djpretzel

01:44 I bet I heard Mystic Cave Zone Great arrangement as always!

This is excellent!!!    Did you play this or sequence it, it is very natural and dynamic, both in playing style and mood.  Piano sample is perfect.  Well done Rexy, I love it!

OC ReMix Presents Vampire Variations: Volume III!

October 31, 2015
Contact: press@ocremix.org

FAIRFAX, VA... Celebrating Dracula's favorite holiday, Halloween, OverClocked ReMix today released its 54th arrangement album, Vampire Variations: Volume III. The album pays tribute to Super Castlevania IV, released by Konami in 1991 for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. Featuring twenty-four tracks from twenty-three artists, Vampire Variations: Volume III represents the third directorial endeavor of French arranger Alexandre "Chernabogue" Mourey, and is available for free download at http://vampire.ocremix.org.

Vampire Variations: Volume III includes a diverse roster of musicians honoring the work of composers Masanori Adachi and Taro Kudo by arranging it in a variety of musical genres with orchestral elements. Vampire Variations was made by fans, for fans, and is not affiliated with or endorsed by Konami; all original compositions are copyright their respective owners.

Accompanying this newly-released third and final volume in the trilogy are re-released editions of Vampire Variations: Volumes I & II, originally published by KNGI and featuring arrangements of the first Castlevania for the NES, 1993's Rondo of Blood for the PC Engine CD and 1994's Bloodlines for the Sega Genesis, including brand new artwork for all three volumes by Andrew Warwick and a grand total of over 4 1/2 hours of music.

"This is the end of a grand adventure," said director Alexandre Mourey. "It started all out as a simple tribute to Castlevania's 25th anniversary, and we're now celebrating its 30th with the final volume of the Vampire Variations trilogy. Once again, Dracula rises as humans wish to pay him tribute. I truly hope we have been able to do justice to the Castlevania series with this trilogy, and that people will appreciate our hard work."

About OverClocked ReMix

Founded in 1999, OverClocked ReMix is an organization dedicated to the appreciation and promotion of video game music as an art form. Its primary focus is ocremix.org, a website featuring thousands of free fan arrangements, information on game music and composers, resources for aspiring artists, and a thriving community of video game music fans.







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Preview Vampire Variations: Volume III: http://youtu.be/KKBHKD4uwio Download the Vampire Variations trilogy: http://vampire.ocremix.org Torrent: http://bt.ocremix.org/torrents/Vampire_Variations_Trilogy.torrent Comments/Reviews (Vol. I): http://ocremix.org/community/topic/42027- Comments/Reviews (Vol. II): http://ocremix.org/community/topic/42028- Comments/Reviews (Vol. III): http://ocremix.org/community/topic/42029-

Let's do it again, then. And we'll try and organize some prizes, too!
 
 
 
Indeed, if you look at mixes submitted/posted, albums released, and total engagement over social media, things are great.
 
The MAIN thing we're seeing less of is forum activity, and almost ALL of my plans for the future of the site surround the forums and what we can do with them, so I'm not too worried.... I just need the time to implement these changes, and support from staff in planning it all out.
 
 
 
I've actually been thinking about how that might work. Does anyone have experience doing comment aggregation and representation across multiple social media platforms? On its surface, it seems like a CRON job that does API calls and caches results back to a table we can use to then present the data on the mix page... would actually be kinda cool... just not at the top of my priority list at the moment...

In essence that's what it is. I've done a ton of work with these kinds of Social Media platforms, and conceptually have a pretty good idea of how one should do this. In general it means following the accounts (or particularly for Facebook the Page, for Twitter the account, and for Youtube the channel due to the way these APIs work) find the correct OCReMix post(s) you're looking for, get the comments (potentially with some extra API requests) and store them somewhere. With some glue, rate limit handling, oauth access tokens and (if needed) some kind of strategy to backfill this data for older remixes I think you're good.
 
I could even build it, but the last programming language I touched is Node.js; haven't touched PHP in years. But I'm happy to advice and assist if somebody is up for it.

Let's do it again, then. And we'll try and organize some prizes, too!
 
 
 
Indeed, if you look at mixes submitted/posted, albums released, and total engagement over social media, things are great.
 
The MAIN thing we're seeing less of is forum activity, and almost ALL of my plans for the future of the site surround the forums and what we can do with them, so I'm not too worried.... I just need the time to implement these changes, and support from staff in planning it all out.
 
 
 
I've actually been thinking about how that might work. Does anyone have experience doing comment aggregation and representation across multiple social media platforms? On its surface, it seems like a CRON job that does API calls and caches results back to a table we can use to then present the data on the mix page... would actually be kinda cool... just not at the top of my priority list at the moment...

Let's do it again, then. And we'll try and organize some prizes, too!
 
 
 
Indeed, if you look at mixes submitted/posted, albums released, and total engagement over social media, things are great.
 
The MAIN thing we're seeing less of is forum activity, and almost ALL of my plans for the future of the site surround the forums and what we can do with them, so I'm not too worried.... I just need the time to implement these changes, and support from staff in planning it all out.
 
 
 
I've actually been thinking about how that might work. Does anyone have experience doing comment aggregation and representation across multiple social media platforms? On its surface, it seems like a CRON job that does API calls and caches results back to a table we can use to then present the data on the mix page... would actually be kinda cool... just not at the top of my priority list at the moment...

Well I think this thread has proved 1 thing, the lack of reviews isn't because OCR is dead or nobody's here, it's because you're all asses

Is there a way to integrate comments on remixes posted to Youtube into the equivalent comment thread here? The issue I see is that in the past, the forum thread was the only direct way to comment on a mix. Now the comments are split up amongst different media, thinning out the numbers.

I personally think that when you make music, especially for a non-profit kind of thing like ocr, it's actually really important to see as much reviews as possible to your remix. Not necessarily to improve, but because it can be really motivational to see people like your music. And then not just some "wow, I really like this", but at least a "wow, I really like this, because..." kind of response. My mum says she likes my music, but she can't give as fine a reason as a fellow vgm lover that actually knows what I'm remixing. Seeing people liking your stuff, and besides that also knowing what you're actually doing, is so much cooler than just hearing some random bloke saying he/she likes your mix. And I think that the review panel is a really good place for that kind of thing. As I'm relatively new to this place I don't know how it was in its days of supposed glory, but I do know that right now it isn't really as nice as it could be.
But, since I've never left a review myself, I don't really have any right to speak... Although, I think that after reading this topic I just might start doing it.

It'd be great if more people responding actually focused on those two questions
 
My personal answer to the first question is that I do a writeup for every single mix
 
I've VERY interested in ideas for enhancing feedback & number of reviews.... but here's my current thinking:
We upgrade our forums to IPS 4.X We build the workshop out to integrate with the rest of the site We thus allow content creation & promotion on two tracks - the instant gratification, "look what I made" track for anything posted on the workshop AND the featured, canonized track for accepted mixes We automate the submissions process via the forums All of these changes serve to reinforce the forums and the benefits of registering & participating We consider some form of trackable reputation points or awards or whatever for the most active/helpful members who are reviewing content and offering feedback in the workshop forums as well So we WILL be modernizing, quite a bit, and hopefully that WILL help... I sense some defeatism, here, and I can see where it might stem from, but this is when we need people stepping up, not stepping back, because big changes are in store and we'll need all the help we can get to implement them.
 
In the meantime, every review helps!

It'd be great if more people responding actually focused on those two questions
 
My personal answer to the first question is that I do a writeup for every single mix
 
I've VERY interested in ideas for enhancing feedback & number of reviews.... but here's my current thinking:
We upgrade our forums to IPS 4.X We build the workshop out to integrate with the rest of the site We thus allow content creation & promotion on two tracks - the instant gratification, "look what I made" track for anything posted on the workshop AND the featured, canonized track for accepted mixes We automate the submissions process via the forums All of these changes serve to reinforce the forums and the benefits of registering & participating We consider some form of trackable reputation points or awards or whatever for the most active/helpful members who are reviewing content and offering feedback in the workshop forums as well So we WILL be modernizing, quite a bit, and hopefully that WILL help... I sense some defeatism, here, and I can see where it might stem from, but this is when we need people stepping up, not stepping back, because big changes are in store and we'll need all the help we can get to implement them.
 
In the meantime, every review helps!

It'd be great if more people responding actually focused on those two questions
 
My personal answer to the first question is that I do a writeup for every single mix
 
I've VERY interested in ideas for enhancing feedback & number of reviews.... but here's my current thinking:
We upgrade our forums to IPS 4.X We build the workshop out to integrate with the rest of the site We thus allow content creation & promotion on two tracks - the instant gratification, "look what I made" track for anything posted on the workshop AND the featured, canonized track for accepted mixes We automate the submissions process via the forums All of these changes serve to reinforce the forums and the benefits of registering & participating We consider some form of trackable reputation points or awards or whatever for the most active/helpful members who are reviewing content and offering feedback in the workshop forums as well So we WILL be modernizing, quite a bit, and hopefully that WILL help... I sense some defeatism, here, and I can see where it might stem from, but this is when we need people stepping up, not stepping back, because big changes are in store and we'll need all the help we can get to implement them.
 
In the meantime, every review helps!

YES
 
 
...what they said

Nothing in our Submissions Agreement prohibits this, so you're good.
 
With regard to the general question, here's my personal two cents:
I think it's less effective BUT a bit more honest/direct to have the "Download" link be separate from the "Donate/Support" link, to make it explicitly clear that the music in question is being offered for free. My understanding of Bandcamp's policies is that you have X number of credits/points (or something like this?) before you can no longer offer music for free... this bothers me, as does using Bandcamp as a platform for free releases, because they're ultimately a for-profit company, they're motivated by $$$ (not a bad thing, just saying), and they don't seem like a great PERMANENT home for free releases because of these reasons. Nevertheless, they're easy, and they're popular...I just hate to think of a future years from now where people single-sourced their free stuff on Bandcamp and because of changed policies or expired accounts or running out of credits, it's no longer available.

Nothing in our Submissions Agreement prohibits this, so you're good.
 
With regard to the general question, here's my personal two cents:
I think it's less effective BUT a bit more honest/direct to have the "Download" link be separate from the "Donate/Support" link, to make it explicitly clear that the music in question is being offered for free. My understanding of Bandcamp's policies is that you have X number of credits/points (or something like this?) before you can no longer offer music for free... this bothers me, as does using Bandcamp as a platform for free releases, because they're ultimately a for-profit company, they're motivated by $$$ (not a bad thing, just saying), and they don't seem like a great PERMANENT home for free releases because of these reasons. Nevertheless, they're easy, and they're popular...I just hate to think of a future years from now where people single-sourced their free stuff on Bandcamp and because of changed policies or expired accounts or running out of credits, it's no longer available.

Some really bad advice in this thread, guys.
 
 
 
C is a horrible first language in modern times. There are many, MANY, reasons that I won't get into unless someone really cares (Metal Man, the reasons will doubtless confuse you, so if Timaeus and I do have that debate, feel free to skip over it). Back in the early 80's or so, there wasn't the variety of choices in languages that we have now, so C would've been one of the reasonable choices. We've advanced a lot since then, though, so there's no reason to start with a language that doesn't have garbage collection, that exposes pointers, that doesn't have a native string type, etc) Saying, "but Python uses tabs to enforce structure" is the kind of complaint that is usually heard either from someone who doesn't know how to code well or from someone who is so stuck in the "but it should always be done this way" mentality that they're obstinately resistant to change. If someone is so unorganized that they can't handle the structure of a programming language, whether it's enforced by whitespace or specified with braces, they will have immense difficulty programming period and probably want to do something else.
 
Yes, Python *does* enforce structure through whitespace. This isn't a bad thing, and as someone who's been coding since 1993 (versions of Basic that pre-date Windows, even, let alone VB), coding in C since somewhere around 1995/1996, has two computer science degrees, and my day job is writing a COBOL compiler in C++, I wholly endorse Python as a language and, if it were possible, would be more than happy never to use C++ again. I've done a few smaller projects in Python too, so I'm not just speculating here. Python is easier to learn and it's easier to develop code that "just works" in Python than in C++. Plus, some whitespace errors are things that the Python interpreter will flag as syntax errors, and using whitespace for structure has the benefit of making all Python code equally easy to read on any machine.
 
Here's an example. You know how in many games, there's a crafting component? An Iron Sword is made from 3 Iron Bars, and an Iron Bar is made from three Iron Ores, and you gather Iron Ores by mining? Well, I wrote a general-purpose tool in C a few years ago that would take a list of items and recipes and tell you what you needed to gather to craft them, without having to do the math yourself. It would read in a file of all the items in the game (so I could, for example, see immediately where in the game I'd go to mine Iron Ores), and another file with all the recipes, and by "checking off" stuff in the master file (using (x) beside an item, instead of ( ), so the file *looks* like a checklist), I could limit which items I wanted to get information for. So, if I said I wanted to craft an Iron Sword, it would tell me to gather 9 Iron Ores, and use them to craft 3 Iron Bars, and use the bars to craft one Iron Sword.
 
I'm playing Final Fantasy XIV now, which has an official website from Square Enix that has all the game's crafting recipes on the website itself. I wrote a Python script to pull the entire crafting database from the website and format it into files usable by my C tool. This was only the second piece of Python code I'd written, and it took less time to write than the C code and had fewer bugs, despite the fact that the Python code had to parse the same files as the C code did AND parse three different formats of webpages (FF XIV has 8 crafting professions and groups recipes by every 5 levels of skill in the profession, so Level 1-Level 5 Carpentry, so for each profession, I had to get the URLs for each level, then for each level I had to load that page to get the list of recipes, and then parse the page for each recipe to get the items used to make it).
 
C is powerful and has its place, but it is not easy.
 
 
 
 
If a tool is the right one for the job, compiling isn't a big deal. Every language has some quirks and some types of overhead. Compiling isn't a big deal, especially for smaller projects. In a decent IDE, compiling and running a program is a single keystroke anyway, so it's no worse than running your scripted program in an interpreter.
 
 
 
 
That's a horrible reason not to use while loops. In ANY loop, you need to know what your exit conditions are. For loops make it a bit more obvious (you're generally adding one to a number and stopping at a known limit), but the first thing to do when writing any loop is figure out how and when the loop will exit.
 
 
 
 
 
Timaeus' example isn't really irrelevant, at least not any more so than any other toy program to teach something about programming. It doesn't matter if the code is relevant or useful or not; what matters is how you use it. Neblix's example is easier to understand, though, and is better-written code.
 
Metal Man, the one thing in which Neblix and Timaeus are both right is that your code isn't very good. You're a beginner, so that's expected, and you know that you won't learn without trying, but I *do* agree with the recommendations that you find an "intro to programming" course online; there'll be all kinds of stuff you can do for free. I do strongly recommend you do it in Python though.

DUDE CALLUM!!!!!!111! yissssss congrats on your 1st solo mixpost!!
 
This seriously is really good, and not what I expected from you (but seriously you're always surprising me, so I shouldn't be surprised ). Mixed well, sequenced well, the mood is frekking fantastic. Grood Jorb D00D!

Just chiming in to say: great album name!

My life has been filled with uncertainty for somewhere around 5 years now. When I left school it seemed really bleak because the job market was rough and just about all of my competition had higher degrees from better schools. I wanted to teach at the community college level and it turned out easy to get a part-time job but seemingly impossible to go full-time. On top of that, my perception of others in my position (those who had been working longer) was mostly that of despair. Even the full-time faculty were telling me that it would likely take 5 years for someone in my situation to find a full-time job. With the news of my second son on the horizon this was not the sort of thing I wanted to hear. At the same time my dad was getting on my case about going into industry instead, because of the better pay.
 
Ignoring all of the negativity, I put all of my effort to improving my teaching skills. My wife became a stay-at-home mom so that I could do this, which I will be forever thankful for. After 1.5 years of nonstop work (and a lot of luck) I got offered a full-time position, which I accepted and have now been working at for a little over a month. The work hasn't gotten any easier but the peace that comes with a full-time job and the sense of fulfillment are such that I feel like I am capable of ANYTHING.
 
Over the past 5 years I really haven't done anything here but listen to the music, but I've always loved this community and would like to, now that it's possible, become a part of it again. We'll see how that works out.

Just chiming in to say: great album name!

Just chiming in to say: great album name!

IPS 4.X is responsive, so the need for a separate mobile skin goes away. We'll be upgrading this year, and it will provide the foundation for many exciting new features that we've been promising for years, so I'm pretty psyched.
 
You can preview how it looks, more or less, @ https://community.invisionpower.com/topic/217868-the-world-cup-2006-thread/
 
You'll notice that on phones, you still get first / prev / next / last, BUT you can also click on the "Page X of X" and go directly to a specific page.
 
After we upgrade the forums, we'll also be upgrading the whole site to be responsive... that should also be this year, so it's going to be a very busy fourth quarter for yours truly!

Hello everyone!
 
My name is Nate, and my Dragon Warrior arrangement "To Endor" was posted the other day by the staff (thank you!) and, first off, I wanted to introduce myself.
 
But I also wanted to share with people something I've been working on occasionally in my free time, namely sheet music based on early video game soundtracks.
 
I'm actually a copyist by day, among other things, and I was interested in creating professionally notated sheet music based on the direct source of the music.
 
Although I started off doing it by ear, I decided I wanted to be as faithful as possible and notate the music as it was originally executed by the games. Now that I have NSFtoMIDI working on my Mac (using WineBottler) I can bring the exported MIDI tracks into Logic for clean up (the music is squeezed temporally when it's exported, and it also needs quantizing). Once I've done that, I can re-export them as new MIDI tracks and import those into Sibelius or Finale, where I can then proceed to clean up the notation, add some articulations, time signatures, and basic tempo markings, as well as formatting and neatening.
 
Below is a link to a few examples, including March of the Capricious Princess. Although I've added things like accents and slurs when appropriate, everything is as it was originally output by the system.

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/1snejmgq813sxvf/AAChy7jV8EmvxMyy7lDGamEMa?dl=0
 
Is this something that would interest people? The idea would be to produce sheet music for tracks that people requested, or even make whole music books for popular (or obscure!) games. I've seen sheet music around, but it is often filled with errors, guesswork, or is difficult to read.
 
Comments? Questions? Hate mail? Lemme know!

Ooh, damn, love the solos.