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DarkeSword

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Posts posted by DarkeSword

    The Old Fogies From UnMod Thread

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    This is probably most relevant to the Unmod folks, so I guess I'll put it here. I've archived the Off-Topic forum, as the forums themselves have been pretty sleepy as a discussion space over the past few years; most of the forum activity happens in the Workshop sections. I don't feel like we particularly need a separate space for something as nebulous as "off-topic" anymore, so it's been moved to a read-only state.

    Our New Submissions Form

    in Announcements

    Posted

    Happy New Year, everyone!

    Just wanted to check-in and let you all know that we've got a new submissions process for remixes. Since the inception of the site, we've been asking you to host your file somewhere and send us an email with a bunch of information about your remix. This has lead to a lot of headaches on both your end and our end, but now we're finally moving forward with a more modern method.

    Introducing the new Submissions Tracking page! We've used our forum software to build out a custom form where you can upload your track directly to us. This post will get a status and linked to a decision thread, and it also features a comments section where judges can communicate with you about issues with your remix. Submissions are private, so only you and the judges can see them. In the coming months we'll be retiring the old email method of submitting remixes with an auto-response that'll direct folks towards the new system.

    This new form, combined with our recently revamped Currently in the Judging Process dashboard, will help you keep tabs on your submissions.

    A big shout out to all of the ReMixers and Judges who helped me test out this new system. I've had ideas for years for turning our submissions and judging workflows into a fully integrated piece of software, and while the limitations of our forum software prevent us from hitting that goal 100%, this is a huge step in the right direction.

    I'm looking forward to hearing what you all are going to send us. ?

    — DarkeSword

    Problem with the upload function in the comments

    in Site Issues & Feedback

    Posted

    We recently got rid of the Contributors user group, which had certain permissions tied to it, but was vaguely defined on our end it didn't make a lot of sense to keep around. A side-effect of this was that upload quotas were tied to that group.

    I've adjusted the upload quota and permitted file types for Members. You should be able to upload again. Thanks for your continued participation in Workshop! Hope this helps.

    *NO* 3D Pinball: Space Cadet "Into the Black Hole"

    in Judges Decisions

    Posted

    I took a quick listen to this paying specific attention to the quoted section. I think djpretzel summed this up pretty well in the decision referenced by Brad above, and I think it still holds true. He wrote:

    Quote

    I suppose I'm the bad guy on this one, so let me throw in my two cents...

    ...

    Problem is, it's not clearly, first and foremost, a game music arrangement. I don't want to open the floodgates to similar mash-ups, however well-crafted, where Mega Man is fused with Creedence Clearwater or Luther Vandross mixed in Final Fantasy or ABBA spliced with Sonic. It's not a direction I think the site needs to go in, and it's not a direction I want it to go in, either.

    The submissions standards have been revised with the addition of the following text:

    [url=http://www.ocremix.org/about/?artid=4 said:
    Submission Instructions & Standards]Please ensure that submissions are primarily composed of arranged game music plus your own original additions. Any incorporation of non-game music (mainstream, classical, etc.) should be very limited and should never carry significant portions of the mix. For example, a Mega Man mix that used Beethoven's 9th symphony for its chorus, where 15-25% of the mix was not from the game itself, would likely be rejected.

    This does indeed suck for the mixers, who've put together some good, enjoyable music, but I simply feel that posting this would be setting a precedent for even more liberal mash-ups, and the idea is to honor game music by reinterpreting it - while melding it with external sources is a creative and musical act, or at least can be as these artists have shown, in my book it doesn't jive with the site's mission statement, and is similar to our existing rule that popular movie themes like Star Wars which happen to be used in games don't "count" either.

    More than two cents, I know, but the music was good and the mixers deserved a more thorough explanation.

    In full agreement here, and while Dave was referencing a different work, it holds true here: I think this is a good arrangement but the non-VGM quotes are too substantial, IMO. The brief Strauss quote is fine, but the extended BTBAM quote just takes up too much of the piece. It'd be nice to see a revised version for OCR, but also I get the artistic choices at play here. As it stands though, it's a NO.

    Minor issue in RSS feed

    in Site Issues & Feedback

    Posted

    This is a limitation of Invision's RSS feed implementation. They adhere pretty strictly to the RSS 2.0 specification, which states that the author field is meant to be an email address, which they will not expose in an RSS feed due to privacy concerns.

    I know it *feels* dumb but there it is. Apologies. I suppose in the future we'll sign our Announcements when they're first-person style.

    Ahead on our way...

    in Announcements

    Posted

    Well it's been about a week or two, so as the new guy in charge, I figure I ought to say something, right?

    When djpretzel started the process of handing over the keys to the family car, I have to admit I was pretty overwhelmed. OCR is one of the oldest and most rock-solid sites on the internet; I've often said that we're older than YouTube, older than smartphones, and older than a lot of things on the internet that, by virtue of their ubiquity, feel like institutions. OCR is an institution. There's a lot of weight in those keys.

    So what am I going to do with OCR now that I'm in the driver's seat? In the short term: keep driving. Our main goal is going to be continuity; that is to say, keep posting ReMixes on a regular basis. We've got a pretty big backlog of ReMixes that are ready for the spotlight, and our excellent and talented community continues to send us new music all the time, so we're not worried about running out. But there sure is a lot of behind-the-scenes process involved with getting these tracks in your ears, so bear with us while the staff--with djpretzel's help--figures all of this out.

    I still believe that there's a case to be made for the curation model that we've developed and adhered to for 20+ years, so we're still going to have a Judges Panel that's going to evaluate submissions, and the bar for quality that the judges look for isn't shifting in any direction.

    One of our goals in this changeover is to decentralize a lot of process off of one person. djpretzel did a lot on his own, and as we look at some things behind-the-scenes, maybe he didn't have to. I want OCR to be a place that can be run by a trusted group of people without a single point-of-failure. Case-in-point: literally one week after I take on leadership at OCR, my 8-month-old son brings home COVID from somewhere and gets the whole house sick, and we're having OCR staff meetings and figuring out how to post ReMixes while I'm coughing up a lung. Unbelievable. So I'm also hoping to bring more people onto the OCR staff. I've already pulled in some folks from the community, and we're going to figure out how to provide avenues for more people to help out if they're interested. Keep an eye out.

    Beyond that though, I've got a couple of ideas for improvements and features that have been brewing for a while that I'm going to start to pursue, leveraging some existing tech we already have and also exploring some new tech. For those that are unaware, my day job is working as a web and application developer at a major university. It's something I've been doing for 15 years and I have a pretty solid handle on building database-driven web applications. I'm going to bring a little of that experience to OCR, and hopefully we can eventually have some cool toys and tools in place to help move the site forward. Some things to look forward to:

    • I've already put together a Currently in the Judging Process dashboard for ReMixers and hopefuls to keep an eye on. It's a live view of the judging process without having to wait for a Judge to update a forum thread.
    • We're actively developing and testing a proper Submission form for ReMixers and hopefuls to use when sending us music. We've been asking you to send us an email for far too long. That's going to change.
    • We've put together a "stream team" to evaluate how we can do more with our YouTube channel and even get things going on Twitch in some capacity.

    There are a lot more things we're talking about internally as well, but I don't want to over-promise anything right now.

    If you have ideas for OCR, feel free to share them in our Site Issues & Feedback forum. I'd also love for folks to come by and join our OC ReMix Discord server. I know the forums have been pretty sleepy for a few years now, but the chat server is lively and active. Hope to see you there.

    *NO* Undertale "Everyone Craves (Death by Glamour)"

    in Judges Decisions

    Posted

    I appreciate that you worked for 5 years on this track, goodness knows I've got a few of those as well. What can be said about this piece that hasn't already been said? It's too long. It takes too long to get to the section at 4:07. You've done two loops of the material before you get to the really good solo section. And then after the solo section, you loop a huge chunk of that material again. I understand that you worked in some variations but TBH the loops still sound similar enough that it doesn't come through. The piece is high energy so the fatigue's set in at that point. It's just not exciting or interesting to hear it again. Don't get me wrong; I'm a firm believer in reiteration of musical ideas as a compositional technique. But it's not working here.

    I don't mind the sample quality so much; the sequencing could do with some humanization but it's not a dealbreaker for me. I think certain elements that you're trying to showcase are getting lost in the mix though. Flute, guitar, glockenspiel, etc. Needs a mixing and balance pass.

    I like this but for me it's a NO, resub.

     

    Game Set Mash!! (GSM2) - Metroid vs. Castlevania

    in Competitions

    Posted

    Welcome back to Game Set Mash!!, a team-based, long-form competition format for the OC ReMix community!

    Current Status

    Game Set Mash!! 2 has come to a close with Team Metroid coming out on top! Congratulations to everyone who participated!

    Scores 

            | Metroid       | Caslevania    |
Round 1 | 6(sub) 6(won) | 6(sub) 0(won) |
Round 2 | 6(sub) 4(won) | 6(sub) 2(won) |
Round 3 | 6(sub) 3(won) | 6(sub) 3(won) |
--------+---------------+---------------+
Total   | 31            | 23            |

    How does the competition work?

    • Participating remixers will form 2 teams of at least 3 members each.
    • Each team will be assigned a set of 3 games.
    • The competition lasts 6-7 weeks, with 10-day mixing rounds alternating with 4-day voting periods.
    • At the start of the mixing round, each team will choose and reveal 1 source tune from each of their 3 games.
    • Each source will be paired with another source from the opposing team, for a total of 3 pairs.
    • Each team will be responsible for writing 3 remixes for the week that combine (or mash) both source tunes in each pair.
    • At the end of the mixing round, we'll upload the remixes and have a community vote.
    • Voters will vote on the 3 remixes that did the best job of mashing the two source tunes together.
    • Teams will accumulate a score based on how many of the community votes they win.
    • In the next mixing round, we'll rotate which games get paired up with opposing games.

    What are the rules about teams?
    I want to make things easy and accessible for people to participate, so there's no maximum on team size, but I will be asking people to do their best to even out the teams once we have all of our participants signed up. Unlike previous competitions I've run, there's no rules about who has to be a primary arranger for a track from week to week. Teams will be free to organize and determine how each of the three remixes gets covered. Using your teammates for collaboration and feedback is highly encouraged.

    What are the games we're remixing?

    • The Metroid games are: Super Metroid, Metroid Fusion, and Metroid Prime.
    • The Castlevania games are: Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse, Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, and Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow.

    This seems like it'll take a long time, when does it start?
    I'm aiming to gather interest here on the forums and in our Discord and I'd like to start in November, depending on if we can get some sizable teams. I would love to have around 6-7 people on each team to really get the spirit of collaboration going. I understand that the holiday season gets busy, so depending on interest levels, we could delay until January, but I'd love to get things rolling earlier.

    [GSM 1] Round 3 Voting

    in Public Voting

    Posted

    Voting Guidelines

    Teams were tasked with writing three mashup arrangements of two songs each, one from a SNES Final Fantasy game and the other from a PSX Final Fantasy game. These are the source tunes that were selected for this round.

    In order to make your vote, download the remixes and for each pair, choose the remix that fulfills the following criteria (listed in order of importance):

    • The remix arranges both source tunes in an interesting and identifiable way into one cohesive piece of music.
    • The remix is well-produced within the conventions of the genre.
    • The remix is enjoyable to listen to.

    You can also use this thread to leave comments about the tracks. Remember to be kind and constructive. Thanks for listening, and thanks for voting!

    > Download the Round 3 Remix Pack <

    *NO* Chrono Trigger "It Doesn't Have to Be This Way"

    in Judges Decisions

    Posted

    On 7/10/2023 at 8:51 AM, prophetik music said:

    this arrangement does not use dynamics as a compositional device outside of a very specific section for about 30 seconds in the middle. the majority of the work takes place within an octave range, with a few notes higher and one notable section that is lower with sustains. there are no extended techniques utilized - no glissandi, no microtonal examples (which would be particularly useful when going between the two themes to help represent the disjointed nature of the section), no breath attacks or altered articulation methods outside of triple-tonguing, no mutes or altered horn methods - so there's nothing there to draw the ear either. and again, there's not even vibrato on the few sustains we do have, so there's not even really any contrast ultimately in tsori's timbre throughout. you can say that i'm splitting hairs, but ultimately there is nothing here that stands out as remarkable.

    This sums it up for me, to be honest. It's incredibly daring to write a monophonic solo arrangement for any instrument, but if you're going to do it, you've got to do more than what's here. Larry said he's not tired of it after 3 minutes; I'm tuning out after 2. T'sori's good, that's for sure, but most of this arrangement leans hard on triple-tonguing and that's about it. I'm not saying that's easy to do. But it's also not all that interesting to listen to.

    Also something that bothers me is that I think given the solo nature of this piece is that it's *really* hard, as a listener, to nail down the tempo and meter at any given time. I feel like there are certain parts where T'sori stops to breathe or moves to another section but the meter simply doesn't line up. What feels like a 6/8 section suddenly becomes 5/8 because of a rushed sustain, or even 11/16, but I feel like that's unintentional and it's just an odd timing flub. This piece feels too short to be divided into movements where the pauses between sections are not tied to meter, but the transitions between sections just feel like "whenever I've caught my breath and am ready to play the next part." Would be interesting to hear this against a click-track that accounted for the intended tempo and meter changes.

    I am thrilled to see people attempting arrangements like this, so keep at it, but for this piece in particular I think we need more depth and dynamics, and a tighter performance WRT timing.

    NO

    [GSM 1] Round 2 Voting

    in Public Voting

    Posted

    Voting Guidelines

    Teams were tasked with writing three mashup arrangements of two songs each, one from a SNES Final Fantasy game and the other from a PSX Final Fantasy game. These are the source tunes that were selected for this round.

    In order to make your vote, download the remixes and for each pair, choose the remix that fulfills the following criteria (listed in order of importance):

    • The remix arranges both source tunes in an interesting and identifiable way into one cohesive piece of music.
    • The remix is well-produced within the conventions of the genre.
    • The remix is enjoyable to listen to.

    You can also use this thread to leave comments about the tracks. Remember to be kind and constructive. Thanks for listening, and thanks for voting!

    > Download the Round 2 Remix Pack <

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