GUYS! OCR IS INCORRECT!! (or: NeoGAF stupidity)

[Nekofrog]

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=343175

So I posted a youtube to one of my remixes like a month ago in a Megaman music thread and couldn't help but luls at one of the replies. It was in the "wrong key". Okay, but that's because it's a remix, and it's left at that.

BUT THEN! A month later...

The problem is that it's incorrect. You're pitching your rendition to people who know what key the tune is in. You're not going to find any Xxgokufan14xX on youtube here to fave your sweet vid and give you props for something you fucked up.

A whole month later! Just to reply with that. I seriously loled, thanks to gecko who posted the link to that in irc, I had forgotten about the thread ENTIRELY.

I think my reply today was appropriate enough.

Too bad we're incorrect, though

[Toadofsky]

For a second, I couldn't really understand what was going on here Nekofrog. But why go to other forums? I mean, isn't OC good enough? We understand how remixes go...

Just kidding. At least you shut a few people up it sounds like. I don't think putting a differing tone on a melody is a bad thing.

But, ah nevermind. Gotta watch the Street Fighter Van Damme movie.

[Ramaniscence]

Maybe it's just me, or maybe it's the recording, but that Mega Man 2 cover medley is really....meh.

Project X2's stuff is WAYYYYyyyyy better, and most of that is practically a cover.

Also: "Don't change the genre." What IS the genre of original video game music? I certainly don't think Koji Kondo wrote the Zelda theme with the intent of it being playing by a rock band.......

Kids TO-DAY.

[DrumUltimA]

God, if changing the key is a musical no-no, then I'm musically retarded.

[Zephyr]

I'd like to see a medley of these thrown together where they played them exactly the same and in the proper keys... that would mean including cheezy horrible and bad-sounding key changes in between every single song, and I don't even want to think of what it would sound like when some songs are played over top of eachother.

[Darth Lime]

Is it not called "artistic license" for a reason? A chance to explore the possibilities of ONE song?

OCR is not and will never be "wrong" with their perception of what a ReMix is.

to Nekofrog.

[Dyne]

Some times, some people, are really stupid. This is one of those times. That guy is incorrect, and you notice, he has not posted a reply since.

[Brycepops]

Some times, some people, are really stupid. This is one of those times. That guy is incorrect, and you notice, he has not posted a reply since.

That, and a few other people were getting on his case about it.

[Dyne]

That, and a few other people were getting on his case about it.

Which is a good thing, most assuredly. I mean, it's probably guys like that, who give advice to people just starting out, and tell them they need to color within the lines, or think inside the box.

I'm not big fans of those types of people, personally.

[Rayza]

Personally I change the key of my remixes all the time.. I'm just more comfortable writing in certain keys..

[Upthorn]

OCR is not and will never be "wrong" with their perception of what a ReMix is.

to Nekofrog.

Sometimes I like to pretend that is Hitler, for humor value. This is one of those times.

[Tex]

The emo icon certainly looks like him. The actual picture, not too much so.

[anosou]

Personally I change the key of my remixes all the time.. I'm just more comfortable writing in certain keys..

Word up, C-minor is my key of choice when I'm playing keyboard (so all of my remixes..)

[DrumUltimA]

Word up, C-minor is my key of choice when I'm playing keyboard (so all of my remixes..)

ROCK ON ME TOO!

[Zephyr]

I just pick a random, but simple key so that it's different every time and I accidentally throw in a few out of key, but good sounding chords.

[big giant circles]

URDOINGITWRONG

geez.

[The Damned]

I find the funny part to all of this is that Neko (as much as I love him for all his fury and awesomeness) is doing the exact thing he has, on at least two occasions that I can recall, reamed newer members for doing: coming here to bitch about people on other sites.

If you didn't have so many posts to search through, I'd put up the exact quotes. It's a tiring task to search through them all, so I'll just point this out and let it go.

On a musical note, your remix was at least one level better than some of the ones they posted after it. My god, that "Video Game Cover Band" Mega Man 2 medley was terrible.

[Chickenwarlord]

Just posting to chime in that C minor is my favorite key to dink around in as well.

[!Nekko!]

Bizarro. A song I'm working on was in C-minor and I didn't realize it.

[Olarin]

Just to widen the perspective on the issue, I do think key can be important in some cases. I think when re-arranging it's good to know what the original key was, and to consider what effect changing the key may have (playing a tune people are familiar with half-a-step up may give it an 'edge', for instance). It can also be especially important to consider with acoustic instruments - both for difficulty issues when dealing with amateur musicians, and for instrument-specific tricks that may only be available on certain notes, even to a professional player (for instance, playing a drone on an open string while playing a melody on an adjacent string on a bowed string instrument, or taking advantage of the unique sound of a certain fingering pattern on a wind instrument). I'll also admit that there are certain tunes that I'm very used to hearing in certain keys and that may even seem to change character when transposed.

Obviously, though, none of that means that you "aren't allowed" to play a tune in a different key, and in some cases there may be a very good reason to do so. The guy in the other forum was clearly just being an idiot. I also can't think of any explanation aside from trolling for trying to argue 'remixes vs covers', as though they're some sort of opposing ideologies.

[Xenon Odyssey]

Just to widen the perspective on the issue, I do think key can be important in some cases. I think when re-arranging it's good to know what the original key was, and to consider what effect changing the key may have (playing a tune people are familiar with half-a-step up may give it an 'edge', for instance). It can also be especially important to consider with acoustic instruments - both for difficulty issues when dealing with amateur musicians, and for instrument-specific tricks that may only be available on certain notes, even to a professional player (for instance, playing a drone on an open string while playing a melody on an adjacent string on a bowed string instrument, or taking advantage of the unique sound of a certain fingering pattern on a wind instrument). I'll also admit that there are certain tunes that I'm very used to hearing in certain keys and that may even seem to change character when transposed.

Obviously, though, none of that means that you "aren't allowed" to play a tune in a different key, and in some cases there may be a very good reason to do so. The guy in the other forum was clearly just being an idiot. I also can't think of any explanation aside from trolling for trying to argue 'remixes vs covers', as though they're some sort of opposing ideologies.

Anything I could have added to this thread would be in this post.

Also, C MINOR OMG. Though as of lately I've been more in F-minor...

[DarkeSword]

I write in D minor/E minor myself. Sometimes after completing a song, I'll transpose all of it into something else like F# Minor.

[EdgeCrusher]

I have a lot of keys on my key chain. I change around a use a different one a lot.

[OverCoat]

I've said this many times before, but the problem is outside of the OCR community you start running into the people thinking that if you fuck with the song too much you're doing the composer a disservice. I can see where they're coming from though, but I'm open to covers as well as arrangements, I don't really give a shit. The main complaint outside of OCR about our music is, to use the SF2 HD soundtrack as an example, is that OCR turned the songs into "fucking elevator music what the fuck."

The thing is, actually arranging the music into different styles is normal to people, but the difference with OCR is that here the melodies, or the chord structure, or whatever notes from the original song is usually changed. I can't think of any other site other than vgmix where this happens, so for most gamers it's foreign idea and doesn't make a lot of sense. The average gamerjoe would rather just hear straight up covers.

[Strike911]

Had an instance like this once, except not over the key, but the type of notes being used. I was purposefully omitting a few notes and adding in some different types of notes for a clear stylistic difference from the original to make it sound different, but I was getting crap about how I was incorrectly using the theme and how I was wrong, but it's still decent.

What a dick that guy was.

"Artistic License"

If that was the case, a lot of the rearrangements from Smash Bros Brawl would be incorrect and wrong because a few them really deviate from the original source. People are just stupid. Best to ignore them or completely bring them down with the artistic license thing.