The Final Fantasy VI Remix Contest: Results are in, check first post!!!

[XPRTNovice]

At six a.m. this morning, I was ready to quit music in general.

That's like saying you almost decided to quit breathing. Yuck. Don't do that. I'm glad you turned around. This community is great for learning. Zircon has some great tutorials out there on youtube that helped me, and beyond those there are so many resources out there for you to learn. Good luck, man.

[XPRTNovice]

(and before all that, I was making things like a stupid rejected OCR submission that was basically like MIDI rip with bad mixing and boring samples...not even up to the OCR standards of 8 years ago!)

Is it weird that I kind of like that?

[Rexy]

At six a.m. this morning, I was ready to quit music in general.

Oh don't say that; if it's something you really, REALLY like doing, you shouldn't really give up. Maybe take a breather, but not really give it up completely - it's a passion at the end of the day, and it's indeed what you make of it.

Heck, you and I both are in similar situations in regards to close family understanding what you're doing. 7 years ago my own mother thought OCR was just giving me too much grief for its own good. Alas, she was the first person who congratulated me when "The Feather's Reflection" passed the judges panel. So if you keep going, perhaps your S.O. will soon see your work in a similar positive light in the near future

[jnWake]

Besides, you shouldn't quit music because a group of ~80 people don't like a remix you made. That's not the point of music.

[Brandon Strader]

Let the record show that everyone got defeated by someone who joined in January 2012 and only has 86 posts! Yet another reason not to underestimate people with low post counts who are unposted remixers.

[DJ_T-MayN]

It was just my first thought, but I could never do that. I've only been making music for five years, but it's what I love. I already knew that I wasn't decent at remixing when I signed up for it.

And Rexy, it's not that she's not supportive, but she's the one who encouraged me to submit my Remix, even though I knew it wasn't anything special. It was my rough draft, but as I explained about my computer earlier, all I really got was that. :/ But, I will try harder next time. Maybe it was the wrong style, or song. Either way, I'm kind of proud of myself for even submitting. I'm normally not very 'out there' with my music, even though I have like..80 songs of my own..

[Brad Stark]

It was just my first thought, but I could never do that. I've only been making music for five years, but it's what I love. I already knew that I wasn't decent at remixing when I signed up for it.

And Rexy, it's not that she's not supportive, but she's the one who encouraged me to submit my Remix, even though I knew it wasn't anything special. It was my rough draft, but as I explained about my computer earlier, all I really got was that. :/ But, I will try harder next time. Maybe it was the wrong style, or song. Either way, I'm kind of proud of myself for even submitting. I'm normally not very 'out there' with my music, even though I have like..80 songs of my own..

I've been making music for 20+ years. The main problem for beginners is that the ambition is more than the ability. Even the ears aren't as developed as someone who has been involved with music for a long time. As long as you have fun doing it and keep doing it, eventually you'll be able to make the music you want to. I wouldn't be too discouraged by the voting either... I'm not.

[DJ_T-MayN]

I've been making music for 20+ years. The main problem for beginners is that the ambition is more than the ability. Even the ears aren't as developed as someone who has been involved with music for a long time. As long as you have fun doing it and keep doing it, eventually you'll be able to make the music you want to. I wouldn't be too discouraged by the voting either... I'm not.

I completely understand what you mean by that.. I do want to make amazing music, but yes, I'm still not all that well versed musically. I just recently taught myself how to read music, but I can't instantly recognize a c from a d and so on. I can recognize the tone, but not the note. If that makes sense.

[DDRKirby(ISQ)]

"It's better to write for yourself and lose your audience, than to write for the audience and lose yourself"

--Souleye, composer for VVVVVV

[XPRTNovice]

"It's better to write for yourself and lose your audience, than to write for the audience and lose yourself"

--Souleye, composer for VVVVVV

Stealing it.

[Mikeaudio]

One of the most important things to remember is that music first and foremost really is language and a form of communication. Once people get too competitive with it, or even become consumed with the financial aspect(I'm not ragging on the prospect of making money from musical composition, but on the idea of financial gain as the center of reason in musical creation), it sucks the life right out of it. If anything all of us can walk away from this with new found knowledge, and even perhaps new friendships. For me this experience is definitely an inspiration towards improvement and collaboration. One thing is for sure, Locke needs some intense lovin

[zircon]

Note to all: McVaffe and I will be discussing what tracks and which ReMixers we'd like to invite to the project. We will be considering EVERYONE, not just the top three. We'll let you know if you're selected!

[Brandon Strader]

Note to all: McVaffe and I will be discussing what tracks and which ReMixers we'd like to invite to the project. We will be considering EVERYONE, not just the top three. We'll let you know if you're selected!

Can you clarify slightly, do remixers who are invited to the project just get to contribute the song they've already made, or will they be able to claim and produce new songs as well?

[jnWake]

I'd guess there aren't many unclaimed songs now... But who knows!

By the way, I liked your New Continent track, though I felt it was a tad too long.

[zircon]

Can you clarify slightly, do remixers who are invited to the project just get to contribute the song they've already made, or will they be able to claim and produce new songs as well?

It's up to our discretion, case-by-case, etc.

[DDRKirby(ISQ)]

Forgot to add, I thought it was funny how at certain points I almost thought "wow is zircon trollin us by entering his own contest?"...particularly when I heard Rexy's Umaro remix, as I just couldn't help but think of the Return All Robots OST when I heard it. xD Anti-Syne's mix also gave me strong VibRibbon vibes for some reason.

[Rexy]

Hahaha... yeah, I see what you mean with my Umaro entry having stylistic similarities to the Return All Robots theme.

Good thing you bumped it up, because I didn't state which entries actually tickled my interest during the voting. Aside from yours, XPRTNovice's and Sole Signal's Phantom Train track as I stated earlier, I also got some enjoyment out of:

* Anti-Syne's entry for the sheer amount of fun given to a lesser-known source

* Brandon's Mog entry for making me laugh with the quirky direction (!!)

* Radiowar's Blackjack track (which I apparently mistook for Anti-Syne when I first heard it)

* Chernabogue's Gogo track (not Umaro as it was erroneously stated in the ZIP; what happened? )

* Zas's Blackjack entry (again, the Star Trek homages were really cool, just was hoping for more substance if anything)

* Callum and Xarnax's Blackjack vocal song (Jesse, I say now's a good time to start investing on a better vocal microphone, because you've got skill and dedication in that field from what I saw of you in the past 6 months )

* Gallen Wolf's Rest in Peace entry (amazes me to see what ANYONE can do with such a short and meandering source, and I believe you nailed the feel right on while still making it personal)

* Mikeaudio's Empire track (by far my favorite of my rivals for this source tune; made me think of Dr Manhattan's arrangement style going darker, and fits the impending ominousness of the source tune )

* Gario's New Continent track (shame you didn't finish it properly because you could've easily given me and Brandon a run for our money )

* J Blom's Empire track (I told WillRock through IRC that you would probably out-rank me due to the sheer emotion there; almost reminiscent of the Desian cues from Tales of Symphonia; nice going!).

* Fictionalhead's Gogo track (cleaner than Chernabogue's, though not quite as creative, but still pretty neat; I'm still laughing at the fact that both your songs got the same score xD)

It was great listening to them back, though all in all a difficult vote. I may have been harsh with my rankings for it, but all in all I definitely got a kick out of the whole procedure, and I hope that some of you guys will be brought onto the project

[Brad Stark]

It was great listening to them back, though all in all a difficult vote. I may have been harsh with my rankings for it, but all in all I definitely got a kick out of the whole procedure, and I hope that some of you guys will be brought onto the project

Just my opinion, but I find it surprising that anyone would vote lower than 3 for my track (it got an average score just above 3). I got lots of great comments like "stunning" on soundcloud when I posted it there, in the end that's all that matters to me, that some people enjoyed my work.

From the voting results it's clear there wasn't a lot of agreement in the voting as the top track got an average score of 3.7. A few of the higher voted tracks weren't even in my top 9 and had some (in my opinion, had significant) production issues and musical issues that placed them well down on my list of what I consider a well produced remix. "Harsh" voting doesn't really explain it if the lowest rank track was only 1.79 average score away from the best ranked track.

[Rexy]

I'm not saying that people in general were considered harsh (in fact I was just using it to describe myself), but more like a few of us have had different outlooks on how to go through the votes. This is no different from the Dwelling of Duels and its slider system; some people would consider rating everything above average and going from there to see which songs they thought were better, while others could just put their favorites above the 'average' line and leave everything else with considerably lower marks. I've been around this community for years and even I've had to draw a middle line in regards to what I considered to be a 3 and above (most commonly associated with arrangement and feel if anything else), though all in all we're different people and have had differing standards on what we consider to be great works.

Regarding your track Brad, I liked your feel in the intro and string writing, but the more 'heroic' nature when the melody came in, empty spacing later on, and general vanilla sounding melody synths were contributing factors as to why the track didn't score very high with me. Arrangement-wise it wasn't too bad; source is identifiable even if it was manipulated to fit the feel you went for, but even then there wasn't enough going to capture my interest. But still, take it with a grain of salt; people liked your work on Soundcloud, and I hope that over time you'll start to improve as a musician

[Brandon Strader]

The problem with voting is that everyone has their own biased scale. I used to write for an e-zine that had a well-defined 1 to 10 scale for albums that was strictly enforced. You couldn't give out a 10 unless you truly felt an album was revolutionary. Average stuff would be around a 5. The editor would read the reviews and had listened to all of the music to be able to make sure that the person was using the scale properly, based on the ideas and opinions they expressed in their review. I once wanted to give an album a 10, but because I had mentioned a performance flaw on one of the songs, the editor said that it should not be a 10. Anyway, this was a big rant and my point is more or less that in an unstructured voting system, there's bound to be a lot of inconsistency and bias.

[GallenWolf]

@Rexy: Thank you very much for the compliments

[zircon]

Yeah, I did think for awhile on what the most fair voting system would be. That's why I asked people what they thought about the system we ended up using before we even started the voting process. My thought is that while there will be inconsistencies among individual voters, if you have enough votes it will 'smooth out' and a general consensus on the top tracks will emerge.

By the way, I'm on vacation right now but prizes will go out pretty soon.

[Gario]

* Gario's New Continent track (shame you didn't finish it properly because you could've easily given me and Brandon a run for our money )

I have every intention of finishing the track - removing the rather slapped together ending, improve the dirty bass sound and lean on the strings less are a few of the things that the song really needs. I do hope when Zircon and McVaffe look at the music they take that into consideration, as being considered for the album is the sole reason I joined (I couldn't actually use the prizes, for the most part, save for Zircon's discography).

[SuperiorX]

Yeah, I did think for awhile on what the most fair voting system would be. That's why I asked people what they thought about the system we ended up using before we even started the voting process. My thought is that while there will be inconsistencies among individual voters, if you have enough votes it will 'smooth out' and a general consensus on the top tracks will emerge.

The system you guys used was probably the best you could've done given the situation. I do a bit of survey design and analytics in my job, and 5-point scales are the most commonly used because they're usually the easiest for people to understand. But yeah where things get tricky is everyone does their own interpretations of what a "5" is and what a "1" is. For example, a song had to be really terrible for me to give out a 1 (only gave a few), and likewise a song had to absolutely blow me away to get a 5 (like I gave 3-4 of those). Now that leaves the majority of my votes in the 2-3-4 range. Given most people probably followed this same thinking, you can assume most people gave out 2-3-4's. Mix in everyone's different musical preferences and you can see how most songs got a pretty similar average score range.

7-point scales have been shown to generate greater variability in survey responses, but can sometimes be difficult to define, which is why 5-point is kind of the standard. The only thing I could think of that might have improved voting variability (and I didn't think of this until now) would've been to clearly define what each number "looks like" in the voting instructions, so for example, say a "5" is:

• Excellent production quality (mixing, balance levels, frequency range, etc.)
  
• Creative & inspiring arrangement (takes the song in a fresh, new direction)
  
• Practically no production flaws
  

With a "1" being the exact opposite of a "5", poor production quality, generic unoriginal arrangement, numerous production flaws, etc. You'd do something similar for each number. You get the idea. All in all, music is subjective and so are even these terms, but it may have helped a bit.

Also just curious, was a song number key ever posted anywhere? Or having the songs available properly tagged? I didn't see either anywhere yet. Thanks!

[Brad Stark]

I thought the voting system was fine, but doesn't it seem reasonable that the consensus for the best track would reach a vote higher than 4? That's what is really surprising to me, it seems like there was some questionable voting. Myself, I gave out quite a lot of 4's and reserved a few 5's for what I felt were the best tracks.

I don't mind subjective opinions, but I think it's best to be as objective as possible. One of the tracks I felt was the best wasn't in a style I particularly enjoyed.