DarkeSword

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.

Folks, given my added responsibilities here at OCR along with some feedback about start times from some of you, I'd like to push GSM2 to January. Excited to run this!

Feeling like this is more of a sound upgrade. Doesn't sound bad but certainly has a BGM quality to its arrangement. Feel like the energy levels don't really go anywhere here. The choir sections add a little but overall I feel like this is too close to what the source is already doing. It's a NO from me.

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.

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.

Voting thread for Round 3 is up!

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. FF4 - "Welcome to Our Town!" vs FF9 - "Not Alone" FF5 - "Unknown Lands" vs FF7 - "Cosmo Canyon" FF6 - "Terra's Theme / Overworld" vs FF8 " Under Her Control" 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 <

Of course they’re not the same. They’re arrangements!

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

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. FF4 - The Red Wings vs FF8 - Compression of Time FF5 - Cursed Earths vs FF9 - Freya's Theme FF6 - Forever Rachel vs FF7 - Tifa's Theme 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 <

Matchups for Round 2 are up. LET'S MASH!!

Voting is up. Everyone (including competitors) is encouraged to vote!

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. FF4 - Within the Giant vs FF7 - Crazy Motorcycle FF5 - To the North Mountain vs FF8 - Fisherman's Horizon FF6 - Edgar & Sabin's Theme vs FF9 - Place of Memory ~ Memoria Theme 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 1 Remix Pack <

Remixes are up. Check the link in the first post. Voting thread will go up later today.

I'm not really impressed with this one TBH. I hear what Brad is pointing out with the shape of the 3-note motif being used in the cello in the intro, but I think that this deviates too much from its expression in the source. The contour is there but some of these intervals are changed up. This is not as much of a dealbreaker for me as the rest of the piece, however. What I'm finding is that once the actual pulsing line from the source is showcased here, it's largely just used as an ostinato underneath some original vocal writing on top. This feels more like "here is my very fancy choir sample library." It doesn't feel like the choir is actually arranging or engaging with the source. Just layering a lot of premade phrases. The end result is a haunting soundscape for sure, but it feels like the source is the seasoning instead of the meat. I understand the YES votes from other Js and I'm not here to change anyone's mind, but it's a NO from me.

I have no real issues with this and I'm not gonna nitpick. I mentioned to you on Discord that this slaps hard. Great performances, love the arrangement. Really enjoyed this one. YES

Yeah still a NO from me. Look: I love this arrangement and these performances. This is an all-timer! The energy shifts and changes, you change things up rhythmically in really cool ways. It honestly sounds like something you'd hear off of a really great official arrange album. I want this track to be on OCR, it's something people would love, especially Monster Hunter fans. But this needs to shine in terms of sound quality. I'm also hearing the distortion artifacts. The drums and guitar are not playing nice with each other. We desperately need to get some eyes and ears on this.

Matchups are UP in the first post. GO GO GO!!

First post updated with NEW INFO.