Lashmush

@djpretzel Hey, I had to write again just to apologize for this pretty embarrassing tantrum of mine. I'm bipolar and wasn't medicated at the time so this was a consequence of me not handling my personal issues very well and essentially I just ended up behaving like an idiot and lashing out at this site for no real reason. Looking back at all this, there wasn't really anything wrong with the judges decisions at all or the process itself. Like you noted, I barely even read your responses in that manic state I was in. Regardless of the condition and what it does, it doesn't excuse my behavior and I still have to own being aggressive, rude, etc towards you and the others involved in that submission of mine so I do sincerely apologize. I don't remember who all the judges on that submission were but I do extend my apology to them as well as to @Liontamer who did contact me about re-evaluating the track which honestly after all this I don't think I'm very deserving of. None of you are in any way obligated to respond here or in a PM, I just wanted you to know I recognize that I'm the one at fault.

No, I'm questioning why such a minor issue restricts you from passing an otherwise well liked track? It sounds the way it should, provided you have the equipment to listen. Walls of text don't work well with ADD so I have trouble focusing on your long responses. However, it really doesn't matter. You all like the track but just didn't like it enough.

If you talk about how I structured my song melodically, rythmically or otherwise, thats creative input. Which is fine if we're collaborating. But otherwise, if having a sudden piano break that "doesn't sound playable" is fucking pointless to even mention. Who gives two shits if things are playable or not when it's a VIDEOGAME song thats remixed? I'll make my songs as complicated or easy as I wish to and that should have zero bearing on anything other than "I liked / didn't like this part" which is still meaningless from a judging point of view. TECHNICAL feedback like the base issue is good in theory and also your ONLY avenue of feedback unless you actually research the submissions contemporary art and expression, but if the literal ONLY THING that's wrong is three people dismissing a song due to base being loud, then I do take issue and especially after waiting one... year... That's not remotely acceptable to me and it really shouldn't be to you either. Do you recruit judges? Can we get like 50 more in here, theres an immense wave of talent here ready to help, im sure. Resubmission means I get another shot "at some point" which is a tiresome process of back and forth. You mentioned "clarity" but that means you have a default expectation of some sort, some universal audio standard that is shared among you. What is that standard? Has it always been the same? If the standard changes and nobody outside the judges knows, theres no chance for us to be at anything but the mercy of human whim. The standard should supercede subjectivity and be defined collectively. Thats what I'm trying to glean at here. Because some genres do not fit the mold ever. Ladyscraper's "Chunderchunk" is a mess by intent. Ophidian makes shatteringly distorted sounds that cut your ears in half and that is the point of industrial hardcore. They have an internal sound that deviates from the normal. So did I deviate too far from chiptune / death metal production-values with that base? A good example of a song here on OCR that basically shatters your eardrums but sounds fantastic because of it is Beatdrops "Reprocessed" which has a clean sound yes, until it hits that drop where the high frequency cuts your head in half. That's noise intended to be there. So if my intent was to have a heavy end to complete the track and the feedback is "please take that away, we dont like it" then I can make a special version for OCR but it's a lesser version in my eyes and that bums me the fuck out. At this point I submit here to be part of the community but perhaps it's better to put my tracks in the forum? I haven't learned anything about my creative process with this song, I've learned about YOUR creative process on OCR for how YOU would want metal to sound. If it was my old "Light's Out" submission, then I get that it gets thrown out for being a "compression hell" song as the feedback told me. And I learned soooo much about my own failings from that submission. This is just telling me that sound here has a very narrow surface to tread on before it gets toppled and discarded as subpar. Perhaps having a subscription function where people pay 5 bucks a month to pay for judging sessions more often would be an idea so we can move this along and get rid of the insane backlogs always present. So again, is there any fixed protocol for technical analysis? Do you all use the same hardware or different? What kind of rooms are you in if you listen with speakers? If you're going to listen for mixing and mastering issues without a shared approach on every single level and a transparency in exactly what you expect from a given genre, then you're setting most of us up for failure since we have no idea what you want until after the fact and I swear to you, I've never had consistency in feedback on my work ever. I have an older track, "Bowzilla" that sounds like a fucking garage recording and it went in without hesitation. The melodic and percussive structure of it is a very straight forward, generic heavy metal track in the 80s vibe so the song itself is a blastoff tune. But its worthless in terms of mixing. I get that it's on a per track basis but seeing as you already pointed out some shortcomings on your end, lets dig into that: If you are going to provide feedback at the highest possible level, giving one or two paragraphs and a NO with ZERO ability for me to contest your decision in the thread that is conveniently closed for response from the author makes me pretty angry. I worked really damn hard to make it, waited really damn long to get your response and the only thing is essentially three people saying no... And considering the content of the entire OCR library, some live recorded tracks are decidedly wimpier in sound yet pass because of the novelty of the track... So the feedback I get of my song being essentially "another generic metal track" + "too much bass" comes off as ridiculously arrogant and dismissive. Which is what was written. It wasn't JUST the mixing that got it dismissed. OCR dismissed the SONG and only in retrospect when that submission denial thread is removed do I hear how amazing it apparently was which begs the question: Why are we even having this conversation to begin with??? If you all loved it so much, that one aspect should not be enough for the standardized criteria of passing or passing on a song. Also, speaking of love, are the judges clear of mind when going into it? It wasn't specifically metal I was getting at with my track but "do you feel like listening objectively to music to ascertain its level of quality?" which is a question you all have to ask yourselves before you even put the headphones on to begin with. If you go in with a certain mood and energy, some genres and emotional contexts in a track will be favored due to personal bias and judgment is about AVOIDING personal biases, afaik? You want to understand the nature of the track, so what research was done around it to hear if the sound I went for was a mistake or an intentional production choice to fit the bill of older sounds? Possibly a chiptune track with distortion and a lofi mat on the kick to make it play more with the SID synths? Heres a song with a "broken mix" that intentionally is made that way to create a heavier sound. Note that its mixed to complement that almost monotone guitar and the vocals are behind the guitar tracks which is against common mixing in most metal. It was done by that one guy and he created an absolute masterpiece by deviating from the norm entirely. So maybe it's good that this track of mine doesn't adhere to default mixing practices? Finally, if you judge peoples art that they love beyond anything (and for the newer artists are terrified beyond belief of even showing others) and get snappy because you piss people off immensely with your obfuscated judging process that only says three people with WHAT credentials dont like it, that reflects poorly on the entirety of OCR and begs the question what the judging barrier serves to accomplish in the end, other than a ton of manual labor work that is more chore and cheer. I know I'm a massive asshole here myself for being this upset but this is the only good thing I have in life and I'll fight tooth and fucking nail to get a proper answer here. So answering a justifiably angry artist trying to ask questions about what is the metric used to determine any given dimension of a tracks quality? Well, whatever, if this where I actually get a response on anything and within days too, I suppose I should try to submit my songs in complaint format. Do what you want with the song but if I get any more resubmits from this place with nothing but "we didn't quite enjoy this, 9/10, try again..." then honestly, the only answer to that is NO. (Reconsider)

I have to open up this question broadly because I have no issues with the greater whole of this public service that is OC Remix. I need to understand what exact protocol is follow for judging submission because I have yet to understand if there is any red line between different submissions. First, judging someones creative directions should never be done haphazardly. You are not the arbiters of creative direction so understand that while input here can be valuable, its only valuable if you understand fully what the author intended. What they saw with each note as they put them in the right place. Which you do not. Second, you need to present transparency. What exact hardware do you actually use to listen to mixes and masters? I've a handful of headphones of varying price range and performance from casual cheap gaming headsets at 50 usd to 400 usd studio headphones. Monitors, a 300w soundbar with sub, etc... I listen on all of them before I submit anything online and I know for a fact my mixes are not so subpar as to be passed on simply for being balanced towards a different sound. Third, what level of reference material is used to understand the track? How many artists of a similar nature at a professional level are you listening to? When I throw up a very heavy metal track, have you studied similar acts to see what the 80s, 90s, 00s, 10s and 20s metal sounds are like? I know this isn't a perfect machine so I hate to come off like this. OC Remix taught me a ton about mixing and mastering simply by pointing out my extremely flawed, overly compressed audio when I submitted here a long time ago. So you definitely have an immensely positive impact on artists trying to grow their technical skillsets. However, heres the real worry and concern: How many up and comers have been put aside when their tracks are honest and faithful to an idea that should be held as a standard of creativity? I've composed music for 23 years now and will never stop. However, someone who preemptively uploads something should have their courage recognized. I started on Newgrounds, a much more gentle place in terms of feedback. Their encouragement filled me with determination. So I really really want you to consider "Are we encouraging people to ascend towards a higher standard or are we gatekeeping what is and isn't good music based on arbitrary rulesets?" Honestly, did anyone in the judges corner actually want to hear a heavy metal song that day? Or a techno track or a samba version of Kratos theme? I mean, how you personally feel about the song is not a valuable criteria. Did they do the job well enough to be considered a completed track or does it need more TLC? So, what's the score now? How exactly do judges analyze the creativity in the artform? I feel that this should be an open dialogue here where anyone can refute absolutely anything I've said. I'm just some guy, I'm not special at all here and I definitely recognize that. But having to resubmit after a year of waiting because there was a bit too much bottom on the track? I disagree, the sound was perfectly balanced on every sound system i checked on, including down at the audio store with about 10 different monitors. Yamaha, Adam, etc. The soundquality was good, the track was adventurous, the GAME never even got ONE track here... We need your help when we send a song. We're sending our hopes and dreams of a future in sound to you. Other than that, y'all mad cute and I love you a ton for working tirelessly on this project for so many years. I'd love to help in some way so if I can lend a hand with -anything-, let me know.

Did a track a ways back for a Newgrounds competition and thought I'd post it here to see if anyone has feedback or opinions about it. Enjoy! c: Soundcloud!

Remade this all from the ground up and worked obsessively for the last handful of days with it. Any suggestions for improvement are very welcome! c: Soundcloud!

Theres almost a jazzy noir feel to this. Very interesting work. c:

It's got a beautifully warm sub to it and sounds crystal clear in my headphones. Maybe you want some more people to weigh in first but I think it's a pretty great track. My opinion is it's always worth submitting to OCR. If I hadn't submitted my track "Lights Out" here (which got thoroughly rejected) I probably would've never heard the necessary feedback I needed to rethink how I approached my work. I distinctly remember an initial phrase from a judge along the lines of "Holy compression hell!" (I've since eased up a bit on compressors...) The nali chant at 2:45 was a great addition, btw, well done. c:

https://www.newgrounds.com/audio/listen/975054 Estrayk wrote the original Her11.mod the proper oldschool way using Protracker on an Amiga. The song is one of his many in the Her series of chiptunes for Paradox, the cracking group. It was featured in this game, Lyle In Cube Sector, at one of the last areas accessible. The game is made by Bogosoft and plays like a metroidvania and has a really solid soundtrack of chiptunes. Can't recommend it enough if you enjoy retro-style games. The premise of the game centers around some cloaked weirdo who steals your cat so you're on a mission to get it back. That's pretty much it. Thus, the title of my track. The song itself is a pretty direct metal / chiptune fusion with a splash of synth and drama later on. If you have any questions about the song just ask and I'll try to answer as best I can. c:

You're most welcome. c:

Yeah, I definitely need more training when it comes to mixing and mastering, regardless of genre. It's quite difficult and studio-head makes it very hard to do efficiently. Lengthwise, it's a bit long for OCRs recommended 2-7 mins but I wanted it to sort of be as on par with the psytrance and goa stuff released in general where they have rather long intro and outros for mixing purposes. If you're interested, you can hear the original tracks here in their proper SNES glory.

Mfw I forget how to submit to OCR and just post a link in a forum. It's been emailed now at least and luckily after the rebalanced mix and master.

Wroom wroom noises here Not submitting this as it's very "color within the lines" cover stuff moreso than a proper remix. Still, these old Amiga games don't necessarily get the love they deserve. Enjoy. c:

EDIT (20-10-23): Updated the mix and master as it was very kick and bass heavy. Should be a more balanced sound now. Updated spooki sounds here A dark psytrance remix of "Jaffars Theme" and "Final Battle" from Prince of Persia for the SNES. A sampled reference from the original Apple II version of Jafar conjuring forth the hourglass is also present in the song though that's more of a soundeffect than any sort of musical score. Original composers for the SNES OST are Toshiya Yamanaka and Tetsuya Nakan. The small sampled bit was a melodic sting for the Apple II version written by Francis Mechner, as far as I can discern, alternatively Tom Rettig who did the sound. I worked myself into kind of a burnout mode with this one which made the song hard to really progress in any meaningful way and complete. I really wanted it done now for Halloween so I focused a lot on it these past weeks but also kind of got worn out since I'm also studying at a university now. However, this still marks quite a leap forward in my psytrance skills. I have much yet to learn about effectwork and really adding proper flourish to my tracks but this one still became quite rich and elaborate. Enjoy and happy halloween. c:

Seems like a pretty great idea. I would suggest a different take on Lavos as I've already got the death metal angle covered in BA3 for all three Lavos tracks. Obviously just a suggestion, either way I'd be pretty stoked to hear another take on those three tracks as a single project regardless of genre. Btw, the link has a hardbracket at the start and a missing colon.