[Zelda Majora's Mask - Deku Palace Remix]

modreview/eval

Hey Vid. I'm glad you're still around.

Sound design needs work. The first synth sounds like an FM thing with it's ringing high frequencies. It might be a bit too bright for its background role later. The drums don't seem connected to the track. They seem like an afterthought rather than an integral part of the track. I would try to make it a more cohesive beat. Mute everything else and build a beat to structure the rest of the track upon. The woodwinds have tons of reverb, which works when they're supposed to be ethereal background things, but not so much when they're the ones bringing the lead melody. If you're going for a dreamy background-y melody, you need to get the rest of the instrumentation in order, not have a rap beat-type drum sound and a bright FM thing (and very little else).

The fake guitar... I get what you're doing with it, though there should be a bit more variation in tone and the background ones should be interfering less with the lead one. The drum sound design doesn't work with it, and the FM thing still sounds wrong. You might need a more powerful snare, and possibly crashes and things, to make it work. Also, the bass should probably come in at 0:25 when the track starts proper.

There are plenty of strange and seemingly arbitrary breaks. Having breaks isn't a problem, but they break up the flow of the track. Once the main beat starts playing (and it's finally a beat) at 1:03, the track feels a lot more cohesive in terms of its writing. The mixing still needs work, though. Muffle the background things a little to make sure their highs don't interfere with the lead. Get the track levels in check.

This seems to be an idea-based arrangement, the kind I often make. One idea, transition to the next idea, transition to the first again, transition to a third... The difference is that many of your transitions are abrupt and come with no warning. There's no ramp-up or reverse crash or drum fill or riser or anything to signal the change. And they don't occur regularly enough that you can rely on the listener following the grid, as in a four-chords, four-on-the-floor track. There's a few transitions that work but are a bit clumsy, like 1:37, and a few that work quite well, like the whole 1:40-2:15 and 2:35. But then there are those that don't work well at all

Source is there, and some of the ideas are really cool takes on it. The track's problems are its structure and its production. It's interpretive enough, it just has to make sense, and all its instruments need to find their place.

What tools are you using now? You used a keyboard before, I recall, though that was ages ago. If you're not in a computer DAW, you might have trouble getting an overview of the arrangement, which might be why you're struggling so much with it.

Arrangement lacks direction, sound design and mixing need work. Cool ideas in here, just gotta get the rest of it to make sense.

[Workshop Discussion and Guidelines (read before posting!)]

Yeah, floods haven't been a problem. That one time with ten or so threads by the same remixer is the only one I can remember where I was looking at the board and being like "ei näin" (basically "no, not like this").

Pre-eval has the problem of having a hyphen, or dash, or whatever that line it. It means that when a mod clicks the pre-eval prefix of a thread, only the threads with a prefix spelled the same way will show. No dashes. Preferably no spaces either.

Capital E alone is also very short. The prefix shouldn't be very long, but a single letter makes it harder to notice, harder to click. While other prefixes (wip, album) communicate the state or purpose of the thread, a single E means nothing. We're not doing a single E.

Any other objections/suggestions? 

--

With this, the thread is now retired, and we have a new one.

[Seiken Densetsu 3: Songs of Light and Darkness - History]

Website: We're discussing the site with Meteo currently, and once we know what we want to do, we'll tell whoever's involved. I'm impressed by what Special-Man showed me of his previous work, it's just not the design we're looking for. Dj Mokram's design is, but it needs to go from image to web page. It's pretty much exactly what I wanted, but it _can_ be better. No Spume.

I thought you stopped talking to me, Mokram, having reached a point where you couldn't do more. I must have misunderstood. Or I meant to get back to you but something got in the way and I forgot.

Eval: It _is_ in eval... kind of. I realized I sort of skipped a few steps in my rush to get it there. There's a document in Projects, or somewhere, with everything that should be done for the album when sending it to eval. Unless I've misread it. And unless it's actually somewhere else.

I've got the unfair advantage of being site staff, so I can read the eval posts. So far, there's one complete evaluation of the music.

Next step: Find the art, check with keiiii about any remaining pieces, upload that stuff to ocr too. I recently moved, so I've been moving things and adjusting to the new place this past month. My desktop computer's GPU cooling pipes broke a little before the move. The machine runs as usual, no data has been lost, but I can only use it for around 10 minutes at a time or else the GPU gets alarmingly hot. It's a rather old machine. As it's a Mac, it's not that easy to swap out parts. I'll get myself a new music computer once I can afford it. In the mean time, I'll do what I can from the laptop. With all the stuff copied at different times to different external drives, I'd have to find the most recent copies of the art, wherever I might have saved that. Shouldn't take that long once I just sit down and do it.

[An OverClocked Christmas v.9 recruiting now!]

Mine is about done. Wasn't expecting it to go this fast, but once I figured out what to do... This is two days after telling Coop I was pretty much stuck with one and a half idea or something.

[NOTICE: Forums upgraded to IPS 4.1.X (report issues)]

5 hours ago, djpretzel said:

Well, signatures have been re-enabled. That was probably part of it

I have sigs disabled. Can't read this place otherwise.

I don't know what the design plans are, but I'm hoping that 27 pixels worth of text won't take up 280 pixels worth of vertical space. That's a single line of text in a post, no sig. I don't know if anyone uses an HDTV flipped on its side as their screen, but it seems that's what the current design requires.

Also, tabbed browsing doesn't work. The page number links don't let me cmd- or cmd-option- click. It should open the link in a new tab/window. It does not.

[NOTICE: Forums upgraded to IPS 4.1.X (report issues)]

Fancy. But still so much empty space, especially on single-line posts.

[Workshop Discussion and Guidelines (read before posting!)]

The problem with throwaway stuff is that getting feedback on it doesn't benefit the remixer as much as something they're actively working on. The problem with floods is that it pushes other people's work further down on the board, leading them to post floods of their own or bumping their own threads without an update in order to get them closer to the top. Neither is a huge problem, but it could get annoying.

 

Not sure you were around at the time, it was a few years ago, but we had a remixer post iirc 10 remixes, following the one-remix-per-thread rule, thus creating 10 threads and flooding the board. Hence the one-mix-per-thread sticky. This week, I saw two users post three mixes each, in sequence. Not a problem, but if more users did the same, it could become one. The goal of the wip board is to get feedback on your works, not to post as many as possible. We've lost that feedback culture we had earlier. I'm hoping we can get it back. If we do, then it won't matter so much anymore how many posts we get, since there should be enough feedback to go around.

 

Capital E means nothing unless people know what it stands for. Eval, at least, doesn't yield any plausible results in the dictionary besides evaluation-related words. I don't think the term eval invokes evil. It'd be nice to get some more responses on this, but if there aren't any other objections, we'll just bear in mind that we may have to remind people in official posts that eval stands for evaluation/evaluator.

[Deep In The Hollow Organ~third movement of A Kingdom Hearts Concerto]

This is a very general response to all three, because most of it applies to all of your current mod-review tracks. Not sure this qualifies as a mod review. Not sure that's what's needed, either.

 

The production is minimal. I can hear no humanization, no illusion of performance, and little to no work done on creating the illusion of space. It sounds like midi straight into raw instruments. Nobody expects everyone to put a thousand dollars on sound libraries, but better things have been made with things available for free (like iirc Nutritious' earlier orchestral works, not sure about his more recent stuff).

 

It also seems like these were marked for mod review because you got no other feedback. Save the mod review for when you think the track is ready to be submitted, and let mods catch any mistakes you didn't catch yourself. Don't use it just because you've received no other feedback.

 

I'm not going to listen to 6 sources to crit something that's obviously not going to pass in their current state. My sister recognized this last one as being from Kingdom Hearts, so I can tell you it's recognizable. Can't say if it's a good arrangement, because quite frankly, I don't want to put in the effort. This doesn't feel like a legitimate request for a mod review - it feels like a call for attention and approval. That's not what mods are here for.

 

Also, this track is not 5/4. Skipping a bit forth and back, I find most of it is 6/8. There might be some bits that are 5/4, but I couldn't keep up with the transitions to make sense of every part of it.

 

A 3-part concerto is an ambitious concept, and a rather cool one, but also a very difficult one. I would suggest picking just one of these, and working on its production to make it feel and sound more like a performance. It doesn't have to be perfect, but it has to be better than this to get posted on ocremix.

 

From what I recall of your previous tracks here, you can do better than this.

[Sonic the Hedgehog 3 - Ice Cap Zone]

modreview/eval:

 

Starts off very cool. I've good high hopes for this track.

 

The lows are a bit too loud to be balanced. By comparison, the rest of the track is a little quiet, and trying to up the levels have left the track overcompressed. I can hear the compressor pushing down the other sound to make room for the low stuff.

 

The right-hand electric piano writing is great. The left not so much. It's an interesting juxtaposition, jazzy epiano and brutal synths. I like the concept, and the variety of synth stuff in here (chip arp!). But the execution leans rather heavily on the synth side of things, making the epiano stand out as a little out of place. Emphasizing it in the mix might help. Emphasizing the juxtaposition might be good for the arrangement overall, too. Right now, the track rarely goes full-on jazz, but certainly goes full-on synthtastic.

 

I can hear the source through most of the track. Source version, original writing on source chords, source version... It's not the most elaborate arrangement, but it doesn't have to be. Most other iterations of that melody are rather conservative, but I think my favorite take on the source is around 2:05, as it dares to take liberties with the melody without sounding forced. The intro did something like that too. Otherwise, you're straddling the line between verbatim and forced deviation.

 

It's not easy to figure out what to do with a melody. As a piece of advice for future remixes, dare to mess with the chords and rhythms, since that'll lead you to have to adapt the melody as well. Timaeus talked about this, too. You generally want the melody to be recognizable, but at the same time do something new and interesting. That's a very difficult balance to strike. Some of your deviations from the melody do this well, others not quite as well.

 

I think this is a pass, given some minor mixing changes to get the lows under control. You could also fiddle with the arrangement some, to emphasize the jazz elements of it. Could.

 

Nice track.

[Workshop Discussion and Guidelines (read before posting!)]

I like "eval" because it doesn't feel as formal as "evaluation". One of the issues I've had with how this board has been handled is how formal things from staff often feels. Not from mods, but from other staff. My reservations about the checklist and other stuff stem from that aversion to formality.

 

The terms evaluation and evaluator are a bit on the formal side, too, so I'm biased towards the short and sweet eval. Short, especially. Hence why I don't quite like the term "approved helpers". Also because it makes us sound like little elves or something. Eval lends itself well to the term "eval team", which has some of the connotations of the wip crew. That's a great term, but it should remain unofficial.

 

"Cover" as a prefix is a little tricky because it doesn't say if it's a completed cover or a work in progress. I'm not sure we need a distinction between the two, but cover overlaps a bit too much with either "finished" or "wip". Prefixes mainly exist to let mods (or the eval team, or whatever we are) easily identify remixes flagged for mod review (or eval or whatevs). Other prefixes are really just to let listeners know what to expect and what kind of feedback to offer... and knowing something is a cover rather than an ocremix candidate _is_ helpful to listeners. Could be good to have, could be ambiguous and confusing. Not sure.

 

"Just for fun" is a cool idea. It might lead to floods of throwaway stuff being posted, so we'd have to watch out for that. But I don't see a problem including it in the list of recommended prefixes.

 

Of course, that's considering them as thread prefixes. For tags, anything goes.

[Seiken Densetsu 3: Songs of Light and Darkness - History]

If you've done any web design, send me a link to some samples. We're not looking for something super fancy and infinitely scaleable, it's just for this one album.

[Workshop Discussion and Guidelines (read before posting!)]

While working on consolidating the threads (a lot more work than I expected, but we're mostly done), I brought up the question of the term "workshop moderator", and found that we're not actually moderators for the whole workshop. I had assumed we were. We used to have mod powers for it all. In light of that, I proposed we change the term to avoid further confusion. With a new term, the term "mod review" doesn't quite work. Besides, the term "review" is a bit of a misnomer anyway.

 

We're considering the terms "eval", "evaluation" and "evaluator" as potential replacement terms. But since this is where those terms would be used, we really ought to discuss it here too, before going ahead with any big change. I'd update the mod review link to include the new terms, and probably let the link still contain mod review search terms after the transition.

 

Thoughts? Is eval a good replacement term? Better ideas? 

 

--

 

For those wondering about our progress, the posts are written, I just want approval from the higher ups on staff to go ahead with the update. The threads not concerning mod review are pretty much ready. The threads concerning mod review still need this new term sorted out.

 

We're also discussing tags a bit. I'm working on a post for the general wip board info thread on tags and prefixes. I don't think we'd do much else but to provide a post of best practices regarding tags and prefixes, but if there are any great ideas beyond that, do let us know. How do you guys use tags and prefixes? How do you think they should be used? Could tags be used better? Could staff make tags better somehow?

[DuckTale - The Moon]

Moody intro. Some of those sounds are a bit too shrill. The mix itself is mostly fine. My forte isn't orchestral mixes, but from what I can tell, the mix is works well. It's dynamic, possibly a little on the soft side in terms of levels. No instrument stands out as being overly loud or buried behind everything else. The only thing I'd look into, mix-wise, is the drums. They don't seem to belong. It might be the wrong kit, it might be the type or amount of reverb. See what you can do about that.

 

Most of the strings seems to be the same articulation, which hurts the realism a lot. The brass melody lags behind, and as a lead, it needs to be more expressive. The piano is mechanical. Overall, the performance aspect of the remix is lacking or weak.

 

The arrangement is nice and dynamic. The ending might be a little too much of a repeat of previous iterations of the same part of source, and not enough end-y. The Pachelbel part, from 2:27, the simplistic piano writing there doesn't quite fit an orchestral piece of this type, imo. I know what you're trying to do there, since it's in the post, but I wouldn't have figured it out without the post, ergo it doesn't work. It comes off as lazy, repetitive writing. A different arrangement could build it more seamlessly into the structure of the track. More expression in the instrumentation, more of a performance (especially to the leads) might make it work. Currently, I think it does not.

 

Get rid of the shrill stuff in the intro, see what you can do about the drums, and improve the sense of performance to the orchestral stuff. The you'll have a rather good track. Nice work so far.

[ReMix Reviews - Lack thereof?]

Well, there are exactly two answers here: Social Networks and Semi-Anonymous communties like YouTube and Reddit.

The thing is - people just don't seem to want to start meaningful conversations with strangers anymore. Ever seen the comments section of Facebook or YouTube? They are full of people talking past each other. Nobody cares what other people have to say - they just want to get their own stuff out there.

Reddit is the only place that's reminiscent of 'forums' from the past. But even here you should be able to see the difference: ever met someone nice through reddit? No? Neither have I. Reddit is a step up from Facebook and YouTube, but people still don't feel like people. They are just defined through their comments. I don't think anyone could meet anyone new here. I can't even remember anyone's name on Reddit and I've been browsing there for years now.

 

Let's face it - forums are a thing from the past. Just like N64 and Super Nintendo they will never fade from our minds but just aren't relevant anymore in the grand scheme of things.

 

Yes, we've moved from thread-based communication on forums to sets of unrelated comments (YT) or comment trees (reddit), or what social media overall seems to lean on: a more broadcasting-like form communication rather than interaction. And I agree with your assessment that users are more interested in getting their own stuff out there than in engaging with other people's stuff.

 

But I recognize plenty of names on reddit, plenty of whom are cool people. Those people, when you're starting out, are just a name and their comments, but over time, actually talking with them, they become people. You and I either have different approaches to reddit, or are just not hanging out in the same subs. In some of these subs, I see people actively seeking the opinions and expertise of others, repeatedly asking about things pertaining to their creative work. If that work is vgm remixes, they'd be much better served here, and that would build community.

 

But that's not an answer to the dwindling number of reviews on the site. That would probably be better addressed with consolidated comments from all sources, with more in-depth reviews probably coming from forum regulars who make it a habit to review stuff here.

[ReMix Reviews - Lack thereof?]

The Guidelines post is a big, intimidating mess for new users, and could probably be improved. A less formal "how do I review?" post might be more welcoming, and it could feature a checklist-like list of things you can say comment on, either as topics (creativity, sound quality...) and/or as a set or questions (did it remind you of anything, did it sound professional, would you dance to it) could make it easier for people who don't know what to say to say something. "Reviewing resources" might also work, with loads and loads of questions and checklists and ratings suggestions and things.

 

I agree about Avaris' point about community in particular. I've got some computer/time/priorities/music issues right now, but I'd like to get more community going in the workshop once I've sorted some other stuff out. If someone has the drive to do the same in reviews, that'd be awesome. Just not sure how that'd work, practically, since the workshop has plenty of places to talk about stuff, while reviews are more focused on... well, reviews. A set of subforums is an option, a subforum with subcommunity threads is an option, and gathering the community off-site is also an option (but maybe not the best for increasing forum activity).

 

I think one of the problems I have with reviewing is that the step from iTunes to the site is big. Can't check right now, but there should be a link conveniently from the tags straight to the song's page on ocr. If there isn't, there should be. If there is, it could be featured on the site as a way to more conveniently go from listening to reviewing. Searching by remix number (and consolidating search results from all search modes) would probably help, too, since it's currently a point and a click and a lot more letters to type to get from listening to reviewing that particular remix. Lowering the threshold by making the move from listening to reviewing faster and  more convenient should result in more reviews, assuming people got informed about it. That's what the front page is for, right?

[Logic or...?]

Logic's orchestral stuff is, like most DAW's, crap. It's not what they do. Not specifically, anyway. For good orchestral mixes, you'd want an orchestral sample library (or several), and those are costly. They are compatible with Logic and other DAWs, though, so that shouldn't be an issue. You can make enjoyable orchestral stuff in what comes with Logic, sure, but I don't think it'll be the huge improvment in quality that you seem to be looking for. That said, upgrading from GB to Logic, or any more powerful DAW, you should see plenty of improvements in your output.

 

I've used GB and moved to Logic, and I'm not sure I recommend it. Logic is a good DAW, but Apple's machines are expensive so I think a cross-platform option would be better. Automation is a bit clunky in Logic, it lacks some convenient features for quantization and other stuff, but overall it's a good DAW, especially for that price.

 

Because Logic can load GB's project files, and you probably want to continue working on your old songs with all of your new tools, and the price isn't that big, I think it's a good option. I used it for years before having any issues with it, and even then it still does the job well.

[Workshop Discussion and Guidelines (read before posting!)]

Concerning there being too many pinned threads, we're working on consolidating them and making it all nice and pretty. There's a few outdated things we're editing out as well. Progress! Behind the scenes, sure, but... progress!

 

In the mean time, because we might need them after they're locked and no longer pinned, buried deep in the wip board, the links to the currently pinned threads:

 

http://ocremix.org/community/topic/21300-workshop-discussion-and-guidelines-read-before-posting/

http://ocremix.org/community/topic/9599-the-wip-feedback-checklist-read-before-posting/

http://ocremix.org/community/topic/36265-meet-the-workshop-mods/

http://ocremix.org/community/topic/37017-if-you-are-awaiting-mod-review/

http://ocremix.org/community/topic/25339-attn-one-thread-per-song-one-song-per-thread/

http://ocremix.org/community/topic/20869-workshop-modmod-review-faq-read-this-before-using-mod-review/

[Seiken Densetsu 3: Songs of Light and Darkness - History]

For those wondering about progress... we're inching on. I've been writing writeups/track notes, and will probably do the same for artists, just so we've got something to put on the website before trying to down every remixer for their thoughts and bios and stuff.

 

Also, don't pay Meteo. I think he works better when he's starving.

[Remixing guide needs YOU!]

Updated. Not the huge amazing revision I might have wanted to do, and I probably haven't covered everyone's crits just yet, but it's a sign of life and a fancy new format for the guide, too. If it works.

 

Or to put it differently:

 

We're back.

[Lacking inspiration and motivation lately]

I have periods where I get nothing done, musically, either because I'm just in a slump, or because I'm more inspired to do other stuff, typically gaming or writing. I tend to bounce between those interests, having times where gaming is largely irrelevant because I'm working intensely on some music, or vice versa. Some fluctuation of interest is (probably) normal.

 

That said, I try to keep my music stuff up to date. I listen to my tracks to find issues, listen to other stuff to just enjoy music away from actually trying to improve it, I sometimes come up with an idea that I want to score (eg a scene, a concept, an event) and try to do that, and sometimes I just mess around on the keyboard or in a synth to see what comes out of it. If it's any good, I'll know later when I revisit it, more inspired to work on music.

[OverClocked ReMix Design ?'s and Issues]

I know I've mentioned this elsewhere, but it'd be nice to get some thoughts on it:

 

Font size, line spacing, post whitespace.

 

I'm seeing Arial 14pt on the forum, and Arial 12pt in the remix write-ups. Why the larger size on the forum?

 

I'm not sure line spacing is a problem, but some of my posts look much longer on the forum than in textedit where I sometimes write them. It could just be the font size, but line spacing might also be involved, especially if double line breaks lead to a single, empty paragraph, and paragraph breaks are greater than regular line breaks.

 

And the whitespace, where every post has a 1) Poster bar, 2) posted date bar, 3) actual post, 4) like bar, 5) edit/report/quote bar, and a 6) sig (although I've turned them off so the forum would actually be usable on a laptop screen). Couldn't 1+2 and 4+5 be combined, respectively?

 

Is there a way to shrink the vertical size of the posts to make it easier to read the forum as more of a conversation?

 

Also, who enforces the sig size rule?

[How can I get started remixing game music?]

DAW means digital audio workstation, yes. There's lots of those. Some of them are hardware devices, but most are just software.

 

Sheet music? No. Not if you can just write or play the right notes. For some songs, that's easy. For others, it's really difficult.

 

You're new to this stuff, so you might feel like you don't know what you're doing. Just focus on small steps. Can you make sound come out of the DAW? Can you write notes? Can you change instruments? Can you have multiple instruments playing at the same time? Can you put an effect on a track? You should know that even people who have worked for decades with their music feel like newbs when they change to a different DAW.

 

I don't want to discourage you from asking questions, but a lot of these questions have been answered many times on the internet already, so it might be faster for you to google them. "how do I make music with reaper?", "how do I change instruments in ardour?", "studio one how do i import midi?", "what are chords?", "drums writing, basic tutorial". If you're a visual learned, you should probably have a look around YouTube, as there are tons of tutorials and guides there. 

[ReMix Reviews - Lack thereof?]

Bored, had time; thread so far, summarized:

 

Problems/causes/observations:

 

Will: you wait for about a year, and get a writeup from DJP and about 2 comments on the site.

 

BS: William Harby, who has not reviewed a mix in months. 

 

ACO: OCR seems super dead in general compared to when I first came here a few years back. 

 

ACO: I notice even in the workshop, it's not uncommon now for mixes to get over a hundred views but absolutely no response.

 

timaeus222: Maybe it's the idea that the 'classic' ReMixers are in high demand for moar moar moar STUFF, and people want stuff from Sixto, zircon, etc.

 

timaeus222: Maybe with the newer ReMixers coming in, people don't know what to expect because the person's brand new or rather new.

 

timaeus: Maybe it's because there have been ReMixes from "new" games that people aren't as familiar with, like Guild Wars 2, Beyond: Two Souls, and Fittest.

 

timaeus: Maybe people are more busy these days; I know I'm really busy these days.

 

Will: Seems like "classic" ReMixers are not exempt from lack of reviews so I doubt thats it.

 

Will:  I also doubt its due to games, since again, popular games are not exempt either. 

 

Will: Lack of new members?

 

Garpocalypse: A significant part of OCR is the nostalgia factor. [...]  But the nostalgia wears off quickly when you have to live it everyday.  Psychologists call the decrease in response to a stimuli over time "habituation"

 

ACO: Lots of the newer games don't have music that is as simple and melodic as the older ones, so it's tough to remix or when remixes of it pop up on the site

 

timaeus222:  it looks to me like there's a lack of new members. [...] statistically, less people are joining the OCR forums per year, at least since 2010. :/

 

pu_freak:  I have much less time than a few years ago. When I look at the active people at the forums [...], I have a feeling that the average age is higher than when I first joined these forums

 

pu_freak: YouTube and Facebook. [...] I listen to the ones from there. That means I never visit the OCR homepage anymore

 

BS: it might be hard for a site that takes 6 months to a year for judgements to maintain an active member base.

 

BS: it's time that we get replaced with the new generation of remixers, but it's harder than ever for them to actually be a part of OCR

 

Patrick Burns: I think there are a lot more avenues to find and share nostalgia these days

 

Patrick Burns: our arrangements don't add nearly as much in the post-redbook audio era. [...] Appreciating arrangements of already well-produced material requires a listener who's much more fixated on the music than the average listener, imo.

 

Patrick Burns: We've just got so many other options to fulfill our music/digital/social/creative needs these days.

 

SystemsReady: Holy shit, it takes 6 months to a year for remixes to be judged now? [...] that does make me FAR less inclined to submit anything.

 

djp: I sense some defeatism, here, and I can see where it might stem from, but this is when we need people stepping up, not stepping back

 

Skryp: why are the number of reviews relevant?  Or even why are reviews themselves relevant?

 

Skryp: The forums themselves have gotten very slow, very boring, very dead and dying, and so the question should be "How do you suggest bring the overall forum activity back up again?".

 

Skryp: I don't think asking or having one person try and lead a march in improving reviews will have any long lasting effects around here.

 

k-wix: Don't have as many personal connections as i used to on the site.

 

k-wix: If you make it onto the site, the mix is probably awesome and worth listening to, so I don't feel like feedback is needed at that point. 

 

Bowlerhat: it's actually really important to see as much reviews as possible to your remix [...] because it can be really motivational to see people like your music.

 

Garpocalypse: the environment where students and working professionals were nearly reduced to tears [...] I was initially attracted to OCR because it got me away from that into a more stress free environment.  Now, with all of this music out there, it's no longer a similar minded group of people who care enough about their art to want to help each other [...] and instead it's a lot of people who all want praise for their work [...] people should be encouraged more to speak their minds on the forums here as long as it has a constructive purpose to make the remix better.

 

Garpocalypse: The length of time it takes for a person to get judged and posted is an issue 

 

Garpocalypse: I jumped if someone I knew such as Brandon Strader, Willrock, Darkesword, Avaris, Gario or other posted remixers whose work I enjoyed took time to comment on mine. Even if the comments were harsh they were much easier to take because I was familiar with who they were beyond their name just showing up in the forums.  Now we are at a time when most of the remixers from earlier days of OCR have all moved on

 

Garpocalypse: the panel is separating itself too much from the community it once created and it's having detrimental effects. 

 

BS: I could comment more in workshop, [...] people usually reply and/or PM you with new versions always asking more more more

 

The Damned: sarcasm

 

Rozo: Back when I was active here, there were more of the big names around. When they posted, [...] it inspired us.

 

Rozo: I've had less energy for the wip board, and now just do my duties as a workshop mod, and not much else there. 

 

Rozo: I think the wip board's current slow pace is because it's become less of a community. There's not the wip crew of the old days. [...] Everyone has their own circles now, whether Facebook or YouTube or SoundCloud or something else, so the comments are spread all over the place

 

Rozo:  I think the ability to drop a brief "nice work" comment on Facebook gives people a reason to not bother giving something more in-depth

 

Rozo: Now that I'm staff, I feel I have to get permission to do stuff, so that dampens my initiative. Not maybe for reviews or posting on the wip board, but for doing more overall.

 

zircon: a big part of it is the rise of social media and YouTube. Forums - in general - are way less popular than they used to be.

 

zircon: What has also changed is how people listen to music. There's been a dramatic shift away from downloading MP3s and having a music library, to just streaming your music.

 

Best Dude55: I don't feel I have enough experience to where I could give any helpful constructive feedback.

 

Best Dude55: Also as a new member I can agree with others that the time it takes for submissions to reach the panel also kind of deters me from being more active. 

 

Jorito: I grew up with 8 bit home computers and a PSX, and that means a lot of the newer games don't mean anything to me. That also means I typically won't review and comment.

 

Jorito: I don't really care about the number of reviews (of my own tracks). I'd to like to see a more active community here, but I'm not convinced focusing on the number of reviews is the way to get there.

 

CelestialSonata: Looking at everyone's post count is like looking at an XP bar.  It's hard to tell myself that my critique or advice will be worth anything compared to someone whose posts are in the thousands (high XP).  In my mind, how can I give advice if I don't have any arrangements published?

 

--

 

Suggestions:

 

pu_freak: copy the write-up to YouTube as the first comment?

 

djp: We upgrade our forums to IPS 4.X

 

djp: We build the workshop out to integrate with the rest of the site

 

djp:  We thus allow content creation & promotion on two tracks - the instant gratification, "look what I made" track for anything posted on the workshop AND the featured, canonized track for accepted mixes

 

djp: We automate the submissions process via the forums

 

djp: All of these changes serve to reinforce the forums and the benefits of registering & participating

 

djp: We consider some form of trackable reputation points or awards or whatever for the most active/helpful members 

 

djp: every review helps!

 

Will: All it takes is one person to start doing some reviews and it might kick things up a gear. 

 

k-wix: When the song gets posted, it could be posted with all of the information that the judges talked about, might spark some conversation and debate. Would be great to actively discuss the track WITH the judges.

 

k-wix: Featured Comments [...] Could have its own section on the main page to encourage people to actively comment and get featured.

 

Bowlerhat:  I've never left a review myself [...] I think that after reading this topic I just might start doing it.

 

The Orichalcon: Is there a way to integrate comments on remixes posted to Youtube into the equivalent comment thread here? [...] Now the comments are split up amongst different media, thinning out the numbers.

 

Jorito: Include the Facebook comments and Twitter replies too, in that case. Effectively you'd centralize the discussion on the site.

 

Txai: I think the basic core of solving this is lifting listeners' tastes and opinions. 

 

Txai:  I wonder if every poster could include their top 10 favourite ReMixes in their profile page. This was a feature in VGMix and OLR, too. And OLR turned into a barren ghost town after many user listening features were gone.

 

Rozo: We can encourage reviews. OA and DA had a reviews month back when, [...] maybe it'd create a feedback loop, where people can piggy-back on other people's reviews.

 

Rozo: Just start reviewing.

 

Rozo: I would also like to be able to read all comments an artist has received on their posted mixes.

 

Rozo: I'd also like to see the design of the forum posts get a trim so there's less whitespace, [...] That would make it feel more like a conversation than disparate posts.

 

Rozo: the no-favorites policy could be revised to allow for "here are my favorite collabs from the past 3 years, check them out, give them a review; what are your favorite collabs?"-type threads

 

Rozo: We could do a monthly podcast, talking about the remixes posted that month.

 

Rozo: We could make awesome music videos to get more YouTube presence and maybe draw people here.

 

Rozo: We could raise ocr's profile on reddit.

 

timaeus222: Another judge tryout to get more on the panel?

 

timaeus222: Tell your friends about OCR

 

Jorito: embracing all these platforms and combining them in stead of trying to force the audience (back) to the forums. The community is probably still there, just more scattered and, in today's society, also more fleeting.

 

evktalo: I wonder if reviews could be [...] not just posts count, but also review count, why not also "workshop comment" count.. [...] Not as much to reward people who do the reviews, but highlight the importance of the comments.

 

evktalo: I really like to read "readings" of pieces, what they say or seem to mean to a particular listener. You don't have to understand music in a technical/theory level to do this, which is nice (though you have to be able to write about what you think or feel)

 

evktalo: if you said something controversial perhaps, more people would hopefully join in on the discussion. It should only be a good thing, right?

[ReMix Reviews - Lack thereof?]

I have to comment on this now that I got namedropped. THANKS WILL. WHY ARE WE YELLING?

 

I think it's all about pace. Back when I was active here, there were more of the big names around. When they posed, whether on a wip, on a posted remix, or in the community overall, people saw that these big names weren't celebrities in their ivory towers, but regular forum folks like us lowly unposted wannabes. And it inspired us.

 

The wip board specifically became a place for me to help others get past the hurdles I had gotten past, and in the process develop a more critical ear and improve my own work. So the place became important to me. Still is, but running the sd3 project has eaten a lot of the enthusiasm over the years, so I've had less energy for the wip board, and now just do my duties as a workshop mod, and not much else there. I'm hoping I can make a comeback and fill a couple of pages with predominantly "last post by Rozovian".

 

I think the wip board's current slow pace is because it's become less of a community. There's not the wip crew of the old days. There's evktalo and timaeus222 and others who are active and do a great job at giving people feedback. There's the whole mod review thing. But I think we're missing the community we had back then. Everyone has their own circles now, whether Facebook or YouTube or SoundCloud or something else, so the comments are spread all over the place, and they don't show on the forum, so forumites don't engage with them, Facebook folks don't engage with Soundcloud comments, and the whole thing gets spread too thin. I like Soundcloud. But I don't like their comments system, specifically because it draws the comments away from the thread on the wip board.

 

On that note, back to reviews. pu_freak's completely right about how remixes appear on social media and get a lot of their responses from there instead of in reviews. That's a big part of it. I think the ability to drop a brief "nice work" comment on Facebook gives people a reason to not bother giving something more in-depth, no matter where that comment would end up.

 

We can encourage reviews. OA and DA had a reviews month back when, and gave out a little badge to everyone who made it to 500 reviews. And there's been those initiatives to get every remix at least one page of reviews (we need a new one, with the new forum having more posts per page). Maybe it's a bandaid. Or maybe it'd create a feedback loop, where people can piggy-back on other people's reviews.

 

Will had questions for us.

 

1: Why, if applicable, don't you comment on new mixposts on OCR?

 

Back when, it was that I spent so much time posting on wips. Then it was that I didn't have time or energy for it. Now it's that it's not a habit for me to hang out here. I drop by to check for new things to mod review, but that's about it. I don't think I was ever the one reviewing the new mixposts. Rather, I'd make playlists, listen, and comment on the ones I really liked. Which reminds me, I need to review April Rain, if I haven't already, because it's spectacular.

 

What just happened to the formatting?

 

2: How do you suggest the number of reviews is brought back up again?

 

Just start reviewing. Find someone to agree or disagree with, and create a discussion about the mix. Make a list of your favorite tracks and review them. Just get more activity going overall. I think there'll be a feedback effect from this.

 

I would also like to be able to read all comments an artist has received on their posted mixes. It's a convenient way for the remixer to find comments on their most recent works, which might lead them to reply, thus posting more in reviews and getting the activity up.

 

I'd also like to see the design of the forum posts get a trim so there's less whitespace, making threads easier to read when there's not row after row of whitespace. I posted about this somewhere before. I think it's detrimental to forum activity that you often can't see more than one post at a time on a laptop screen. That would make it feel more like a conversation than disparate posts.

 

I think the no-favorites policy could be revised to allow for "here are my favorite collabs from the past 3 years, check them out, give them a review; what are your favorite collabs?"-type threads, probably monthly themes and very specifically crafted by staff so as to not flood the community with various favorite threads. "Remixers having made their debut here over the past year", "remixes of games released in the past 5 years", anything that reminds listeners to drop a line on any remix is good, and once there's more of a culture of reviewing, I think we'd see more reviews on new mixposts as well.

 

We could do a monthly podcast, talking about the remixes posted that month. We could make awesome music videos to get more YouTube presence and maybe draw people here. We could raise ocr's profile on reddit. We could do lots of things. But I think it all comes down to a few people leading the charge, and building a community out of the people who follow.

 

...which makes me wonder what actually happened back in whenever I allegedly single-handedly kicked the wip board into high gear.

 

Now that I'm staff, I feel I have to get permission to do stuff, so that dampens my initiative. Not maybe for reviews or posting on the wip board, but for doing more overall. Speaking of which, I'm apparently not a workshop mod, just a music boards mod. Is that intentional?

[Feedback on my original piano piece]

You can find older discussions on how to make seamless loops using the forum search function. Here's one thread that came up, although it pertains to FL rather than Logic, but the principles should be the same. The basic idea is that if there's no wrap option in the DAW itself, you can just bounce it, start a new project, import the audio, and cut the tail end (decay, reverb) and put it in the beginning along with the real beginning of the track. If there's too much audio tail at the beginning, you can then bounce a new audio of it, import, and make a cut in the beginning just before the attack of the first note.

 

Can't listen right now, so I don't know how well you have it already. Just know that mp3 can't do seamless loops because of how the format works. I noticed your track is 30 megs, so it's not an mp3, which means it's a bigger download but it's also potentially a seamless loop already. Didn't check.

 

As for the music itself, use the right subforum. I'd move the thread myself, but I don't have mod powers here. Someone else will probably move it.