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My journey through OCR 1-1000


bladiator
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So, I just got a new car and it happens to have an mp3 CD player in it.

I decided that this would finally be my chance to listen to every OC remix known to man. I downloaded both torrents and have so far burnt the 1000 mixes onto 5 CDs. Now while I'm on the road (which is A LOT of my job) I'm going to listen to them all one after another after another.

Unfortunately, they aren't in order from 1 to 1000, but just in alphabetical order by name of the game, so I'm not getting the real deal on the "from the first to the last" that I had wanted. But still, I'm seeing how it goes.

In this thread will be my assessment of said journey....

So far I'm 38 songs in and I'm kinda let down. Actraiser gave me a few good pieces, and I heard a Blaster Master song I enjoyed. Otherwise, I've been dying. Oh, and Bahamut Lagoon.

TO ONE THOUSAND!!

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Last July I down loaded remixes 1-1500ish, and I slapped them on their own playlist in my itunes. Just recently have I finished listening to all of them. Mostly because I put the list on random and listened to whatever came on while I was gaming (you know, for games that don't have good music or music at all). Personally, I liked 80%-90% of what I hear, but I'm an easy-to-please guy. I hope you enjoy your awesome journey as much as I did. It is actually the sense of accomplishment I gained from having listened to all OCRemixes at least once that led me to become a DJ!

DJ Metal

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Went through another 6 or so on the way to another work location. I can't tell who has written the remixes because my display just barely gives me the whole name. It's kind of interesting to not have that type of bias on the song right away. I'm having to come here later and see who wrote them.

Diet Thirstquencher by Beatdrop gets my nod on this latest group of songs.

Bahamut: You ain't kidding. It really does give me a different perspective. And I also can't even imagine what it would have been like if a zircon or a star salzman or a bladiator (tee hee) came along years ago with one of their big songs.

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Ever since we started using torrents, I've always had every OCReMix on my computer & iPod. Even before that, right after my family got DSL, I was downloading the mixes alphabetically, one by one. I really like having the entire OCR collection because it's just so diverse. Sure, there are some pretty bad tracks in there too, but even some of the oldest stuff can be great.

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I used to have all the OCR songs on my computer, and I know I listened to at least 95% of them at some point or another. Didn't like some, hated some, liked a lot, loved quite a few. However, my computer's a laptop, and at the time, it only had 80GB of hard drive space. Between OCR songs, VGMix songs, and other music, I had 30GB of space used just by music, space that I eventually needed to free up for college crap. So I had to delete the songs I didn't like. Sadness. I may not have liked them all, but I liked being able to have all of OCR's music history. Perhaps in the future, when I get an actual computer with a decent hard drive, I'll be able to do so again.

I applaud you efforts to listen to all of OCR's songs. There's the good, there's the bad, and then there's the plain-and-simple ugly in that list, in my opinion. Good luck.

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Bahamut: You ain't kidding. It really does give me a different perspective. And I also can't even imagine what it would have been like if a zircon or a star salzman or a bladiator (tee hee) came along years ago with one of their big songs.

I guess I like this thread... anything that gets people listening to the older stuff is a good thing in my book... but honestly, there were pieces even way back then that could stand up to what's being posted today. Death on the Snowfield, Portal, almost any of McVaffe's old stuff... I think quite a bit of it is good and would still be posted today, it's just less consistent. There are some tracks that I'd definitely call mediocre, *maybe* bad, and some of those are mine, but we got rid of some of the worst and most flagrant standards violations with the lockdowns, and I feel like what's left does at least constitute arrangement.

In other words, I do definitely feel like the site's progressed, but I also feel like there's a really solid base in the existing older mixes that not only shows where we came from, but also represents a lot of damn fine music.

Also, suggestion: OA's done an ace job of spreading the review love. If you're going back through everything, why not for each batch of 5-6 that you listen to, pick one to write a review for? A lot of those artists are still around and would still be interested in getting feedback, even if they've gotten a lot better since.

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Also, suggestion: OA's done an ace job of spreading the review love. If you're going back through everything, why not for each batch of 5-6 that you listen to, pick one to write a review for? A lot of those artists are still around and would still be interested in getting feedback, even if they've gotten a lot better since.

I was thinking while listening through that I keep seeing the BGC threads about review love and that I could probably do that pretty easily. The ones that make an impact on me make enough impact that I remember the name (or least half the name that I can see on the display).

And I'm also a lover of some of the old mixes. I decided to try this because I know I've grabbed a handful over the years of the old stuff because I heard so much about them. And I'm not trying to put down the mixes that I don't enjoy ... I remember when I first started writing music: it all sounded the same, and it was bland (moar liek blandiator, mirite?), and I thought I was awesome because I had a midi tracking program and none of the other kids in my town could write music like me. But eventually you get better and you realize "wow, I started from some real humble beginnings." I think it's cool to see how a lot of these remixers really grew into their talent.

I just got to your hillbilly Bubble Bobble remix (which is one of my cult classics), but then after 3 more remixes of the same tune I wanted to throw the CD out the window. And remix it myself. ;)

949 to go!

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Cool. Larry and I routinely whine about the lack of reviews; we need more!

Bubble Bobble certainly brought the pain, back in the day. Just consider this: Worse BB mixes got removed in the lockdown, sure, but can you imagine the ones that never made it onto the site in the first place, even back then?

Hell, that probably applies to any rejected mix from back then.

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The quality rock stuff's been around a while, which is a bit of a surprise.

I've done this same thing a long time ago, and I'm supposed to keep this up so that I'm always caught up, but I'm not always the type to listen to music while I'm 'net browsing, and I haven't had much time otherwise for critical listening, so I'm backed up again, at least with the last 200 or so mixes. It's tough to keep up: people want song updates at a rapid clip, but sometimes I actually wish Dave would slow down with the song posts.

I used to make a checklist and knock off each letter of the alphabet for game titles until done. One thing I did learn long ago is to try not to listen to several mixes of the same source at once. Another thing: the amount of Final Fantasy and Chrono Trigger tunes is obviously, depressingly gargantuan, and had to be kept aside in its own category for a LONG time, chipped at a little at a time for months until I was finally through. It did, however, help me to get around to listening to the original CT music (never could find the time to play these classic RPGs), and I love it to death now.

Also, like music everywhere else, a small percentage of the product to me are keepers (but there's a lot of quality here). Out of - where are we now, 1700+? - songs, I've got over 350 kept so far.

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So I had this random need to go surprise my gf and eat breakfast with her this morning, and she lives 30 minutes away (and work is farther than that after I go over there) so I made it through another 20 or so songs.

I've hit a pocket of REALLY good stuff. At least in my taste. Simon's Symphony by ... well, what used to be DJ Crono just totally rocked my face. Fantastic hip-hop by this guy. I just wish he could have been privy to our samples now a days.

Merry Little Christmas was an obvious Dale North-ism, and I really enjoyed that one (like all his laid back piano/e piano hits). This is one of the few so far that I heard and knew who'd done it.

And then Crossfire by Marc Star really did it for me. Although it was only 2 minutes and some change. So I had to listen to it a couple more times. Dreamer was good as well, and Another Inspiration by SP.

Oh, and Scriabin's Long Library from CV has long been a favorite of mine and now was no exception.

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I listened to them all a while back (1-1500) and touched quite a few people in #ocremix in the process. About 5% of the tracks made it onto my playlist, a lot of them were quirky or good in their own way. But the vast majority were junky and thrown-away. But this was before lockdown 2.0.

Otherwise it's just a matter of taste.

Also, Karl, hop on MSN or IRC. Haven't had a good chat for ages.

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