopping Center" (prmv-03.spc) I love the South American rock arrangers. The following of VGM arranging in Southern America is bigger than you think. BrainCells & Megadrive are bueno! This however is way, WAY below the bar. The soloing, the fact that your playing isn't poor, and the fact that the movie features IVAN OOZE (!) were the only reasons this hit the panel. The drums are straight up ripped from the SPC, which is not what we're looking for. There may be a language barrier, but you still need to read up on our Submission Standards and Instructions. In any case, there's some extra nice extended soloing/wankage after 1:47-2:47, but it's all original and barely works with the source melody at all. Then there's some very minor additive material underneath the melody from 2:47 until the end; contributions that are really minor. Invoking the "Mid Night" precedent, cover + well-performed, unrelated solo does not equal a pass. goat, BrainCells, Sixto Sounds. Those are people who's arrangement creativity you want to aspire for. Expand and interpret the original music, and then fuse your own original ideas into the picture. In short, put more effort into making this yours. IvaN Ooze

Could Wes or Jimmy please give me a estimated head count? I'll need to confirm a count with Dave today or tomorrow, then get the donated money transferred to me so I can pay for the tickets in full.

* Liontamer is listening to Nobuo Uematsu (arr. Hitoshi Sakimoto) - "Chocobo (FFXII Version)" [Final Fantasy XII OST] (02:03) <Liontamer> bastard! <Liontamer> didn't give this one a variation name! <Liontamer> bastard! <Liontamer> THIS SOUNDTRACK SUCKS ASS <zircon> haha <zircon> like Techno de Chocobo? <Liontamer> yeah, wtf <Liontamer> geeks like me live for that shit <Liontamer> THIS SOUNDTRACK SUCKS ASS <Liontamer> CLEARLY, TOP TO BOTTOM, THIS MAN IS A HACK!

I love my family and all, but I would join yours in exchange for one of the spare mega-flatscreens y'all are getting. You guys can't possibly need all 87 of 'em.

Nice track. But too liberal? Definitely one to analyze VERY closely. Will contact the artists for more information - LT Hey again, routine drill: Remixer Names: Tepid, AeroZ Real Names: Philip Schwan, Sebastian Freijman Email Address: phswan@gmail.com, sebastian_freij@hotmail.com Website: meh and www.myspace.com/freijman I'm ID'd now?: u=9600, u=12066 Game Remixed: Sonic the Hedgehog VG Song: Green Hill Zone (one might think) Comments: Well, a few ideas can go a long way. I had a little set of jazz chords on the piano which I matched to the Green Hill Zone theme. Soon after I had made a backing track and it escalated violently into a decent start to a mix. I knew after 'To Hot For Heatman' that Seb knew his Reason like Ray Charles knows his jazz, so I sent him the project file and he turned 2 minutes of ideas, into 5 neat organised minutes of mix. The guitar .REX loops (as Reason users may know them by) were created from scratch by myself through Cubase and ReCycle, and that was a lot of fun, and even more so the ability to rearrange the slices at ease. Seb did the complex stuff, and added the 8bit flair, and phat drums, and many, many fine detailed edits. Quoting from Seb: "I had so much bloody fun doing it. I was in a trance." His English, and knowledge of English expressions is far too good for a Swede...Also, I believe him to be the fastest Reason slinger in the North (of Europe), performing 978 controller changes in 2 hours. Fantastic. Anyway enjoy TO Edit: Further Explanation from Phil regarding the arrangement: 0:13 - source melody thoughout song, different chords, 1:06 another reference to the melody (0:14-0:26 in chiptune). 1:17 - intro chords from source in minor rather than major (0:01-0:13 in chiptune) 1:36 - equivalent to the break in the original texturally but an original melody (was listening to Spring Yard Zone at the time) (0:39 onwards) 2:34 - I seem to think it's from a Sonic theme, but it may be the synth, I'll go back t'ya on that one. 3:12 octaves play melody in from second part of source (coming in at 0:39 in chiptune but a different rhythm) And the whole 8bit feel with AeroZ's Sonic-esque riffs. The source is short, and I think I've covered about 80% of it with the main melody being 50%. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ From a production standpoint, this is solid. Why's there 4 1/2 seconds of silence at the beginning? Unless there's a creative reason behind it, trim it off. The note sequence of the "Green Hill Zone" melody at :13 sounded really...iffy on the first go, but you somewhat acclimate to it. I'm usually the leadoff on these headscratchers, since I'm masochistic enough to try and break the arrangement down. It's safe to say I'm down with liberal arrangements. But I have to be able to place the connections significantly. "The whole 8bit feel with AeroZ's Sonic-esque riffs" is all well and good, but "Sonic-esque" isn't good enough for these standards. You need "Sonic", and it should be clear enough that it's there when analyzing it (keep in mind I didn't say "when casually listening to it"). Thanks a lot to TO for getting in touch with Phil and getting his breakdown of the source tune usage. The mix still sounds pretty liberal, but if there's enough source usage (>50% being my threshold) then I'm down. At about 5:26-long (sans silent intro), this needs 2:43's worth of recognizable rearrangement to pass by my personal criteria. Let's get cold, unfeeling and statistical: http://project2612.org/download.php?id=36 - "Green Hill Zone" :13-:23, :36-1:00, 1:06-1:08, 4:12-4:29 - (based off main melody - :14-:26 of source) ~ 53 seconds 1:16-1:35 (1st idea based off intro - :01-:07 of source) ~ 19 seconds 1:35-1:54, 2:15-2:35, 4:46-5:06 - (1st idea based off chorus - :39-:49 of source) ~ 49 seconds 2:34-2:53, 5:07-5:24 - (2nd idea based off intro - :01-:07 of source) ~ 36 seconds 3:11-3:30, 3:48-4:07 - (2nd idea based off chorus - :39-:49 of source) ~ 38 seconds 2:53-3:12, 3:30-3:48 - No connection that I'm aware of Adding everything up, that's 3:15's worth of viable rearrangement of the source material, which is more than enough. Even hypothetically subtracting some time from a few of the more liberal-sounding riffs, the arrangement was still on the better side of 50%. There could be other aspects that I'm missing as well. This is a great piece of music, creative & sophisticated with the interpretation, but pretty far off the beaten path of rearrangement. From a fan perspective, I'd much rather prefer (and connect with) an arrangement that's more overt with the source usage, though that's irrelevant to my vote. I can still pass it, but I'd be lying if I didn't say I wasn't somewhat disappointed that it went this route. Other liberal pieces I've passed still feel more connected to their source material than this. It's "Sonic-esque", but not overtly resembling the source material for the casual listener most of the time. It dances on the borderline of recognizability, and it's proud of it. I think many people looking for the tired & true "Green Hill Zone" melody will end up disappointed that it plays such a small part, not even a minute's worth of the arrangement. Yet, as is always with the general public, many will love this despite not being able to easily place the connections. Y'all keep a eye on the Review thread for this one and see what I mean. YES(borderline)

Dear OCReMix, This following remix was done as a request on vgmix. I never played the games but through studying the music I learned to enjoy it very much. Well, here is the info. Remix name: DarkMessenger Real name: Niels van der Leest E-mail: info@nielsvanderleest.nl Website : www.nielsvanderleest.nl UserID: 19586 Games remixed: Myst I, IV, V Songs remixed: Myst I "Myst theme", Myst IV "Darkness", Myst V "Descent" Remix name: Unraveling the Mystery Gr., Niels van der Leest ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Myst - Soundtrack - (01) "Myst Theme" [:00-2:10] Myst V End of Ages Soundtrack - (01) "Descent" [2:17-3:11] MYST IV -REVELATION- Soundtrack - (04) "Darkness" [3:11-5:16] Production-wise, this was a bit rough around the edges. There were a number of things that could have been tightened up. The strings sustains in the back starting at 1:00 sounded pretty unnatural; any louder and they would have been way too exposed. As is, they're decent, but struggle at carrying the melody without distracting. Better job with the string layering at 2:17 to make the most out of the samples and not expose them. Nice job getting over 2 minutes of mileage off the Myst 1 theme. I loved the transition at 2:10 to Myst 5's "Descent" at 2:17. The bassline was a bit muddied in the background but beefed up the background enough and lent movement to the piece. The strings until 3:11 felt too low, much like the 1:00-2:08 section, and could have used more presence. Moves into Myst 4's "Darkness" at 3:11. The strings still strained for credibility, and it was a bit difficult not focusing on their unnatural-sounding movement when there was a lot of other great stuff going on with the bassline writing, drumwork and mallet percussion. There's a minor piano issue at 4:53 where the note fades in and out. The ending also sputters out abruptly at 5:16; not sure if that was intentional or not, but that (and the 7 seconds of silence at the end) needs to be fixed. Cool premise to go for a series-wide mix. The sophistication of the arrangement carries this a ways. I'd love to see some of the production (string realism) and balance (string and bassline audibility) issues worked on a bit, as well as a slightly higher bitrate, but I'm rooting for substance. Smart, sophisticated arranging, Niels. Good luck with the rest of the vote. YES

http://www.zophar.net/nsf/megaman1.zip - Track 12 Track opens up with a REALLY lo-fi feel, and indeed the high pitched sound plays a shitload of bad notes. It's actually so far in the back though that it really doesn't stand out too bad. Some sections, it's clearly more exposed though (e.g. :59-1:13, 2:57-3:11). Definitely agreed with Vigilante that you need to push up the volume of the melody a bit relative to the rest of the sounds in play. The only meaningful variation I'm hearing is additive and subtractive stuff with the backing tracks, and nothing with the melodic content. 3:12 does a little something different with the source, but it's mainly a slowing down of the tempo until 3:41, not anything interpretive. Thus, we're left with something that's ultimately underdeveloped and repetitive. Absolutely crappy "I give up" ending at 4:40. At least write a real ending. The source tune indeed does have a good hook, and you acknowledge that the source makes for a good loop. But why isn't the arrangement developed further, with more substantial melodic variation over the long haul? NO

http://www.zophar.net/nsf/metroid.zip - Track 5 I haven't seen a breakdown that good (in terms of me agreeing with every point) in a while. Reread zircon's entire vote. I agreed with Vigilante in the sense that sometimes the beat structure seems tacked on underneath, and that any melody could fit on top of it, making the beatwork not seem integral to the arrangement of the source material. An issue, IMO, but not an issue the whole way through. In any case, you've got your laundry list of issues from zirc, and addressing most of his concerns would get this above the bar for sure. Good luck. NO (rework/resubmit)

I'll agree with that. Not simply on an "it sounds good basis", but I believe you're right that there may be enough ambiguity in the picture that we may need to rethink that policy. We may have to state that copyright holders of the original material need to contact the ReMixers in cases where they would like to commercially use the arrangements. AFAIK, it's what Tommy Tallarico did with the ReMixers whose tracks are on the Earthworm Jim Anthology album. Going that route would be, in effect, washing our hands of that whole process since we don't own the ReMixes anyway. I'm interested in other POVs.

http://ocremix.org/info/Submission_Standards_and_Instructions#Can_I_submit_a_revision_of_an_existing.2C_posted_ReMix.3F Even if the track is no longer posted, my interpretation in this scenario would be that to "bring back" the track to the site it would still have to be different enough from the original arrangement (see: Zitwra's "Blue" vs. "Blue (Shooting Star Mix)", which was the situation that finally caused this policy to be put in writing). If the fixes were minor, it would probably not be allowed back on. But ultimately any choice of reposting a track would be up to the discretion of djpretzel. If djp could forsee scenarios where a mixer would be allowed to bring back material in good faith, he may not want a "gone is gone" policy. It's not frequent, but honestly, removal requests have happened often enough. Often enough where having a policy became important enough for discussion. The choice was made years ago to retain a policy of denying a removal request when the request seemed impulsive. With the current policy in place now (i.e. NOT the content policy we're discussing in this thread), we'd rather talk to whoever's involved and decidedly make sure that they're set on removal for the long haul and that there's no misunderstanding. Only after a reasonable period of time, when it becomes clear there that removal is a choice that has been thought through without misunderstandings/misgivings, we'd go ahead and remove whatever material. We'd still like to retain this flexability even with a more formal policy, while keeping in mind that we don't mean to imply any ownership of the music.

Absolutely. In all likelihood, I would think that's the policy we'd settle on, provided that we can't work out something better. I agree. I think what we would need to do is revise the wording so that we can "deny continued usage of the OC ReMix NAME", rather than the tracks themselves. For the tracks themselves, we don't own them, but we definitely own the name of OCR and that's the main thing we're trying to protect from being used without permission, for profit, or in a fraudulent way.

While not implying that I'm dumbing it down for you, but mainly to make it clear to everyone else, what you see before you is the discussion of how the policy is going to go. It's not finalized. I can't speak for others, but I'm not even against your call that not honoring removal requests can legally seem like an ownership situation. But clearly, we do not want any express or implied ownership of the works and I'm confident that whatever we put into place will make that 100% clear. If that has to involve honoring any removal request without fail, even if the person changes their mind hours or days later, then I feel like we would compromise to that policy. My personal point of view though is that we still need a policy in place to prevent artists from leaving specifically for fickle reasons. Some hate the site or the staff for whatever reason, but then change their mind. Some question their skills as a musician or how an older track holds up to the more recently posted material. While I don't agree with removing tracks, all are perfectly valid reasons to do so. We've had several artists through the years ask to remove their mixes, only for them to a) either subsequently withdraw the removal request because the request was impulsive in the first place or ask for the removed material to be put up again after it was already taken down. Because of the work djpretzel and the staff put into evaluating tracks, doing the writeups and providing free hosting, I understand why djp wants a system in place where removal requests can be turned down, if only because the overall track record has been that most people end up changing their minds and asking for the material to stay. There should be some way to address these issues of not immediately honoring what come across as impulsive removal requests while also making clear that OCR does not own or want to imply ownership of the tracks. So the issue I'd pose to you, AD, is whether you feel (in a non-legally binding capacity of course), that those aforementioned wants, both 0%-ownership/not approving all removal requests) are actually mutually exclusive goals. If not, is there a way to draw up terms that properly establish both scenarios?

I'll post in more detail later today. But people are starting to banter out the idea of OCR wanting to own all of the ReMixes. LuIzA seems scared about it and OverCoat used the word "ownership". I want to make it clear that OCR doesn't want to own any ReMixes. At all. In any way. We don't own them. We're not asking to own them. The policy stuff does not mean arists can't have their tracks elsewhere, like VGMix or OneUp Studios, on a personal CD, or a homemade release like housethegrate's "Houseworks". That's all gonna continue as usual. But it does mean that we ask not to distribute the files to make money with "OC_ReMix" in the name or "OC ReMix" in the MP3 tags. Once that stuff isn't in the filenames or tags, everything's fine if you're the artist that made the tracks. OCR doesn't want to be attached to any ownership or profit-making that involves using the OC ReMix name by either OCR itself, the artists, or third parties, because we are a non-profit organization. That's all.

Ormgas.com, our sister site and official radio stream, allows registered users to vote 1-5 on the mixes that are played on the stream. As for why OC ReMix proper does not and never will rank mixes: http://ocremix.org/info/Frequently_Asked_Questions#Why_aren.27t_the_ReMixes_ranked_by_popularity_or_numerical_ratings.3F