Gario   Judges ⚖️

Man, I hate this arrangement, lol.
I love the fact that it's on OCR - there needs to be more music on here that challenges my tastes.

Man, I hate this arrangement, lol.
I love the fact that it's on OCR - there needs to be more music on here that challenges my tastes.

You'll come around.

Man, I hate this arrangement, lol.
I love the fact that it's on OCR - there needs to be more music on here that challenges my tastes.

Wow, I think this acoustic-only version is a really rich, self-contained arrangement in it's own right. The additional elements of the arrangement compliment the core, most certainly, but you've really got a great base to work with here. I'mma gonna hold on to this other version for my own listening purposes, too, since there really is a different tone to it than the posted ReMix. Not better, not worse, just... different. It's definitely difficult to hear some of the more subtle guitar textures in the posted version than it is in this unplugged version, which in some ways is a shame.
Oh yeah, I like the remix, too - the overall atmosphere is almost heavenly, as the sound design compliments the lightness of the guitar work under it. The sounds are relatively basic, relying on what seem like preset pads and such, but I'd be damned if I said they weren't effective for the overall arrangement.
Great stuff, here.

@Deedubs was one of the first onboard with the album and this was the first track he picked and finished. He immediately went gung-ho on his idea with little input from me. He finished it in a few short weeks. However, it went through a crazy polishing phase where we handed it off to the faux-judges (since it wasn't supposed to be an official panel critique) of @timaeus222, @Gario, and @Chimpazilla(at the time, she later dropped out due to real life). I do believe it went back and forth between @Deedubs and judges at least three times with not so minor edits, but all that hard work and touching up on this track turned it into something very strong, powerful and memorable. One of the first tracks to be completed for the album and one of my personal favorites!

Alright, everyone, this is NOT a drill - this album is OFFICIALLY in the Review stage!
It's actually happening.
I am not joking.
Get excite.

Oh, a judge rules question! Here's where we'd come down on it:
At the moment, there seems to be a misunderstanding of the rules built into the question (which means we should perhaps clarify on the submission requirements page). When we look for source in an arrangement (rule of thumb: at least 50% of the arrangement should reference the source), what we're looking for is the arrangement/ReMix to be referencing the source at least 50% of the time, not for the arrangement to reference at least 50% of the source. As long as it's identifiable as the source, one could theoretically make a remix that only references 25% (or even less) of the source and it would still qualify for OCR as long as the arrangement was referencing that source for a significant period of time (again, rule of thumb is 50% of the arrangement). It would be odd leaving out so much source (and people might get upset that their favorite parts were left out!), but that's not technically a Judging requirement.
Concerning your actual question, though, which source would we give credit to in this case? Very likely, in this case it would be whichever source the artist claims to have been arranging since it's not technically wrong to call the arrangement a "Link Between Worlds" arrangement, even when it's similar/identical to the Link to the Past source. In the past I've sourced Dracula X's Stage 6 track for my submission (which is itself an arrangement of the Castlevania 3 "Beginnings" track), so I have some personal experience on that front to help come up with that conclusion. Forcing people to use "official" versions of the source would, I imagine, cause the staff quite a bit of headache figuring out which source is the "actual" source, which otherwise we'll only do if the VG track is in fact an arrangment of a well known non-VG track (like, say, one of Michael Jackson's songs used in his "Moonwalker" game - can't ReMix "Smooth Criminal" just because it's in his game, folks!).
Hopefully that answers your question!

Alright, everyone, this is NOT a drill - this album is OFFICIALLY in the Review stage!
It's actually happening.
I am not joking.
Get excite.

Alright, everyone, this is NOT a drill - this album is OFFICIALLY in the Review stage!
It's actually happening.
I am not joking.
Get excite.

Alright, everyone, this is NOT a drill - this album is OFFICIALLY in the Review stage!
It's actually happening.
I am not joking.
Get excite.

@Gario Stop making political tweets for a minute and submit the album for eval

Please find my submission details below.
Contact Information
Your ReMixer name - Pyrus Your real name – Andy Bryer Your email address –  Your website - https://www.youtube.com/user/pyrusFTSC/videos?shelf_id=0&view=0&sort=dd&view_as=subscriber Your user ID - 35471 Submission Information
Name of game(s) arranged – Super Metroid Name of arrangement - The Loneliest Bounty Hunter in the Universe - [Lower Brinstar - Super Metroid Metal Cover] My submission YouTube link:  Name of individual song(s) arranged – Lower Brinstar theme – Super Metroid Link to the original soundtrack -  Super Metroid OST – Lower Brinstar -https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zj5DWB5a2n8 I never really played Super Metroid as a kid but I recently had a chance to play through it a bit. One of the first things I noticed was how atmospheric it was, and how depressingly lonely and hopeless it would feel to be Samus, on that planet - to be surrounded by nothing but peerless terrain and horrible aliens. I tried to capture some of that feeling in my composition. It is all my original arrangement; I played guitars, synthesized bass, drums, and other effects; and mixed and mastered everything myself. Unfortunately, YouTube has compressed the track slightly, so in some louder parts it is not quite as clear as I would like.
 
I hope you enjoy.
Kind regards,
 
 

It's slightly held up at a choke point - namely me. I had the tracks spread across two computers, so it was giving me grief. That should be resolved now, so the review should be happening quite soon.
 
Your track passed the panel, by the way, so there will be no problem with it passing the album review. Nice work on that one, by the way - it was a great little track!

Well to get started, you may look into the US legal system's definitions of "Fair Use", which allows for the use of material if it's used for educational purposes, parody, or sufficiently transformative, AND if there is no profit involved in redistributing the material. It's not a bulletproof, anything-goes silver bullet for all things remixing, but it is often the justification used for the distribution of rearranged music on OCR.
If you have questions about the whole process, the basic wiki for fair use (and it's links) are a fair place to start, as well as looking at OCR's FAQ section and our content policy section (OCR has a lot of experience dealing with this very issue!).
Again, there is no silver bullet, and honestly things are resolved on a case-by-case basis, but in general that's the blanket justification for arranging VG music, which most companies understand and silently comply with.
As far as the asshat who is stealing YOUR music, there is no fair use justification for stealing your material and claiming it as their own. You made it, you have a defacto copyright on the material, so if you want to go through the effort you could get Soundcloud to remove it. Up to you, but yeah, that guy has no right to take your music as-is and simply claim it's his.

I have read the comments on the youtube, and one comment really stuck out to me that I think explains why it is so divisive, mainly relating to the philosophy of creating new arrangements of video game music.
The comment, let me find it:
So this is probably the largest difference in the way I process game music vs how I think others do, mainly in the general public who do not produce music actively (casual listeners). This isn't a right vs. wrong issue, this is really more of a perception and philosophy difference/disagreement. This is healthy and should happen in any community that isn't toxic.

For the most part, game music for me is divorced from the game it comes from. I have been told on some of my previous work (back before I had an internet presence) that "this doesn't sound like a battle theme" or similar comments. At one point I did a stripper tempo swing version of Megalovania from Undertale. It went really slow, just to play up the sleaze. For the most part, it was *destroyed* by people who heard it, almost like I committed blasphemy.
OCR is full of creative arrangements, but the whole line is accessibility. For the most part, if you did a calm, ending theme as an upbeat 80s synthwave track, nobody would really complain about it because they can relate to the style. Something much more classically oriented that's out of left field like this doesn't really give much to relate to (unless you listen to a lot of music in this style). It is kind of like listening to some avant-garde jazz and not enjoying it because you don't really listen to a lot of it and don't really "get" its nuance (I am like this with most of the more distant subgenres of metal, for example).
When I do arrangements of game music, almost always I'm trying to do one of two things, and you can hear this from the things posted on this site.

1. Have some fun with a tune I really enjoy or remember fondly, combined with writing some fun stuff to play (Cazador, Journey Never Ends, unrelated but everything I do for Materia Collective falls under this category). This usually ends up being very relatable for most people.

2. Experiment and really push myself in something I'm not familiar with, or explore a style of music I enjoy (Protoman, Reflecting Pool, As Blew the Winds). These are mainly used to develop my skills, and I really don't give much consideration to the audience or making it an way that it means anything outside of itself. This is where the disagreement lies.

So in the most sincere way possible, I REALLY don't care that the Mario fanbase wouldn't listen to this and be reminded of Mario. That wasn't the point. That wasn't even close to the point.

And...
The vision of the site has always been to have a big enough tent for both; we could have fewer headaches, and probably more followers, if we stuck to popular games, or genres, or gave flagrantly disproportionate emphasis to either, but then I'd have to punch myself in the head every day and die w/ regrets, etc.

It's slightly held up at a choke point - namely me. I had the tracks spread across two computers, so it was giving me grief. That should be resolved now, so the review should be happening quite soon.
 
Your track passed the panel, by the way, so there will be no problem with it passing the album review. Nice work on that one, by the way - it was a great little track!

It's slightly held up at a choke point - namely me. I had the tracks spread across two computers, so it was giving me grief. That should be resolved now, so the review should be happening quite soon.
 
Your track passed the panel, by the way, so there will be no problem with it passing the album review. Nice work on that one, by the way - it was a great little track!

Well, that only pertains to my arrangement of Meteo for the album.  HOWEVER, in the original, the "da-ga-da, DA" accents happen on beat three of each measure (all 3/4 meter), which threw me off.  It took me a couple listens to figure it out, so I decided to play on it, which gave birth to the current WIP that you have.
In my WIP, which I can't really link here (very sorry), I keep the A sections in 4+3, with the final bars of it in 5.  The B section is in 5+6 (so I actually compressed the melody by 1 beat).  I have nearly decided that the C section will be in straight, easy 4/4.

Soooo thats a rough metric breakdown of my WIP, I guess.  Its both easier and harder to arrange source material that has static harmony throughout whole sections.  I like playing with time and groove, but it takes a lot for me to inject more creativity on top of that, which unfortunately shows my hand in terms of arranging.
In terms of key changes - I was INCORRECT in my last post
What actually happens is, lets say the tune starts out in E minor.  It modulates to EITHER Eb Major, OR Ab Lydian (those two have the same collection of pitches).
If it goes to Eb Major, then the chord changes during the B section are ||: IV - V - IV - V :||  or  "AbMajor - BbMajor"
If it goes to Ab Lydian (has a raised 4th scale degree), then the chord changes are ||: I - II - I - II :||  or  "AbMajor - BbMajor"
In either case, the chords are completely diatonic which is pretty cool.
And truth be told, I REALLY would like a second opinion on that analysis.

Yuuuup; gonna get moving on getting this into evaluation this weekend, so stay tuned, y'all!

Yuuuup; gonna get moving on getting this into evaluation this weekend, so stay tuned, y'all!

Don't you worry - we're still alive and kickin'. Lots of work on the back end of the site going on at the moment in order to make sure that things keep moving on the site, which while less noticeable is important in keeping the site moving along with little problem.
Generally, it's easy to think that OCR isn't what it used to be, and in some ways you're correct - what OCR used to be was a monolith of a site where most VG arrangements were vetted and distributed. Today, though, we have sites like Youtube, the Materia collective, Pixel Mixers, etc., that all distribute VG arrangements elsewhere, which is only a good thing for the community at large. It does look like it shrinks OCR's contribution to the community by comparison, but it's really an illusion: take a look at OCR in 2009 and compare it to today, and you'll find that we've grown considerably in that time. Forum activity has waned, but that's true across the spectrum; a lot of communities have moved onto things like Discord (of which OCR still has an active and thriving community - check it out), so that's less telling of OCR's condition and more the state of the internet in general.
Concerning albums, we generally don't officially direct any albums - that's entirely community based. If you want more albums to be made, then by all means help out with those that are already in the works (you can check em' out in the Projects forum), or you can get to recruitin' for one. Had a wonderful album come out recently from a relative newer member (who isn't a remixer herself), so it's not unheard of.
Really, though, it's not a bad thing to hear fans "lament" OCR's glory days - it means we still have something to live up to, which is encouraging. That being said, don't despair, OCR is still quite an active force on the internet; we're not going anywhere.

Yuuuup; gonna get moving on getting this into evaluation this weekend, so stay tuned, y'all!

Ah yes, the single greatest title that I've ever seen for a remix thus far. I would LOVE to see this posted on those grounds alone.
However, I do need to question the mixing on this track throughout. The lead is often buried behind the rest of the arrangement (an issue that actually gets worse as the arrangement gets more dense as it progresses), and as the track gets more dense the mix more and more crowded/muddy. As much as I like how the vanilla synths were handled in general, the mixing is indiscriminate (with the textures often overtaking the leads, an example of which can be heard at 0:40), and the resulting soundscape is too muddy.
I like this track otherwise, but in order for me to pass this the track needs another pass on the mixing. The textures need to have their levels adjusted so they don't overtake the leads (or the leads should be in a different register so that they're not fighting for the same sonic space), and the pads that all fight for the same space must be either mixed down or made to be less dense, just so the arrangement has some room to breath.
Fun track, great title, but I don't think this one is there yet. I do hope to hear this one come back soon, though!
NO