oakthielbar

Yeah, I didn't think that pretty much anyone from those days would actually still be around, much less remember what I said (except maybe Pretzel because of some shit I said to him to get a week-long ban). It was just one of those things where I was looking through my activity history and was thinking "but surely I wasn't like this for the other three pages of activity - okay two pages - okay WOW". Going through and editing in addenda to each of those comments felt like a cheap way to sneak in apologies, and I wanted to just get one big apology out there for anyone who might need to see it. I honestly don't remember a lot about the internet back then - I was just young enough that nothing about the discourse itself stuck in my head since platforms (at least in my head) seamlessly transitioned to social media, and that came with an inherent change in interactions. I do seem to remember more flame wars prior to social media, but then again, I just split the moment I see one starting anymore, so maybe it's the bubble I've created for myself. I think people here have essentially said this already, but it seems like we weren't always individually focused on building a community and interacting with each other in that context - we just thought we had a shared passion and a space to talk/argue with others about that passion. That was certainly the case for me. Saying this stuff makes me feel old, haha

Okay, that's what I figured. It just kinda took me be surprised, haha. Yeah, now that you mention it, people really were just generally meaner in places like forums and chat rooms back then. Perhaps a lot of that has just moved to Twitter and Facebook these days. You too, huh? Were we pretty much all just teenagers or in our early 20s back then? Kind of incredible to think of everything that was accomplished considering how young we were. I don't know how active I'll be on OCR (forums or otherwise) now or in the future, but it feels good to know that I'm welcome. <3

Okay, honestly not quite the response I expected, so I'll take these one at a time. 1. I don't want anyone's wives. That's some serious commitment, and I think it might be illegal. 2. Non-consensual concubines are called sex slaves these days, and that shit is bad. Bad bad. <- not being playful about this one 3. However, if these were consensual concubines (I assume that is straight person talk for pup play?), not my kink. 4. I'm going to strongly suggest that we talk about slaves and slavery only in very serious contexts and in very sensitive ways, as they are topics of extreme gravity whose effects we are still grappling with today (at the least in the USA, and I assume elsewhere). Pretty sure a person of color who might be considering joining the community would be more than a little put off by stuff like that. <- not being playful about this one 5. Throneseat sounds rad, but I make no promises about returning, and fuck reigning, I'm here to bring anarcho-syndicalism. 6. I do appreciate a good erection. 7. Is this a common tone for discussions around here? I feel really weird about this conversation. I feel weird about most conversations, but this one is pretty high on the weirdness scale.

Hey everyone, I used to be a semi-active member of the forums, and thanks to the incredible support I've received from @Liontamer about updating my name on this website (both my forum name - formerly artemisjaeger - and my actual name as a remixer/human - formerly Kevin Stephens), I have been looking through my past activity on this forum. I've reached an inescapable conclusion. I was a toxic member of the community. I won't go into the details here - I've edited almost every one of my posts to add an apology at the end, so you can just open my profile and look through my activity if you want to know more - but what I do want to do is say thank you to everyone that ever called me out for my poor behavior, and I especially want to apologize to anyone and everyone I was hateful and mean toward. I was essentially a bully, and I can only imagine how many people I made to feel discouraged or hurt. Not one person deserves that. Everyone who contributes to this community is doing incredible work, whether that's through forum posts or making music, and I'm really glad to see that OCR is still thriving. Oak

When I saw another SoE arrangement by Shnabubula up on the page, I threw my hands up in excitement. Very happy me. The song is amazing, and perhaps even more so than usual - they're always fantastic, but this stands out.

Me like. The arrangement isn't gaudy or show-offish, which is the biggest problem I have with the majority of piano pieces and guitar pieces, and with both together, I would have expected some musicianship masturbation odyssey thing. But nope. Also, the tone on the piano is making me feel all melty. In a good way.

Fantastic work. Dhsu and Mustin, you two are excellent together.

YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS Mmmmmmmmmm. Ahhhh. Oh yes.

Gorgonian! I saw your name on the front page and was like, "YES!" You were easily one of the (if not the singular) most promising orchestral arranger back on VGMix2, so it is incredibly exciting to see that you've continued your great arrangements. That said, this is an exceptional piece. I feel like it really managed to avoid a lot of the cliches that most VG orchestral arrangements are prone to, which is a huge plus in my book. I think what really does it for me is that you managed to get a very full sound here - phenomenal orchestration. In fact, if you wouldn't mind, I'd love to see a copy of the score. Please, don't ever stop arranging/writing music. And please, submit more stuff to OCR so that we can all enjoy it!

Another Soundscape is clearly one of the finest artists on this site. The production on this is flawless.

It's sloppy in a few places, but certainly nothing extreme. As a whole, this is a fantastic take on the source material - they take the melodies and make them sound like they were always supposed to be jazz. Very impressive. I do agree that there's a bit too much solo wankery, though, and SuperBuckJazz did do the same thing (but better). BUT I think that should be a challenge rather than a criticism - if this group keeps it up, I fully believe that they will far exceed anyone's expectations. Edit: Sorry for being an ass about this. My comments were out of line, and I was rightly called out on it. Good piece of music with a smart and creative arrangement.

This song would not be half as good with pitched percussion or melody of any kind. Just my two cents.

YES YES YES YES This makes me a happy man. A happy man indeed.

Wow. Impressive.

Too repetitive my butt. This is fantastic work - precisely what I have been waiting to hear on this site for a long, long time. Best piece in months - maybe even a year. Okay, okay, perhaps the best piece here period. Maybe. It's definitely up there. And wouldn't you know it? It almost got shot down.

Shnabubula, you never cease to please.

The piece is very good as a whole. I feel that the FF8 portions clash quite a bit and I did not like the sound of the heavily flanged chanting. The use of the "classical" instruments also kinda took away from what seemed to be the intended feel of the piece. But those don't overshadow the clever arrangement and general excellence of this mix.

Hm. May just be the synth (and maybe even the beats), but this reminds me a bit of the first track on Ratatat's self-titled album. Very interesting remix and well made.

To hell with the criticism being leveled against this remix. It's creative, interesting, and just damn good. Those animal noises and stuff? Very nice touch. "Funky chords" is a very appropriate description, though not because they're weird. Those chords drive the piece forward and lock it into a nice groove. I actually regret that he didn't develop everything a bit more. The whole thing reminds me of Shpongle for some reason, and if it had continued in the direction it was going, I imagine that it would have been pretty obvious. I wish it had. That's the flaw with this song - it cuts off right as it gets into a really nice groove. Everything felt like an intro once you get to that point, but then you only get a moment with it. OCR needs more stuff like this.

Okay. So... umm.... AWESOME. And by that, I mean that this is one of the best pieces on the site.

Am I really that notorious? I think I'll take it as a compliment - and I'm trying to just keep my negative opinions to myself now. It's caused me nothing but trouble (and now I'm known for being an asshole and Pretzel probably wants me dead!) BUT that aside, this piece is the usual Patrick Waters brilliance. I'm surprised it took so long to get posted here, really. The samples don't really show off the arrangement in the way it needs to be heard, but you can still tell how fantastic this is. Real attention to detail and Waters' knowledge of composition techniques are just so apparent. And his use of the samples is really good - he pushes them to their limits. I really love the build to the climax, because when it releases, it's just glorious. And I would like to echo all of the other sentiments - this needs a live performance.

I must say, I'm very impressed. I was expecting the average piece of junk cheese that gets posted for orchestral pieces, but the orchestration and arrangement were actually very good. I had no intention of ever posting on OCR again, but this was just too good to not compliment. The violins fudged a couple of spots and the tone changes a bit too abruptly for me right after the climax, but all in all, I'd say this may be the best orchestral arrangement ever posted here.

Potentially awesome remix that is brought down substantially by cheesy orchestral elements. Piano alone would have blown me away, though. EDIT: Actually awesome piece and I was just an asshole. I'm sorry.

This reminds me a fair amount of a more dramatic Jeremy Soule. Or rather, like a more dramatic version of Jeremy Soule's ambient tracks from the Elder Scrolls series. Perhaps maybe mostly for the first part. At some points, it works really well - at others, I think it's a bit too much - not enough down time and too much "cymbal crash! Strrriiiiiiings!" The intro especially seemed to be getting off to a wonderful start, and then suddenly we had runs in the strings and woosh! Drama! I would have liked to hear the slow part really play with some chords and melodic ideas. Also, the piece feels like it stays in a certain pitch range for the majority of its duration, but I might be wrong on that. Still, I would have liked to hear more contrast in highs and lows. But! That's not enough of a problem to bring down the really great aspects of this piece. Easily Vampire Hunter Dan's best work that I can remember. I do wish that he would have developed the slow sections a lot more and ultimately increased the length of the song that way, but his ideas here are creative and well executed. His use of brass here is also flawless, and THAT alone is worth almost infinite praise on OCR. We need more stuff like this!

Music like this is why I still listen to OCR. This is the totally expected brilliance that you always hear out of Shnabubula, but it never, EVER gets old. djP's rant about Shnabubula in the writeup was totally inappropriate though. Seems to me like if he has a problem with what Shnabubula did, he can talk about it in a forum post, or most ideally, in private messages. Doing it like this is extremely petty and an obvious attempt to rub it in Shnabubula's face.