Rozovian

What. I thought this was the longest running April Fools. Guys. Gals. We did it! :D

Or we've spent the last 10 years trolling y'all. Seriously, this is getting exciting. But I have no idea how I'll feel when it's finally out. Relieved. Saddened. Ecstatic. Hungry. Proud. Embarrassed. Nostalgic. Any suggestions?

Uh, I took a vacation from this subforum to finish the sd3 project, with other staff taking over covering this place. Evaluations have become somewhat less frequent since. But we didn't always have evaluators/mod reviewers/workshop mods/whatever, yet there used to be a lot more activity here. A bigger reason for the shift since ten years ago is that the community is spread out over multiple platforms. There's the forum, obviously. Then there's different social media, though these aren't that useful for crits. There's Discord, which has taken the role of the irc channels. There's the ocr YouTube, which is convenient but commnts are a far cry from the stuff in the reviews subforum here. Then there's also a shift in how people use the internet. Ten years ago, forums were a big deal. Nowadays, people interact via any of many social media platfoms instead, which is more geared towards person to person conversations, or broadcasting your status updates to everyone you know. That's not conducive to the kind of community ocr used to be. Left unaddressed so far is reddit, but it's largely anonymous which doesn't foster the kind of community ocr does, and ocr doesn't have a wip forum there anyway. And why bother with the latter? There are already music feedback subreddits, but these tend to either focus on the craft more generally, or get overrun with self-promotion posts. Basically, the internet has shifted away from forum communities. If you want to change that, start commenting on people's wips yourself. You're part of this community too. It's a good conversation to have, mods/admins can splice this off into a new thread somewhere, or move it into the workshop discussion thread I made, if you'd prefer this thread be only about your wip. Just PM and ask them. I figured I'd post here rather than keep the conversation private.

Maybe my phrasing was overly dramatic in the sd3 thread. But people I haven't hard from in years are back in touch, so I'm not complaining. And things are going well, pre-release issues sorted out. But let me help this project out a tad and reiterate what Darkflamewolf said: provide some sort of contact info for the album website and project Trust me, it matters.

Contributing remixers, check your emails and pms. I've tried to contact everyone. There's a few of you that Meteo has contact information for that I don't. If you're on the project, you should have been contacted by one of us by now. Please respond asap. If we've failed to reach you, it's even more important that you contact me ASAP.

Goals are important. Whether these goals are in pleasing some random peson that gave you feedback, regulars on the feedback board, the judges, your peers, project directors, or yourself doesn't really matter so long as you're challenged to develop as you try to meet them. (Tangential, mostly for staff: we could have a chat about the prefixes, if finished vs. wip sufficiently communicates the type of feedback people want, or if there should be a "destroy me with thorough critique so I'm forced to learn and apply new things and improve".)

Screw it. Screw everything. This is never getting finished. We might as well call it quits and just drop the files somewhere. Don't think I haven't thought that way. But now...

I cycle between creative phases. Sometimes I can write with ease. Sometimes I can't. So then I do something else. It might not be music, I have other interests as well. Music-related things I do when I can't write new stuff: Mix old stuff (something will eventually be finished, for sure) Create cool new sounds Making old cool sounds into presets and sorting those Find new cool sounds in synth preset patches and such Study, eg on youtube, new techniques and concepts Experiment with new techniques and concepts Discover new music to listen to and get inspired Play along (poorly) with the music, be it my own or someone else's It can last quite a while, that non-writing phase, but it'll come back. It always has. It always does. Your shortage of ideas is similar. Do something else. Prepare for when you have ideas again. Develop your skillset and your tools while you wait.

While we're all busy behind the scenes and none of the rest of you know anything about that... ...does anyone know anything useful about putting a listening party together? We had one for AOCC which was a lot of fun, and while a behemoth like this is quite the endeavor to do a live show-type listening party, something where we listen together would be fun. Anyone interested? Anyone know anything useful. And feel free to interpret the question as a hint that the release is near.

PPR is our Politics, Philosophy and Religion subforum. This thread is all over the place. Would be a fun read if I had the patience for it.

There's OCRemoved for official mixposts since removed, but it doesn't seem to be an Acid Encounter there. Searching the site doesn't turn up anything by that name either. I think your best hope is that someone who has a lot of mixes from vgmix sees this. Besides this post, you can try asking in our Discord channels, too.

The more, the better. :D

On point 1... Just step away and come back later. Sometimes, overexposure to your own work leads you to dislike it, but once you forget the sound, it'll sound better. Give it a day. Or a month. Work on a nother piece of music in the mean time. And listen to more music. Get new ideas. And do experiments. Depending on your music, style, and resources, start by considering these: Can you work without drums? Can you do everything with the same synth? Can you work without any virtual instruments? On point 2... I have, no exaggeration, over a thousand, probably several thousand pieces of music I've started but never finished. But I do finish a few of them. Often when I have a deadline. Finish one. That's more than none. And that might give you the skills or mindset or encouragement or whatever you need to finish more. On point 3, listen to the debut mixes of remixers here, especially from further back in time. Like my old mixes. They were good enough for ocr, though. The free stuff out there today is a lot better than the free stuff back then. But I know it's not easy with limited resources. Having better resources not only makes it easier to work, but also easier to learn. Do what you can with what you have, and do it well. When you get something new, learn it thoroughly. It's better to have a few libraries and tools you really know how to use, than to have every tool in the world and not understand when to use any of them. As for the 4th one, you and me both. You will never learn enough to be fully satisfied, because once you learn something, you realize there's so much more to learn. But you can learn enough to make something you like.

I wish I could say we're releasing tomorrow. Nope, not quite there yet. We're working closely with ocr staff to finally get this thing finished. Trailer's been shown at a panel. Audio is just some track length/silence edits and tagging from being done. It's close, but not quite tomorow.

Welcome! Nah, the forum's open to all kinds of things. If it's arrangements of other people's video game music, it goes into the remixes board. If it's your original works, or anything that isn't video game music remixes, it goes into originals. You can post about your own album involvement in community only if you're "posted" (official ocremixer, with an official mixpost). But the Post Your Own X subforums are open to everyone. And don't worry about posting in the wrong place. The worst that can happen is that a forum admin moves your thread. When you post your music here, I suggest you also state what you're looking for in terms of feedback (including none at all), you're more likely to get what you want than if you just post a link and expect people to understand what you want from it. Eg if you're mostly looking for technical feedback, mention that in the post and you're more likely to get it. If you're writing remixes for your own album rather than for official ocr mixposts, mention that to avoid getting ocr-style arrangement -specific critiques.

Answered. Protip for other projects: decide where to manage the project. We're spread across too many platforms, including but not limited to AIM, Facebook, ocr PMs, this thread, email, and Discord. Despite my attempts to consolidate communication, that is. I'm currently picking tracks for the release flood. I have about 30 flood track candidates. It's a few too many. This is a problem I never foresaw.

Mwahahah, I picked the right time to take a vacation from evals. Man, I thought I made long tracks. That's probably why you haven't been getting much feedback. People are scared of it. I've yet to listen to it myself, I'm just dropping by to laugh at Gario. Looking forward to listening, though, when I think I have the time. Also, I suggest you sub the full-length thing to ocr. Maybe a regular remix release isn't the best way to release it, but I want to see what the judges have to say about it.

He's making a list. He's checking it twice. He can't rhyme. He speaks in third person. He wants track notes and bios, because he's misplaced a lot of them, and others he never got. That's what's on the list.

My stupid synth is making stupid noises at stupid times. Modal bank madness. I'm not using that one again before I've messed around with it and understand it better, and can solve problems like this. I've been bouncing release candidates for most of the day already, and listening for glitches. The danger with that is that as soon as I find a version without glitches, I find something I want to edit in the mix. That's happened a few times already.

@Wiesty, I still have your old wips. Would have been cool to see what you would have made of those. Granted, they're old old, but still. Everyone else, I have a shortage of track notes and bios. I've yet to look through ocr PMs, so I'm hoping the majority of them are there. But if you haven't sent me anything, or want to update what you sent, please do. I mean, we can release without your bios and track notes (and we want to release it, honest), and as demonstrated, I can make stuff up for you, too.

I've yet to give the album a proper listen, but I had a quick skip around and grabbed a few tracks for my chill playlist. From that impression, it seems a lot of the tracks have nice percussion stuff. Cool, and it adds some cohesion to the album.

Yes, a florist.

Good advice for project directors: consolidate your data early and often. I've been trying to find all the bios and track notes our remixers have sent us. I've got a good bunch of them, and I've yet to dig through ocr PMs and facebook messages. But if you're an artist on the project and you know you haven't sent us a bio and some thoughts on your track, please do so. Otherwise I have to make stuff up. For example: HoboKa: "Malevolent Intent was written as a symphonic poem for three kazoos and a florist, with a solo originally intended for an actual elephant. It contrasts and compares Finnish grammar with the gradual day-night cycle implementation in the game. The remix has a very personal meaning for me, as it reflects my feelings about the number of syllables in my name. I think it's my best work from back then, that particular week when I finished it. I hope you enjoy it." I hope no track notes or bios are in my aim convo history. I'd hate to have to go through all that as well. Also: the Secret of Mana album is out! Go grab it now!

Good. I've seen some criticism and such over ocr vs. money, and have been wondering if I should agree with it. This should clear that up.

I feel you, man. My stuff is meandering, lazily thrown together ideas that are barely competently mixed. Every so often I make something amazing. And I'm surprised by it. Then I listen to my other stuff and feel I'll already peaked. But I'm biased. It's the output that matters, not how confident I feel about my skills or how much time I spent on a track or what amazing techniques I used. Maybe all my good works are happy accidents. But that's okay too. With every track, the frequency (and happiness) of my accidents increases.That's what skill means. It doesn't mean you necessarily feel you know what you're doing. It means the output is good. Practice makes pancakes. The more, the better. The better you get. And the more pancakes we get. And if you want to grow, challenge yourself. Start making tracks that copy the structure of successful compositions. Make tracks following some specific logic, some specific structure or direction. And make more pancakes.