Cash

I agree with Shariq about source breakdowns. Personally, I generally don't like to post source breakdowns of my own work, I like my remixes to speak for themselves. I'm not at all opposed to other people posting breakdowns, I just don't like doing so every time I make a remix. Though if people were having trouble recognizing the source(s) and I felt a breakdown would help, I'd gladly provide one.

Happy birthday!

Thanks for the feedback! I'm glad you enjoyed my remix. I was also happy with the instrumentation, but yeah, the arrangement was all over the place. Thanks, much appreciated! I was planning on more drum variation, but ran out of time.

Happy birthday! Flex some of that style! (Lame joke, I know ) I hope you had an awesome day!

I hope not.

There is already a Sonic competition right now, I'd at least wait until it's over before trying to recruit for another. You also might want to give a lot more details, see MindWanderer's post. You should also read through the Competitions Code of Conduct and check out the formatting of some other competitions. You're current explanation is very strange. It's odd that you would make this thread after posting in the SZRC thread about being disappointed at missing the signups. I don't get it, is this some sort of response to missing the signups?

Happy birthday to both of you! I hope yesterday was a good one! (Yes, I know I'm a day late )

In that case, it's the musician's fault agreeing to play for free. Still, I would imagine at least some of the people who play free are doing it for fun. It's not a shit deal if you aren't looking to get paid. Not everyone is trying to make a living on music, some do it as a hobby. Though I generally don't support a venue's decision to not pay musicians (the Super Bowl obviously being an exception). EDIT: Do musicians get paid to play at MAGFest and other cons? If the answer is no, I don't have any problem with that.

I haven't read anything (maybe I missed it) to suggest people think you guys are upset because of Bruno Mars. From my perspective, pretty much everyone in this thread understands the concern from your side, and have been addressing those specific points. As Meteo mentioned, the musicians perform for a fraction of the time they would perform in a standard show. It's a huge promotion opportunity with less work involved (or so I would imagine) than their day to day career. It's a big win for any artist performing at half time. If the meaning of the quote is irrelevant, how can it be used to emphasize your own meaning? Doesn't that imply the Joker's meaning is relevant? It doesn't work to separate the original meaning of the quote and then apply to a specific point, not in my opinion anyway. The broad statement "if you're good at something, never do it for free" applies to literally every activity that one could conceivably be good at, there can't be any exemptions. It says that not just arranging copyrighted music (like OCR) or original music, but literally anything that you could be good at, should never be done for free. The quote doesn't really emphasize your point, so much as make it seem like you're saying things that you're good at should only be pursued if money is involved. That notion, to me, goes against the spirit of art in general. I know you weren't trying to give off that impression, but that's how it came across to me. Sorry to make such a point about it, but I just wanted to explain myself better.

Certainly not always. Even if they are paid, bands certainly take part in promotion that is not paid. As well as promotion the band must pay for. And the Super Bowl falls under promotion, which is basically what people have been saying.

The quote from the Joker was "if you're good at something, never do it for free." By that logic, if you're good at making music, you should only make music if you get payed. On OCR, people who are good at making music are making said music for free. If we are going by the Joker's logic, why bother making music if you can't get paid? Why make music in you're free time if you never get compensated for it? The fact that we arrange copyrighted works is irrelevant to Joker's point. His argument is that you should only do something that you're good at if you get paid. He's basically saying hobbies are a waste of time. If you're good at arranging music, don't do it in your free time just for fun, only do it if money is involved. I was objecting to Joker's viewpoint. In my opinion, that's a close minded and limiting view of the world and would make life boring. Exactly. A lot of people are looking at the half time show the wrong way, it's an incredible advertising opportunity. It would cost an unbelievable amount of money to reach that many people under ordinary circumstances. I fail to see how a promotion of music sets a bad precedent for music. Wait a minute, are you saying the only way to show that art has value is through money? Is OCR not all about the appreciation of video game music as an art form? With no money involved.

When did those days exist? It has always been difficult to make it big in the music industry. I completely agree with this.

Who's to say how much money he should be making? OCR is a community of talented people making music for FREE. Are you really suggesting OCR shouldn't exist because we don't get paid? I hope I just misinterpreted a joke...

Sure, but how many venues are actually doing this? I don't have any experience related to playing at venues, but I can't imagine it would be in the venue's best interest to no longer pay musicians. I would think most artists would go play at others venues that would actually pay them. Live musicians attract customers, it doesn't make much sense in my mind for a venue owner to risk cutting of that attraction. Besides, artists have been playing at Half Time for decades, and, to the best of my knowledge, no precedent has been set (correct me if I'm wrong).

Probably not, but that isn't the case. I'm betting it will never be the case. By the way, no need to apologize. Thinking is a good thing!

If you're at a point in your career when you're playing at the Super Bowl, money is not the issue. The Half Time show is basically one huge advertisement for any artist lucky enough to play at the show. Compensation doesn't make sense to me considering these artists already have so much money, and will make even more thanks to the sales boost from playing at the show. Also, not every live performance by musician involves compensation. Musicians do perform specifically for exposure, and some just do it for fun. Playing at the Half Time show is a combination of the two. How will encouraging exposure as payment kill the music profession? Playing at Half Time without compensation has been going on for decades, yet the profession of music performers hasn't been killed. People will always be willing to pay to go see live performances of their favorite artists.

Thanks for the feedback DiGi Valentine, theshaggyfreak, and therex! Thanks! I'm glad you liked it! It was fun to make. Thanks, I spent a lot of time on composition. I wanted to put in more layers, but ran out of time. I also heard those popping out sounds, again the time was a factor. Yep, I agree that the soundscape isn't as full as it could have been. Time was my enemy this round. I'm glad you think my synth work is improving. That's validation that I'm getting better!

Yeah, this was one of my favorites for this round. I dig those vocals, nice work! I do have some production crits though. I feel like the vocals could be brought forward more, your voice sometimes sounds buried. The drums could use some more variety, I'm hearing mostly the same pattern throughout the track. The hats are too loud for my tastes, they get very distracting for me after a while. The arrangement sounds like a winner to me, though I'm not very familiar with either source.

I'll be there. The OCR panel has been great the past couple of years.

Thanks for the feedback, Sir_NutS and Mirby! I completely agree that my track wasn't cohesive enough. I wanted to start over with a better direction, but I didn't have enough time. I tried to make my track cohesive, unfortunately it just didn't fit as well as I had hoped. It was still fun to make!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY to both of you!! I hope both of you have an awesome day!

Alright, mine has been sent. Can't wait to hear all the entries! By the way, I incorporated the Practice Race music from Marble Madness into my intro. Here's the source:

Mine is on the way!

Yeah, I'm worried about that as well. Marble Garden is obvious, but I'm not sure people will recognize Marble. I (hopefully) changed it to the same key as Marble Garden, so I hope I didn't butcher it!

Come on man, you can do it! You got Butt Hill, channel some of those butt powers!