TheChargingRhino

I got really excited about this album when I saw the trailer a week or so ago, it feels like a long time ago since I'd been that hyped up about an upcoming album, and it felt great! I haven't been checking out as much of the new content here on OCR as I would like in recent years (mostly just busier, sorrrrrry!), but I knew this album was going to be a must-get as soon as it was out for me, and I could not have been more right. To give some background, I never really considered myself much of a jazz fan until I discovered OCR many years ago, and just sort of absorbed a love of the genre of jazz through some kind of musical osmosis without even realizing it from the many excellent jazz remixes I've encountered here over the years. This eventually resulted in me becoming a fan of non-VGM related jazz music as well, and I have OCR to thank for that, which I could not be happier about!
So with that out of the way, few things could be more of a perfect storm than a Chrono Trigger Jazz Album for me, and it's every bit as awesome as I could have hoped for. A couple listens through, I can safely say that I love the way every single track flows, that perfect combination of keeping the source tune alive while improvising just works so well here. While I almost don't want to single any one track out, I'd be lying if I didn't mention "Dream of Green" cause let's face it, there is simply no such thing as too many remixes of "Secret of the Forest" and this one is as good as any that came before it!
Thanks for an awesome album, OC Jazz Collective!

Listening to the album now. Nice arrangements and playing in all the tracks, definitely a nice tribute!
My favourites on first listen:
- Time's Seal. Cool rendition of the original.
- Dream of Green. Forest theme lends itself well to jazz with the cool chord progressions and ambient mood. I love the strong accentuated chords in the "chorus". My favourite of the album. Also really like the bass and synth lead.
- Fight or Flight. Love the change at 1:10. Like that this one is more upbeat. And it has a drum solo!
- Driftwood. Another source very suited for jazz!
Really nice! All tracks were cool but the 4 above were my favourite.

Preview Chronology: http://youtu.be/3wiyaNlffwY Download Chronology: http://chronology.ocremix.org Torrent: http://bt.ocremix.org/torrents/Chronology_-_A_Jazz_Tribute_to_Chrono_Trigger.torrent I first played Chrono Trigger when I was seven years old. It was my introduction to JRPGs, anime, and most importantly, video game music. I can vividly remember watching my brother play this game... or was it a movie? It certainly wasn't Super Mario Bros. or Donkey Kong Country. It had complex writing and intricate characters put into a vast and colourful world accompanied by music you might expect to hear in a film. As I learned to play the game, it consumed me. I would rent the game every weekend for what seemed like years. It didn't matter how many times I had completed it because I could restart and it would seem like a new adventure every time. Needless to say, I have a bit of an addictive personality. Over the years, I would go on to obtain many new obsessions and interests that would come and go. Chrono Trigger, however, did not. I am 25 now and, after nearly two decades of playing the game, I can honestly say that it still remains an important part of my life and that every time I play it, I look at it with the same wide eyes and enthusiasm as when I was seven.
I explored Chrono Trigger through all of its facets whether it was trying to copy Akira Toriyama's art (and learning that I'm not very good at drawing), discussing the more intricate plot features on the forums at Chrono Compendium, actively awaiting the English dub of Radical Dreamers so that I could further my knowledge in the Chronoverse, or attempting to learn Yasunori Mitusda's score on piano. I believe at one point I had just about the entire soundtrack learned and it was this that nudged me in the direction of the video game music community and, eventually, OverClocked ReMix.
Fast-forward another half-decade and I decided to pitch the idea for a jazz-based Chrono Trigger album. It seemed like this was going to be an impossible task to accomplish given the genre restriction and general interest from other arrangers at the time so move ahead another couple years and the OC Jazz Collective was born. Through some fluke, I was able to assemble my own "dream team" of musicians and arrangers on OC ReMix who all shared a passion for jazz and video game music. I felt Chrono Trigger would be an ideal candidate for our first release given the game's quickly approaching 20th anniversary and the fact that Mitsuda's music lends itself so well to jazz and improvisation. The musicians and artists on this album have put in countless hours of practice and recording to produce an album which I think sounds authentic and natural. Jazz is a social music best captured in the moment... and while the production process of this album was anything but "in the moment," I think the album's sound and cohesiveness will speak for itself. It has been an honour getting to know and work with these talented artists from different parts of the world. Each of them brings their own unique sound and nuances to the album and without each and every one of them this album would not have been possible. I hope that our devotion to detail will be apparent in the music and that you will enjoy Chronology: A Jazz Tribute to Chrono Trigger.
 
- Dylan Wiest (Wiesty)

Cowboy Bebop Flashbacks anyone? lol. this is awesome!

no, it's just an unofficial OCR announcement thread. I just want Chrono series fans here to know about it & any updates to the project. where would I put something like that, DarkeSword ?

talk to me about it on the PoC discord server

Ok since this is public, I'll say this publicly.  I have offered repeatedly to take on this role and we have discussed it.  I have an MBA in Finance and a ton of accounting experience; this is what I do.  I did a budget template and financial statement templates and invited you to the Google sheets, I hope you've looked at them.  It's time to revisit these budgeting templates in a big way.  We need to have some serious conversations about budgeting.  Tom has just started back to school (yesterday), so my time is more available now to work on this with you.  
I totally understand everyone's feelings about YouTube ads, and I share these feelings.  It has a totally different perception than website ads, and it feels more like a personal "fuck you" when you're on YouTube and an ad pops in your face.  I fear that YouTube ads may have a negative impact overall.  But I totally understand your feelings about the different types of ads and your explanations are great.  Let's budget it out to see if it makes sense to continue them, or maybe there are other options we haven't explored yet.

Good question & points.
At this point in time we have a "budget surplus", but we do anticipate that filing for the 501c3 could be costly - I spoke with Nick from MAGFest, and they had actual counsel, and it took a good long while & cost five figures. I'm hoping we can do something faster & more streamlined and thus (hopefully much!) cheaper, but it's those types of things that are "operational" but only come up once in awhile. Beyond keeping the site functional, we really want to improve it AND the videos themselves, and we've been working on both, so our definition of "operational" includes improvements & striving towards goals, not JUST keeping the wheels turning.
The ads on the website ARE attached to the music in the sense that Google has the power to personalize them based on page content, which is exactly what they do with videos as well, but I hear you... it's a subjective thing, I don't think it's inherent, I think it's perceptual, but I see where you're coming from. This might be the biggest problem - the perception that YouTube ads are somehow functionally different in terms of how the revenue would be utilized. I don't know... it's not accurate, but I agree that this perception might exist.

I'm alright with it, provided the advertisements are going specifically to keep the site functioning, and if you are getting more than that, what's the plan for dealing with the rest of the revenue? As for how its different...
1.) It inherently feels more personal. The ads on the website are simply that, they aren't really attached to the music, but the website as a whole. Youtube ads on the otherhand....

2.) The perception of Youtube Ad Revenue is one of pure profit. People think banner ads help sites function, people think youtube ads are for making money.

I think perhaps some people draw a strong line between web ads & YouTube ads, but I'm waiting to hear why that is - it definitely deserves to be talked about, and I'm going to apologize in advance to any artists who feel we should have informed them first BEFORE even testing the waters. We see these ads as equivalent to the existing web ads, as being preferable to them, and as not representing a change in our existing policy, and we wanted a "dry run" & to measure their impact as scientifically as possible.
I'm interested in where this thread goes, and eager to answer any questions. Depending on the outcome, an official announcement will be made & sent out to artists in case folks don't monitor the forums. Some quick points:
@Brandon Strader's right in that we started testing this on June 13th of this year Since that date, $130.99 in ad revenue was generated from ALL YouTube ads combined, a portion of which goes to our channel network This is considerably less than what web ads USED to make, but ever since we tweaked them to get rid of obnoxious & irrelevant content, web ads have tanked... so this is more than they ARE making at present. It's worth noting that it took two months for anyone to really notice... in my mind this is a successful experiment JUST in terms of gauging the impact to the average viewer/listener. Ads have NOT yet been enabled for the 3000+ video back catalog - we are waiting to do that based on the outcome of this conversation and after an official announcement. At that point the ad $$$ would obviously be more, but it won't be one video, or even one artist's videos, making a huge contribution to that - it's the aggregate. We were also hoping to time that announcement with a parallel announcement of filing for 501c3 status and debuting new artist pages which do a better job of promoting the artist than our current layout. So, why would we do this at all when the Patreon is completely covering the site's operating costs, with SURPLUS?
An extremely fair question. To be honest, I hate managing the money side of OCR, I didn't sign up for this, and it's not something I derive joy in even contemplating. For the 501c3 I'm hoping someone on staff can take on the role of treasurer so I can free myself of it. Nevertheless, answers to the above question:
I'm an IT guy. I have backups for my backups. I don't like having a single point of failure, and without a meaningful form of ad revenue, the site's existence would rest solely with Patreon. Membership in a YT network has other benefits... increased reach, an extra level of protection from content matches, etc. Mainly, at least for me, I saw that our web ads completely tanked after we tweaked them to exclude annoying/irrelevant content. I don't think Google's ad model for websites is as good as their model for videos. I'd love to remove most if not all Google ads from this site, and only feature completely relevant stuff like Super Audio Cart, OverClocked Records, and also use that space to promote our existing/upcoming albums. It absolutely is; our content policy still applies, and always will. For the 501c3 filing, there would be additional clarity required surrounding what specifically counts as an operational or promotional cost, tying our hands a bit further, in addition to more specific IRS documentation requirements.

I have no objections. It's no different than advertisements on the site going to help pay for the site.

I'm kind of baffled that it's provoked such a negative reaction

We were testing the waters, getting an idea of how it would work, the different settings involved, how obtrusive it would be, etc. We did legitimately want to see whether people would notice, and when. The community definitely deserves to know and provide input, and if a majority (or potentially a plurality) of artists are uncomfortable with it, we can reassess, but I'll lay out the general thinking below and you can see what you think. We can use this thread to discuss; just need to keep things civil & productive. This is not civil or productive; I'm confused why you're still registered and taking the time to chime in, if you're so convinced that the music is mediocre, which is kind of an insult to all artists contributing to this thread, either way...
So this is surprising to me, because the way we see it, ads on videos are not materially different from ads on the website, all of which go directly towards funding the site. Nothing has changed, policy-wise.
From http://ocremix.org/info/Content_Policy
This remains 100% true; the only difference is that the ads are on YouTube instead of the website. We'd like to minimize or even eliminate ads on the website in favor of YouTube, primarily because they're more annoying, less relevant, affect layout/usability, and don't accomplish much. Based on @bLiNd's reaction, and perhaps others, it seems like people are drawing a major distinction between YouTube ads and ads on this website, and that's what this conversation needs to focus on, because from a policy perspective, again, nothing has changed - any $$$ goes towards operation & promotion, and the net effect is just that ads are offloaded from the site and onto videos, where we feel they make a bit more sense. No unskippable ads, FYI.
There are other benefits to being a partner channel, including enhanced reach and protection from instant takedowns, that seem to make this a smart move for us, but nothing is concrete - let's talk it through, but let's focus on the core question: how is this different from the status quo?

Maybe we could wait on @djpretzel/any staff member's answer before taking this too far?

No matter how you slice it, it just doesn't look good when a site that has always been there to deliver free vgm mixes to peoples' ears, despite having had trouble in the past with Square-Enix and has a thread explaining why the mixes cannot be on Spotify due to licensing...it still has monetized mixes on YouTube. As was suggested, it could be that it auto-monetizes them, but that still doesn't make me feel better about it.
If you want to put money into the site to keep online, it should be purely voluntary via buying a T-Shirt or straight-up donating.
 
 
 
 

Correct me if I'm wrong, but if OCR were to monetize the channel, wouldn't all of the videos have ads?

Maybe it is due to a new update in YouTube's bot, design, or something else, as Ivan suggested. My association got a video monetized (due to the use of a copyrighted song) although our monetization is deactivated. I'm sure there's a reasonable explanation (and there's no need to jump to OCR's throat without their explanation).

they still get 20% after the publisher gets their 80

This probably has nothing to do with ocremix. Same thing happened on the Dwelling of Duels youtube channel, and the thing is simple - if youtube recognizes the vgm source, even for a small part, it automatically monetizes the video.

I don't like it.  Don't get me wrong.  Ocremix has brought me a lot of opportunity and fans but the focus should be on the artist more than the entity of ocremix.   You guys have basically taken the liberty to make money off of music you didn't make and that's unfair 

This is something that needs to be addressed now that OCR has taken the plunge into monetizing the work of remixers on YouTube. This is the latest stop on the slippery slope of monetization that has been taking place on OCR. As far as I know, nobody was made aware that this change was going to be implemented. In short, it would be nice to know when this started and why.

Talk about spoilers. Thanks for ruining Tetris for me... 

Back on topic: Not any of the Mega Man series. It's either robots blowing up the world, or a world where humans are long dead. Oh, spoilers.
Another bad one would be anything with "shock" in it's title. Underwater cities filled with murderous citizens, sky cities with racist nationalists (who are also murderous), some damn computer system in space (again, murderous)... the whole "something shock" thing is not people-friendly.
Tetris would be a terrible world, mainly because there isn't one. Not by human standards. A narrow chasm there is no escaping, but then it starts to fill up until it it reaches an invisible barrier at the top, crushing everything in it. Sometimes the ground that is building up falls away, but that is only a momentary reprieve from the sky falling and the earth raising. Fuck that.

And while you're at it, ask for a copy of sun and moon for me. But seriously, the pokemon world has some impressive places.

Oh, Surge killed them with his bare hands or with a knife. He states that his pokémon " zapped my enemies into paralysis " ... letting him finish them off. And since there is never any sign of any kind of weapons aside from medieval-level swords and shields.. I'm thinking strangulation or vivisection. Or he used a parachute cord as a garrote.
Team Rocket's main modus operandi is to steal pokémon from non-trainers (who would be more capable of defending themselves) and then using them as either power sources (think about the Electrodes powering the Radio Transmitter in the secret base under Mahogany Town) or selling for money (the game center in Celedon City, for instance). Hell, their plan at Lake of Rage to force pathetic Magikarp into mighty Gyarados is so they can catch them for profit.
Turns out Team Rocket is less mafia and more unethical business.
But hey, it's just a theory. A game-specific, backed up with known instances and easily verifiable facts, based upon quick research to fill in any gaps from personal memory, but still accurate, theory.
Thanks for reading!

Yeah, most game worlds are absolutely filled with violent death looming around every corner.  Even gorgeous worlds like Wind Waker have monsters just everywhere.  And most of them are either a medieval setting, which means no plumbing, no basic hygiene, not much entertainment (although healthcare would vary widely based on potions and whatnot) or dystopian sci-fi (with its own forms of scarcity).
Pokemon would be a pretty decent choice.  It's based on the modern day, with internet and all, just with pokemon.  On the other hand, while there don't appear to be any conventional weapons, so no fear of mass shootings or bombings per se, some pokemon have some awfully destructive attacks.  Unleash a Hyper Beam or even a Surf in a crowded area and you'd have a lot of deaths on your hands, and there doesn't appear to be any kind of regulation.  It must be very Wild West behind the scenes, with the "good guy with a gun" mentality being the default.
Splatoon seems like it would be pretty good.  There's some conflict, but not many individuals are involved in it, and no one actually dies.  On the other hand, it's basically like the real world, so not much incentive to visit it.