djpretzel

@Darkflamewolf  hahaha. you just made my day!  There isn't much better praise to be had than that.

@TSori, I will give you a nice, warm fuzzy. Out of all the tracks on the album, my two boys absolutely love and adore your 'Better Days' track. So much so that when it comes on, they instantly recognize it and forbid us to change the song or even stop the car and get out if we go anywhere until the song finishes. lol  

Hi everybody, and Happy New Year!
I realize I'm a little late to the listening party here, but I've been wanting to chime in myself.  When @Darkflamewolf brought me on to the project in late 2015, I was super excited at the idea of an OCR album of Skies of Arcadia music.  I've been anxious to hear how different people interpreted the music from Skies of Arcadia.  I've been able to finally listen to Arcadia Legends a couple times through and everything just sounds great.  I wanted to give some shout-outs to a few tracks that have really resonated with me:
- "Victory! Glory! Profit?" by @GlacialSpoon - This one is pure fun.  Get's me pumped!
- "Inner Reflections" by @YoshiBlade -  I remember hearing this one on @Rexy's podcast.  I can't get enough of the vibe.  I'm a sucker for chill atmospheres and that filtered piano in the beginning is so nice.  The transitions and subtle tempo changes work so well.   - "Il Buono, il brutto, il pirata dell'aria" by @Jorito, et al. -  I love this one, if even only from a pure execution standpoint.  Jorito did an awesome job transferring the two sources into something that feels like "The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly".  Also, big props to Jorito for taking on that 13-minute monstrosity "To the Horizon".   - "The End of a Dream" by Scott Buckley - The way this piece builds and develops is sublime.  The tension buildup and payoff around 2:42 gives me goosebumps every time.  I don't know if there are any other fans of Eureka Seven, but the track winds down with a 4-3 suspension definitely brings me back to the OST of that anime.   - +1 from me for "Shining Silver" by Sam Dillard - I was excited when I saw Sam Dillard's name pop up in the project thread.  The guy makes a lot of incredible music.  "Shining Silver" feels a bit like a film score cue of our heroes experiencing the Silver Shrine for the first time, seeing in person this massive, grandiose, literally out-of-this-world structure.  Another great entry by Sam!    

@Deedubs All your contributions are personal favorites of mine. Furthermore, for some reason.. Silver Crystal resonates with me in a special way. The chill Ice Dungeon-esque vibes evoke images of Fina. You basically brought an excluded OST track back into the mix through a different source. I love that.

@Mr. Hu  Thanks for sharing your thoughts on every track.  It's really cool to see someone take the time to do that.  I'm also glad you liked "Better Days"!  Like you, I didn't remember what Drachma's theme sounded like either.  It may take a bit of a critical ear, but I'm sure if you go back and listen to the original you'll be able to match the melodies up with "Better Days."   It was a lot of fun trying to tell a part of the character's story from a very different angle. 

I've listened to whole album through 3 times now, and I just love every bit of it.  There isn't a track on it that isn't great.  I'm thrilled beyond belief that I got to make my first foray into remixing in such great company.  That said a few of my standout favorites were:

"Secret Bass" - In addition to having such a wonderfully punny name, it was a completely unexpected take on what I honestly had thought was a pretty forgettable original theme.  It's slick in production and pulls no punches.  Incredibly creative, unique and fun remix

"Il buono, il brutto, il pirata dell'aria" -  I had been looking forward to hearing this since the project thread first showed "genre: spaghetti western".  My brother and I were doing our first listen to the album while traveling over the holidays.  We had been watching this track getting closer and closer on the playlist and then the first notes rang out.. We looked at each other and he said exactly what I was thinking "wow...they just kind of dove into that headfirst didn't they..."      There's something to be said for setting out to craft a very specific "feel" for a piece and JUST NAILING IT.   The arrangement is nothing short of fantastic and the production quality is superb.  Way to take a great piece of source material in a completely new direction and own it 100%.

"The Darkness Is Already Here" -  I would in many ways have expected a dark rift remix to have a threatening/intimidating kind of vibe, but what we get here is much more eerie.  When I listen to this I feel like I'm floating through a graveyard of ships.  Everything is calm around you, too much so....and every so often you silently and unceremoniously drift past another wreck that reminds you of a formless, unseen danger.  Zyko's choice of instruments adds a lot of texture to the sound that I think really drives this remix.  awesome.

"Coding Angel" - absolutely hilarious, catchy as can be, and interestingly enough, virtually unrecognizable (at least to my ears) fromt he source tune.  I would love to know how Jason Covenant decided Gilder's theme needed to be done this way.   Whatever the reason, the end result is a finely polished, smile inducing, unforgettable standout track, that i'll be involuntarily siniging for days.

"God's Ambition" - Deedubs was great to work with on "Better Days".   I'm really glad to see him getting some well deserved accolades.  All of his tracks are great.  This one in particular took me right back to an epic battle in the skies, and reminded me just how great this game was.  With this and many of his other tracks, Deedubs found a way to bring back everything you felt when you heard the music for the first time in game, and dial it up to 11.  

I could pick so many more great entries on the album, but these 5 have probably been the ones I have repeated the most over the past few days.

Great job everyone!  This project was a blast.  I can't wait to do more.            

@RebeccaETripp delicately expresses the latent, untapped hope of Esperanza, before Vyse and crew arrived. As an expression of 'hope,' Rebecca conveys the spirit of the downtrodden drunkard in Esperanza's bar: down, out, but holding out to feel the vigor of life once again.
We intentionally kept this one on the quieter side during mastering, Rebecca. It's such a nice little reprieve in the middle of the album

That made my night! 

I hadn't heard of @RebeccaETripp until 2017 when she came onto the remixing scene with a flurry of amazing and similar sounding remixes. By similar, I meant, she already had a unique and solid style that was solely her own and could easily be recognized as hers the moment you listened to any of her tracks. She marked her remixes with it. Since the tracklist was dwindling down to the single digits left to be claimed, there were only a select view that I had open that I felt she would be ideal for. One was the Little Jack and the other was Remote Town. She gravitated towards the latter and within a short span of I think a month, she produced the fully realized track. We, of course, vetted it through our faux judges, @Gario and @timaeus222 , who graciously donated their time to the project. This critique only helped Rebecca polish and tune up her track and a week later, we received the final version. There really wasn't much going back and forth with this one. It was almost akin to a business transaction: I scouted her out, she agreed to the terms, the product was made, and both parties benefited. The smoothest interaction I ever had with any remixer. Kudos to Rebecca for making this an enjoyable experience for me during the production of her track!

What can I say? I truly lucked out with @Sam Dillard. Back when I was first recruiting for the album during year 1 of the project, I was literally taking shots in the dark. I was going down the alphabet of the Remixer roster on the forums and sending messages out (5 at a time per day, since that was a limit, it was painful). 90% never got back to me, the other 5% weren't interested and then there were the remaining 5% that agreed to the project It was to my great shock and surprise when Sam Dillard responded back saying he had fixated on the Great Silver Shrine track. Since he was inbetween projects, he was more than willing to help us out. 
I believe I had originally tapped @Platonist for the track, but after several false starts and real life creeping in, he had to bow out. So it was definitely a stroke of luck when Sam Dillard rolled in and created something completely unique with the piece. As stated in his commentary for the track, he took the essence of the original song and turned it into something different, yet recognizable. Unfortunately, he had to get back to his own endeavors shortly after completing the track and could not stick around to polish it up for any faux judges feedback from @Gario or @timaeus222. I still pushed it their way just in case they felt there was anything jarring, but as expected, nothing surfaced and it was pitch perfect the moment Sam turned it in. I have to give a big thanks and kudos to Sam for taking time out of his busy schedule to lend his talents to this album!

Damn what can i say bout this track the start just builds up to the epic over all tone and it just makes me wanna listen to the whole thing day in and out and when i saw this was by sam dillard i was FLOORED he has created just a master piece AGAIN and i will definately forever back him and all his projects he will ever make!

FYI, included this on the mailout for Arcadia, links & all, and am looking forward to checking it out. In a perfect world, we wouldn't have overlapped the release of Arcadia Legends, but scheduling things has been rough & we wanted to make sure it dropped within the 15th anniversary window of the GameCube port, so @Darkflamewolf didn't yell at us
Congrats to @The Coop & @Dyne & all contributors!

Congrats on the release of the album! It seems like a few albums that have been released lately really only could be released because of the determination of the hard working staff - well done on seeing this through Darkflamewolf and Modus!
 
And to Jorito & friends: stop making the rest of us look bad with those 13+ minute epics ;P

My pleasure!
In fairness, it was quite an undertaking (7 months from initial WIP to final version) and made my computer cry, so it might be a while before I attempt something so huge again. I just hope it was worth it, and if not, well, at least I had fun while doing it.
 

^It was worth it! The WEIGHT of the Armada motif alone made it worth it. Sounds great.
Was wondering about the tracklisting, but I got used to it quickly. There's a lot of really creative stuff in here. On my 3rd listen through, haha.

FYI, included this on the mailout for Arcadia, links & all, and am looking forward to checking it out. In a perfect world, we wouldn't have overlapped the release of Arcadia Legends, but scheduling things has been rough & we wanted to make sure it dropped within the 15th anniversary window of the GameCube port, so @Darkflamewolf didn't yell at us
Congrats to @The Coop & @Dyne & all contributors!

FYI, included this on the mailout for Arcadia, links & all, and am looking forward to checking it out. In a perfect world, we wouldn't have overlapped the release of Arcadia Legends, but scheduling things has been rough & we wanted to make sure it dropped within the 15th anniversary window of the GameCube port, so @Darkflamewolf didn't yell at us
Congrats to @The Coop & @Dyne & all contributors!

OK, here's a historical note, in case anyone reads this in the distant future, and wants to know why this comment comes out of nowhere:
In December 2018, OC ReMix did a 30-Day Song Challenge on their Twitter account; each day of the month, there was a prompt to share different kinds of songs. "A song with a colour in the title," "a song that reminds you of summer," "a song from the year you were born," "a song that makes you sad," "a song that moves you forward," etc. In this instance, this challenge was to post a remix from OverClocked ReMix for each of these prompts. They said, "Yeah, eh! Any of y'all can post up some of your own picks, dontcha know! Just DO IT!" (I'm paraphrasing.)
Throughout the month, I've been following this. I've seen a few artists post some of their favourite mixes, and a few fans doing the same. I've had the chance to share some of my favourites, and I've discovered some mixes I hadn't come across before. (I mean, I only found this site last year, and there are already over 3800 remixes as of today.)
I think the best thing I've gained from this 30-Day Song Challenge so far, though, is finding this today. See, the source is a game I'm not familiar with, this isn't a genre I usually like, the lyrics are in a language I don't speak (conozco algún idioma semejante, pero no italiano), and the subject matter of the lyrics is something I don't relate to at all. I would never have sought this out on my own. But djpretzel posted this mix in response to the prompt "A song you think everyone should hear."
He chose right; this is a beautiful piece of work. I don't think I'm crazy for saying that the love between the two artists is audible in this song. I found this profoundly touching, and I wasn't expecting to feel that.
So anyway, thanks, djpretzel, for getting me to listen to this. And thank you, grazie, to N-Joy and Simona. I should have said that 13 years ago. But I'll do it today, at least.

FYI, included this on the mailout for Arcadia, links & all, and am looking forward to checking it out. In a perfect world, we wouldn't have overlapped the release of Arcadia Legends, but scheduling things has been rough & we wanted to make sure it dropped within the 15th anniversary window of the GameCube port, so @Darkflamewolf didn't yell at us
Congrats to @The Coop & @Dyne & all contributors!

FYI, included this on the mailout for Arcadia, links & all, and am looking forward to checking it out. In a perfect world, we wouldn't have overlapped the release of Arcadia Legends, but scheduling things has been rough & we wanted to make sure it dropped within the 15th anniversary window of the GameCube port, so @Darkflamewolf didn't yell at us
Congrats to @The Coop & @Dyne & all contributors!

Preview Arcadia Legends: http://youtu.be/Kz1G5YjJYV8 Download Arcadia Legends: http://arcadia.ocremix.org Torrent: http://bt.ocremix.org/torrents/Arcadia_Legends.torrent  
I never owned a Dreamcast, being a Nintendo fanboy at heart. However, I did own a Nintendo GameCube and I was intrigued by the game Skies of Arcadia Legends after it was advertised in my Nintendo Power subscription. It was an enhanced port with more content for the GameCube and, since I was on a huge RPG binge at the time, this looked right up my alley. What I played would changed my young adult life. Amidst all the dark, dreary, depressing, emo RPGs that spawned as a result of the uber-popular Final Fantasy VII, this RPG flew completely under the radar with its expertly used cliche storm and upbeat & happy characters. There was a sense of daring-do, brave exploration, and an overall message of doing what's right when everything else tells you no. It was a breath of fresh air in a sea of RPG copycats.
The gameplay and story weren't the only things that lingered long after I had finished playing the game; the music left an indelible mark on my psyche. To this day, I can't get the fantastic tunes and songs out of my head. So when I looked around to see what OC ReMix albums were out there, I was shocked and disappointed that there wasn't one for Skies of Arcadia. Reading up on the rules and regulations about such albums, I saw no restriction that I couldn't start one myself. So, a little over three years ago, a virtual nobody in the OC ReMix community, I decided to start my own album to bringing this music to Arcadia and video game music fans everywhere!
What floored me was how unknown this game was. Even though it has its rabid fans and devotees, the game was largely unheard of. Almost every remixer I polled either had not heard of the game, had not played it or simply wasn't interested in arranging a track for a game they were not familiar with. It was disheartening for the first year trying to gather a huge array of remixers to arrange for what basically amounted to an "underdog album." This was not the sort of album that people were clamouring for, but it would definitely be appreciated by those who enjoyed the game and its music.
So, I pressed onward, gaining both a co-director and art director in the form of Modus when I pinged him to remix a track. He had long since left the remixing scene, but was delighted to lend his talents in other capacities and has proven beyond useful in all respects. I could not have done this project without him. And only just a year ago, we got our sound director in the form of Rotten Eggplant whom pinged us with samples of his work after stumbling across our album project. After that, we became a trio that pushed onward to see this to completion. Some major shoutouts to several remixers who went above and beyond the call of duty to provide either one or more tracks and assist other remixers in the creation of other tracks: Deedubs and Jorito! But every single remixer did a fantastic job bringing their unique individuality to the album!
Over the three years, I have experienced great highs and quite a few lows with regards to project tempo, progress, outlook, and more. It has been a wild adventure and a crazy trip for my first time directing an OC ReMix album and quite an ambitious one at that! I wouldn't trade that experience for the world and if I had to do it all over again, I'd probably pick a smaller project! Regardless, this was an album I felt the world needed and I dedicate this to all the fans of this beloved, cult classic game. And remember: "Impossible is just a word people use to make themselves feel better when they quit." I'm glad I didn't quit this! Enjoy the music, everyone!
 
- Darkflamewolf

This album was a very rough, underdog type album. We went uphill pretty much most of the way, considering most remixers had not even heard of the game, let alone played it to have any fond memories of it. When I first started in October, 2015, I was supremely hopeful for the entire project since it seemed I was getting track claims left and right. I even had a few early full track submissions turned in from a few remixers like Deedubs. All things were looking up. Then over the course of the first year, a bunch of remixers dropped out, lost interest and disappeared or went dormant. I managed to get just above 1 disc worth of music by the end of year 1. 
We then got into year 2, or what could be better known as the 'year of despair.' There were months of no progress and very little gains on the track claiming and completion. However, we still managed to push onward and get a second disc done by the end of the year. We had 12 tracks left to go by the start of the third year and some were in varying stages of completion or just not even claimed as a track. It was looking tight indeed to make the 15th anniversary deadline.
Year 3 was definitely a slow start. We received nothing for a few months and managed to snag the last few remaining tracks on the list. It didn't really start coming together until the summer where the majority of the final disc worth of music was completed and turned in. We were then waiting on the last 2-3 tracks all the way until the very end in October where we were running up against the final deadline of album turn-in at the start of November. Thankfully, everyone came through and we were able to sneak the album release just before the 15th year anniversary ended! HUZZAH!
Now I hope you all enjoy the music while the rest of us get a nice nap.
 
EDIT: For those interested:
For the reasons why I chose the album track order I did, some might be curious why I didn't frontload the entire album with hard-pulse pounding beats and heavy hitters, etc. I chose the order I did on two key principles - The order of the storyline and the rough placement of 'when' you'd hear the tracks as you played through the game and of course how one song flowed into the other from finish to start. Between these two key factors, I crafted the entire album structure. 
The first disc was a way to ease listeners into the soundtrack and feel like the start of an adventure. The second disc was where the album really travels and gets explorative with its themes and styles, as if traveling to new lands. The third disc is all about the conflict and the crisis to the world and finishing strong in true pirate style. I hope you enjoy this crafted listening experience and agree that the order is pretty damn good.

Now why in the Sam Hill would I yell at you? 

Downloading now, just as excited for listening to this as I am for actual Christmas........

Yay!! Always glad to help!

Yep. It's that time of year and you know what that means... CHRISTMAS MUSIC!
This year, we've got 14 songs that cover quite the spectrum of genres. Taking traditional carols and songs from various games, 13 artists have given them a Christmasy makeover. You can grab them all right here (the songs, not the artists), along with the previous 11 albums...
http://www.williammichael.info/aocc/index.htm
As always, a big thanks to everyone who took part this year and to Dyne for once again hosting this album.
Merry Christmas, folks