Abadoss

Not bad at all, you'll be hearing an update in here before the end of the month.

My only thoughts are... "Murder a steer"?

Also, curious.  If this album doesn't officially release let us hear it at least, haha

It's a new year and a lot of things have changed, but I figure it's worth checking in. How goes things?

It's been an amazing run! Well done!

I tried to keep this brief, but as you might know, that's not my forte.
FIRST, the facts...
On October 28th I informed staff that I was stepping down from my role as president/admin/owner/etc. of OverClocked ReMix, and on November 1st I also stepped down from the board of Game Music Initiative, the 501c3 non-profit organization that funds OCR. In short, I no longer feel I have the bandwidth to do these roles justice and to not only maintain, but advance, the missions of both projects. I will be working with Shariq Ansari (DarkeSword) to transition my responsibilities and ensure continuity of operations. The (excellent!) mix posted on Halloween was published without my direct involvement, subsequent posts up to the milestone #OCR04500 have been superbly executed, and I am confident that staff will continue the work necessary to operate - and evolve - OCR in my absence. I will be even less available than I have been, lately, so I apologize in advance for any lack of responsiveness.
THEN, the feels...
Where to even begin?
It's hard to encapsulate over two decades of history; omissions are inevitable. What began as a neat side project I started in my parents' basement in 1999 snowballed into something far beyond my wildest expectations, due to the blood, sweat, tears, and unbridled, rampant creativity that thousands of you have contributed. Much of this happened before social media was even a thing and before the platforms/services we now heavily associate with the modern internet had come into being; it was a frontier, and we were on it, and we took it pretty seriously because we knew how amazing VGM is, how creative arrangements could effectively convey and explore that vast musical landscape, and how a small fandom communicating via email, IRC, & forums could collaborate to build mighty, new things. We took it seriously, often too seriously, but we ALSO played more than a few rounds of Shaq-Fu at conventions, made some truly ridiculous (but always musical!) joke mixes, and developed internal circles of lore with our own memes & jargon.
NOT in strictly chronological order: there was some drama with now-legendary composer Jake Kaufman; VGMix entered the fray; we added a judges panel so it wasn't just me making stuff up; we released our first community album; the unmoderated forum birthed its own sort of... subculture; the site itself evolved to be database-driven and not just two giant dropdowns sorted by game/date; we posted mixes submitted by composers George "The Fat Man" Sanger and Jeremy Soule; we met/interviewed Hiroki Kikuta and Nobuo Uematsu; our album trailers by the incomparable José the Bronx Rican started blowing minds; we started appearing in person at Otakon, PAX, MAG, others - much love to all for having us; we bumped into Leeroy Jenkins at ROFLcon and gave him a hoodie; we started hosting from our own server and managing the technical side of things ourselves; thanks to Mr. Shael Riley (among others!), we got to remix the music for an actual Street Fighter game (!!); we released fifteen more albums...
...and then we turned ten, on December 11th of 2009.
Quite a first decade, and I missed hundreds of things I shouldn't have. Hundreds of firsts, some tragic lasts, and millions of memories that can't quite be conjured by words.
In 2011, we stood up for Fair Use at World’s Fair Use Day, an event organized by the non-profit Public Knowledge.
In 2012, we launched our kickstarter for Final Fantasy VI: Balance and Ruin, it was taken down, we talked with Square lawyers directly for a couple hours and made the non-profit project structure clear & contractual, and we relaunched a successful kickstarter. That's not always how those things go!
We launched Game Music Initiative in 2016, creating an official 501c3 charity to formalize the finances around OCR and potentially support other VGM-related projects, too. On a related note, I’ve absolutely loved seeing OC ReMixes featured by charity speedrunners Games Done Quick (GDQ) - it’s exactly the type of thing I always wanted to see, that synergy.
Things do start getting a little quieter from then on out, and I think there are a ton of reasons for that, but it has been an incredible and improbable journey that I wouldn't have missed for the world. Thank you ALL for making it possible; OCR was always yours, I aspired only to stewardship of something I wanted to exist for everyone.
FINALLY, the future…
It's time - some would say past time - for OverClocked ReMix itself to be ReMixed.
That's the point, right?
Infinite permutation; endless possibility.
You don't always know the day, month, or even year when your influence on something starts holding it back, or when the waning amount of time and energy you can dedicate becomes a liability. That type of certainty is often elusive; it can be a difficult diagnosis to even contemplate, and you need to look for & listen to signs. In addition to just being too much of a single point of failure for OCR (sorry, engineering mindset), the last year I've been asking myself whether it was time to let go, and I think the answer is sometimes in the asking. I have been stretched thin, like butter scraped over too much bread, and that's when you leave the Shire.
Beyond representing what I genuinely believe is best for the future of OCR, I absolutely confess a personal wish to redirect reclaimed time & energy to my family and my own music. Being a husband to my wife Anna and being a father to our daughters Esther and Sarah is my meaning; I have always put them first, but now I can put them even MORE first. Esther just started learning trombone, so in a few years, expect a collab! Sarah is building her confidence learning piano & makes me proud every day. I want to write new music for them, and with them, and that requires more time than I've had.
I believe the principles that have driven us - embracing all games & all styles of music, emphasizing interpretation & creativity, offering both curation and critique, and providing a non-commercial platform for those who seek it - are truly timeless, but there are many ways to honor them.
I look to the new leadership/staff to galvanize, streamline, diversify, and re-imagine, within that immense space.
I'll be leaving them with some ideas of my own; please let them know yours. I ask the community to support them, embrace change, provide guidance, and be patient; I believe it will be worth it!
Thanks,
- djpretzel
 

Alright, the final due date has passed, there will be no more tracks accepted for this album. I am working on putting together the final package for review for the staff this week. Thanks for the additional support from members like Voodoo Queen, bLiNd, and Bunnylord (aka TimComposer) for producing some final tracks for everyone to enjoy!

ALBUM UPDATE:
This album will be resubmitted to OCR on July 13th, so that is the final final cutoff date for anyone who still would like to participate. After that there will be no more accepted submissions. I thank everyone who has shown continued interest in this project, and look forward to this chapter in OCR's history being closed. Let's end it on a high note, everyone!

If you two can quickly pop something out fully finished, I'd certainly encourage it. As long as it doesn't put any more pressure on Gario and/or delay things further.
(For the record, I have no control in any of this. I would just cheer you on if you can do it.)

Doing swell, @Abadoss, plan on getting this back to staff sometime early October.

Just have a few small touches and then this should be on it's way

I'm working on finishing the last track, then I'll be trying to send it back to staff.

I am working on this pretty actively, atm, so I'm hoping I'm able to get this out soon. Looking forward to providing the update when I get this back to staff.

One-hundred percent acceptable. I am far more familiar than I care to be with how damaging mental and emotional stress can be. As eager as I am to see the album released, I'm not eager enough to forget the way that feels. Take your time. Gather your spoons. Ask for help when/if you need it.

One-hundred percent acceptable. I am far more familiar than I care to be with how damaging mental and emotional stress can be. As eager as I am to see the album released, I'm not eager enough to forget the way that feels. Take your time. Gather your spoons. Ask for help when/if you need it.

One-hundred percent acceptable. I am far more familiar than I care to be with how damaging mental and emotional stress can be. As eager as I am to see the album released, I'm not eager enough to forget the way that feels. Take your time. Gather your spoons. Ask for help when/if you need it.

Thanks for the update, and no worries. Focus on healing and recovering, the album can wait a while longer

Hello, mostly dealing with a mental breakdown with mounting pressures of work and... well, bullshit, all through last year. I'm trying to ease back into the swing of things but it takes time. Sorry that the progress of an album relies on the back of someone who is, let's just say, mentally exhausted.

The Lufia album is something I need a lot of mental energy to work through, which I've been recovering slowly but surely. Not that fair to most of the good folk who worked on it, but I'm only human at the end of the day.

... also, is this the first time I posted in the public forums in a year? Sheesh, things must've been rough.

And in short supply.

What a neat little album with a fun story behind it. I hope all of the remixer parents who participated were able to get some warm fuzzies out of playing the music for their young kids before they started to get too big for music like this.
I enjoy the wide variety of source material here, with some frequently-mixed classics and some more obscure ones thrown in too. I think my favorite is 3-09, Child of Legend, which just seems to inhabit the theme suggested by the album's title so well. Great to get some DuckTales nostalgia, really enjoyed the kind of church organ-y take on Gau's theme in 2-02, and of course the Chrono Trigger tracks are lovely. Another fantastic job.

With Golden Sun out of the way, it's Badass 4, Lufia 2, & FF3.... hoping we can get the last mile on this one, will be talking w/ @Gario

Hey everyone, we're likely changing the album field for all of the individual OC ReMixes to just "ocremix.org" -- without http:// or our recent change to https://.
It would potentially future-proof that field vs other eventual prefix changes to the website URL, although we haven't had that many in the first place.
Here's where I need your feedback: are there any services/programs where you think our discoverability would be negatively affected by making this change to just "ocremix.org" as the album title?
As far as I can tell, there aren't many services like Last.fm that people use anymore, and some scrobbling-style services won't even display full website URLs as album titles. I can't think of any compelling reason not to change it, but if you have one, please let me know.

So... how long until this thread is locked for "history"? :P

Hi everyone. In the past couple of years, competitions have gotten kind of a shot in the arm here at OCR. With the advent of the tournament style competitions like GRMRB and WCRG, more and more people are taking part as remixers and voters. Because competitions obviously get people really fired up, there have been some issues having to do with fairness and sportsmanship that I and other competition organizers feel need to be addressed.
I want to lay out a couple of basic guidelines that people should be following when participating in our competitions and tournaments as runners, competitors, or voters.
Competitors
As competitors, we should always remember that while winning is awesome, our competitions are more about making great music, improving as an artist, and to a certain extent, helping each other improve as well. To that end, here are some guidelines and rules to follow:
Don’t fixate on voting patterns and behaviors. If people aren’t voting for your entry, that’s their decision. Don’t criticize voters because you disagree with how they are voting. It’s not your job to make sure people are voting “the right way.” Don’t campaign for votes or instigate vote-stacking/ballot-stuffing. Your entry to a competition should be all you need to garner votes. Don’t use your social media accounts to tell people to vote for you, and don’t contact people in private to make a case for your entry. On the flip side, do encourage people to visit OCR, listen to entries, and make their own decisions about the entries they want to vote for. Don’t badmouth or belittle your opponents. Good-natured ribbing and light trash talk can be a fun part of any competition, but avoid making snide remarks and acting indignant when things don’t go your way. This includes making comments about whether or not a remixer is posted to OCR or not. Competitions are for people of all skill levels. Respect the decisions of the competition runners. When you sign up for a competition, you’re agreeing to abide by the rules the runner lays out. It’s okay to bring up issues if you think they’re affecting fairness, but the runner always makes the final call. If there’s a really serious issue with how a competition is being run, we can look at it and take appropriate steps to rectify the situation. Voters
Most competitions on OCR use some kind of voting system to determine winners, so they end up depending on a lot of people to vote. Voters also have a couple of things they need to keep in mind when participating.
Follow the voting guidelines laid out by the competition runner. Most competitions will tell you what to consider when making your vote (things like arrangement value, production, etc.). As a voter, you should try to adhere to that, rather than just picking what you like for your own personal reasons (e.g. “I like rock music better than techno so I’m picking this one”). Don’t campaign for votes on a contestant’s behalf. Make your own vote and encourage people to visit OCR and make their own decisions. Runners
If you want to run a competition, here are a few guidelines to follow:
Have a clear, unique concept. This can be anything from focusing on a game series, requiring collaborations, combining source tunes, or doing original music. Competitions cannot, however, be thinly veiled requests, so avoid doing things like “make me a couple of remixes from this game, and I’ll choose the best one.” Stick to your concept. For example, if you’re doing a collaboration competition, you shouldn’t allow solo remixes just because a person couldn’t find a partner. If you’re doing a Mega Man tournament, you shouldn’t allow Castlevania remixes just because you like music from that series. You created a concept that people are buying into; don’t throw that away. Think hard about your format. Some competitions work better as weekly or monthly events, whereas others work better as tournaments or longer events; tournaments generally require a lot more commitment from people too. Don’t over-complicate things. Especially with tournaments, there’s a real danger of trying too hard to make things really elaborate. Keep things straightforward. Have a clear schedule, but be flexible. Weekly competitions are easier to manage, but longer tournaments can get crazy. Competitions are more fun when people are able to participate, so try to be accommodating. Generally speaking, don’t restrict anyone from entering your competition; competitions should be open to all people of any skill level. Restriction should only occur in cases where a person has repeatedly violated the Code of Conduct. For competitions that use voting, be clear to voters about the criteria you want them to use when evaluating entries. Minimize drama. Competitions are for fun, not for people to get angry with each other. If you see people behaving in an unsportsmanlike way or violating the Code of Conduct, call them out and put an end to it. If you need help keeping people in line, ask a moderator to step in. Most importantly: be fair, but firm. If you have an issue (deadline extension, suspicion of vote-stacking, etc.), get the people affected involved. Consider all sides of the issue before making a decision; if you’re having trouble, catch me on Discordand I can help you.

As @Abadoss proposed, we do have the profile block/column with the avatar image where we can add some (not a ton) of additional info - I'm thinking specifically a star for featured artists, linking to artist profile on OCR, and then also icon links for the more common social media networks, i.e. Twitter, SoundCloud, YouTube, Facebook. Blogs were nixed at the time because Invision's implementation didn't have, of all things, global categories, which were deemed relatively important. They're (finally) adding those in the next major point release, so it's time to reconsider how/whether we'd do that.
IPS *does* have a gallery module, as well, which we *could* enable - in addition to giving visual artists a place to show off their stuff, it could be used for WIP artwork for album projects, etc. Interested in your feedback on this @The Coop, mostly in terms of whether it'd be worth it & have some value?
To echo what @DarkeSword wrote, we're moving forward as-is, but we're also going to be making a host of other changes. Strong feelings will be had, I'm sure, but to me a lot of this is long overdue and we need to try what we can to leverage the forums & integrate them with the rest of the site, along with a redesign. When the dust settles and we see what's what, anything & everything could be back on the table, but the same design concerns would likely apply.