The Coop   Members

This is pure opinion, based off of observations. So keep that in mind as you prep your flamethrowers... Metal and Rock are still doing just fine... outside of America. It's thriving with bands like Powerwolf, Orden Ogan, Accept, Edguy, Nightwish, and the many other bands that fall under various "power," "thrash," "symphonic," etc. monikers from other countries. The problem is, that in America, unless a given foreign band has been around for a good while, or comes to the U.S. a lot, many of those bands don't have the name recognition to carry them around in the U.S. and garner them attention (outside of labels like Napalm Records at least). Sure, there are bands like Iron Maiden, AD/DC and Accept that get noticed when they come to the U.S., but they don't really draw in droves of new fans. Instead, they get by mostly with those who have been listening to them for years (or decades). Now granted, we 'muricans have a few of our own Rock and Metal bands. Metallica, KISS, Megadeth, Van Halen, Anthrax, Rob Zombie, Alice Cooper and others who do well when they tour. But they're familiar names that draw in the same fans again and again, while slowly pulling in new ones. And though it may not seem like it, these bands are still inspiring people to join the Rock 'N Roll fray. YouTube's copious amount of young electric guitar players shows that the idea of being a rocker is still out there, but you have to remember that the term "rock star" isn't just about playing Rock or Metal. It's the idea of being on stage, in front of thousands of people that are watching you perform, hearing you sing/speak, and getting whatever message you're putting forth. And while there are new faces coming into the world of Rock and Metal, more faces seem to be headed into other genres to find that "rock star" life. There has to be a reason for this, right? A cause of some kind that's making certain genres more attractive to young musicians. Well, think about it. We live in a world of "I want it NOW!" People expect instant results, and want to put in as little effort as they can get away with. With that in mind, here's a quick question. What genres generally require you to be able to play an instrument? Country, Rock/Metal, Classical, Folk, and their ilk that involves guitars, drums, pianos, violins, flutes, various brass instruments, etc. What genres generally don't require this? Pop, Rap, the various slices of Electronica, etc., as what you write musically can be done electronically. It's become pretty easy to write out a few beats on a DAW, put some lyrics to them (or just go instrumental), and then put it out there. Yes, you still need a sense of timing, rhythm, rhyming, harmonies and so forth, but you don't have to know how to play a real-life keyboard, guitar, violin, drum set, or anything to create a complete song in that second group of genres. The sheer number of programs that are out there nowadays that allow this to be done is insane. As a result, that second group of genres I listed leave the proverbial door open more, so you've got more people trying to step through that door instead of trying to invest the time in learning to play an instrument that you have to hold and touch. I know what you're thinking, and yes, I know that sounds a touch mean and simplistic. But it's also the generalized truth. I'm a living example of it. I can't play any physical instrument to a degree that I'd be able to perform live on a stage, but that doesn't mean I don't have ideas, or the ability to look up what the limitations are on a given instrument so I can represent it more realistically. My remixes over the years show this growth, and my upcoming album will as well. I can't play live, but I can do research and compose, and that's where genres like Rap, Pop, R&B, Electronica and them are more open to people like me. Hell, piano and classical music (my main areas) are fast approaching the same openness now thanks to very realistic VSTs and sample sets, but they still have expected limits that need to be taken into consideration in terms of what the real instrument can and can't do. Pop, Rap, Electronica and them don't have that caveat. Is this a good thing? I don't know, to be honest. It could result in a huge flood of mediocrity and shit, with droves of forgettable, horrid albums and songs. But then again, being able to play an instrument live never stopped that from happening, did it? Lots of other bands came and went over the last 50 years alone that no one knows about, or even remembers these days (assuming anyone did back then). So yeah. To me, the "rock star" isn't going extinct, it's changing because the music industry, and what it takes to make music, is changing. We still have people wanting the so-called rock star life, but "rock star" isn't about Rock or Metal. Never was. It was just a term to attach to the idea of commanding an audience and getting lots of cash, which can be done in pretty much all genres. Elton John did it, so did Liberace, Kenny Rogers, The Pointer Sisters, and many others. But the older genres of Rock, Country, Classical, and those genres have steep learning curves that extend over many years thanks to their greater need to learn to play real instruments, where as Rap, Pop, R&B, Electronica and them have less intimidating learning curves that make people think it can be conquered in less time. So, given the "I want it NOW!" mentality and short attention spans that exist in the world today, more new artists are going that second group of genres. Some will make it because they have a real talent in them despite the lack of live playing skills, and others will fade away without being noticed because they're as generic and uninteresting as can be. Hopefully, I wont fall into the latter group Edit: Smoothed out a few thoughts.

Been a bad stretch for music. Lemmy, Bowie, and now Frey. RIP, Frey.

Considering the amount of Photoshopping most models go through (especially women with tit enlargement, leg lengthening and reshaping, figure reshaping, facial "enhancements," etc.), I think we passed that point a good while ago already in a way. No nude photos of yourself, please. I don't need those kind of ghosts in my PC.

That would be nifty, but holy shit would that be a massive undertaking.

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/lemmy-kilmister-motorhead-singer-and-heavy-metal-legend-dead-at-70-20151228 Not a lot more to say beyond Rock In Peace, Lemmy. You might have repeatedly said your band wasn't of the genre, but Metal won't be quite as heavy without you.

Plausible, sure. It's still a bummer, though.

I know I asked a week or so ago, but I don't recall seeing a reply. I've seen others talking about how their post count dropped quite a bit, with myself going from 23,300-plus, to 5,300-plus. Which begs the question, what happened?

Merry Christmas, folks. Hope you enjoy the music and such we merry band of misfit musicians put together for you all.

Updated the first post of this thread with the new site location. Thanks for getting everything uploaded, Dyne. Now go get the music, people!

To quote Gilbert Gottfried, "YOU FOOL!" Well ladies and gentle peoples, the deadline has come and gone. I'll be spending the next day or so finishing up the text for the back and making a song order after I listen to them all. After that, the files all go to Dyne so he can do some truly unspeakably vile things to them before handing it all out to everyone. I can't give you an exact day, but it'll go up between the 22 and the 25, so keep an eye out for it in the Community forum. With that, I'd like to give a big thanks to all the remixers who threw something together for this album and keeping that thing from punching through the rest of the way to claim us all, and to Dyne for letting me helm this beast again. And with that, we can stick a fork in this project, cuz it's done.

We're down to the final stretch. With 3 hours to go, anyone interested in taking part had best get those musical juices flowing if they want to get in before the deadline. And to anyone who still hasn't handed a remix in, remember... it's watching... and waiting...

I got your track, Rozo. Thanks for getting it done. And my e-mail address has been in the first post of this thread since day one

Don't mean to be a nitpick, but why did I go from over 23,000 posts, to over 5,000?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tF27TNC_4pc Say what you will about PSY, but I'll be damned if this isn't a catchy and infectious tune.

I'm honestly rather surprised this thread hasn't been locked yet. It's more or less a 105 page argument that's really gone nowhere between the two sides of... whatever issue this thread is about now..

Actually, I'm too busy play testing games for people (including a really cool one that I was looking forward to), doing Christmasy stuff, writing music, writing stories, working... and avoiding the Tropes vs Women thread at all costs.

This was introduced to me by Armoured Priest on another forum, and I thought I'd hop over here and share it with anyone interested. Basically, the story is that the guy behind all of this found a bunch of Alvin and the Chipmunks records, along with a record player that can spin at 16 RPM. The end result is this... https://soundcloud.com/alvin-thechipmunkson16sp/tracks There's more to his story, but I'll let you read about it here. My personal favorites so far are "Walk Like An Egyptian" (I could hear this playing in the background as the gates of hell open ), and "Keep Me Hangin' On" (think NIN folks). It's weird to hear, but it's pretty cool as well. I don't know how many more are coming, but there are plenty to listen to now, so hop over and give it listen

I will indeed. I have two ideas I'm toying with, so it's just a matter of which one will win out.

One. Frankly, that's a lot for this stage of the project, as most people don't start handing them in until December. But I know I'll get mine done, so there'll be at least two songs on this album... hopefully more, though.

Well, it's about that time again boys and girls! I contacted Dyne several weeks ago, but I've not heard anything from him. And considering how little he's posted this year, I'm not really inclined to continue waiting until we reach a point where no one will have any time to work on a remix for this. So, I'm taking the initiative and making a thread. If Dyne shows up and he wants to do the project later, I'll contact LT and see if the thread can be altered. Or, Dyne can make a new one and we'll direct everything to that thread. So, here we go! This project is open to any and all OCR members, regardless of whether you're a posted remixer or not. And now, a few details... When's The Project Deadline?- December 20th, 2015 at 11:59 P.M. EST. This is now a REALLY hard, non-negotiable deadline, since it's even closer to Christmas. The last few years have proven to be a mess of last second entries. Even last year, things came down to the wire for a number of people. And to be perfectly honest, it shouldn't be that way. It's made the evenings hectic for myself and Dyne in the past, and still made for a "hurry up so it's ready" scenario last year. As such, you have until one minute before midnight EST on December 18th to get me the final WAV or MP3 of your song. After that, you're shit outta luck until next year. I need time to do everything, including possibly make a little website to host this one if Dyne doesn't come back. So this deadline's set in stone. What Information Does The Coop Need?- When you send me your final versions, I'll need your name, the name of the song you're remixing and the name of your track. All of this is for the back of the album art, and the comments section of the MP3s, so make sure you let me know all of this... especially what name you want to use (real, screenname, etc.). What Can Be Remixed?- Any song, really. Traditional Christmas carols, video game music, published music by a signed artist... whatever gets your heart racing and into that Christmas spirit. This isn't an official OCR album, so you can draw from more sources than just VGM. Plus, you can take a non-Christmas tune, like the Main Theme from Space Harrier, Stage 6 Mission 2 from Metal Head, or I Defend STM from Truxton II, and turn it into a Christmasy one. So know that it's not limited only to songs that are Christmas-like to begin with. All that said, do keep in mind that if you want to submit your song to OCR later, you'll need to stick to the site's guidelines. But for this album, you can take it in just about any direction you want. How Long Can My Song Be?- As long as you want it to be. There are no restrictions on this, so whether it's 1:30, or 9:51 with a five minute guitar solo ala Metallica, it's all good. But again, if you want to get your song on OCR later, stick to their guidelines. What Genres Can I Remix In?- Again, the door's wide open here. Rap, Metal, Pop, Piano-solo, Orchestral, Jazz, 8/16-bit, Barber Shop Quartet, Death Polka... it's up to you where you want to take it. What Format Should I Submit My Song In?- WAV and/or an MP3 of at least 192KB/s quality. I'll be tagging the MP3s, and making MP3s from any submitted wavs, so you don't have to worry about that. But, if you'd like your website to be in the MP3 comments section, be sure to give it to me when you submit your song. How About A Little Music To Get Us In The Mood?- To help everyone along, here's a YouTube list of Christmasy tunes made by Ocre a couple of years ago... http://ocremix.org/f...72&postcount=19 But remember, not all famous Christmas tunes are upbeat and cheerful. There are some that are more somber or haunting in tone, so you have more moods to play with than happy happy joy joy. What's The Website's Address Again?- It's got a new home at... http://williammichael.info/aocc/ How Do We Contact This The Coop Person?- If you've got questions, comments, concerns, or your track is done and ready to be sent to me, you can PM me here on OCR, or send me an E-mail at thecoopscorner@yahoo.com. So yeah, there we go. You've got roughly two-and-a-half months to get something done for the lovely people of OverClocked Remix, and the listeners around the world who've become followers of our project. I don't know what's going to happen as far as Dyne's involvement, or what I'll have to make for people to grab the album, but I'll see it through one way or another. Good luck, have fun, and make everyone some Nice Work™! Artists involved thus far... The Coop (director and remixer) CelestialSonata (remixer) Jfaferrie (remixer) Rozovian (remixer) Garpocalypse (remixer) HoboKa (remixer) Trism (remixer) Lampje4life (remixer) classic_gamer_76 (remixer) mattmatrice (remixer) Dj Mokram (remixer) DusK (remixer) Draconiator (remixer)

King's Bounty series (PC on Steam and GOG)- It's a bit of RPG and strategy. There's plenty of story (though it's often got typos), and the battles are turn-based on a hexagonal grid. You can use magic, buy troops, complete main and side quests, and things like that. However, the strategy gets more important later on, as there's a finite number of any given troop in the game. The weaker ones are usually pretty plentiful throughout the game, but the strong ones can become scarce very quickly if you're careless in battle (especially the dragons). So while strategy isn't in place so much at the beginning outside of gold management and trying to get some of the achievements, it really seeps in as the games progress. There are five games in the series at the moment, with "The Legend," "Armored Princess," "Crossworlds" (an enhanced version of "Armored Princess"), "Dark Side" and "Warriors Of The North." The last two also have a DLC for each of them, and right now, you can get them all for $14 over on Humble Bundle for the next 24 hours with this pack, and the premium version "Dark Side" (for some reason, "Dark Side" isn't in the pack).

If anyone's interested in pixel art for the album, I'm still alive and capable.

Huh. I never got an e-mail notification about this thread. Weird. Anyway, I'll be trying to get a demo going this weekend. I've had a bit of work to take care of, but that'll be done and gone Thursday. So hopefully I'll have something by Sunday night/Monday morning.

OH SHIT! ZOMBIES! **breaks out a flamethrower and a double-barreled shotgun**