H36T

I'm really excited - we have some cool stuff planned ahead!

It's a huge pleasure to be fulfilling this role!
Over the coming weeks, you'll be seeing my mug replying to your posts in the workshop and (if I'm doing things right) I'll be providing you with means to make improvements to your writing, arranging, and/or mixing. Can't wait to hear more of what y'all have cooking out there!

I agree with Mindwander's comments on motifs and evolution. Sometimes I get lost in the sauce trying to evolve and transform pieces but there are different ways and methods of transformations! Great insight and wonderful track.

You're browsing OCR in between Inuyasha episodes, a Mama Celeste pizza is in the microwave. Jennifer Gardner is going to be Elektra in a new Marvel movie. MkVaff has released a techno mix of an NES game. The year is 2024.

Big AP doing his thing on the track and of course Colorado too doing her thing as well. This track makes me so happy. Congrats guys and bravo.

It's always wonderful to see someone try a piano solo mix. This was really gorgeous too. The playing is great and the arrangement itself is adventurous but the essence is somehow still quite faithful to me. Makes me want a Piano Collections part 2! Thanks for sharing your vision with us.

Even though it's before my time, glad to see old PRC mixes live on among the community. Really makes me wonder how we can continue it's legacy in a more modern way? Anyway, great job here and looking forward to your next tune!

I also got something in albeit an older tune. Like Hemo said, this has been such a great place for learning and I can't believe all the progress I made through this compo and mnp. Every piece I've gotten into accepted into OCR at this point has gone through either MnP or PRC. I hope in the future, we have other things for new artists that will be as influential to them as PRC has been to me. Thanks for all the hard work guys!

I also got something in albeit an older tune. Like Hemo said, this has been such a great place for learning and I can't believe all the progress I made through this compo and mnp. Every piece I've gotten into accepted into OCR at this point has gone through either MnP or PRC. I hope in the future, we have other things for new artists that will be as influential to them as PRC has been to me. Thanks for all the hard work guys!

I also got something in albeit an older tune. Like Hemo said, this has been such a great place for learning and I can't believe all the progress I made through this compo and mnp. Every piece I've gotten into accepted into OCR at this point has gone through either MnP or PRC. I hope in the future, we have other things for new artists that will be as influential to them as PRC has been to me. Thanks for all the hard work guys!

Hey, not everything needs to be for the site, this is a cool little arrangement regardless. Loved the changes you made at 1:56, it helped keep the next pass fresh.
Hope others give it a listen

I tried to keep this brief, but as you might know, that's not my forte.
FIRST, the facts...
On October 28th I informed staff that I was stepping down from my role as president/admin/owner/etc. of OverClocked ReMix, and on November 1st I also stepped down from the board of Game Music Initiative, the 501c3 non-profit organization that funds OCR. In short, I no longer feel I have the bandwidth to do these roles justice and to not only maintain, but advance, the missions of both projects. I will be working with Shariq Ansari (DarkeSword) to transition my responsibilities and ensure continuity of operations. The (excellent!) mix posted on Halloween was published without my direct involvement, subsequent posts up to the milestone #OCR04500 have been superbly executed, and I am confident that staff will continue the work necessary to operate - and evolve - OCR in my absence. I will be even less available than I have been, lately, so I apologize in advance for any lack of responsiveness.
THEN, the feels...
Where to even begin?
It's hard to encapsulate over two decades of history; omissions are inevitable. What began as a neat side project I started in my parents' basement in 1999 snowballed into something far beyond my wildest expectations, due to the blood, sweat, tears, and unbridled, rampant creativity that thousands of you have contributed. Much of this happened before social media was even a thing and before the platforms/services we now heavily associate with the modern internet had come into being; it was a frontier, and we were on it, and we took it pretty seriously because we knew how amazing VGM is, how creative arrangements could effectively convey and explore that vast musical landscape, and how a small fandom communicating via email, IRC, & forums could collaborate to build mighty, new things. We took it seriously, often too seriously, but we ALSO played more than a few rounds of Shaq-Fu at conventions, made some truly ridiculous (but always musical!) joke mixes, and developed internal circles of lore with our own memes & jargon.
NOT in strictly chronological order: there was some drama with now-legendary composer Jake Kaufman; VGMix entered the fray; we added a judges panel so it wasn't just me making stuff up; we released our first community album; the unmoderated forum birthed its own sort of... subculture; the site itself evolved to be database-driven and not just two giant dropdowns sorted by game/date; we posted mixes submitted by composers George "The Fat Man" Sanger and Jeremy Soule; we met/interviewed Hiroki Kikuta and Nobuo Uematsu; our album trailers by the incomparable José the Bronx Rican started blowing minds; we started appearing in person at Otakon, PAX, MAG, others - much love to all for having us; we bumped into Leeroy Jenkins at ROFLcon and gave him a hoodie; we started hosting from our own server and managing the technical side of things ourselves; thanks to Mr. Shael Riley (among others!), we got to remix the music for an actual Street Fighter game (!!); we released fifteen more albums...
...and then we turned ten, on December 11th of 2009.
Quite a first decade, and I missed hundreds of things I shouldn't have. Hundreds of firsts, some tragic lasts, and millions of memories that can't quite be conjured by words.
In 2011, we stood up for Fair Use at World’s Fair Use Day, an event organized by the non-profit Public Knowledge.
In 2012, we launched our kickstarter for Final Fantasy VI: Balance and Ruin, it was taken down, we talked with Square lawyers directly for a couple hours and made the non-profit project structure clear & contractual, and we relaunched a successful kickstarter. That's not always how those things go!
We launched Game Music Initiative in 2016, creating an official 501c3 charity to formalize the finances around OCR and potentially support other VGM-related projects, too. On a related note, I’ve absolutely loved seeing OC ReMixes featured by charity speedrunners Games Done Quick (GDQ) - it’s exactly the type of thing I always wanted to see, that synergy.
Things do start getting a little quieter from then on out, and I think there are a ton of reasons for that, but it has been an incredible and improbable journey that I wouldn't have missed for the world. Thank you ALL for making it possible; OCR was always yours, I aspired only to stewardship of something I wanted to exist for everyone.
FINALLY, the future…
It's time - some would say past time - for OverClocked ReMix itself to be ReMixed.
That's the point, right?
Infinite permutation; endless possibility.
You don't always know the day, month, or even year when your influence on something starts holding it back, or when the waning amount of time and energy you can dedicate becomes a liability. That type of certainty is often elusive; it can be a difficult diagnosis to even contemplate, and you need to look for & listen to signs. In addition to just being too much of a single point of failure for OCR (sorry, engineering mindset), the last year I've been asking myself whether it was time to let go, and I think the answer is sometimes in the asking. I have been stretched thin, like butter scraped over too much bread, and that's when you leave the Shire.
Beyond representing what I genuinely believe is best for the future of OCR, I absolutely confess a personal wish to redirect reclaimed time & energy to my family and my own music. Being a husband to my wife Anna and being a father to our daughters Esther and Sarah is my meaning; I have always put them first, but now I can put them even MORE first. Esther just started learning trombone, so in a few years, expect a collab! Sarah is building her confidence learning piano & makes me proud every day. I want to write new music for them, and with them, and that requires more time than I've had.
I believe the principles that have driven us - embracing all games & all styles of music, emphasizing interpretation & creativity, offering both curation and critique, and providing a non-commercial platform for those who seek it - are truly timeless, but there are many ways to honor them.
I look to the new leadership/staff to galvanize, streamline, diversify, and re-imagine, within that immense space.
I'll be leaving them with some ideas of my own; please let them know yours. I ask the community to support them, embrace change, provide guidance, and be patient; I believe it will be worth it!
Thanks,
- djpretzel
 

We're getting the band back together 

One more for the road.
@TheVideoGamer @Wassup Thunder @The Vodoú Queen@Souperion
@APZX @HoboKa
Y'all down?
 

We're getting the band back together 

We're getting the band back together 

We're getting the band back together 

One more for the road.
@TheVideoGamer @Wassup Thunder @The Vodoú Queen@Souperion
@APZX @HoboKa
Y'all down?
 

We're getting the band back together 

Mmmmmm I'm pretty torn. To participate or not, that is the question. I don't know the music from these games very well.

One more for the road.
@TheVideoGamer @Wassup Thunder @The Vodoú Queen@Souperion
@APZX @HoboKa
Y'all down?
 

One more for the road.
@TheVideoGamer @Wassup Thunder @The Vodoú Queen@Souperion
@APZX @HoboKa
Y'all down?
 

One more for the road.
@TheVideoGamer @Wassup Thunder @The Vodoú Queen@Souperion
@APZX @HoboKa
Y'all down?
 

One more for the road.
@TheVideoGamer @Wassup Thunder @The Vodoú Queen@Souperion
@APZX @HoboKa
Y'all down?
 

Hey everyone is allowed to have their opinion. Maybe you are more a fan of conservative arrangements or even more classical approaches? Some of the tracks are definitely on the deeper end of the creative spectrum lol.