OCR02220 - Sonic the Hedgehog "Spring Junkie"

[djpretzel]

What did you think? Post your opinion of this ReMix.

[Swifthom]

I thought it was a difficult one to love at first but by half way though I was tapping along with a massive smile on my face. And I'm sure it'll grow on me more with further listens. Congrats on this, and the rest of the album halc

[Samuel Rockingham]

good mix! very cool!

[Harmony]

This is the other "stick to your bones" track on the album for me (other is Bubble Junkie). Like Swifthom said, you just wanna tap along and smile when the bridge comes funkily marching in around 1:30. Groovetastic!

[Liontamer]

Saw this at The Shizz: http://theshizz.org/forum/index.php?/topic/23717-oc-remix-submission-standards-revisions/page__view__findpost__p__1031367

I'm pretty pissed about this remix: http://ocremix.org/remix/OCR02220/ - So The Hot Pink of Blues was initially NO'd, but this remix got in? That really aggravates me. As all of you know, I'm a huge Sonic fan, there's barely any source in this remix. The feel is different, the chord progression is different, the melody is barely there. As a standalone song, it's alright, but as a remix? Are you kidding?

You don't give this arrangement enough credit:

The track's 3:42.5 long, so it needs 111.25 seconds of overt source usage to be at 50%.

1:05-1:28.25, 1:38.75-1:56.5, 2:22-3:42.5 = 111.5 seconds

I could be missing something else, but halc can speak for himself. This definitely took a while to get to the source. That doesn't mean it wasn't in there. The feel being the same isn't required.

[Harmony]

Saw this at The Shizz: http://theshizz.org/forum/index.php?/topic/23717-oc-remix-submission-standards-revisions/page__view__findpost__p__1031367

You don't give this arrangement enough credit:

The track's 3:42.5 long, so it needs 111.25 seconds of overt source usage to be at 50%.

1:05-1:28.25, 1:38.75-1:56.5, 2:22-3:42.5 = 111.5 seconds

I could be missing something else, but halc can speak for himself. This definitely took a while to get to the source. That doesn't mean it wasn't in there. The feel being the same isn't required.

:rollseyes: @ PoD

Exactly - and really there's tons of source here. Larry, I think you missed that the synth at 0:44-1:08 is a reference to the legato synth that comes in with the main melody at 0:03 in the source. The reference is even more clear when it's made again with the EP between 2:06-2:23.

[halc]

Exactly - and really there's tons of source here. Larry, I think you missed that the synth at 0:44-1:08 is a reference to the legato synth that comes in with the main melody at 0:03 in the source. The reference is even more clear when it's made again with the EP between 2:06-2:23.

this guy knows what he's talking about. ;D

[djpretzel]

I had no problem easily identifying this as a Sonic the Hedgehog arrangement.

Let's start a thread on OUR forums complaining about TheShizz complaining about us!

We've posted far more liberal stuff; questioning how 'Hot Pink' was evaluated is fine, but this isn't a good poster child mix in terms of being more liberal, or too liberal...

[Harmony]

I had no problem easily identifying this as a Sonic the Hedgehog arrangement.

Let's start a thread on OUR forums complaining about TheShizz complaining about us!

We've posted far more liberal stuff; questioning how 'Hot Pink' was evaluated is fine, but this isn't a good poster child mix in terms of being more liberal, or too liberal...

Just saw this reply in my e-mail, read the text and thought "What noob posted this suggestion to start a counter-thread!?". I shoulda known.

[Nick The Newbie]

:rollseyes: @ PoD

Exactly - and really there's tons of source here. Larry, I think you missed that the synth at 0:44-1:08 is a reference to the legato synth that comes in with the main melody at 0:03 in the source. The reference is even more clear when it's made again with the EP between 2:06-2:23.

By that logic, if I took a 10 second backing harmony out of a video game song, and made a completely original song, but pasted those 10 seconds in there on loop during the whole song, my new song would be considered 100% source material. I gotta go with prince of darkness on this one, the arrangement is hardly recognizable, and stays fixated on parts of the song that are not very easily identifiable. Had I not known context of the album, I would likely have had no idea what the song was.

[Liontamer]

Had I not known context of the album, I would likely have had no idea what the song was.

Context is very important.

[Nick The Newbie]

Context is very important.

Context helps, but should it be required? If this song were to be played live, the crowd wouldn't know what they're cheering for unless the band gave it a thorough introduction. Not to say that the song is bad, it's just very difficult to determine the springyardiness of it.

[Liontamer]

Context helps, but should it be required? If this song were to be played live, the crowd wouldn't know what they're cheering for unless the band gave it a thorough introduction. Not to say that the song is bad, it's just very difficult to determine the springyardiness of it.

Yeah, it's required. Context is what we're all about when we're picking this stuff apart, and we do it so you don't necessarily have to. Though y'all will.

For this particular mix, just picking out the obvious parts for me (someone who has played the game and knows the music really well), I found the >50%. Once it goes over 50% source usage, I don't mind what else someone does with it with the writing because the video game music is the dominant direct influence of the arrangement. If that weren't happening for this mix, I'd be with you in complaining. But comparing A to B with a closer look that took me maybe 10 minutes, I saw I didn't need to be concerned.

If our litmus test was "this has to be instantly recognizable, I shouldn't be required to think hard" (which HAS been proposed to us before by Double A Ron), then we'd reject a lot more stuff. Sometimes we need an explanation from the artist (e.g. http://ocremix.org/remix/OCR01342/). I think we're a lot better community for allowing that. People should realize though, subs like that are pretty rare. Not every submission is that liberal. We still have room for more straightforward but still interpretive arrangements.

[Nick The Newbie]

So what you're saying is that, yes, context is required to recognize what this particular song is from, but that doesn't matter since that's not one of your submission guidelines?

[Prince uf Darkness]

Oh nice! Here I go being the center of Shizz vs. OCR drama again! It must be fate.

(tl;dr ahead)

You don't give this arrangement enough credit:

The track's 3:42.5 long, so it needs 111.25 seconds of overt source usage to be at 50%.

1:05-1:28.25, 1:38.75-1:56.5, 2:22-3:42.5 = 111.5 seconds

I could be missing something else, but halc can speak for himself. This definitely took a while to get to the source. That doesn't mean it wasn't in there. The feel being the same isn't required.

Man you trollin'? It's like you're impersonating yourself. Like William Shatner in all of his work outside Star Trek.

Alright, at the risk of putting myself on a swift path towards being one of the most disliked people at OCR (I know halc HAS to hate ever fiber of my being right now), I would like to elaborate a little more. But to be fair to halc, perhaps this discussion should be moved outside this thread, so only the real feedback remains.

Firstly I would like to point out that on the Shizz, I've actually been DEFENDING OCR from unfair criticisms about its music, since there was a big explosion of frustration from a few members about the new Sonic remix album. Before anyone makes the assumption that I'm just a plain ol' OCR hater, they might want to read my post before making any such conclusion. Basically I say that many of the Shizzies are expecting music from OCR that they're only going to get from DoD and Shizz-related bands, and that's a bit unfair for the OCR musicians.

I would like to clear up that my comments about halc's song were not about his musical abilities, but were commentary on how I think that some of these judging priorities are pretty ass-backwards. I apologize for harping on THPOB so much, but I use it for a number of reasons:

1) It's my song (duh) and I can easily explain my thought process in contrast to the logic of the judging

2) It has one of the longest judging threads I have ever seen (Read here) - It's a long read but very relevant and insightful to the majority source debate

3) It's really a prime example of a song that was MUCH MUCH MUCH more conservative than initially given credit for, but it was conservative in ways that are subtle but noticeable, but that apparently doesn't count in the OCR judging process

THPOB is a much more stylistically-conservative and melodically-liberal song. Spring Junkie is just the opposite. Yes, Spring Junkie might have enough melody source to pull it over the 50% limit, but it should go beyond that. If you're going to be stylistically liberal, does the style still strongly support the source? Or does it seem like the source is just kind of dangling above the non-source material? For Spring Junkie, I think it's the latter.

Harmony and Drum's "Under Construction" (which is a GREAT remix, I'll just say. Good jerb dudes) is a prime example of being a bit stylistically liberal, but it's attached to the melodies with a gratuitous amount of crazy glue. I don't particularly feel that with Spring Junkie. The source bits in that song don't really sound like they're the main focus, just an additive. Now if the accompanying parts resembled the original song more, I'd probably change my tune (pun...intended?), but this honestly sounds like a totally original song with a few Spring Yard melodies. I've listened to the song over and over and haven't picked up on anything subtle yet. The only section resembling the original is the one at 2:43.

To be fair, that CAN be argued with THPOB, in fact I've played the song with bands and just had the guitar player not play the exact melody. It does sort of become an original song as long as that main melody is different, but it's not that cut and dry. Damn near every section of THPOB is derived from the Cyan source, even the bass intro, which is just based over the main progression. The problem with Cyan's source is that it stayed too long on C, so I added extra chords for motion and interest, they shouldn't not count as being part of the source. The criticism against THPOB was the lack of obvious melody, and underlying patterns that were still present in the source (but weren't the melody) didn't count. And my question is: "why the hell not?" As djp said himself: this is a fusion piece. Without soloing over base progressions, jazz and fusion would be almost impossible as musical genres to begin with. In other words, the idea of soloing over top the source progression is inherent to the very genre/style the mixer chose.

How many jazz or fusion songs do you hear that play the main melody for over half of the song? Exactly. This standard favors certain genres over others, and that's my largest source of frustration. Any given song isn't just defined by its melody, so I don't understand why the source standard excludes everything except melody and secondary almost-melodies. Larry NO'd Sonic Gargles in the beginning even though the chord progression and bassline is there throughout the whole damn song. But that isn't fair, and I think more needs to be taken into account than presence of melody. I tend to be a stylistically conservative person anyway. I'm not the guy on DoD who will make something totally metal out of something that really isn't. There's plenty of other people that do that. The closest I've come to that is probably A Coelo Usque Ad Centrum or Prancing Dad, but I kept those orchestral parts practically verbatim.

Besides, the only justification Larry gave for this song WAS the stopwatching itself. It just seems really lazy to me. Stopwatching can be a nice tool but should not be the final word. If you go beyond the obvious and dig down in THPOB, all but like the outro and maybe the first section of the final guitar solo you can relate to being part of the source, which propels the song to being WAY MORE resemblant of the source than 33% or whatever number Larry gave. If you dig down in Spring Junkie, you probably won't get much.

As Nick said, you can take a completely original song and plop on a few video game melodies, make it sound pretty nice, and have it be up to OCR standards. That really makes no sense.

[Liontamer]

So what you're saying is that, yes, context is required to recognize what this particular song is from, but that doesn't matter since that's not one of your submission guidelines?

The word context doesn't need to be in the guidelines. The context is provided by comparing Song A to Submission B. We're explicitly comparing the submissions to the original music, so we're already taking that context into account. Just clarifying, if someone takes an obscure part of a song like a supporting pattern, then that's the only part they use, then yes, it's more than likely to get rejected.

4. Arrangement

3. The source material must be identifiable and dominant.

While interpretation and original additions are encouraged, arrangement must not modify the source material beyond recognition.

The amount of arranged source material must be substantial enough to be recognized.

That guideline is for the judges. The judges are the ones who have to scrutinize what's been done to an arrangement to directly connect it back to the original material, not the general public. I've heard a lot of arrangements that don't match the mood or instrumentation of the source material, which is implied to some extent of what Tony's talking about. A Spring Yard Zone arrangement lacking enough "SpringYardiness" for his tastes. If some people can't make out the connections in full, that's going to happen and we're OK with that. But that shouldn't be the barometer for what we approve, given how subjective that is.

[halc]

meh, I dislike debating over my own stuff, but I guess I'll chime in..

i can see where you guys are coming from. this was one of the toughest sources I've remixed, and definitely one of my most liberal arrangements.. I had a really hard time finding a workable chord structure at first, so I started with an original progression that I could use to ease my way into the source. on the other hand, I do think some of the comments regarding source being hardly identifiable were a little shortsighted.. the second half of the song (the slower portion) is actually quite conservative, with the original melodies at the forefront, and for the most part (save for the transitions and little embellishments) unaltered. by this point I had come to grips a little better with the source, and it was definitely my intention to use the second half more conservatively to make up for the lack of in the first half. I knew I'd get a few complaints that it was liberal, but claiming the whole track as being unidentifiable, having no melody or connection to the source, etc.. is overdoing it just a bit, imho.

[Harmony]

By that logic, if I took a 10 second backing harmony out of a video game song, and made a completely original song, but pasted those 10 seconds in there on loop during the whole song, my new song would be considered 100% source material. I gotta go with prince of darkness on this one, the arrangement is hardly recognizable, and stays fixated on parts of the song that are not very easily identifiable. Had I not known context of the album, I would likely have had no idea what the song was.

Yes, clearly if you used a piece of the source for the whole song, you have a song that explicitly references the source throughout. Not sure what you're getting at by stating that.

There are 2 main synths in the original on melody and he simply separated them instead of playing them simultaneously. I suppose your argument is that the sections I mentioned reference what you'd call a harmony and not a main lead, but I'd disagree that the secondary synth is somehow less important the the main. The usage is blatantly obvious to me and immediately recognizable. Granted I love the source and have remixed it before, but the statements "hardly any source" or that it's "hardly recognizable" are highly overstated and in the case of the former, demonstrably false.

[Benjamin Briggs]

regarding drama: this is my only statement, in the form of a question

this is so obviously spring yard zone remix???

mix review: I am somewhat a fan of this remix but I wish it would have deviated more from the source :/

[djpretzel]

this is so obviously spring yard zone remix???

I know, right? My bottom line is, when I listen to this mix, I'd have ZERO problems identifying it as Spring Yard/Sonic, even if the file was named "RABBIT_JOINT_ZELDA_OMFG!!.MP3". Seriously. Context NOT required.

By the same token, I know 'Cyan' from FF6 pretty well, and even arranged it myself for the Squaredance album way back in the day, and I'd have no problems identifying HPOB as a Cyan/FF6 mix, even if the file were named "LARRY_OJI_OGLES_SWEATY_WRASSLIN_MENS.MP3".

For me, these are both classics, source is pretty obvious in both, and I'm really happy both mixes are on the site.

If Tony's point is that the judges can be somewhat inconsistent, well, of course they can... nature of the process, not saying anything new or scandalous or particularly worth saying. But since he's saying they've been particularly inconsistent, and using these two specific mixes as proof, I'm sorry, I just don't hear it at all.

At all.

[Nick The Newbie]

Yes, clearly if you used a piece of the source for the whole song, you have a song that explicitly references the source throughout. Not sure what you're getting at by stating that.

There are 2 main synths in the original on melody and he simply separated them instead of playing them simultaneously. I suppose your argument is that the sections I mentioned reference what you'd call a harmony and not a main lead, but I'd disagree that the secondary synth is somehow less important the the main. The usage is blatantly obvious to me and immediately recognizable. Granted I love the source and have remixed it before, but the statements "hardly any source" or that it's "hardly recognizable" are highly overstated and in the case of the former, demonstrably false.

Obviously I was being a bit hyperbolic, but the point I was trying to make is that "source material" cannot be defined as simply the melody or the harmony from the original song. Having that melody/harmony floating over a piece of original music, regardless of if its musically "correct", doesn't necessarily reflect the tone of the original song. If anything, I feel it's a little backwards in that the focus when bringing in the source material should be the bassline/chord progression, and you should then add in your new original material to accompany that. That description is not unlike a solo, no?

All that being said, I enjoy the song. The beats are catchy, the production is smooth, and, upon further listening, the second half really does come together in capturing the feel original. Tony's griping in the shizz thread (THANKS FOR BRINGING IT UP, LARRY ) and his post above was to demonstrate confusion about the 50/50 rule because what may be considered "source" is possibly up for debate, as I've pointed out in the first paragraph of this post. The first half of the song, if that debate is to be considered, is a tough call in how true to the original it is, but this thread is not the place for that kind of debate. The beats are fresh, and that's all that matters for now.

[Benjamin Briggs]

how much a remix "reflects the tone" of the source tune has nothing to do with how much of the remix includes recognizable pieces of the source tune

what you are describing is unfortunately not included in OCR's public (and many times re-stated) standards

awesome remix, great job!

[Prince uf Darkness]

If Tony's point is that the judges can be somewhat inconsistent, well, of course they can... nature of the process, not saying anything new or scandalous or particularly worth saying. But since he's saying they've been particularly inconsistent, and using these two specific mixes as proof, I'm sorry, I just don't hear it at all.

At all.

Actually it's more the case that they're being very consistent, but for the wrong reasons. If you're going to only consider melody as being part of a source song and not include other elements (which may be just as important as a song's melody, if not more), then there's a whole lot of awesome music that will fit well and everyone will love that will never see the light of day on OCR. If you're talking strictly melody, yes, Spring Junkie is very much so a Spring Yard remix, but if you include elements beyond melody, it's an original song with Spring Yard melodies floating over the top. I mean that's fine and I'll respect halc's choice in arrangement, but to me it's not enough to call it a full-blown Spring Yard remix.

Therefore, styles of music that use less melody by nature are more subject to being rejected. If I did a funk piece of all melody with no solos then it would probably turnout immensely boring. Different standards need to be taken for different genres, but the 50% rule prevents that.

In fact I've wanted to basically submit everything I've done to OCR, because I love you guys, and there's plenty of brilliants musicians here, but I've held back because I know exactly what will be said about some of them.

I know you guys probably think I'm just a bitter douche about something that happened over 2 years ago, and rightly so. I LOVE OCR like I love DoD and TheShizz, and it just frustrates me that because of rules I basically can't be nearly as integrated in this community as I can the others. It sucks that THPOB is the only example I can pull out, because it just makes me look more and more like a bitter douche. I'm trying not to be. Let this be an apology to everyone. I just feel strongly about this and can not think of any other way to approach it.

[Liontamer]

No worries about Shizz/OCR drama. There is none. I've read Cetera's posts in that thread, and I disagree, but the discussion there has been good. It's obvious it's not just one-sided hate and I don't see how there's any drama there.

Any given song isn't just defined by its melody, so I don't understand why the source standard excludes everything except melody and secondary almost-melodies.

Considering you didn't follow your own POV when looking at "Spring Junkie," I don't see why you'd say that. The standards also don't exclude what you're claiming they exclude.

Larry NO'd Sonic Gargles in the beginning even though the chord progression and bassline is there throughout the whole damn song. But that isn't fair, and I think more needs to be taken into account than presence of melody.

For the Sonic 3 mix, I definitely gave you credit for your bass. I don't only take into account the presence of melody/countermelody, but I don't count rests or soloing over stripped down chord progressions. Context is important and I definitely differ with several judges on it. It's along a similar line to what Nick was talking about, only swinging it completely in the other direction. For most sections of "Hot Pink" being along the lines of soloing over a simplified chord progression (e.g. 3:15-4:23), it was not dominant enough, recognizable enough usage of the source even with the context of the original song to compare it to, IMO.

Besides, the only justification Larry gave for this song WAS the stopwatching itself. It just seems really lazy to me. Stopwatching can be a nice tool but should not be the final word.

No one said it was the final word, including myself. "I could be missing something else, but halc can speak for himself." Whenever I timestamp stuff, I always state there could be other areas I've missed and encourage judges to clarify additional usage and contest things. If "Spring Junkie" were a judging decision, I'd go more in depth than that quick summary (at 2:14 AM). It's not lazy to actually look at how a source tune is used rather than just going with your gut. What I've seen you and Nick imply so far is the notion that soloing over simplified chords most of the time should count but melodic usage shouldn't necessarily count. Can't agree with that.

Taking Nick's issue and flipping it, IMO, you can't take a video game song's stripped down chord progression and plop on a few original melodies, make it sound pretty nice, and have it be up to OCR standards. That really makes no sense either. The discussion is fun though, and you don't sound bitter, Tony, it's fine.

[luhny]

btw, this remix is cool. just sayin'...