Rozovian

These made me smile. Anyway, the annual December reviews extravaganza OA keeps doing in one form or another got me two connected ideas: Monthly teasers for upcoming tracks, which would be posted within a month of the teaser. Basically an album trailer, except it's not for an album. These teasers could be theme-based or just for random mixes. Say, a collection of 8 tracks featured in the teaser, to be released within a month. Tracks as incentives for reviews. If there has been enough reviews within the first half of the month, the tracks featured in the teaser could be released as a mixflood, say, the 14th of every month - if there's been enough reviews. One of the problems with new tracks being psoted on ocr is that it takes a few clicks to listen and find out if you like the track or not. Having a zip of such a mixflood would let ppl download the whole thing instead and pick and choose from those instead of downloading everything (lotta clicking) or listening to each before downloading (again, lotta clicking). While not really helping the bandwidth thing, it makes things a little more convenient for listeners. Depending on the contents of the teaser/mixflood/zip, there could be tracks in there that ppl otherwise wouldn't choose to listen to, be it from a game they've never heard of, in a style they think they don't like, or whatever. Yay for exposure. These ideas would increase the need for video ppl (but we know there are a few in the community) and it'd restrict djp's posting liberties somewhat, it'd make it easier to download stuff, might introduce ppl to new games/style/stuff, promotes non-album tracks through the teaser, and increases reviews. Two cents more from me. In US cents, that's 2.2677 cents. If that matters.

From the archive links: "Round 6 - Mega Man 4, Cassock Fortress 2" Darke, cassock, cossack. Somebody, quick, make a Dr. Cassock pic.

The problem isn't so much that individual mixes get buried under other mixes (that's kind'a hard to avoid), the problem is the unfair advantage album mixes have over regular ones. It's not like album mixes don't get buried in mixfloods, or during a no-album period as tracks not posted right after the release of an album can lie in wait for a year or more (also depending on whether they were subbed and judged before the album was released, or revised since a subbed/album version). That ocr will keep posting mixes, more and more of them as there's more and more tracks in the tbp queue, is fairly obvious (to everyone except djp, it seems ). That's something we're not getting away from. How to promote non-album tracks is the problem. Album tracks are promoted by these means: official trailer, press/fansite/blog coverage, mixflood promoting the album, subsequent posting of album tracks, videos on youtube both as an ocr track and as an album track; and have further advantage in the instant torrent availability. Updating the torrents with every new track isn't practical (or is it?). An option is to change ocr's modus operandi to post weekly batches of mixes, perhaps connected by some theme*. Post a whole slew of those, let fansites pick up on it, have torrents and stuff ready. These could be done like albums, with trailers and all. Another is to make the Russian Roulette thing a bigger deal, perhaps by quoting some excerpt of the write-up or reviews, in a bigger box on the front page, or do a "today's remix" thing (we have materials for a few years...). *eg classic rpgs, shooters, Uematsu, Zelda games, games set in modern times, rare consoles, n00bfl00d, upcoming album games**, Uematsu, western games, games from the 80s, music games, licensed games, indie composers, guitars, vocals, Umatsu, previously unremixed games, iphone games, the brothers Ansari, games with a female protagonist, games not about fighting, artsy games, games covered by Zero Punctuation, tracks from competitions, European remixers, female remixers, remixers with 8-letter names, Uematsu... **wait... Again, lemme stress that I'm just throwing ideas out there without them necessarily being even feasible. You should know what 90% of everything is and that it applies to my posts too.

Updated my big batch of avatars, now in a single zip titled "ocravatars". All images are gifs and they all stick to the same naming convention (gameabbrev_char.gif). Everything to make things easier (except clearing out the ones already considered, apparently). They're all based on screenshots or official art. Hey if no-one else is gonna do the album avatars, I can do it.

You and me both. And Nekofrog. Terrible week to mix, apparently. edit: mine is now in. terrible quickie mix. if this gets more votes than my last round, then something.

What's the policy on marketing yourself as a composer in the Recruit & Collab forum? It's kind'a like selling ice to eskimos (as iirc Meteo put it), but it doesn't say anywhere that you can't do it, and there's no other place on the forum for it (short of sharing remixes or originals, which tends to not be the goal of those posts). I don't really like it, as there's loads of aspiring composers in the community contributing to the community who deserve the publicity posts like that can generate, and if we start having lots of self-marketing posts there we'd have collab requests and recruiting posts get drowned... by non-community ppl just marketing themselves, and ocr folks making use of the opportunity in a community they're a part of. It doesn't happen too often, and I'm not saying every aspiring composer isn't gonna contribute to ocr, but perhaps a sticky on what should and shouldn't go into that forum would be a good thing.

Just voted. No vote comments this week, too tired and need to finish up my mix. Had to pick two out of four for 2nd and 3rd place, leaving Hylian Lemon and AkumajoBelmont out of my top three. This was a really good round, no bad tracks. Nice work, folks.

Welcome to the forums, new guy. Are you recruiting or do you want to collaborate?

Looking for strings spiccato or jeté, whatever, the sound of the bow being bounced on the string. I know some of the more expensive strings packages have stuff like this, but I was looking for something more affordable.

Nope, haven't worked on it much, but I'm still accepting feedback. It hasn't been a priority, but if there's interest in moving it forward, I'll get back to it.

Looks great. Two nitpicks for someone able to in and change stuff about it: Arcana's tracks' writeup refers to Off Topic as if it's Unmod. Unless it's a different Off Topic. The background color for the site - the seconds before the background image is fully loaded - is a nice and bright blue. It kind'a breaks the mood. Dark red or black would work better.

So BadAss release and Finnish independence day... coinciding? That's pretty badass.

It got brought up on the . While not the point of the comment, it struck me as a valid complaint/concern. With so many more albums being done these days, how are non-album tracks gonna get a fair chance?Not only do the album tracks get attention through the album getting attention, but a mixflood of album tracks can easily bury a non-album track posted right before. Even if it's still visible, it might not stand out enough, and it is of course pushed further down the page. With every album track posted, the album gets attention. And them albums keep getting bigger. What's worse is when a non-album track from the same game is posted around the time of the album. Just imagine if one of the mmx tournament tracks would get posted around the time Maverick Rising is released. A casual listener will easily just assume everything mmx is from the album and just get the album instead. This was the case with DKC2, and while there's a few dozen tracks in between, Ross Kmet's Brambles track was easily assumed to be part of the dkc2 album, as was Blue Magic's DKC track at a cursory glance at the list. I'm sure djp avoids putting album and non-album tracks of the same game too close to each other, but it's worth bringing up. As whether a remix is on an album or not is part of the database, it should be possible to exclude album tracks from the russian remix roulette. Showcasing x non-album tracks per month somewhere... Tho with 50 tracks a month it'd still take years to through them all, and the number is constantly being added to. Not a feasible idea. Once December's "Save OCR" thingy is over, we could do a "non-album track exposure month" where we promote non-album tracks on blogs, share them on facebook and youtube and wherever, review them more, etc. I mean, it's not like ppl don't do it already, we'd just encourage those who don't to try it, and suggest those who do stick to non-album tracks for a month. Initial mixflood aside, subsequent tracks from an album could be posted with non-album tracks, as is done some of the time - always so the most recent track is a non-album track or part of the day 1 album mixflood. Adding icons to the front page list: a subtle blue disc for album tracks and a more prominent, maybe red thing for non-album tracks. That should draw the eye to the non-album tracks when on the front page. Cluttered? Maybe. How about different background colors to the boxes they're in? Too messy? Probably. Staff picks in a post somewhere? A trailer of staff picks per year? While unfair to the countless tracks not getting attention, staff could pick whatever tracks they wanna highlight - their favorites, tracks they think are underappreciated or otherwise mostly undiscovered, reminders of ocr's old days, whatever. Just limit that to non-album tracks and it'd work for this purpose. it could also be done with "classic" remixers, ie those that were posted ten years ago or something. I'm not sure how serious I am about any of these suggestions, but maybe they'll lead to something worth doing. Idunno. Got any better ideas? Discuss.

Ocrap, almost forgot this. Stupid week. The Death of Mr. X Smells like a familiar riff. The slightly muffled guitar sound keep this mix from filling out the frequency range properly... leading to the whole thing sounding muffled and held back. The crash-heavy parts (like just before 2:30) work better. Still feels like the track is missing a lead. Not sure about the outro, it's a bit long for such a short track. ZERO to ROBO Yay, mechanical sounds and robot rhythms. Not so sure about the lead, it's too loud and squashes everything else. I like this track, but the lead wrecks it for me. Seems like a slight eq separation and track levels check could have put this track in the top few on this round. Then again, that ending... Liquid Metal Fills out the frequency range better than AMT's track. Not a big fan of the vocals, but at least they're not random voice clips thrown in. Can't make out the lyrics half the time, which might be a good thing, I'm not sure I dig the juxtaposition of growly vocals and funny lyrics. No hate. The little synth touches seem a little out of place in this soundscape tho. Fish. Passing of the Knight Intro lead guitar's attack bothers me, the notes doesn't actually ring proper until a little too late. As the track gets further, I notice it has some timing issues elsewhere as well, mostly between drums and guitar. Like Brandon's track, the synth touches seem a little out of place, here a synth lead part might have balanced it out more. The most enjoyable to me out of the four so far. I Dreamt Of A Man With Two Heads Tightening up the synth attacks and clearing out the clashing between melody and bg pad would have helped a lot. Nice, odd beat. Gets old fast tho. Don't draw out tracks if they don't hold ppl's interest that long. I was about to skip to next track when it FINALLY changed to the calmer section. Nice beat over some pleasant pad chords, bass drum might be a bit too bassy, and the whole thing goes on for too long. That's really the biggest problem here, things go on for too long. I can stand the clashes, but all this repetition gets dull. At the very least, vary the writing somewhat between iterations of the same melody. I didn't have time to make this song Heavy bass drum, nice synths, vox, groove, lead(s), and that's about it. I didn't have time to write a long-ish review during this short thing. Dayquil, Nyquil Dramatic stuff. Not a big fan of the snare, but it works somewhat. The bells kind'a get to my ears, but not intolerably so. Stupid lead melody stop reminding me of sd3. Not much to say. Cool stuff. Long-ish but varied enough. Satch Man The noticeable compression is getting to me. That's the problem with long bass notes with sharp waveforms - compression issues becomes more than low-range issues. Empty sound that might work if the bass wasn't so loud. Really, most of my complaints could stem from that the bass is too loud. How strange. I like loud basses. Team Willrock's melodic stuff, as usual. Some cool percussion choices at the end. Copperhead Drumstep Chippy dubstep-influenced stuff. Sounds sparse and weak-ish. Doesn't sound compressed to a square tho. Soundscape could have been richer, where are the super-arpeggiated chip chords? Sparse but enjoyable. Cold Dreams Compression gets to me, but I like the sound design. Some odd melodic and harmonic hiccups but the track keeps the groove going. It keeps going for a little too long, tho. Electrostatic Spooky intro. This could be good. It could also be terrible. The percussion choices hint at the second. The sound design doesn't stick with the spooky mood set in the intro... which is unfortunate. It turns into more obnoxiously synthy stuff with hints of the original mood. I like the lead, I like some of the backing stuff, I think the recurring chirpy thing is way too loud, used way too often, and could be really cool in the right context. Arrangement seems like a medley stitched together without much concern for the order... not unlike some of my own tracks, except that I like my own tracks. Saving the best for last: Smooth Operator Jazzy stuff. Bass might be a little heavy on the lows, some overdrive and then a high pass might have made it more clear without needing to be as deep. A bit busy in the drums sometimes, but when it's not, it's a cool blend of jazzy and synthy stuff. Cool rhythms, cool stuff. Nice work, guys. So the votes... Dayquil, Cpperhead, Passing, Satch, and Dreams are in the top. I'm putting Dayquil first... Copperhead and Passing second and third... Lidawg second.

There's always copyright issues unless they're explicitly waived by the owners. In this case, ocr only has control over the arrangements and recordings, not the sources. If game company x wanted to mess with everyone who used anything they owned, they could take down any remixes on here from their games. That said, game companies tend not to do that. OCR's terms of use let you use ocremixes as long as you don't make any moneys off of it, and you credit ocr&remixers for the track(s). In other words, you shouldn't have any problem using them.

Took this. Bought the other one. Cool stuff.

My reaction: Stop reading Brandon's posts. Wait, three ppl? There's a real trailer? AND I'M IN IT! ...as in, my track is played in the trailer. You know what I mean.

Nice, folks. I've already been through SMG and SMG2 for tracks, so that one was already on the list. Moar. MOAR. MOOOOAAAR!!

While you're at the other core Nintendo titles, consider the F-Zero series as well. Sure, it's a racer, but if you're raising him on Nintendo... F-Zero GX is allegedly hard, so he might find some "worthy adversaries" among its characters. Then again, he'll probably lose a race or two. It's mostly a memorization game really, remembering all the speed arrows and where the gaps in the courses are. And then there's Cave Story. Platformer. Awesomeness.

Beautiful, understated synth strings. Around 1:00 the lead melody drops a bit under the two-note ostinato. It works better once the piano comes in, tho the equidistant timing offset between octaves feels a bit mechanical. 1:47 transition feels a bit weak. 2:07 is pretty cool, tho I was expecting more electronic drums. The lead and these drums don't quite go together right imo. There's some thoughts for your next mix. A bit long-ish., but pretty cool. Nice sound design despite the occasional minor inconsistencies.

Aside from the abrupt ending, it's not a bad arrangement. But that's just it, it sounds like it's arranged but not performed. There's some hints of a human performance in there, like some note slips on the piano and the slow attacks on the strings, you just gotta tweak them and the rest of it to feel performed. A real pianist doesn't play all notes the same length, the same timing, the same velocity. Figuring out what length, timing, and velocity edits you need to do to make it more emotive and more human is tricky but it pays off. In additional to making it more emotive, you should avoid repetition. It's not like you can't have the same notes in two "verses", but when you have the exact same note slip in there, people notice. It's a problem that crops up in a lot of styles, sometimes it's a cymbal or chimes that sounds the same every time, sometimes it's a transition that just seems copy-pasted. And ppl notice. It's a beautiful source and I find it hard to believe anyone could top it with a remix. Fortunately, you don't have to. As already stated by Geryon, don't try to beat the original, personalize it. Many tracks on ocremix aren't in the same style as their source, and even those that are approach it differently. Your remix seems like it's basically trying to do the same thing as the source, which is gonna make personalizing it so much harder. It might be easier to pick a more distinct style or mood and try to move the track that way - eg give it some jazzy touches, borrow from Chopin, change time signature, build it around a short ostinato, something. If you have a concrete idea to build it around, you'll have an easier time adapting it than to try to personalize it just to differentiate it from the original. Good luck with it.

Valse Aeris is the first that came to mind for me as well, but it's a tad too fast. It's on my list, tho. Waltz for the Moon, eh? Good call. Added to the list. Any cool versions of it besides the original? Meteo... shuddup. It's on the list.

I'm gonna DJ a ballroom event next week, thought I'd inject some vgm culture into it. The emphasis seems to be on waltz and tango according to the request list I've got. You guys know any good vgm or remixes along those lines? Chiptunes are cool, but they tend to not have quite the same grandeur as orchestral stuff. Then again, I'd be fine with electronica too, as long as it fits the ballroom rhythms. The ideal would be a waltz in about 114 bpm, but I'll consider anything and everything. And if anyone knows of a version of Uematsu's Waltz Suomi (FFV) that doesn't lose tempo in the breaks like the Dear Friends version, that'd be awesome. Other than the chip original, thatis. So, ballroom vgm or arrange/remix suggestions?

Fake university shirts, huh. Never heard of them until now. And fwiw isn't ocr closer to an awareness group than a university anyway? Not that it matters much. Instruments. OU looks preppy. Not my attitude.