Palpable

We've all been there with rejections. First time I was rejected here I wrote an angry screed in my LiveJournal (thankfully, it was private). I had put a lot of work into that mix, but years down the line I know exactly why it wasn't ready to be posted. I hope you stick around, but even if not, I definitely hope you don't give up on music as a result of one specific website. Doesn't sound like you will.

Happy belated Mike.

I'm not hearing a problem with the bass octave like Vig is, but I do agree that the song is a little thin. The snare especially seemed weak to me. It seemed like you kept returning to the same ideas, so maybe try to switch things up a little bit more. There's also one section that gets a little dissonant due to the overtones on one of the instruments (1:34-1:44). Good start, but needs more work! NO (resubmit)

In the same boat as Larry. Feel free to check with Greg, but the skips sound intentional to me, or at the least, good. . There's some very intentional stops later on, so I'm inclined to think that it's all done on purpose. Really not much to dislike here. Great takes on the themes, woven together in a coherent and creative way. An excellent job by Greg making those synths squeal and squirm, loved it. YES

What a funky groove. Love how even just stripped down to bass and drums, this is super groovy. The other stuff you added on top only further complements. And how sweet are the punching FX in that one transition - jealous I didn't think of that! YESSSS

Agreed with the other judges that this is a bit repetitive. Trance is repetitive, sure, but I think you coasted a bit too much early on without any significant changes. The second half uses some more creative ideas, in comparison. The flow is also a bit too jumpy for the style you want to do. I would have preferred some smoother transitions to the sudden jumps you've got going on. The main issue with the production was that the kick doesn't have much body. Try layering it with another kick with more body to it. You've got the low-end covered, but for it to show up and provide a more driving force, you need the mids. The synths could have used more bite as well. A good start, but I'm thinking this needs at least one more scrubbing. NO (resubmit)

I can see Will's point here, but I see 12 bar blues as more of a tool to be used in a song, rather than a song itself, and as such I feel ok counting that as source usage. Miiiiight be problematic if that was all Brandon used from the source, but with the melodies in play, it feels overwhelmingly connected.

Lots of silence on the end, will need to fix that. Loved the overall arrangement. Some really heavy, haunting sections played in a proggy time-signature - I dug it. It really just comes down to whether source usage is ok. The usage isn't obvious, but there's a cleverness to taking just the first bit of the melody and making it the basis for a lot of the song. YMMV on whether that counts as dominant source usage, given how different the structure is from the original, but it sat ok with me. Section A2 I wouldn't count, as only the first two notes are the same, but there are some more obvious ties to the original scattered throughout. To be fair, this probably still skirts the 50% mark, but I felt source was used enough. Thumbs up from Palp. YES

Lot to like here once the main song kicks in. You did an awesome job on the sequencing, the synths have a lot of personality. Balance sounds good, maybe a little high-focused. But ultimately, I'm still going to have to side with Emunator on this. Those handful of transitions are really awkward and should be fixed. It sounds like you're turning down the master volume, and that's an awkward way to do the effect you want. For example, on the first transition into where the drums kick in, if you were to keep it the same where it kicks in after two notes, don't mess with the master volume. Try making the notes half the length, and maybe even cutting off the reverb quickly. It will suggest a dropout but in a way the listener is more used to. PM me if you want more of an explanation. Sorry that this comes down to a very small percentage of the song, but sometimes that's how it goes. You may also want to brighten the guitar while you're fixing things up. NO (resubmit)

To go a little counter to what the others are saying, the arrangement sounds a little overstuffed to me, like you helped yourself to everything at the buffet. I mean, it's fine to have that much going on at once, but you can't have everything trying to grab attention at once, and to me that's as much an arrangement problem as a production one. The quieter parts not only sound better but are also written better, and I really liked those sections. Lots of good ideas but gotta side with Jesse and Larry that this needs more time. NO (resubmit)

I love the delicate intro, though the vocal sample broke the mood for me a little. There's something about Jaleel White (or a Jaleel White imitator) that I can't take seriously. Once it broke into the main section, the mood was smooth and chill. I wouldn't have minded some more oomph to the groove, and the snare that comes in later is a bit exposed, but I think you took other skills to a huge leap in level here. Sequencing and writing (including automation) was fantastic, I love the slow build. The instrument set was varied but quite complementary. You should be really proud of this one. YES

Sometimes the track was thin, but there was no knocking the arrangement ideas and instrumentation. Lot of creative ideas bouncing around, and an interesting listen overall. I would have liked some additional drums to fill in the background, but what was here was sweet. YES

Song felt simple, but you did a lot with a little. The automation is sick; every little instrument has some quirk to it. That attention to detail really adds to the replay life. Yeah definitely a pass. YES

I think Esperado was suggesting that the panelist be a posted remixer. Really, we don't have rules set for this because there's only been a handful of times that djpretzel has not been on the panel himself. More important than being a posted remixer, we want at least one person we trust running the panel, that we are sure will represent the site well. Stevo's suggestion of talking to OA is good, since the way we can learn to trust you is if you are able to do panels with people we already trust.

Since judging for OCR can sometimes take motivation, and some people are curious about the judging process, I figured I can kill two birds by livestreaming my judging. Most likely it would be me playing the songs over the stream, adding my comments verbally and typing out my vote too. Hopefully I can rope other judges in too, if we can figure out the logistics. Might throw in some real time WIP feedback if someone on the stream wants comments on their WIP. And obviously I'd want people to be able to ask questions and chat (via typing). So basically I've got two things to ask y'all: a) Is this something you would be interested in seeing? Trying to gauge interest here. The setup would ideally be me playing a song at high enough quality that listeners can hear it as I would, but with the ability for me and other judges to talk over it. If anyone has experience/tips for setting all that up, I'm all ears. Thanks!

I'll try to wear an OCR shirt.

I find that my resolutions aren't usually very concrete, but I'll go ahead and list out various goals: - Finish at least five songs this year - Try teaching music production - Get more involved with live sound - Sing on a remix, without vocoder - Get on Jeopardy - Go to Australia - Study Japanese again - Make and playtest and hopefully publish a board game - Fix the minor pain in my leg that I've been living with for nearly a year

Contact information: Remixer name: Tesselode E-mail: Website: tesselode.bandcamp.com And the remix... Games: Donkey Kong Country / Donkey Kong Country Returns Sources: Aquatic Ambiance ( ), Aquatic Ambiance Returns (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZtorHJ9H-2E)Remix name: Ambient Robots Download here: Turns out there's a lot of weird stuff you can do with Aquatic Ambiance. And this remix turned out kind of weird, I think. Also, I used a melody that's only in the remix from Donkey Kong Country Returns. That's really all I have to say about this.

ReMix: Tough It Out! CONTACT INFO ReMixer name: DaMonz Real name: Emery Monzerol email address: userid: 31308 ReMixer name: Trainbeat Real name: Sébastien Dufour email address: userid: (none) SUBMISSION INFO Name of the games arranged: Kriby 64: The Crystal Shards Name of the arrangement: Tough It Out! Name of the individual songs arranged: Zero-Two Link to original: http://youtu.be/BwpLSiplyYc Comments: Hello judges! Hello ocr! Hello world! Ahem. I'm back with another roller coaster ride! I've been working on this one for over a year, and it's kind of a spiritual sequel to Star King. </funfacts> Get ready for the most awesomest of awesome guitar solos by Sébastien! He really worked hard on it! Oh and this is one of my tracks for the badbutt vol.2 project. So yeah, it's supposed to be badass Just sayin' I hope you enjoy!

contact info: remixer name: finbeard real name: Chuck Simpson email address: website: http://www.finbeard.com userid: 48971 submission info: game: Earthbound track name: We Got This Name Because We Weren't First songs arranged: Welcome To Your Sanctuary, Boy Meets Girl (Twoson), The Metropolis of Fourside comments: i made this track as a submission to Snappleman's Punchfest remix contest- the theme was games released in 1995. Earthbound's US release date is in '95, and this was one of several EB tracks that cropped up in the final submissions. when i made this track, my recording interface was, to put it politely, completely screwed, so i was forced to fake my way along with VSTs. at least i finally got my money's worth out of that accordion plugin! --- thank you! -finbeard

Your ReMixer name: Ivan Hakštok (which is also my real name ) Your e-mail address: Your userid: 43292 Name of game(s) arranged: Chrono Cross Name of arrangement: Under Cerulean Skies Name of individual song(s) arranged: Another Termina Link to the original soundtrack: Your own comments about the mix: Hello judges, it's me again, with a remix of a tune from my favorite OST, Chrono Cross. I've been trying to do an "Another Termina" remix for a preeeeeetty long time now. Around 2 years ago, I did a rock cover but it was too crappy to ever be put in public, and 1 year ago I did an electronic remix of it which was also crappy but not that much. Recently I've got my hands on some cool new synth VSTis (thanks to free giveaways ) and tried to do that electronic remix from scratch with better sounds - only to have it sound like shit again D: Luckily, that rock cover came to my mind (hehe, maybe it wasn't so useless after all), and decided to turn the remix into rock! First I removed the electronic drums and replaced them with some acoustic ones, then I removed most synth leads and recorded the guitars. I wanted to record a live bass too but there were some lines that were a bit hard to play the way I imagined them, so I opted for a sampled bass instead. You can still hear the supersaws, stabs, snare rolls and whatnot from the electronic version, so I leave it up to you to imagine what that version sounded like In the end, I managed to turn a crappy remix into a good one, probably the best one I've made so far, and I hope you will like it

Here is my information... ReMixer Name: Josh Barron Name of Game Arranged: Kingdom Hearts II Name of Arrangement: Sinister Sundown (Piano Solo) Name of Original Songs Arranged: Sinister Sundown, Organization XIII (motif), The 13th Struggle (motif) A little background on the arrangement... I started the Unofficial Kingdom Hearts Piano Collection project a while back and I wanted to continue arranging for it. I knew that I wanted to arrange Sinister Sundown and when I got about halfway through, the official piano collection was released with this particular piece on the list. The official version is quite good and conventional, but I wanted to be different and more expressive. I chose a bouncy, yet aggressive approach. I also wanted to hide some familiar Kingdom Hearts II themes in the music. I always like hidden themes and motives as they keep the listener immersed into seeing what other themes will pop up. In addition, I think that this approach tells more of a story as if it were a film score composition. Tools used: Sonar 7 Producer's Edition, East West Quantum Leap Goliath

Greetings, comrades! Remixer: Brandon Strader Game: Castlevania II: Simon's Quest http://ocremix.org/game/19/castlevania-ii-simons-quest-nes Sources: The Silence of Daylight, Dwelling of Doom (at 2:38 to 2:46) Title: David's Quest I made this for my dad David for his birthday on June 26th. It rocks but my favorite part is at 3:12 to 3:46 plus the didgeridoo and jew's harp. 4th place DoD Town month.

Remixer Name: Gario Real Name: Greg Nourse UseID: 22898 Games Arranged: Street Fighter II & IV Name of Arrangement: Fight for the Broken Spirit Individual Songs Arranged: Ryu's Theme (Street Fighter 2), Oni's Theme (Street Fighter IV) Composers: Isao Abe, Yoko Shimomura (Street Fighter 2); Hideyuki Fukasawas (Street Fighter IV) Sources: Ryu's Theme ( ) Oni's Theme ( )Comments: Hey there, guys! I kind of forgot to get around to submitting this track some time ago, don't really know how that happened. Oh well, here it is - this was one of my tracks for the Street Fighter Competition that was hosted on here some time ago, and it features Ryu and Oni's theme. I had a lot of fun with this track experimenting with some new sounds ranging from my new drum sounds (got em' from freesound.org) to the excessive distortion on most of my synths. Not much else that I can think about for this track - it's a high energy track with some juicy drums and a balance between gritty and clean synths to keep the listeners on their toes. Enjoy!

Strad_37 Kory McMaster http://soundcloud.com/korymcmaster u=50044 Mass Effect Farewell Shepard Mass Effect Theme *Mass Effect is already linked and available on the site The inspiration of this track came from playing Mass Effect 3. On the soundtrack, Clint Mansell and Sam Hulick composed a track entitled "An End, Once and For All" that serves as the final track you hear from the composition team in game. While I think the track is beautiful and that it worked wonderfully with how the game ended, I always wanted to hear them do a tragic arrangement of the original theme with a full orchestration rather than just piano. So, I wrote this arrangement as my way of saying farewell to the Mass Effect universe, the amazing composers who worked on it, and of course, Commander Shepard. The track was composed in Logic Pro using East West sound libraries. Hope you like it and thank you for your consideration. Sincerely, Kory McMaster ps This is my first submission to ocremix so sorry if I missed anything above!