Shadix

It is, indeed, our very own Arrow.

In case anyone missed it. Thank you rnn for updating the thread.
 
Music will go up some time tonight.

Actually the judges on the panel encourage people to post their source usage because its quite possible that someone will miss source usage. People aren't robots who catch everything, if its clear or not. Its not just about whats obvious, its how well the listener knows the source tunes. Don't forget that people who are voting on all the remixes have over 40 sources to memorise. At some point we're going to make mistakes and that could mean the difference between a 1st place, 2nd or 3rd place vote. Saying that the remixer should have done a better job or that the music should speak for itself is silly imo because we're ALL liable to make mistakes no matter how much the remixer has tried to make the sources as clear as possible, particularly with remixes that use more than one source tune. A little nudge in the right direction from the mixer does no harm at all imo.

It's how Shariq feels too, but it doesn't mean you shouldn't do it. Sure, music isn't meant to be analyzed for source usage, but it is really helpful if it happens to be convoluted usage. Not everyone writes straightforward remixes, and the more interpretive tracks shouldn't be discredited if they're valid interpretations.

To be quite honest, I find this practice pretty silly.  I never write this kind of second-by-second metric because music isn't meant to be treated like that, measured by a ruler.  I want people to listen to the music and never think of how much I used the source between mark 1:02 and mark 1:05.  Music should speak for itself.

I basically do it for 2 reasons: show you guys where I used which parts of which source (which is helpful for voting if you're not fully familiar with the sources) and I'm considering submitting (some of) them to OCR. For the latter a source breakdown + an idea of the amount of source reference (like timaeus did in percentages) helps out the judges and it also gives you an idea if you have enough source usage in there (if you don't have a lot of source usage, chances are the judges won't accept it)

I figure it out after I finish writing the track, but I do it to show people what my intentions were with using each source. If I'm not even substantially arranging VGM in a VGM remixing competition, then would I really have written a VGM remix? Or would I have written an original track with VGM influences? (rhetorical)

I enjoyed reading this more than you guys enjoyed participating in it.

I enjoyed reading this more than you guys enjoyed participating in it.

Sry, I've been busy all morning so I couldn't post the log until now:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/93696675/SFRGRound6Party.txt
 
Thanks again to Timaeus for providing the log (I got disconnected for a little bit near the start).

It's vst; unfortunately Joe (XPRTNovice) was too busy to help out on such short notice. The sax is from NI Session Horns Pro, the solo alto sax.
 

Guess I was too subtle  For completeness sake, here's 4 sneaky references:
the intro (0:00-0:03) lead the chorus (e.g. 1:03-1:32) has a 'never gonna give' backing vocal; also heard in the break starting from 2:17 the last verse (3:01) has 'never gonna give you up' backing vocals; probably too subtle to hear the last verse also has this sub lead that plays the 'Never Gonna Give You Up' chorus lead  
I'll get it cleaned up after-compo (there's some timing issues and the mix needs some more TLC) and submit it to the judges to find out what they think about it.

A lot of fun songs this week, good job everyone! I was loving the playlist order too... wildfire's track felt like a natural extension of Maverick Astley's   #funkbias

Man. I've been loving working with Eino and Jorito. These guys are amazing. 
I only wish I was better at including them in my tracks.
I feel like team Maverick Astley is a competition almost. We all compete to see who can be the most whacky, but still coherent and impress the others. 
I really love it and I really have to thank you for giving me this opportunity Darke. <3 You're the bae. xoxo

Hey Darke, I have a crazy idea for future competitions like this that might be unfeasible but I wanted to drop it by you anyways. Obviously my entry this week was a joke, but I noticed with the way the voting is set up that there is an opportunity to make this a more rewarding experience for everyone involved.
 
It'd be interesting to see something where people could rate a mix out of 5 based on different categories, like production, arrangement, source usage, mastering, etc. Maybe bring in one of the OC superstars that aren't participating in the competition like BGC, Zircon, Will Roget, yourself etc every now and then to give some external professional insight on the mixes on a round. Either just adding this to their top 3 picks of creating a simple form for people to check box out.

It would allow people to see where their mix falls short and the areas people liked. Right now, and I had this happen with the Wily competition too, but it kinda feels like you submit your track into a blender and its not heard from again unless you happen to get voted for or participate in the listening party. Luckily people volunteer feedback in the thread, but you kinda have to hunt for it.  Its why my team mates dropped after the first one and I think thats why people might struggle to be motivated to keep submitting with the long format nature of this competition.
 
The consistent feedback could help everyone improve on each other and know what areas they should focus on. Under the current voting scheme its extremely unclear what qualities people liked in a track or why they prioritize certain tracks over others, because different people are listening for different things, but the system doesn't really give any insight into what those things are.
 
Overall, introducing a more categorical system for voting I feel would be beneficial to OCR as an organization as well because it can help you guys refine your content creators to publish the highest quality of mixes. There are a lot of really talented folks in here that have areas, that, with proper focus could turn them into truly top tier composers/musicians. I'm no exception. If any of those guys go on to become great film\tv\game composers, you guys can take pride in knowing you helped foster that talent.

I like the idea of having a thread for reviews, maybe a separate thread for each round?

Jameson, your remix this week reminded me so much of this scene from Family Guy:
 


 
(also, excellent advice)

Hey Darke, I have a crazy idea for future competitions like this that might be unfeasible but I wanted to drop it by you anyways. Obviously my entry this week was a joke, but I noticed with the way the voting is set up that there is an opportunity to make this a more rewarding experience for everyone involved.
 
It'd be interesting to see something where people could rate a mix out of 5 based on different categories, like production, arrangement, source usage, mastering, etc. Maybe bring in one of the OC superstars that aren't participating in the competition like BGC, Zircon, Will Roget, yourself etc every now and then to give some external professional insight on the mixes on a round. Either just adding this to their top 3 picks of creating a simple form for people to check box out.

It would allow people to see where their mix falls short and the areas people liked. Right now, and I had this happen with the Wily competition too, but it kinda feels like you submit your track into a blender and its not heard from again unless you happen to get voted for or participate in the listening party. Luckily people volunteer feedback in the thread, but you kinda have to hunt for it.  Its why my team mates dropped after the first one and I think thats why people might struggle to be motivated to keep submitting with the long format nature of this competition.
 
The consistent feedback could help everyone improve on each other and know what areas they should focus on. Under the current voting scheme its extremely unclear what qualities people liked in a track or why they prioritize certain tracks over others, because different people are listening for different things, but the system doesn't really give any insight into what those things are.
 
Overall, introducing a more categorical system for voting I feel would be beneficial to OCR as an organization as well because it can help you guys refine your content creators to publish the highest quality of mixes. There are a lot of really talented folks in here that have areas, that, with proper focus could turn them into truly top tier composers/musicians. I'm no exception. If any of those guys go on to become great film\tv\game composers, you guys can take pride in knowing you helped foster that talent.

Ah man I'm sorry dude, that was disrespectful of me to not consider the tremendous manual undertaking this contest is, or the factors that go into it. I'm kind of an outsider here so I'm going on surface level observations. That is really cool that you are still developing that competition system in your spare time. Also dude, I've said it before and I'll say it again, these contests are an amazing thing that you orchestrate and I know people have really grown and gone places from all the hard work you've put in helping out. Have nothing but respect for you and what you do Darke.
 
Superior X: Great points. This situation is more complex than I imagined. In addition I'm having a strange deja vu that I probably presented a similar idea during the Wily Gauntlet and have just forgotten about all these factors involved.
KingTiger: That idea is great! Hey Darke, what if we just had threads for each round just for feedback?  I can help peel through the thread if you want and collect reviews and we could maybe encourage people in the op to come at it from different angles if they want to? What do you think? Trying to think of something that would be as little strain on you as the event organizer as possible.

Guys, I've already decided against using Google Forms for this competition. I appreciate the thoughts but I'm closing the book on the discussion as it pertains to SFRG.
 
 
I appreciate the offer, but I'm a professional web developer. I build database-driven websites for a living.

Please keep in mind that right now, the draft, the submissions gathering, the encoding, tagging, and uploading; the voting, vote collection, and tallying; it's all done manually by either you guys or by me. There's very little that's automated about this process for gauntlets, and it's why scoring hasn't gone up yet (I have spreadsheets to help me tally but it's still some manual labor on my part to get everything in there).
 
In my spare time, I'm working on a database-driven web application that will help me manage and automate practically everything having to do with the competitions I personally run on OCR. This is a large-scale, complicated software development project and I'm still in the data design phase of the whole thing. These kinds of ideas can certainly be incorporated into that, but it's a long ways off. I don't anticipate this application being done any time soon.
 
It's also worth noting that the more complicated you make the voting process, the less likely people are to vote at all. VGMix had a lot of these problems with their review system. They attached scores and weights to reviews (through meta-ratings on reviews) which ended up intimidating people from participating, which led to a total crash of the entire system.
 
Building the kind of things you're asking for into the current competition's scoring system is pie-in-the-sky; it sounds great and I understand the intent, but to be honest it's needlessly complicated for the purposes of this competition. If you're interested in detailed feedback about your track, please feel free to ask for specific feedback either here or in the Workshop forum.
 
Nonetheless, I appreciate the comments and aware that feedback can be an issue. Perhaps next Gauntlet we do (rest assured, we will be doing one next year), we can have a one-week break in between blocks where people can be encouraged to review and dissect tracks from the previous three rounds. Maybe setting up a separate review thread per round could also be beneficial next time.
 
On a related note, this December 18th will be 6 year anniversary of the first Grand Robot Master Remix Battle, which is the first of the large scale choose-your-theme competitions that everyone has enjoyed so much over the years. I'm happy to say that I've seen so many awesome artists who've either gotten started or gotten better by competing in these large scale events, many of them honing their skills to the point of going pro and making careers out of music. I'm not pretending to take any credit for any of that, but I will say that I'm proud of everyone that's given the compos a shot and have managed to push their skills higher and higher.

Hey Darke, I have a crazy idea for future competitions like this that might be unfeasible but I wanted to drop it by you anyways. Obviously my entry this week was a joke, but I noticed with the way the voting is set up that there is an opportunity to make this a more rewarding experience for everyone involved.
 
It'd be interesting to see something where people could rate a mix out of 5 based on different categories, like production, arrangement, source usage, mastering, etc. Maybe bring in one of the OC superstars that aren't participating in the competition like BGC, Zircon, Will Roget, yourself etc every now and then to give some external professional insight on the mixes on a round. Either just adding this to their top 3 picks of creating a simple form for people to check box out.

It would allow people to see where their mix falls short and the areas people liked. Right now, and I had this happen with the Wily competition too, but it kinda feels like you submit your track into a blender and its not heard from again unless you happen to get voted for or participate in the listening party. Luckily people volunteer feedback in the thread, but you kinda have to hunt for it.  Its why my team mates dropped after the first one and I think thats why people might struggle to be motivated to keep submitting with the long format nature of this competition.
 
The consistent feedback could help everyone improve on each other and know what areas they should focus on. Under the current voting scheme its extremely unclear what qualities people liked in a track or why they prioritize certain tracks over others, because different people are listening for different things, but the system doesn't really give any insight into what those things are.
 
Overall, introducing a more categorical system for voting I feel would be beneficial to OCR as an organization as well because it can help you guys refine your content creators to publish the highest quality of mixes. There are a lot of really talented folks in here that have areas, that, with proper focus could turn them into truly top tier composers/musicians. I'm no exception. If any of those guys go on to become great film\tv\game composers, you guys can take pride in knowing you helped foster that talent.

Hey Darke, I have a crazy idea for future competitions like this that might be unfeasible but I wanted to drop it by you anyways. Obviously my entry this week was a joke, but I noticed with the way the voting is set up that there is an opportunity to make this a more rewarding experience for everyone involved.
 
It'd be interesting to see something where people could rate a mix out of 5 based on different categories, like production, arrangement, source usage, mastering, etc. Maybe bring in one of the OC superstars that aren't participating in the competition like BGC, Zircon, Will Roget, yourself etc every now and then to give some external professional insight on the mixes on a round. Either just adding this to their top 3 picks of creating a simple form for people to check box out.

It would allow people to see where their mix falls short and the areas people liked. Right now, and I had this happen with the Wily competition too, but it kinda feels like you submit your track into a blender and its not heard from again unless you happen to get voted for or participate in the listening party. Luckily people volunteer feedback in the thread, but you kinda have to hunt for it.  Its why my team mates dropped after the first one and I think thats why people might struggle to be motivated to keep submitting with the long format nature of this competition.
 
The consistent feedback could help everyone improve on each other and know what areas they should focus on. Under the current voting scheme its extremely unclear what qualities people liked in a track or why they prioritize certain tracks over others, because different people are listening for different things, but the system doesn't really give any insight into what those things are.
 
Overall, introducing a more categorical system for voting I feel would be beneficial to OCR as an organization as well because it can help you guys refine your content creators to publish the highest quality of mixes. There are a lot of really talented folks in here that have areas, that, with proper focus could turn them into truly top tier composers/musicians. I'm no exception. If any of those guys go on to become great film\tv\game composers, you guys can take pride in knowing you helped foster that talent.

Hey Darke, I have a crazy idea for future competitions like this that might be unfeasible but I wanted to drop it by you anyways. Obviously my entry this week was a joke, but I noticed with the way the voting is set up that there is an opportunity to make this a more rewarding experience for everyone involved.
 
It'd be interesting to see something where people could rate a mix out of 5 based on different categories, like production, arrangement, source usage, mastering, etc. Maybe bring in one of the OC superstars that aren't participating in the competition like BGC, Zircon, Will Roget, yourself etc every now and then to give some external professional insight on the mixes on a round. Either just adding this to their top 3 picks of creating a simple form for people to check box out.

It would allow people to see where their mix falls short and the areas people liked. Right now, and I had this happen with the Wily competition too, but it kinda feels like you submit your track into a blender and its not heard from again unless you happen to get voted for or participate in the listening party. Luckily people volunteer feedback in the thread, but you kinda have to hunt for it.  Its why my team mates dropped after the first one and I think thats why people might struggle to be motivated to keep submitting with the long format nature of this competition.
 
The consistent feedback could help everyone improve on each other and know what areas they should focus on. Under the current voting scheme its extremely unclear what qualities people liked in a track or why they prioritize certain tracks over others, because different people are listening for different things, but the system doesn't really give any insight into what those things are.
 
Overall, introducing a more categorical system for voting I feel would be beneficial to OCR as an organization as well because it can help you guys refine your content creators to publish the highest quality of mixes. There are a lot of really talented folks in here that have areas, that, with proper focus could turn them into truly top tier composers/musicians. I'm no exception. If any of those guys go on to become great film\tv\game composers, you guys can take pride in knowing you helped foster that talent.

Hey Darke, I have a crazy idea for future competitions like this that might be unfeasible but I wanted to drop it by you anyways. Obviously my entry this week was a joke, but I noticed with the way the voting is set up that there is an opportunity to make this a more rewarding experience for everyone involved.
 
It'd be interesting to see something where people could rate a mix out of 5 based on different categories, like production, arrangement, source usage, mastering, etc. Maybe bring in one of the OC superstars that aren't participating in the competition like BGC, Zircon, Will Roget, yourself etc every now and then to give some external professional insight on the mixes on a round. Either just adding this to their top 3 picks of creating a simple form for people to check box out.

It would allow people to see where their mix falls short and the areas people liked. Right now, and I had this happen with the Wily competition too, but it kinda feels like you submit your track into a blender and its not heard from again unless you happen to get voted for or participate in the listening party. Luckily people volunteer feedback in the thread, but you kinda have to hunt for it.  Its why my team mates dropped after the first one and I think thats why people might struggle to be motivated to keep submitting with the long format nature of this competition.
 
The consistent feedback could help everyone improve on each other and know what areas they should focus on. Under the current voting scheme its extremely unclear what qualities people liked in a track or why they prioritize certain tracks over others, because different people are listening for different things, but the system doesn't really give any insight into what those things are.
 
Overall, introducing a more categorical system for voting I feel would be beneficial to OCR as an organization as well because it can help you guys refine your content creators to publish the highest quality of mixes. There are a lot of really talented folks in here that have areas, that, with proper focus could turn them into truly top tier composers/musicians. I'm no exception. If any of those guys go on to become great film\tv\game composers, you guys can take pride in knowing you helped foster that talent.