timaeus222

That was a great comment, man! Thanks so much for that! It's made me feel more human and less broken. I always feel guilty if i'm not working on something, and i always assume that it's because i'm lacking passion/it's not for me. But there are just some days where i really don't want to sit in my box room for hours. That YT channel looks like something that could be very helpful too, so i'll be sure to check it out.
What you said about adding a dummy wave to test things in your projects, that's something i'm going to really have to wrap my head around. See, i've being studying in more of a sound design focused field, so i've always put the sound itself over the composition. I find it hard to imagine how a musical passage could eventually sound if i was to make it enitrely out of pianos or simple waveforms. Is a triangle wave enough to let you know that it will sound good no matter what suitable instrumentation or synth patch is used in the end?

If you're having trouble focusing your learning process, I can relate - I have minimal formal theory training as well, and it can be especially hard to know where to start when you don't really know terms.  Here's the resource that's helped me the most lately: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCeZLO2VgbZHeDcongKzzfOw/videos
If you're having issues with composition specifically, I'd particularly recommend any of his videos that talk about utilizing motifs.  There's a Dark Souls vid and a Zelda: Link's Awakening vid that talk about motif use and transformation pretty thoroughly, and it's really made a huge impact on my writing lately.
Aside from that, the best recommendation I have is to transcribe.  A lot.  Even from your own tracks.  If you find a chord progression you really like, throw down a dummy instrument (my go-to is a simple triangle wave), write it out and examine it isolated.  Or if you like the interplay the chords had with the melody, put down another dummy for the lead and look at the relationships between the two.  When you find something you like, even if it's from someone else's work, try emulating it.  Don't feel bad about borrowing elements from music that inspires you, especially when you're learning something new!  Adding techniques to your repertoire will make you a much more effective composer when it comes time to write to a client's specs, and I find that the more comfortable you get with a new trick/technique (even if it's "borrowed"), the easier it is to implement it into a track with your own spin to make it sound more unique.  It's not necessary to rediscover every composition technique for yourself, only that you can use it effectively.
The chord/lead dummies also translate into my own originals and arrangements, not just transcription.  Blocking out a new section can help you determine how well it flows with the preceding material, and it really helps me avoid wasting time fleshing out an entire section only to find it won't work structurally.
I also have to echo Timaeus that if it's possible, make at least a little time for music stuff almost every day, whether it's starting a new tune, transcribing one of your favorite game tunes, or making a new synth patch.  But don't beat yourself up if you miss a day and definitely take a day or two off if you need it.  The mind needs time away from conscious processing to recombine novel information and let what you've learned solidify.  It functions a lot like a muscle; overtraining is more detrimental than it might seem on the surface, so if you find that it's too stressful doing X number of days per week, back it off a bit and make sure to focus on enjoying the process.  Maybe even just pick a few days of the week to purposely be away from music, or schedule out what you want to work on for which days - it's the consistency that's most important rather than the sheer quantity of time you spend with music.
Hope that's helpful

Is it any surprise that I still give my consent explicitly?

Oh yeah and, of course — feel free to monetize my stuff with Tim.
and forthcoming things.

I give consent - monetize my remixes. Do it.
I'm with you with regards to YT's sudden monetization of everything all at once... seems sketch.
Either way - I feel like a ReMix is a donation and you can do as you like with it. So engage the muns.

#1 was a legitimate misjudgment on our part - my part - as to the timing of going live to get basic metrics vs. a full roll-out, and how that would be perceived; I'd need to review the full thread again to remember if I apologized for that misjudgment, but if I didn't, I do. A good faith assumption was all it took to understand what happened, and we didn't get a good faith assumption from some folks, but ideally we wouldn't put ourselves in a position to NEED a good faith assumption #2 never made any sense to me, personally; whether we pay for YouTube or not is irrelevant. That's basically saying you should only run ads on the platforms that represent an expense to you, and only use revenue generated on any platform to pay for that platform, and nothing else? That's NEVER been true, because even a decade ago, when it was just banner ads, we used funds for promotional runs of physical albums as prizes at conventions.... so that's using web ads to pay for something not strictly related to web hosting. This conceptualization of funding & expenditure is very odd/rigid/limiting... #3 is worth talking more about, I think. We have no intention of ever enabling unskippable ads, so those are off the table. #4 tell me about it...

Ideally, I think, we'd like to avoid adding too much additional administrative-type items for staff to have to continually maintain.  I feel like we'd be better spending more time on moar music & artist promotion than going back and forth with enabling ads.  Also, I took it as $25 for global ads on (EDIT: not including unskippables), so waiting for times to get tight (which hopefully they don't) before turning them on seems like it would be a case of too little too late.
But yeah, personally I never had an issue with enabling them on mixes in the first place - especially considering the funds fully go to, as ad revenue always has gone to, maintaining & promoting the site itself.

I will never get why people have an issue with OCReMix monetising their videos and website. Us artists/remixers get a lot of exposure to a great and supportive community – all without paying a single dime. Why not show some gratitude by helping to fund the website?

Hopefully we can avoid a repeat of the drama that occurred on a previous thread discussing this matter.
On Tuesday of last week, all videos on our channel mysteriously had ads enabled without any action on our part; previously ads were limited to a small percentage of videos from artists who had opted in, so we could get some metrics. We have disabled all ads as of today, including for videos that previously had them enabled. This batch change is currently processing on YouTube.
We did inquire with YouTube/Google as to how this change could have happened, as none of us made it directly or intentionally, but they couldn't help us:
It's difficult to understand how an entity so large wouldn't track such actions on a per-user basis, but it's apparently the case.
TL;DR; what's changed since the last time we had this conversation is that OverClocked ReMix is now a project of Game Music Initiative, Inc, a 501c3 non-profit charitable organization...
We've got a board of directors that has met three times this year, we've got separate bank accounts that are not in my name or included on my personal income taxes, no single individual can sell the domain or its intellectual property, and there are legally-binding rules about how the money can be spent, and for what, above and beyond the existing content policy. While the ads were not enabled intentionally, we waited to hear back from Google before disabling them, because we wanted metrics for the entire channel being ad-enabled and because the original plan was to wait for 501c3 status and then revisit the topic.
Our submission agreement has always allowed for advertising in the context of mixes, so long as that revenue is used for the site:
Originally this change rubbed some folks the wrong way and there were heated words about how YouTube ads were somehow profoundly different than website ads; I'm not sure if anyone still feels that way, but either way, "context" is an umbrella term that was never intended to be limiting. The Internet changes and we need to change with it, as best we can.
So, basically:
We have removed almost all ads from our websites. We only want to run promotions for VGM & related stuff that's relevant, and keep that minimal and non-intrusive. Right now, GMI & OCR are funded primarily by our support on Patreon (you gals & guys are the best!) However, I've never been comfortable with a single point of failure, and feel like YouTube ads are a good secondary source of support. From the last week of metrics, full ad-enablement on YouTube adds up to about $25 a day, give or take. For any one artist, myself included, this would be less than a dollar a month. In addition, YouTube ads *apparently* help SEO and enhance the visibility/reach of the videos, which is important. I'd like to reach a point with artists where we've built enough trust, through our words and actions but also our new legal status, where this change is understood and appreciated, but we should by all means continue the conversation and see where it takes us. We previously committed to:
Filing for 501c3 status in this calendar year. (DONE) Updating the content policy with clarifying language surrounding "advertisements in the context of submitted material" meaning more than just banner ads, with YouTube as a specific example. (PENDING) Reaching out to artists via forum email addresses, social media, etc. for additional feedback on this topic prior to enabling ads on the back catalog of 3000+ videos. (THIS THREAD + NOTIFICATIONS)

I never really understood the issue with ads on YouTube videos given that we had Google ads on individual remix pages for years. Advertisements presented in the context of individual remixes is nothing new; I guess it feels different to people now because YouTube is huge and "monetization" is a word people throw around all the time now.
I'm a little annoyed with Google/YouTube and their mysterious enabling of ads, ESPECIALLY the unskippables. I agree with Dave that it's kind of shocking they don't have logs or an audit trail mechanism for that kind of thing. Kind of concerning, TBH.
In any case, while I wish we had more time to prepare for it, what's done is done. Now that GMI is officially a 501c3, I hope that folks will be on board and won't raise a fuss. Like I said, this isn't actually anything new. I never had problems with ads on the remix pages, so I don't see why I'll have a problem with ads on my mixes.

You've got some lovely commentary on here, but I'll add my two cents and cap this off with an official mod review.
EVAL
You've gotten quite a bit of energy put into this track - the instrumentation sounds far better than the source while losing nothing in the original source's energy and intent. Of course, when handling the track in a way that's similar to the source you run the risk of being TOO close to the source for OCR's purposes, which unfortunately would be the case here. The notes, the style, the instrumentation, etc., is all very close to the source material, to the point of sounding like a sound upgrade rather than a re-arrangement of the material. Nothing wrong with that, of course, but it wouldn't be something OCR could post.
On a related note, the arrangement does a direct loop with no difference between the loops (other than the automated highpass location). It's a bit of a side effect of following a source too closely, but it's still an issue in it's own right worth addressing: if the repeat is nothing more than filler for length then it's not worth having in a stand alone track. In this case it's a method of achieving an almost three minute runtime rather than a meaningful expansion of the track. Give the listener something new to grab hold of if you use such repetition in the future - some new textures, variation in the theme, a variation in the drums, etc..
As far as the production values go, this isn't bad - the overall loudness of the track is about where it should be, and save for the moments where the highpass overtakes the track there's little notable overcompression or limiting artifacts. Those automated highpasses, though, really cause production problems (clipping/limiting artifacts), and they make little musical sense to boot. Techniques like automating the highpass should be used with some purpose in mind, not simply in the middle of an otherwise straightforward arrangement just for the sake of having an automated highpass. It really tars an otherwise enjoyable track.
It's not bad, but it would be stopped right at the gate due to how conservative the arrangement it. Furthermore, the strange use of automated highpass would cause it some problems, as well. While not a bad arrangement, it's not something OCR would be looking for.

Hey guys, seeing that this one seems to bring lots of discussion, and that i haven't been updating lately, I would like to give some heads up.
 
I've been working on a very different version of the song for some time now, and am not happy with the result. I think i've gone too far from my previous work. As such, I will go back to the one i got here and start over hoping to find a way to improve the actual song instead of just shooting myself in the foot.
 
Thing is I love participating in the community stuff here at Ocremix so i'm also doing some work for the MnP and PRC competitions, and while it sure is a good learning experience and it helps me improve, it takes some time away from my work on this piece, so it's probably going to take some time until i sort things out to get to the level i want.
 
Would love to submit this in the future, but i understand it doesn't really fit the requirements of the panel, at least in the current version, though i don't want to go to far away from the style and arrangement i had in mind.
 
And again thank you all for the support and reviewing, i'm still pretty green and hope to improve, and the feedback really helps with motivation and having a good mindset.
 
Sorry btw if i repeat myself a lot, english not being my native language, I will probably make some mistakes here and there !
 
Cheers !

Same here. Some more cash for you, but @HoboKa, come join the Discord channel. It's a great way to chat in more of a 'live' setting, and hopefully it'll help you feel like less of an 'outsider', as you call it. I've yet to find a more friendly community than OCR.

Definitely join discord.  The community is pretty active, and we have a workshop channel as well where we post resources and offer advice.

On another news the Judge Process thread has been updated thanks to @Nutritious.  I'll try to keep it updated again.
 

I did some casual polling of some (a very small set of) non-musician people that do like their video games, and the key take aways were 'they always have awesome remixes', 'that is where I learned remixing videogame music was a thing' and in general that it's cool and people tend be followers for a long time already. So I wouldn't say it's dying or becoming irrelevant. Sure, VGM remixes and covers are a big thing these days, and with all these other parties doing VGM stuff nowadays, it makes sense that OCR stands out less than it used to do way back when OCR was one of the few communities doing such things.
I think there's enough space in the VGM world for all these initiatives, all with their different angles and interpretations. I never dabbled in DoD because I am too lazy to learn to actually play an instrument, but I am doing a remix for a non-OCR album this month and I am also looking into Materia Collective. For the latter, there might not be an explicit bar, but I do know there's a proposal + approval process there too, and judging by the albums released they also have a QA process for stuff that makes it on the albums.
Anyway, maybe it's time to accept that OCR is doing its own thing and is what it wants to be, not what you think it should be. Sure, constructive criticism is good and should be welcomed. Eagerly awaiting, almost pleading for DJP for a veto and a course correction of this perceived Titanic seems pretty fatalistic to me though. Chill, dude. It's good that you care so much, but you might wanna reconsider your tone and approach if you really want to have a solid constructive discussion.

OC ReMix is neither dying nor becoming irrelevant. We get plenty of submissions, lots of listeners, and tons of engagement on social media. Also, don't try to back up your point by speaking for other people who "wish to remain anonymous." There's absolutely zero value in saying something like that. Make your own points and back them up.
We're not going to dump curation. It's just not going to happen. OC ReMix has been very clear about being a curated catalog of arrangements that meet a standard of both artistic interpretation and technical execution. We have never—and I can't believe that this has to be said again—claimed to be the end-all-be-all source of VGM arrangements, and we're not trying to be. We've consistently supported other communities and initiatives like DoD and Materia Collective.
OC ReMix can afford to be selective; we've built up a catalog of quality arrangements over the course of nearly 18 years by setting some standards and pushing artists to hone their skills. Our philosophy at OCR has always been "share your music, get feedback, and make your music better." You'll be hard-pressed to find any other art community that does that. Getting a track posted to the front-page is a soft goal that fosters that growth. There are obviously instances where an artist will disagree with those standards and make an exit, or honestly just outgrow the process altogether because they've found their artistic voice and don't need to take part in the loop anymore. That's fine. We have no problem with people who decide OCR isn't for them anymore.
There are plans in place to integrate the workshop deeper into the site's game database so that people can find WIPs and non-posted releases by browsing game pages. But OC ReMix will continue to examine and curate submissions from the community against our established standards because having that goal in place improves artists. We're comfortable with where those standards are and comfortable about the direction the site is taking.

On the thought of communities who don't have bars, they do have coffee shops.

I'm part of a small community that is growing and attempting to establish itself.  It will remain unnamed.  I'm doing some arranging for them, but mostly just being a brass player recording for people (I guess that describes my involvement in many communities at the moment).  They have a bar, kind of, but it's really low.  
I was used to OCR and the way they did things, came to this new one, and recorded for a guy.  I knew I wasn't the only one recording, but what ended up happening in that track was just playing all the recordings as they were sent on top of each other.  It sounded very weird because one of them was recorded in a tiny room, and one in a much bigger room.  And those differences were really pronounced.  
There were a few tracks that were this level, and while it wasn't bad, it was very unrefined and unpolished.  On the other end, it still is kind of weird that there will be check ins on progress and for the most part, people won't start their tracks until a week or less before deadline, and the end result sounds like they threw it together last minute.  However, it will still be sent out.  The majority of this community is producing good, well polished content, but there is that lower end that just seems to be winging it constantly and still passing the bar.
OCR I don't see as a gated community tho.  I see it more as a community that wants to present well polished works of a certain variety.  It's not that you have to pass the bar to be considered good, it's more like there's a certain type of production that is wanted.

Right, but that's just for licensing the music. The permission to raise funds via Kickstarter is, at least according to some, a separate cost/right entirely, since it's not a fixed price-per-track licensing - backers can (and do) contribute more, for other types of benefits...
@GSO Grand plans usually require enthusiastic participants/collaborators, and you'll get more of those when you have a track record of successful projects, whether free or commercial. So yes, to echo what's been said several times, it feels like you're starting very large, and that your energies would be more productively directed at building up the type of successes that would lead to being able to put something like this together more effectively.

Honestly, you seem to have a great many of grand plans, but none pan out — just my observation. 
Perhaps you should take a moment to consider that the legal hurdles and the costs involved in producing a CD of video game remixes when no one even buys CDs anymore is a lofty goal that should maybe not be pursued further.
I also don't see why one would want to do this when OCR produces FF albums pretty regularly that get tons of promotion, lots of listeners, etc. Why not just get on one of those or try and start up one?
So yes, I think you're going about it the wrong way and dreaming to big compared to what you've proven you can do. Start small.
 

I'm a little late to the party here, but here's my two bits. (Gee, Hoboka, you must be ready to start a small business with all the change you have off this thread )
IMO, there is nothing currently wrong with OCR's panel. The OCR submission guidelines are fairly good at laying out what OCR expects from submissions for posting; of course, like any organization, they have certain subjective expectations (genre, precedent, etc.) for the material they choose to endorse and it is up to them to determine whether it fits their standard or it doesn't. If you want something posted here, you have to play by their rules, period - and if their standard doesn't fit yours, there are lots of other places you can go to advertise or show off your music. Likewise, as ACO implied, just because you're rejected by OCR doesn't immediately mean to the world "YOU SUCK" or "FO" or "we don't like your kind here" - it just means it doesn't currently fit OCR's standard.
Some folks might be aware that I had a project I'm working on rejected by OCR in the not-too-distant past; sure, some of the things said stung and perhaps I didn't agree with all the feedback, but these are simply folks telling me where the tracks are and what is needed to bring them closer to the standard - so I could have chosen to pack my ball up and go home, but I've chosen to continue the project (despite some absences due to life stuff) and use the feedback to improve the album. I've also had folks reach out to me to offer help and advice if necessary in light of the rejection, which is one of the things I love most about this site. 'No skill in mixing? No problem, let's ask ___ for some help. No good string samples? No problem, let's see if ___ has an opening in their schedule. No good distortion pedals for your guitar? No problem, let's see if ____ has the sound you're looking for.'  This community is full of folks who want to help and they are NOT hard to find.
Personally, I'm fine with the standard and I don't care how long it takes for the panel to review - I respect the time it takes for judging, I respect the opinion of the panel, accept that it is an opinion, and use it as an indicator of where my tracks are and where they need to go to fit that standard. Given Gario's comment on repetition that started this whole thing, has anyone thought to just add a bit of variation in harmony, bass, percussion, or maybe all three? Or, if you're attached to the repetition, asked Gario how you could keep the copy pasta but add enough variation to be accepted by judges? I just think it's pretty clear what wait time was expected and what the reasons for rejection were, so maybe the solution is to address the concerns and resubmit instead of jumping on the judges for how they do what they do. Plus, if you don't want to wait for the panel, I'm sure either Gario or Rozovian would be willing to take a look at things in shorter order to give you an idea of how it would go on the panel. Heck, I'm sure there's lots of other folks reading this willing to give you a hand too, if that's what you think you need. I don't know how much easier they could make it for us.
Just my opinion. Another wall of text for the, er, wall.

As much as I hate to admit it, if people are percieving that it's slowed down then there's something that we need to fix or address.
I can personally say it's considerably faster nowadays than it was a year ago (save for last month since as mentioned earlier an influx of projects slowed us down a bit - you can personally verify this, Rozovian :P), but if people can't tell this is the case then we need to do something about that. Updating the judging process thread is definitely one step toward that, which we've talked about here and will fix soon (if not someone else, I'll update it within the week). Of course, the problem with that is it's a manual process prone to staff just... not updating the thread. It's a lower priority item on the list of things to do, so it happens.
Anyone have any ideas of how to make people more aware of the pace of the judge's panel? I might share a few ideas behind the scenes on how to address this (that starts getting into the mechanics of the site, though, which I don't think I should share on here atm), but if people want to share some ideas I would be very much appreciative.
Interesting question, and while it's not the EXACT topic of the thread it's related. There's no official number on the rates of passes and rejections as of late (the numbers shown on the FAQ section of the site is not up-to-date), but I can give a pretty solid estimation based on what I've inboxed over the last year since I archive the tracks on my own hard drive. There will be some direct rejections that I didn't archive since those tracks were either soundcloud tracks without a D/L link, or the tracks were 404'd, so there's probably 20% more direct rejections than I'm giving credit for on here. Be aware.
Out of ~370 tracks I've inboxed over the last eleven months that I have on record:
22% are direct rejections (rejected via e-mail, the track doesn't make it to the panel).
8% are direct posts (passes on the spot, the track doesn't make it to the panel unless the judges object).
The rest (70%) are sent to the panel.
Of those panel'd, I can use my basic memory of what passed and what didn't pass and give a solid estimate of the panel's current pass rate. I could check everything on the site and get a 100% accurate number, but that would be incredibly time consuming - I hope y'all understand. Crunching the numbers, about 50% of what gets to the panel gets rejected.
...
Yeah, that number sounds unbelievable to me too, but that's what number crunching every track that I've panel'd comes up to. Since it's based on my memory of the tracks passing or being rejected it's a good idea to say that this is +/- 10%, so the worst case I can conceive of is that the panel's pass/rejection rate is 60/40 in one direction or another (probably 40% YES, 60% NO, which makes sense when you look in the Judges Decisions forum). That's surprisingly uplifting - I didn't expect that when I started crunching numbers. Based on that, of all the tracks submit in the inbox that I've handled over the last year about 40% ultimately passed on to the front page, with the most conservative estimates being closer to 30% (a far cry from the 10-15% mentioned in the FAQ).
Damn, we're a bunch of softies on the panel, what the hell. Do take these numbers with more than a grain of salt, though: this was a quick numbers-crunch from what I have access to, just to give the public an idea of how things are in the panel nowadays.

I'll provide my thoughts on this. I've been following the thread since it started, but as it concerns judging, I don't think my position as an evaluator (on vacation) is all that relevant. But I have some insight into what goes on in staff, and tend to get posted when I sub something. So here goes.
*Make the panel faster - my current perception, without access to the judges' forum, is that things have slowed down significantly. The number of completed decisions threads dropped quite low during October, and the Currently in the Judging Process thread hasn't been updated since summer. For the record, I subbed something this summer, so the apparent state of things bugs me a bit for that reason too. I think the panel needs more judges. The biggest objection seems to concern breaking ties, but that can be resolved by just deciding that after 6 votes and still no majority, it'd get a formal "resub" response. When a resub isn't possible (live recording with live recording issues, lost project files etc), then it could be decided by a tiebreaker vote from djp. But the small active team vs. large team of less active people objection is valid too. I think that's a question of work ethic and perceived need for one's own effort, but that's a different conversation.
*Scrutinize Yes votes - Not sure what can be done here. It would be nice to get some numbers on submissions vs. form rejections vs. NO vs. YES vs. direct posts, but that's numbers someone's gonna have to put together then. But that's not quite what's being asked for in this thread.
*Valid criticisms - Yes there are. And you don't know what's being discussed (or what members of staff are trying to discuss) in staff forums and staff discord. And OCR has taught us all that criticism is useful.
*Nice writeups - This has been addressed. For me, when I do an eval, I first want to listen to the remix (and source), and if I don't understand what's going on, why it sounds a particular way and have an issue with it, then I might look for an answer in the first post or elsewhere in the thread. I'm of the opinion that things have to _sound_ intentional. A bad speaker/lofi radio sound intro has to be obvious. A chiptune section can't just be a section with super-simple synthwork. Intent doesn't matter there, writeups don't matter - sound does.
Although it would be nice to see more people say what DAW and instruments they used. Were the really cool strings in a mix from a big, expensive strings library, or some free soundfont? Is that guitar live or shreddage or a piano soundfont with distortion on it?
*Lower the bar slightly - Nah. But I would like to see some a remix compo where people only use the instruments and effects that came with the DAW. That would show what the basic tools are actually capable of in the hands of experienced and skilled remixers, which would give the clueless newbs and strugglings forum veterans something to learn from. Better yet if these compo mixes are submitted and pass the bar, because then it's official - what's in the box is good enough. For that set of genres and sounds, at least.
*Reconsider links in rejections - Not likely. Remixer privacy is an issue. There was recently a case of a remixer who was upset that his name was included in the rejection. I can understand where he's coming from. So when it comes to rejected mixes floating around, I'd rather mine didn't. But there's always the option of telling the panel to leave the link in. This could be added to the submission information on the Submit page.
Alex, dude, chill. You've got a good conversation going here. Don't derail your own thread by rushing unfiltered thoughts into it.

Ditto.  Also, usually an artist has his/her own stylistic vision for a song, and that's totally ok.  It's just not what OCR is looking for.  It's been said several times throughout the thread but OCR is not the end-all of videogame remixes.  In fact nowadays there are several ways to get your remixes out there regardless of stylistic vision or quality.  Not that I want to send anybody away at all, but OCR has had a quality and stylistic definition for what is an OCRemix for years and if you want your remix to be an OCRemix it just has to abide by that.
Regarding the bar, it hasn't changed in years and it's in a good place where it is, this is my opinion now and it was my opinion long before joining staff.  As an example to why I believe so, I didn't know about the "big bad koopa dubstep" remix posted in the first page until today.  That people reacted negatively to something they perceived was not up to OCR's quality is actually a great thing.  That means that people expect quality from us, and having the "bar" where it is has created a standard that people expect when opening a link featuring an OCR song.
Regarding judging speed/amount of judges, it's now a fact that more judges don't result on faster queue, on the contrary, when there has been a small team of people who have a good idea of where the bar sits, the queue moves faster.  The queue has been faster than it's ever been in years now.  Sadly, getting it faster is not as easy as saying it.  This is voluntary work, that people do it out of love for what the site represents, but voluntary still, which means that we all have other responsibilities besides judging, and as such we can't possibly have all songs evaluated as soon as they hit our inbox.  This will likely never happen on a system that has actual people reviewing the submitted work, nor here, nor anywhere else.  The current pace of "1 week to 2 months" to get a mix evaluated is, in my opinion, as good as it can realistically get.

Some remixes take longer because of split votes, because the judges are human and thus can't always agree on everything.  This is also very unlikely to change.

Scrutinizing YES votes even more than what we do now (we require 4 YES votes for a pass, only 3 for a NO) would make evaluation take even longer.  Complete counter to what we want.

I don't personally dismiss criticism on the process, and from what I see neither does the staff.  Otherwise we wouldn't be here, reading this.
On the whole PS1 era samples for a song etc, I think Gario summed up my views regarding this pretty well.  Plus, we don't require anyone to go out of their way and get the most expensive libraries out there.  Jorito already gave an example of his own, but I also can think of Rebecca Tripp, who I'm pretty sure doesn't have the most expensive libraries but manages to get on the front page quite consistently, with orchestral, folk and ambient remixes.  Outside of the symphonic realm, you can make ocremixes with free stuff, this is a fact, as I have at least a couple remixes on the site made 100% with completely free tools.  We really don't require perfect production at all.  

Regarding mixer's comments, like Gario I try to avoid them whenever possible because they get in the way of an unbiased evaluation.  Same with the other judges' votes, I try to just scroll all the way down and read them after I've written at least my initial thoughts (but before hitting submit).  Sometimes there's a good story behind the mix and I really appreciate that (this comes to mind) or the mixer's write up brings up some interesting points about how the track came to be or production techniques used, or the other judges have pointed out things that need more of my attention, etc.  All good stuff, but whether the mixer spent a year manually crafting the congas out of cow leather or if his intention was to make the song sound like an authentic Adlib Soundcard track without actually using an Adlib Soundcard has no bearing on whether it meets the expectations of being an OCRemix or not.  Not being an OCRemix doesn't automatically means it's bad or it's good, it's just not what OCR is looking for.
On the transparency side I'd be fine with that once (if ever) the process gets more automated on the submission side.  If at some point the process itself becomes something integrated properly with the website instead of being a manual process at all points (submission by email, separate upload, manual inboxing, manual creation of threads, etc.)  At this point it's a bit too messy to open it up and have it make much sense, IMO. It'll honestly be a lot of clutter plus probably more work for a staff that's already pretty busy.

Finally, I should really be working on the queue instead of writing a wall of text.

IMO, networking is less about "who you know" and more about "who knows you".
I can't be bothered to find it atm, but some years ago I saw a forum post written by Laura Shigihara (Plants Vs. Zombies composer) where she said that the trouble with networking is that it causes you to see people as a means to an end and most people can pick up on that. Meeting people means little to them; your work is what matters.
So the takeaway from her post was essentially that word of mouth is more important than actually meeting people after a pretty short while. Every successful composer out there who is repeatedly scoring worthwhile games, films and TV shows doesn't actually have to go to every developer conference and stuff. What happens is that they meet enough people in local scenes so that everyone knows "he/she is the composer" and if they do a project and it (or at least the music) turns some heads, because those are the heads who may call them when they're looking for a composer for their project. Do well enough and maybe an agency who frequently works with big names in entertainment will pick you up.
I learned it myself: I only had to attend nearby conferences and such a few times before all the regulars knew me as "the music guy" and if they're interested in having me do something, they'll call and if they like what I do they'll hopefully tell their friends. The same goes with referrals from other musicians and sound people.
The lesson to be learned here is that networking is important for getting your foot in the door, but once you do...do the best fucking job you can, because it's important that people notice.