djpretzel

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Our recent forum unavailability was due to my own stupidity; I'd turned the forums off to back them up, but then got sidetracked, and never turned them back on. Pretty much. My apologies, I've had guests visiting this weekend and it's been... less than ideal.

I would also imagine that, even with a brand new DS, they can't pass it from one child to another...

That's Shinobi for Game Gear, and I guess the GG soundtrack, or at least the first stage, doesn't borrow jack from the arcade and SMS versions, because they don't sound much like that at all, from my memory...

Done. Honestly, researching and selecting three charities in addition to CP didn't take too much time at all - I looked for independently accredited, reputable charities intelligently fighting global problems on a global basis. I personally prefer this type of thing; one of my concerns about CP is that it seems to be focusing on Western, English-speaking countries, and also I didn't see where it was independently accredited by the BBB or American Philanthropic Association, both of which are excellent things for a charity to have. At any rate, no more hatin' on CP - some people think it's a great idea, and if it gets people to donate that wouldn't have otherwise, that's fantastic.

Today I personally made $50 donations to each of the following charities: Child's Play Cancer Research Institute The Hunger Project Doctors Without Borders These donations were made with my own money, in the name of OverClocked ReMix, and not using any funds donated by visitors or generated through shirt sales, which go directly towards site operational and promotional costs. Each of these charities is doing something different and worthwhile. As most if not all of you are gamers, you may already be familiar with Penny Arcade's charity Child's Play, which donates video games, toys, and cash to sick kids. The Cancer Research Institute is a BBB-accredited charity dedicated to researching immunology and other ways of preventing and treating cancer. The Hunger Project fights hunger not by simply providing food, but by working to improve conditions that prevent its being distributed and made available to those in need. Doctors Without Borders provides medical care around the world in situations where it is either unavailable or unaffordable. All four of these charities are doing something different to help people in need. All of them except for Child's Play are independently accredited, and all do an excellent job of making sure your money goes where you think its going, avoiding bureaucracy or indirection. Donating to any or all of them is a great way of sharing and giving a little back to society, on a local, national, and international level. Details about deductibility and other logistics involved in donating can be found on each charity's respective website. I encourage you to donate anything, no matter how small, to one or more of these entities. My personal finances are actually pretty strapped right now after paying thousands to repair damage to the side of my house, but once a year, I can afford doing something like this, especially when I'm confident that each charity represents legitimate, intelligent aid or research to, quite simply, improve the world. We're not going to track anything officially or have a donation-o-meter or anything like that, but - if you'd like - please post in this thread and share information about what you donated and why. Thanks, David W. Lloyd President & Founder, OverClocked ReMix www.ocremix.org www.djpretzel.com

Cool, makes sense. I'm thinking of doing something where we emphasize CP along with a couple other charities with excellent reputations, which as you suggest, might have been more appropriate to go ahead and do, rather than discuss, but even when people make goofy comments, the discussion can still be beneficial.

What did you think? Post your opinion of this ReMix.

Your moral outrage is duly noted... now how much of those album donations are you funneling their way, again? We weren't questioning whether giving sick kids stuff was worthwhile, we were questioning whether, if OCR is going to endorse something like that, it should be Child's Play, or something with a research/direct benefit focus, as opposed to the "emotional well-being" angle that - while important - isn't as life or death as getting medical care, or food, or shelter in the first place. Come on, if you'd read the thread, that much would be clear... intelligent adults should be able to question which form of charity would be most beneficial without holier-than-thou finger-pointing and soapboxing, no?

Please clarify: they're selling your game remixes for profit, without obtaining license from the copyright owners?

Yes, this occurred to me when I left for work, but I didn't have time to post... I'm thinking this is a good idea (doing both, not the fucking), and mulling over ways to implement it.

That's an important point to make - if you give them cash, the gifts could be books or toys, not just games. They seem to emphasize games based on their relationship with Amazon and how their site is laid out, however.

Well, I wouldn't say it's stupid... there are some kids with incurable diseases, and games would improve their quality of life to some extent, as my girlfriend pointed out. I just feel like focusing on JUST that isn't enough, and I'd rather do something more fundamental...

Shariq was suggesting OCR do something for Child's Play (http://www.childsplaycharity.org/), as it seems www.vgmusic.com have with their addition of a banner to their homepage. I don't want to start a huge argument or come off as an evil, uncaring bastard, but here's my concern: I think the idea of the gaming community giving back to society is great, but when given the choice to give a Nintendo DS to a sick child, versus pay for medical care for sick children who can't afford it, or donate to research that could have prevented that child from being sick in the first place, my heart and mind go out to the latter causes. Am I a bastard for thinking this? Am I a grinchy, bad man that doesn't want sick kids to play Phoenix Wright? I hope no one believes that of me... I just feel that if the gaming community is going to contribute - and there's huge potential for doing so - I'm not convinced that buying more games and game systems is the best approach. I'd like to do something different... ideally, it'd be trackable, so we could see how much progress we were making... and have OCR promote one or more charities that actually pay for medical care or medical research, because in my opinion, those are more important causes. I totally get and appreciate what PA are doing with CP, and since there's tons of charities out there, perhaps from a marketing perspective, it's more persuasive to gamers if the charity itself is donating games. I'm interested in hearing everyone's thoughts. If there's a service that proxies and tracks donations to combinations of charities on a per group basis, I'd love to do something like that for OCR, and coincide it with Child's Play. If everyone thinks my concerns about CP are dumb, that's cool, we'll do a banner and promote it instead. I'm totally open on this, I just see all those $$$ going to Nintendo DSs and think that, while it's great for gaming, there might be more direct ways to help...

Highly, highly variable. Two of my better pieces were done in a couple days, Pachelbel's Ganon and Love Hurts, but Consent took a really long time, and my most recent mix for VotL took over a year. On and off, of course, but when I get stuck, it can be a huge demotivator. In the case of Short Skirts, I didn't know what to follow Jesse's guit solo with... I liked it perhaps too much, and couldn't find something that could hang. I think the combination of vibes plus livening up the drums was the right way to go, but damn if I didn't try at least fifty other ideas first. Bottom line is that, for me, it can take days, weeks, months, or even a year, but the total amount of time doesn't necessarily guarantee that the mix is any better, or worse, if it's longer vs. shorter.

The frustrating thing is that the requirements for backending vgmusic.com are probably pretty darn similar to those for OCR, most of which is already in place here... it's a shame to have such redundancy. IMO if we could share primary keys or something, or work out some CC attribution license for pieces of OCR's database that you could just use, it'd be preferable. Seems like some good logo candidates thus far; I'll see if I can't cook something up myself.

Hmmph. Well, this is unfortunate. Guys, ultimately this is about releasing free arrangements of video game music. That seems to have somehow morphed/escalated into a huge argument. I'm going to be completely honest: I don't have the time to step in, listen to each side in detail, mediate, and attempt to achieve harmony in the universe and peace for our time. My work laptop died this morning, I have to go return a loaner car and pay for my car window being fixed for the third time in as many years, and I'm hungry, among other compelling reasons this particular evening. From what I do understand and have been told, admittedly secondhand, I'll just offer the following: It was natural for Ashley to be frustrated when finding out about the nature of his pieces, but rash to blame this on Lee, and worse still to remove the pieces from the project. From a policy perspective, however, all OCR albums need to have artists involved willingly sign our content policy, specifically for that album, even if they've already agreed for past submissions. We can't host/post an album that includes pieces submitted against an artist's wishes, without the content policy being agreed to specifically for that album. So, both of you potentially have something to think about, given those two points.

What did you think? Post your opinion of this ReMix.

What did you think? Post your opinion of this ReMix.

What did you think? Post your opinion of this ReMix.

What did you think? Post your opinion of this ReMix.

What did you think? Post your opinion of this ReMix.

Preset sounds are of course totally cool, although even those CAN be overused. In this instance we're talking about a preset loop/pattern, which included the intervals in part of the accompaniment, which treads into arrangement territory, and since it was minimalist to begin with, it's problematic to have a supporting part be a loop. Not a drum loop, but an actual pattern of notes.

Yeah, but they're GOOD vocals, and they constitute an original melody that's pretty creative... Even still, I feel that if we'd known this was a GB preset, since it was already close, it probably wouldn't have been posted. I love the melody Jill added, but I think this is a case of the standards evolving, and I don't think it would be posted today. However, it's not egregious enough to remove, either, and was spared by the last and hopefully final lockdown, if I recall correctly.

Moving to newbies forum... I guess I'm just "awfully strict" that way As a sidenote, we're not telling you how to mix your songs, we're suggesting how to arrange your submissions so as to increase the likelihood of their being accepted. There's a subtle but important difference there, akin to the subtle but important difference between the community and newbies forums...