Gario

Ehhh... Whether or not it happens with one person really doesn't say whether or not it's something that will happen with everyone. Zircon is a talented guy, and he's really made a name for himself outside of OCR with his music and business (which is a pretty awesome feat, by the way), but for every Zircon out there there's plenty of people who have Willrock's experience of virtually no audience transfer. I'm sure having an audience for your arrangements doesn't hurt your chances as a popular musician and/or accomplished composer elsewhere, but there's evidence (at least in this thread, anyway) that it can be a pretty insignificant boon for your other endeavors.
A combination of how good you are at marketing and networking is more likely going to give you better luck in having a large audience for your original work than having a large audience for your arrangements, I suspect, which Zircon also has quite a knack for. I understand that it can seem fruitless to logically discuss something like whether or not audiences transfer from one person's composition styles or not, but let's be honest - that's a pretty relevant thing for a lot of arrangers who want to make a living off their music in the future. Whether or not the audiences transfer from your free releases to your work that you profit off of could easily impact whether you're willing to arrange video game music, in the first place (which is how this topic cropped up in here).
If someone could crack that nut and figure out how to effectively transfer their audience, that'd be a very useful thing to know. It's at least an interesting and relevant topic to discuss, imo.

Ehhh... Whether or not it happens with one person really doesn't say whether or not it's something that will happen with everyone. Zircon is a talented guy, and he's really made a name for himself outside of OCR with his music and business (which is a pretty awesome feat, by the way), but for every Zircon out there there's plenty of people who have Willrock's experience of virtually no audience transfer. I'm sure having an audience for your arrangements doesn't hurt your chances as a popular musician and/or accomplished composer elsewhere, but there's evidence (at least in this thread, anyway) that it can be a pretty insignificant boon for your other endeavors.
A combination of how good you are at marketing and networking is more likely going to give you better luck in having a large audience for your original work than having a large audience for your arrangements, I suspect, which Zircon also has quite a knack for. I understand that it can seem fruitless to logically discuss something like whether or not audiences transfer from one person's composition styles or not, but let's be honest - that's a pretty relevant thing for a lot of arrangers who want to make a living off their music in the future. Whether or not the audiences transfer from your free releases to your work that you profit off of could easily impact whether you're willing to arrange video game music, in the first place (which is how this topic cropped up in here).
If someone could crack that nut and figure out how to effectively transfer their audience, that'd be a very useful thing to know. It's at least an interesting and relevant topic to discuss, imo.

Ehhh... Whether or not it happens with one person really doesn't say whether or not it's something that will happen with everyone. Zircon is a talented guy, and he's really made a name for himself outside of OCR with his music and business (which is a pretty awesome feat, by the way), but for every Zircon out there there's plenty of people who have Willrock's experience of virtually no audience transfer. I'm sure having an audience for your arrangements doesn't hurt your chances as a popular musician and/or accomplished composer elsewhere, but there's evidence (at least in this thread, anyway) that it can be a pretty insignificant boon for your other endeavors.
A combination of how good you are at marketing and networking is more likely going to give you better luck in having a large audience for your original work than having a large audience for your arrangements, I suspect, which Zircon also has quite a knack for. I understand that it can seem fruitless to logically discuss something like whether or not audiences transfer from one person's composition styles or not, but let's be honest - that's a pretty relevant thing for a lot of arrangers who want to make a living off their music in the future. Whether or not the audiences transfer from your free releases to your work that you profit off of could easily impact whether you're willing to arrange video game music, in the first place (which is how this topic cropped up in here).
If someone could crack that nut and figure out how to effectively transfer their audience, that'd be a very useful thing to know. It's at least an interesting and relevant topic to discuss, imo.

Larry thinks it's anything that uses source less than 50% of the time in the arrangement.
I kid, but it certainly is an interesting question. I remember ages ago where Deadmou5 accused someone else of "stealing their material" because the song in question used a similar chord progression to one of their songs ("Some Chords", I believe), and the community was pretty split on it. I was of the belief that chords are universal, but I was havin' people accuse me of not being a musician because of how wrong they thought I was.
Oh boy.
So yeah, there is a level of subjectivity and culture laid into that question. I'm personally of the opinion that there is nothing truly new and original in tonal music, so if the music transforms a theme or source even a little bit I consider it something new and interesting. However, that's coming from a musical nihilism of sorts - the belief that since nothing is original anymore, everything becomes interesting and worth listening to in it's own right, regardless of how small the variance. Hell, even different performances of the exact same piece can grant a keen listener a very different experience, as long as you don't hang yourself up on the originality of it too much.
That certainly doesn't cover any legal definitions of when something becomes the arranger's own piece of copyrighted music, but as far as I'm concerned if you're putting your own spin on some music (changing genre, re-arranging the themes, etc.) that piece philosophically becomes your own.

Larry thinks it's anything that uses source less than 50% of the time in the arrangement.
I kid, but it certainly is an interesting question. I remember ages ago where Deadmou5 accused someone else of "stealing their material" because the song in question used a similar chord progression to one of their songs ("Some Chords", I believe), and the community was pretty split on it. I was of the belief that chords are universal, but I was havin' people accuse me of not being a musician because of how wrong they thought I was.
Oh boy.
So yeah, there is a level of subjectivity and culture laid into that question. I'm personally of the opinion that there is nothing truly new and original in tonal music, so if the music transforms a theme or source even a little bit I consider it something new and interesting. However, that's coming from a musical nihilism of sorts - the belief that since nothing is original anymore, everything becomes interesting and worth listening to in it's own right, regardless of how small the variance. Hell, even different performances of the exact same piece can grant a keen listener a very different experience, as long as you don't hang yourself up on the originality of it too much.
That certainly doesn't cover any legal definitions of when something becomes the arranger's own piece of copyrighted music, but as far as I'm concerned if you're putting your own spin on some music (changing genre, re-arranging the themes, etc.) that piece philosophically becomes your own.

I'm a fan of your music. :3
Yeah, I don't remix much anymore (I tried to force myself to do so in a compo, which was a crushing failure), though I consider this a temporary affliction. The combination of work ramping up and my computer literally aging itself out of the ability to run my music programs (as in it doesn't have the capacity to play my music back anymore, outside of some really basic shit) has put a real damper on my progress. When I finish taking care of some essential purchases for my new apartment, though, I do plan on fixing this issue.
You hear that, Prophetik? I'mma be coming for you and your computer building skills... soonish.

I'm a fan of your music. :3
Yeah, I don't remix much anymore (I tried to force myself to do so in a compo, which was a crushing failure), though I consider this a temporary affliction. The combination of work ramping up and my computer literally aging itself out of the ability to run my music programs (as in it doesn't have the capacity to play my music back anymore, outside of some really basic shit) has put a real damper on my progress. When I finish taking care of some essential purchases for my new apartment, though, I do plan on fixing this issue.
You hear that, Prophetik? I'mma be coming for you and your computer building skills... soonish.

Found out the composer for The Mummy: Demastered was an artist called "Monomer". I've been checking out his stuff lately, he's damn good.
 

*Sigh*
Yeah, this didn't happen. I'd give a million reasons why, but at this point it'd just be excuses filling in for what was just regular ol' irl exhaustion. Still look forward to the entries, though, and can only apologize repeatedly for not stepping up like everyone else here has.

*Sigh*
Yeah, this didn't happen. I'd give a million reasons why, but at this point it'd just be excuses filling in for what was just regular ol' irl exhaustion. Still look forward to the entries, though, and can only apologize repeatedly for not stepping up like everyone else here has.

*Sigh*
Yeah, this didn't happen. I'd give a million reasons why, but at this point it'd just be excuses filling in for what was just regular ol' irl exhaustion. Still look forward to the entries, though, and can only apologize repeatedly for not stepping up like everyone else here has.

*Sigh*
Yeah, this didn't happen. I'd give a million reasons why, but at this point it'd just be excuses filling in for what was just regular ol' irl exhaustion. Still look forward to the entries, though, and can only apologize repeatedly for not stepping up like everyone else here has.

but what do you mean megaman was on playstasion for as long as i remember

Arceace -
Oh shit, this is freakin' awesome. That opening just raised some hairs, here, and the overall track delivers superbly with all that gating. The fact that the sources are quite well integrated certainly helps.
With a stronger, meatier kick, a little less delay on some of the chips and a hair of re-mixing so the foreground pops out a bit more and I wouldn't be at all unhappy seeing it on the panel. That last chord being major was a bit of a funny way to end it, though - kinda clashed with the rest of the track.
AxLR -
I was interested to see what ideas you wanted to push, and this didn't disappoint. Very sample-heavy, very trippy, but y'know what, this is pretty cool. I can definitely see what you meant when saying you were worried that people might not catch the source in this - it does sound like something completely different.
I think I'm missing the use of Airman (which could be corrected if you point it out), though I hear Metal Man clear as day. I'd say it's hard to argue that you don't use the sources in this, considering you literally sampled the sources to make something different. As much as I love OCR, it sometimes makes me sad that I know we'd never be able to accept something like this for a variety of reasons (direct sampling being the only source reference is a big OCR no-no, for example) - you can get some really awesome results if you open your mind to really making new music from older pieces.
If the competition for this one wasn't one of my favorites of the compo so far I'd have been more than happy to send a vote your way for this one (provided you could point out where Air Man was in this). Nice work!
Mak Eightman - 
Solid metal fare. I think the sources sound kinda funny in that genre, but it works well enough. Can't say the sources are lacking, and the production values are decent, so overall nice work.
RonaldPoe -
Ironically, I think this is how I imagine music for MM1 sounding like in a strict upgrade. The soundscape is pretty thin, though, with little bass to balance out the rest of the arrangement.
I'm feeling that Fire Man is pretty lacking in this one, though.
pixeltea -
Nice. This one jazzes it up in a big-band sort of way, with some slick sax and piano action complimenting a more frentic overall arrangement. While the instrument samples don't make me all that happy, the arrangement and integration of the sources more than makes up for it. The interpretations on Crash on the piano were a real highlight of this track.
You've got an excellent sense of how to handle harmony and change things up - looking forward to more from you, in this compo and elsewhere.
Ridiculously Garrett - 
Slow and chill, this one's pretty good, as well. While the other track has a bit more going on with some of those reharmonizations and such, this one brings on the heat with a cleaner, thicker production, and it ain't like this one is lacking in the arrangement department.
Yikes, this will be a really hard vote, from me - both of these are absolutely great tracks, and for different reasons.
SuperiorX -
Nice production values, and some great Ground Man. Not sure the Shade man was handled in the best manner, though; it's used as texture (which is cool), but the texture didn't seem to mesh well harmonically with the rest of the track.
Aside from that, though, pretty excellent track.
Supercoolmike -
I'm glad you posted this - I think you had pretty strong potential to take this round with that gothic set-up. Tough to integrate Ground Man into it, but the soundscape was actually pretty cool. Alas, the downsides of being unable to finish! Thanks for giving this some love regardless.

The download is in the public voting thread. Get er' done.

Arceace -
Oh shit, this is freakin' awesome. That opening just raised some hairs, here, and the overall track delivers superbly with all that gating. The fact that the sources are quite well integrated certainly helps.
With a stronger, meatier kick, a little less delay on some of the chips and a hair of re-mixing so the foreground pops out a bit more and I wouldn't be at all unhappy seeing it on the panel. That last chord being major was a bit of a funny way to end it, though - kinda clashed with the rest of the track.
AxLR -
I was interested to see what ideas you wanted to push, and this didn't disappoint. Very sample-heavy, very trippy, but y'know what, this is pretty cool. I can definitely see what you meant when saying you were worried that people might not catch the source in this - it does sound like something completely different.
I think I'm missing the use of Airman (which could be corrected if you point it out), though I hear Metal Man clear as day. I'd say it's hard to argue that you don't use the sources in this, considering you literally sampled the sources to make something different. As much as I love OCR, it sometimes makes me sad that I know we'd never be able to accept something like this for a variety of reasons (direct sampling being the only source reference is a big OCR no-no, for example) - you can get some really awesome results if you open your mind to really making new music from older pieces.
If the competition for this one wasn't one of my favorites of the compo so far I'd have been more than happy to send a vote your way for this one (provided you could point out where Air Man was in this). Nice work!
Mak Eightman - 
Solid metal fare. I think the sources sound kinda funny in that genre, but it works well enough. Can't say the sources are lacking, and the production values are decent, so overall nice work.
RonaldPoe -
Ironically, I think this is how I imagine music for MM1 sounding like in a strict upgrade. The soundscape is pretty thin, though, with little bass to balance out the rest of the arrangement.
I'm feeling that Fire Man is pretty lacking in this one, though.
pixeltea -
Nice. This one jazzes it up in a big-band sort of way, with some slick sax and piano action complimenting a more frentic overall arrangement. While the instrument samples don't make me all that happy, the arrangement and integration of the sources more than makes up for it. The interpretations on Crash on the piano were a real highlight of this track.
You've got an excellent sense of how to handle harmony and change things up - looking forward to more from you, in this compo and elsewhere.
Ridiculously Garrett - 
Slow and chill, this one's pretty good, as well. While the other track has a bit more going on with some of those reharmonizations and such, this one brings on the heat with a cleaner, thicker production, and it ain't like this one is lacking in the arrangement department.
Yikes, this will be a really hard vote, from me - both of these are absolutely great tracks, and for different reasons.
SuperiorX -
Nice production values, and some great Ground Man. Not sure the Shade man was handled in the best manner, though; it's used as texture (which is cool), but the texture didn't seem to mesh well harmonically with the rest of the track.
Aside from that, though, pretty excellent track.
Supercoolmike -
I'm glad you posted this - I think you had pretty strong potential to take this round with that gothic set-up. Tough to integrate Ground Man into it, but the soundscape was actually pretty cool. Alas, the downsides of being unable to finish! Thanks for giving this some love regardless.

Arceace -
Oh shit, this is freakin' awesome. That opening just raised some hairs, here, and the overall track delivers superbly with all that gating. The fact that the sources are quite well integrated certainly helps.
With a stronger, meatier kick, a little less delay on some of the chips and a hair of re-mixing so the foreground pops out a bit more and I wouldn't be at all unhappy seeing it on the panel. That last chord being major was a bit of a funny way to end it, though - kinda clashed with the rest of the track.
AxLR -
I was interested to see what ideas you wanted to push, and this didn't disappoint. Very sample-heavy, very trippy, but y'know what, this is pretty cool. I can definitely see what you meant when saying you were worried that people might not catch the source in this - it does sound like something completely different.
I think I'm missing the use of Airman (which could be corrected if you point it out), though I hear Metal Man clear as day. I'd say it's hard to argue that you don't use the sources in this, considering you literally sampled the sources to make something different. As much as I love OCR, it sometimes makes me sad that I know we'd never be able to accept something like this for a variety of reasons (direct sampling being the only source reference is a big OCR no-no, for example) - you can get some really awesome results if you open your mind to really making new music from older pieces.
If the competition for this one wasn't one of my favorites of the compo so far I'd have been more than happy to send a vote your way for this one (provided you could point out where Air Man was in this). Nice work!
Mak Eightman - 
Solid metal fare. I think the sources sound kinda funny in that genre, but it works well enough. Can't say the sources are lacking, and the production values are decent, so overall nice work.
RonaldPoe -
Ironically, I think this is how I imagine music for MM1 sounding like in a strict upgrade. The soundscape is pretty thin, though, with little bass to balance out the rest of the arrangement.
I'm feeling that Fire Man is pretty lacking in this one, though.
pixeltea -
Nice. This one jazzes it up in a big-band sort of way, with some slick sax and piano action complimenting a more frentic overall arrangement. While the instrument samples don't make me all that happy, the arrangement and integration of the sources more than makes up for it. The interpretations on Crash on the piano were a real highlight of this track.
You've got an excellent sense of how to handle harmony and change things up - looking forward to more from you, in this compo and elsewhere.
Ridiculously Garrett - 
Slow and chill, this one's pretty good, as well. While the other track has a bit more going on with some of those reharmonizations and such, this one brings on the heat with a cleaner, thicker production, and it ain't like this one is lacking in the arrangement department.
Yikes, this will be a really hard vote, from me - both of these are absolutely great tracks, and for different reasons.
SuperiorX -
Nice production values, and some great Ground Man. Not sure the Shade man was handled in the best manner, though; it's used as texture (which is cool), but the texture didn't seem to mesh well harmonically with the rest of the track.
Aside from that, though, pretty excellent track.
Supercoolmike -
I'm glad you posted this - I think you had pretty strong potential to take this round with that gothic set-up. Tough to integrate Ground Man into it, but the soundscape was actually pretty cool. Alas, the downsides of being unable to finish! Thanks for giving this some love regardless.

Me too. What're you gonna do, though - lost the coin toss. I sure hope Realme moves forward, though; would be a real shame if I didn't get another crack at it sometime down the road 'cause he didn't move on, so I'm rootin' for ya, Realme!
*Sigh* Welp, Cloudman it is. I'll do my darndest with it, for sure. On the bright side, Freezeman is a great theme, so not all is doom and gloom from me - I got a great match-up, lol.

Perhaps I'm biased, but I'd argue that feedback is more often than not helpful when someone is specifically asks for it, no matter the skill level. However, if no one is asking for the help and they're just sharing their music it can be counterproductive to point out all of the track's flaws. It took me a few years to realize this myself, but if you pour your critique of someone's music when they're not asking for it, it can take the fun out of the craft and possibly drive people away. Context is important, so if you want to be helpful pay attention to what the artist wants from you.
It sounds a little counter-intuitive saying even experts can benefit from critique, but given the right circumstances it can help make things go faster. Sometimes, for example, if I'm working on something and I need a fresh set of ears I ask for some feedback (I haven't written anything in months, so you'd likely not notice nowadays). It's harder to accept feedback when you're more seasoned, but you can still get some use out of it if you remains somewhat humble about it. Most seasoned musicians will likely fine tune the track eventually, sure, but it can help make things go faster if you just let more fresh ears listen to something and give some honest feedback.
So yeah, if people are looking for feedback it's quite helpful for them when they receive it no matter the skill level, but it's markedly less so when they're not looking for it.

I think @Gario pretty much shares brains with me at this point. Yes, all this. Having a mentor is good and if you find someone who can help like that, go for it. But don't let that be your only avenue for learning.
Public feedback can be useful too, because
It potentially could provide a greater number of fresh ears. In principle it is probably easier to obtain (if the mentor would be hard to contact, which he/she probably will be because he/she is only one person who has a life). It opens you to potentially inexperienced perspectives that you should digest, which likely provide for you a realistic experience on how your music may sound to a general audience. The main problem with public feedback is of course that sometimes, you have to filter it and figure out who is actually saying what, because more experienced people might either speak with jargon, or less experienced people might say what they think they mean without actually projecting what they meant. That's the chance you take, and I am quite glad I took that chance for 2+ years...
Fortunately, when I got public feedback, the people who came in (Flexstyle, Gario, Phonetic Hero, Chimpazilla, DaMonz, . . . ) knew enough, and I will fully admit that at the time it was I who needed to learn more! And it was because I took that chance and met those people, that I had extra motivation to keep coming back! So, for me personally, public feedback (forum feedback) was more important than mentor feedback. I don't think I had a real mentor (besides the Judges), more like I had some friendly collaborators...

Wait, are we asking if it's better to get one-on-one, personal training from a professional over random public feedback? I'd think that's almost comically obvious - of course it's better to have one-on-one teaching from a professional (assuming the professional is worth their salt). If you can afford personalized training and education, that's the way to go. That's sort of like saying a healthy balanced diet is better for you than McDonalds, because of course it is.
However, the caveat is pretty easy, here - also like a balanced diet vs. McDonalds, it's better if you can afford it, and it's better if you can dedicate the extra time required for it. Many casual artists simply don't have those kind of resources, and unless they push toward making it into a profession it's difficult to justify the time and financial investments required for such one-on-one interaction. Sometimes you can get lucky and get some attention from a willing professional for funsies, but outside of that you've got to put in some real resources in order to get something like the one-on-one mentoring you're talking about. You won't get as much out of something like public feedback, sure, but getting less out of it is certainly different than getting nothing out of it. With online forums and chat servers today it requires much less investment from an artist - dropping a quick link and asking "Thoughts?" is faster and cheaper than sitting with a mentor to discuss your music.
tl;dr of course personal mentoring is better than public feedback, but public feedback is more accessible, and it's better than nothing at all (provided my caveat I presented earlier).

Wait, are we asking if it's better to get one-on-one, personal training from a professional over random public feedback? I'd think that's almost comically obvious - of course it's better to have one-on-one teaching from a professional (assuming the professional is worth their salt). If you can afford personalized training and education, that's the way to go. That's sort of like saying a healthy balanced diet is better for you than McDonalds, because of course it is.
However, the caveat is pretty easy, here - also like a balanced diet vs. McDonalds, it's better if you can afford it, and it's better if you can dedicate the extra time required for it. Many casual artists simply don't have those kind of resources, and unless they push toward making it into a profession it's difficult to justify the time and financial investments required for such one-on-one interaction. Sometimes you can get lucky and get some attention from a willing professional for funsies, but outside of that you've got to put in some real resources in order to get something like the one-on-one mentoring you're talking about. You won't get as much out of something like public feedback, sure, but getting less out of it is certainly different than getting nothing out of it. With online forums and chat servers today it requires much less investment from an artist - dropping a quick link and asking "Thoughts?" is faster and cheaper than sitting with a mentor to discuss your music.
tl;dr of course personal mentoring is better than public feedback, but public feedback is more accessible, and it's better than nothing at all (provided my caveat I presented earlier).

Perhaps I'm biased, but I'd argue that feedback is more often than not helpful when someone is specifically asks for it, no matter the skill level. However, if no one is asking for the help and they're just sharing their music it can be counterproductive to point out all of the track's flaws. It took me a few years to realize this myself, but if you pour your critique of someone's music when they're not asking for it, it can take the fun out of the craft and possibly drive people away. Context is important, so if you want to be helpful pay attention to what the artist wants from you.
It sounds a little counter-intuitive saying even experts can benefit from critique, but given the right circumstances it can help make things go faster. Sometimes, for example, if I'm working on something and I need a fresh set of ears I ask for some feedback (I haven't written anything in months, so you'd likely not notice nowadays). It's harder to accept feedback when you're more seasoned, but you can still get some use out of it if you remains somewhat humble about it. Most seasoned musicians will likely fine tune the track eventually, sure, but it can help make things go faster if you just let more fresh ears listen to something and give some honest feedback.
So yeah, if people are looking for feedback it's quite helpful for them when they receive it no matter the skill level, but it's markedly less so when they're not looking for it.

Eh, it happens to the best of us; I've had one or two submissions to these things where I only had about 50 seconds of music finished. One week to make a mix can be a brutal limitation, and it's one hell of a hardcore way to get back into arranging music off a coldspell of 3+ years.

Eh, it happens to the best of us; I've had one or two submissions to these things where I only had about 50 seconds of music finished. One week to make a mix can be a brutal limitation, and it's one hell of a hardcore way to get back into arranging music off a coldspell of 3+ years.