Kickstarter FAQ / issues / concerns

[PScoins]

Hello. Long time lurker, first time poster.

I wanted to express questions I have regarding this Kickstarter project. I was watching the Vampire Variations posting last year, and highly interested in owning a physical copy of it, but at the time I saw OCR remix forum members and DJP himself expressing concern about the team charging for that. Although they were accepting donations, and not, to the best of my knowledge, charging the album to be for profit. The uproar over this seemed to be enough that the team abandoned any idea for Hard copies to be made. And many OCR posters expressed a high level of negativity for them even considering such an idea.

So my question is thusly: What is this difference between that and what you are doing here?

I do understand albums cost money to make, but you essentially are charging $50 for this album, and subsequent "bonus" albums end up costing even more since donations levels only yield them at higher amounts. I would also find it extremely hard to believe a 4 Disc album would cost $50 to make. If you are producing 1000 of them, and only allow those who donate $50 to receive a copy, then that would be 50k to you. Or am I missing something? It is unlikely you would actually "sell" all those 1000 copies through this kick starter, so what would happen to the rest? would they still be $50 a copy? or what would happen to them?

Although reading your information about "where does the money go" actually says you will be making 1500 of them. Which is a bit strange.. to say you will make 1000 only, then list 1500 as the real number. But I digress.

OCR will make this money they are asking for, and more. I congratulate you for it, and I am actually quite interested in this album. But I would like to use this example to make sense of why other album projects are not allowed to do identical methods, just because they are not OCR. It is sometimes argued that because OCR has their albums digitally for free as well, then that is different than most projects in that regard. Perhaps it is, but not all are this way. I know Vampire Variations was not. It was a digital free release with physical copies as a possibility, but OCR and it's staff balked and crucified them.

I have since learned that Vampire Variations was not the only project given this type of treatment, and I would truly like to understand what OCR is doing here that is that different, and thus, acceptable. If I ever become involve in an album project, it would be nice to understand better, because it seems far worse to me in terms of "profit" possibility.

Maybe it is because it fulfills a double purpose as acting as a donation driver, But that is a grey area since you would then actually be collecting "profit". Just using it to fund the website.

Sorry for the long response. I find this to be a confusing topic.

[Liontamer]

I would truly like to understand what OCR is doing here that is that different, and thus, acceptable. If I ever become involve in an album project, it would be nice to understand better, because it seems far worse to me in terms of "profit" possibility.

Maybe it is because it fulfills a double purpose as acting as a donation driver, But that is a grey area since you would then actually be collecting "profit". Just using it to fund the website.

We've been against selling unlicensed arrangements since day 1. Can't speak for djp, but at the end of the day, no one's being paid to either make the album or maintain this website, so there's 0 profit motive and no one's pocketing money, that's the main difference. djp would point to it whenever he replies that you'd basically have to take us at our word, but he's been putting time, energy and money to run OCR for more than 12 years, and nobody's getting paid. Basically, we're bad at capitalism. Anything made above the costs is going to go to enhance the album production further, fund more rewards for stretch goals and lastly, after anything we think of for the Kickstarter, help the site. But there's no case where if we went, say, $1000 overboard, then HEY HEY, I pay off some of my car note. We run this site like a zero-sum game, as in every cent goes toward the site.

[djpretzel]

Maybe it is because it fulfills a double purpose as acting as a donation driver, But that is a grey area since you would then actually be collecting "profit". Just using it to fund the website.

Sorry for the long response. I find this to be a confusing topic.

I feel like you're trying to be fair & measured but that in actuality you perceive some sort of injustice, and that it might have affected your decision to not link to, or quote from, the thread in question, instead substituting your own description of events for what actually happened:

http://ocremix.org/forums/showthread.php?t=37313&page=3

Thanks, guys. We're just a lot more comfortable pimping stuff that's either free, or $$$ AND licensed through Harry Fox, etc.

IMO, the only surefire way to handle covering costs of album printing is to sell at the ACTUAL cost per album, and not above, meaning prices more like $2-4, or to do a kickstarter, cut if off, and ONLY make that many copies, divided evenly among contributors.

That's definitely what I said, and it is indeed inconsistent with what we ourselves are now doing.

Okay, but why? Are we just hypocritical assholes? (rhetorical) No, the difference is ownership & accountability - in this case I was specifically talking about what we were comfortable with OTHER people doing. I use the term "comfortable" because in this case, VV wasn't an official OC ReMix album, we weren't likely to be held accountable for it in any way, and so it simply becomes a matter of how cool we are pimping/promoting it. That's our prerogative, by the way - no one call tell us what we can or can't promote, just as we are similarly unable to dictate such terms to others. They were free to proceed against my advice, and the only negative repercussion I was articulating was a potential decrease in or lack of promotion, nothing else.

For an OFFICIAL OCR album, to be sure, the standard is different. Accountability becomes far more important, we are attaching our own name to it and promoting it heavily, and ANY sort of fundraiser for physicals would be operated with FULL disclosure to staff, and oversight by staff, because it's our name that's out there.

I hope this clarifies things for you; short version is that for non-official albums, we can only express what we are most comfortable with in terms of promoting something that has money attached to it in any way, shape, or form. For official albums, anything fiscally-related needs to be held to a higher standard, with staff involvement.

Here's an even shorter, one-word answer: accountability.

Good question; hopefully there's no subtext of inquisition or accusation behind it, but I can see how someone would be confused.

[PScoins]

Thank you very much for the reply, Liontamer.

But your reply does not answer my question in regard to other albums. You stress that no profit would be made, and even so, that does not matter when compared to other projects such as Vampire Variations. It is unlikely that the team would have been able to make much of a profit at all from their attempt. I was under the impression that they were simply trying to offer a physical to the fans. And as you know, these things simply cost money to produce.

I would like to stress however, that even if you put all money back into the site, that is technically still profit. No, you are not paying yourself and buying luxuries with it, but you are using the money to pay for something beyond just the album. I do not see how this is morally different than a musician needing to pay for better equipment, or an artist wishing to but software which allows them to create more album artwork. Or the most extreme example: keeping a roof over their head because they did not have to spend thousands on album production out of their own pocket.

Please understand I am not actually suggesting OCR is taking huge profits. I am merely drawing parallels to the fact that other album projects do not either, but they have been highly chastised for it. It seems unjust and unwarranted.

EDIT:

Thank you for the Reply DJP. I was writing when you had responded.

Your answer is reasonable. I apologize for not having linked the forum in question.

You are correct that I felt unjustice with it, but the tone of most posters in that thread as you will note, was incredibly negative. It seemed as they were doing a similar, and by most merits, lesser extent of what is happening here. But the negativity was extremely high.

If you would mind answer this question: Why do you only offer the album at $50 donations? It seems higher than I had expected, even with seeing the 15k donation number.

[djpretzel]

EDIT:

Thank you for the Reply DJP. I was writing when you had responded.

Your answer is reasonable. I apologize for not having linked the forum in question.

You are correct that I felt unjustice with it, but the tone of most posters in that thread as you will note, was incredibly negative. It seemed as they were doing a similar, and by most merits, lesser extent of what is happening here. But the negativity was extremely high.

If you would mind answer this question: Why do you only offer the album at $50 donations? It seems higher than I had expected, even with seeing the 15k donation number.

I can't account for the negativity of others, only my own; there's a wide variety of sentiment on topics like these, sometimes cooler heads don't prevail, and people's definition of what's "fair" can be shockingly subjective.

We discussed rewards and logistics at length among staff. There was legitimate concern that the logistics of mailing physicals, compounded with international shipping costs that vary, compounded with the ultimate price of a four-disc album w/ as fancy a color insert we could muster, would be prohibitive at the $25 marker.

I feel like you're asking us to justify ourselves - which is absolutely fine, to a reasonable extent - but let's look at it from another perspective. We're saying to the world "Hey, $50 for an awesome 4-DISC FF6 ALBUM by OC ReMix! Help support the site!" And we're having a really successful first day where we're doing better than we thought we would, for which we are extremely grateful. To some degree, isn't that justification in and of itself? We're not deceiving people as to what they'll be getting, we've spelled out what we think it will cost us, and hell... if all you want is the music, that's going to be FREE, as always. In light of all this, your line of inquiry again seems antagonistic to me. Shouldn't you be happy for us? We're doing well. If you don't want the physical album, you certainly shouldn't contribute. I certainly hope you'll download the album, either way.

Does it need to be more complicated than that? Do you feel compelled to try and make it more complicated than that?

If so, perhaps the conversation should be private?

[PScoins]

I can't account for the negativity of others, only my own; there's a wide variety of sentiment on topics like these, sometimes cooler heads don't prevail, and people's definition of what's "fair" can be shockingly subjective.

We discussed rewards and logistics at length among staff. There was legitimate concern that the logistics of mailing physicals, compounded with international shipping costs that vary, compounded with the ultimate price of a four-disc album w/ as fancy a color insert we could muster, would be prohibitive at the $25 marker.

I feel like you're asking us to justify ourselves - which is fine, to an extent - but let's look at it from another perspective. We're saying to the world "Hey, $50 for an awesome 4-DISC FF6 ALBUM by OC ReMix! Help support the site!" And we're having a really successful first day where we're doing better than we thought we would, for which we are extremely grateful. To some degree, isn't that justification in and of itself? We're not deceiving people as to what they'll be getting, we've spelled out what we think it will cost us, and hell... if all you want is the music, that's going to be FREE, as always. In light of all this, your line of inquiry again seems antagonistic to me. Shouldn't you be happy for us? We're doing well. If you don't want the physical album, you certainly shouldn't contribute. I certainly hope you'll download the album, either way.

Does it need to be more complicated than that? Do you feel compelled to try and make it more complicated than that?

If so, perhaps the conversation should be private?

I apologize if my questions are coming off as antagonistic. It was my intent to ask them publicly for two reasons:

1. For anyone else who, like me, may find this a bit confusing.

2. For others who harbor the type of negativity against other albums, to explain why they do.

You have answered #1 sufficiently, and if #2 never occurs, that is fine.

I have no intent to bring this private and create an argument. I did say "you will get this and more" of course you will. I also said congratulations for that. All I was asking, DJP, is why it seemed exclusive to OCR to have these types of situations. I hope there are more! There are so many communities out there creating works all the time. And I hope that at the very least, if another appears, OCR will not have negative feelings towards it.

We are all VG lovers here. Let us remember that.

Congratulations, and Cheers.

[HoboKa]

I can't account for the negativity of others, only my own; there's a wide variety of sentiment on topics like these, sometimes cooler heads don't prevail, and people's definition of what's "fair" can be shockingly subjective.

Does it need to be more complicated than that? Do you feel compelled to try and make it more complicated than that?

If so, perhaps the conversation should be private?

Hehe, I've had my qualms with OCR before (and still do). But this issue here hardly warrants anyone's ire. What I don't like here is the condescending attitudes towards so-called "noob" remixers; the J panel is no exception and I feel that it is a factor for the negative behavior that is tainting the community here. I know, I know - I'm going on a different tangent here, but I can understand why this person is so bitter with OCR - maybe they are grappling onto the wrong issue though.

Also...I've said this before and I'll say it again: there is nothing in OCR's mandate that says "we actively support contemptuous behavior towards our fellow remixers who aren't as good as the veterans." THIS is why there are so many bitter people here djpretzel - I know, it's difficult to appease everyone, but I think you could at least look into the issue.

Best regards.

-Alex

[djpretzel]

We are all VG lovers here. Let us remember that.

Congratulations, and Cheers.

Well, some of us just registered today, apparently for this specific issue, which always begs certain questions Just kidding, and from past experience we sort of assumed this type of conversation would take place, in one form or another. I'm glad you raised the points you did and reminded us specifically of VV; I feel like perhaps we need some more official advice or statement clarifying this topic, but even stating ANYTHING at all can be dangerous. Either way, you're right, we're all gamers & VGM fans, and need to remember that.

[djpretzel]

Also...I've said this before and I'll say it again: there is nothing in OCR's mandate that says "we actively support contemptuous behavior towards our fellow remixers who aren't as good as the veterans." THIS is why there are so many bitter people here djpretzel..

I thought it was because we're on the Internet!?

Also, maybe I'm out of touch or something, but I don't feel like we've got a disproportionate number of bitter people. If anything, we may not even be making our quota...I completely agree we should strive to be our best, and that means minimizing or preferably negating any contempt or condescension based on experience or talent, but we do often need to directly address those traits, and sometimes even TALKING about them can be misconstrued as condescension and/or contempt. I cannot fix human nature, but for my own part I do make efforts to direct it & definitely want the spirit of the community to be open.

If you're just referring to the initially private nature of this album, and that's it, I'll again reiterate that I think BOTH models work, and that album directors should have the freedom to hand-pick, run open contests, hit a pinata, roll some dice, or otherwise use whatever means seems best to them when selecting artists for their projects.

[SwordBreaker]

I understand where PScoins is coming from. I asked the same questions too when I learned of the existence of this Kickstarter. Copyright-related questions also came to mind as well. Then I read the actual mission and started thinking more. It's not like OCR is treading a slippery slope or a gray area because they're clearly not charging for the music; only for the "work" they'll need to do in order to promote it. And believe me; there's a ton of work and money going into promoting the album and the site itself. Once you get the logistics going, there's definitely a lot of work needed to make the music and promote it. Either way, the music will still be offered for free. Nothing's going to change with that. The physical album is just an added luxury to those who want to support it...and in turn you're helping the site in the process. It's a win-win situation.

As for being negative towards the idea initially when it was raised with a previous album, opinions change. Nobody's perfect. Even though OCR promotes itself as "we" and a community, there are a ton of people here which don't necessarily have a unified opinion. Add to that is the fact that an opinion can change eventually.

Think of it as the community helping itself, as many of the Kickstarter backers are surely active forum goers and even OC ReMixers.

Crowdfunding and donations always get this type of haphazard response and understandably so. Maybe if OCR can break down specifics or highlights on the costs needed from certain music production to bandwith, CD making, etc. Perhaps a video of some sort will help viewers and convince skeptics that there's a budget that's needed for FFVI and its promotion.

[HoboKa]

I thought it was because we're on the Internet!?

Also, maybe I'm out of touch or something, but I don't feel like we've got a disproportionate number of bitter people. If anything, we may not even be making our quota...I completely agree we should strive to be our best, and that means minimizing or preferably negating any contempt or condescension based on experience or talent, but we do often need to directly address those traits, and sometimes even TALKING about them can be misconstrued as condescension and/or contempt. I cannot fix human nature, but for my own part I do make efforts to direct it & definitely want the spirit of the community to be open.

If you're just referring to the initially private nature of this album, and that's it, I'll again reiterate that I think BOTH models work, and that album directors should have the freedom to hand-pick, run open contests, hit a pinata, roll some dice, or otherwise use whatever means seems best to them when selecting artists for their projects.

No, I wasn't referring to the initially private nature of the FF6 album - but I see how it can ruffle some feathers =p

Maybe I have a tendency to blow things out of proportion, er...a lot; and my personal bad experience(s) here has probably made me develop an unfair bias.

EDIT*

I apologize for acting out of hand and going off-topic here - mods may remove my rantings on this thread if they wish.

[zircon]

I understand where PScoins is coming from. I asked the same questions too when I learned of the existence of this Kickstarter. Copyright-related questions also came to mind as well. Then I read the actual mission and started thinking more. It's not like OCR is treading a slippery slope or a gray area because they're clearly not charging for the music; only for the "work" they'll need to do in order to promote it. And believe me; there's a ton of work and money going into promoting the album and the site itself. Once you get the logistics going, there's definitely a lot of work needed to make the music and promote it. Either way, the music will still be offered for free. Nothing's going to change with that. The physical album is just an added luxury to those who want to support it...and in turn you're helping the site in the process. It's a win-win situation.

As for being negative towards the idea initially when it was raised with a previous album, opinions change. Nobody's perfect. Even though OCR promotes itself as "we" and a community, there are a ton of people here which don't necessarily have a unified opinion. Add to that is the fact that an opinion can change eventually.

Think of it as the community helping itself, as many of the Kickstarter backers are surely active forum goers and even OC ReMixers.

Crowdfunding and donations always get this type of haphazard response and understandably so. Maybe if OCR can break down specifics or highlights on the costs needed from certain music production to bandwith, CD making, etc. Perhaps a video of some sort will help viewers and convince skeptics that there's a budget that's needed for FFVI and its promotion.

Thanks for the support! There's actually a breakdown of the budget on the Kickstarter page (at the bottom, FAQ section). That said, I'm not sure where you got the 'promotion' bit from; none of the budget is going toward promotion, marketing or advertising, nor is any of it going toward musical work on the project. In other words, none of us are getting paid anything Here is the budget breakdown:

Printing costs: $5,600 for 1,500 copies in nice full-color DVD cases with 4 CDs each

Delivery costs: $400 to get the printed CDs to OCR HQ in Fairfax, VA

Shipping costs: $6,500 to ship up to 1,500 copies to donors and project ReMixers

Kickstarter/Amazon fees: $1,500

Studio/mastering budget: $1,000 (remainder) to be used as-needed

That's $15k.

[SwordBreaker]

Thanks for the support! There's actually a breakdown of the budget on the Kickstarter page (at the bottom, FAQ section). That said, I'm not sure where you got the 'promotion' bit from; none of the budget is going toward promotion, marketing or advertising, nor is any of it going toward musical work on the project. In other words, none of us are getting paid anything Here is the budget breakdown:

Printing costs: $5,600 for 1,500 copies in nice full-color DVD cases with 4 CDs each

Delivery costs: $400 to get the printed CDs to OCR HQ in Fairfax, VA

Shipping costs: $6,500 to ship up to 1,500 copies to donors and project ReMixers

Kickstarter/Amazon fees: $1,500

Studio/mastering budget: $1,000 (remainder) to be used as-needed

That's $15k.

I actually didn't see that. Thanks! What I meant by promoting it is mostly web-related stuff like making and hosting the project site, the music download bandwidth, etc. Making the physical is also technically counted towards promoting the actual music, too. Maybe I used the wrong term for it.

[Otakatt]

Thanks for the support! There's actually a breakdown of the budget on the Kickstarter page (at the bottom, FAQ section). That said, I'm not sure where you got the 'promotion' bit from; none of the budget is going toward promotion, marketing or advertising, nor is any of it going toward musical work on the project. In other words, none of us are getting paid anything Here is the budget breakdown:

Printing costs: $5,600 for 1,500 copies in nice full-color DVD cases with 4 CDs each

Delivery costs: $400 to get the printed CDs to OCR HQ in Fairfax, VA

Shipping costs: $6,500 to ship up to 1,500 copies to donors and project ReMixers

Kickstarter/Amazon fees: $1,500

Studio/mastering budget: $1,000 (remainder) to be used as-needed

That's $15k.

If that's the breakdown, then why would someone have to pay 50 for the album as opposed to the album being available at the 25 mark? You'd move more albums that way, likely get more willing to donate at that price, and in theory if all 1000 'slots' were taken you'd make well over the 15k mark. So you wouldn't even have to have 1000 backers in that category. IMO that seemed somewhat greedy.

And you state here, "nor is any of it going toward musical work on the project". On the KS page it reads, "Additionally, though all artists are volunteers, many tracks will require studio recording time or professional mixing/mastering - things that we could use a budget for!" Does that not count as musical work on the project? Which is fine, but I'm a little confused why what you say here seems to contradict what the KS page says.

[KyleJCrb]

Pretty funny that it costs more to ship the damn things than it does to make them.

[Arcana]

If that's the breakdown, then why would someone have to pay 50 for the album as opposed to the album being available at the 25 mark? You'd move more albums that way, likely get more willing to donate at that price, and in theory if all 1000 'slots' were taken you'd make well over the 15k mark. So you wouldn't even have to have 1000 backers in that category. IMO that seemed somewhat greedy.

Because this way (and due to the way that Kickstarter just works in general), they're able to meet their funding goal in less than 24 hours with under 1/5 of the people needed to "sell" a 1500-unit run album.

BTW that's really impressive that you guys met your $15000 target with under 400 backers and in under 24 hours. Congratulations!

[Melbu Frahma]

BTW that's really impressive that you guys met your $15000 target with under 400 backers and in under 24 hours. Congratulations!

^

I think we should try for 300% of the goal, personally.

[Otakatt]

Pretty funny that it costs more to ship the damn things than it does to make them.

Shipping is so ridiculous. :s I'd shop more online than I do if shipping didn't cost like half or more than the item I was buying.

[zircon]

If that's the breakdown, then why would someone have to pay 50 for the album as opposed to the album being available at the 25 mark? You'd move more albums that way, likely get more willing to donate at that price, and in theory if all 1000 'slots' were taken you'd make well over the 15k mark. So you wouldn't even have to have 1000 backers in that category. IMO that seemed somewhat greedy.

And you state here, "nor is any of it going toward musical work on the project". On the KS page it reads, "Additionally, though all artists are volunteers, many tracks will require studio recording time or professional mixing/mastering - things that we could use a budget for!" Does that not count as musical work on the project? Which is fine, but I'm a little confused why what you say here seems to contradict what the KS page says.

Sorry, I should have been more clear. I meant none of the ReMixers involved with the project are getting paid (or any site staff). However, it is possible that we might need to hire someone outside of the community for $$ (eg. session musicians, mastering engineers). Of course we'll be doing our absolute best to keep everything inhouse and free, of course.

I figure you guys didn't plan to meet your goal so quickly, but since you have and the donations just keep on coming, maybe you could post here and on the Kickstart page some general plans as to how the additional money is going to be spent?

Things are definitely going much faster than we dreamed possible. We just had a Skype meeting to discuss stretch goals and will likely be making an announcement about that in the next 24 hours.

[Otakatt]

Sorry, I should have been more clear. I meant none of the ReMixers involved with the project are getting paid (or any site staff). However, it is possible that we might need to hire someone outside of the community for $$ (eg. session musicians, mastering engineers). Of course we'll be doing our absolute best to keep everything inhouse and free, of course.

Things are definitely going much faster than we dreamed possible. We just had a Skype meeting to discuss stretch goals and will likely be making an announcement about that in the next 24 hours.

Oh, okay. Cool, cool. It's great that you guys have hit your goal too, and so fast. While I still would have liked to see the album be at the 25 pledge, I'm happy OCR is so supported by people.

[Liontamer]

Thanks to those who are confident that we're gonna do a great job with our FF6 album. We're very confident we will, especially based on zircon's track record directing the Final Fantasy VII: Voices of the Lifestream album back in '07!

I'm gonna reply at length to what got brought up in this NeoGAF thread, which brought up some fun stuff about the Kickstarter, some factually incorrect opinions/assumptions about OCR, and some concerns. Thanks to Billiechu for spreading the word in the first place, and SgtRama for taking me to task on Facebook for HOW I reacted to a BS claim. So let's speak to everyone instead of just a few off-base comments.

• Thanks to Franklinator for liking the cover art! That's by Andrew "OA" Luers, who put a lot of thought into a great way to represent the Balance and Ruin album title. It's cropped a little bit on the KS page, but hopefully you'll like the full view once that's out.
  
• For shira, glad you're looking forward to the free download! For anyone that can't afford to part with $50 to donate at the level to receive a physical album, or just are skeptical or even cynical about how the album will turn out, that's cool, we're not expecting anyone to donate under those circumstances and hope you'll enjoy all, or at least part, of the upcoming album. The price of FREE is right, and you'll find SOME things you end up liking.
  
• For B.K. and one other who said we do "too much arranging" and some source tunes become "unrecognizable," that's not something we actively go out and do, and we have standards requiring arrangements to be mostly comprised of observable & direct connections with the source material. Those requirements are a little looser for albums (but not by much), since not every track is intended to be held to our standards for individually posted mixes.
  Sometimes our community's arrangements are fairly straightforward compared to the original. And sometimes, the interpretiveness of an arrangement is pretty in-depth and can seem unconnected to the original song even though it is, because the genre, key signature, tempo or rhythms are different than the original. There are definitely some listeners who can't or simply don't want to wrap their heads around that, because they're looking something closer to a cover, where the structure, instruments and mood closely resemble the original music.
  But we're an open-minded community about arrangements, so we welcome all kinds of arrangement approaches as long as they're sufficiently interpretive, understanding from the get-go that there are a lot of VGM fans who may end up disliking MOST of what our community does as a result of that inclusiveness. In short: your mileage may vary, but that's on purpose.
  
• As far as the comments from some people who just made blanket comments like the Wild ARMs album was bad or the FF4 album was bad, there's no way we agree with that, but it's subjective criticism, which doesn't make me heckle someone on the Tweeter. The artists that contribute to our albums give it their all, and we've done our best to show that we maintain a fairly high but inclusive bar when it comes to the music we publish. If you feel like the tracks and albums on OCR, particularly in the last 7 years on, are poorly made, that's more a listener's personal preference for music or VGM arrangements than the skill level of the ReMixers.
  
• Nekofrog mentioned "drama/politics is the worst part of the site," with Mr. Saturn adding "the politics that go on behind the scenes for submissions is outrageous and petty." Like I said on Twitter, if those things were even remotely true, Nekofrog wouldn't have EVER made past the judges panel. Going from previously being viewed by the community as a troll and banned (before he ever submitted music), and then being unbanned and having several ReMixes approved by the judges and praised & promoted on OCR sounds like a lack of politics and drama to me. When dealing with artists, there's lots of opportunity for friction. But we don't let it affect our submissions process, otherwise it would discourage too many people to submit music. Even zircon, who's directing the FF6 project, used to be a very outspoken critic of OCR and what he perceived to be issues with inconsistancies in the music approval process, yet he later joined the staff. And for anyone who a REAL old school fan, we're cool with virt and Protricity after extended dramarama with them. Even if an artist has or used to have friction with the staff, the submissions process or something else about OCR, that hasn't prevented anyone from being fairly evaluated, which is important to us.
  
• Zeer0id said, "I'm not sure how comfortable I feel contributing for this. I trust they will use the funds in appropriate, not-for-profit ways, but it still seems like paying for something that legally needs to be free (and will ultimately be free, should the Kickstarter succeed)." We covered this earlier in the thread, but there's no pressure to donate, so it's OK if you choose not to. We included a breakdown of the estimated costs in the Kickstarter FAQ, but we don't have much "profit" going on, and anything beyond the goal will be reinvested into improving the album, Kickstarter stretch rewards, and lastly, when we run out of ideas for the Kickstarter, towards the site in some fashion. Thanks though for trusting that we won't use the money in an improper way. The staff and artists certainly wouldn't take ANY profit off this campaign, otherwise everyone would hate us forever. Really.
  
• kiunchbb said "it is kinda hard [to decide to support] without showing me a few soundtrack." The video in the Kickstarter has some brief samples of in-progress mixes to check out. zircon also directed Final Fantasy: Voices of the Lifestream album, so if you like the styles you hear in some of the music at http://ff7.ocremix.org, then we think you'll like the FF6 album!
  
• chickdigger said "if it's anything like the other albums, pretty much every theme is done by a different artist, so naturally quality would be all over the place (plus personal taste)." A bit more even-handed of a criticism. They better understand the concept of "your mileage may vary." We don't believe "quality" will be all over the place for this album, nor is that true for our other albums. As I said earlier, a lot of people conflate quality with their own personal taste, e.g. "I can't stand XYZ genre, it's low-quality music," which just isn't true if you're open-minded to a genre or a big fan of it.
  
• Also, regarding some people saying the track flows of OCR albums aren't cohesive, that's also subjective. We don't mind people feeling that way, and we generally leave track flow to the judgement of the director of an album to determine the track order and flow, so your mileage as a listener may vary again. For FF6 (and for FF7 in the past), zircon is VERY adamant about having good track flow from piece to piece, so that's something that will be very actively paid attention to with this FF6 album. In other words, we believe you'll find it flows, and we hope you'll be optomistic about that.
  
• atbigelow, an FF6 album backer, said "a lot of OCR albums are not great. The FFVII album was mostly nonsense techno filth." THAT set me off on Twitter, and I called him an idiot. Sorry, atbeigelow, that IS wrong AND a lack of tact. You're a better man than I am for still being willing to back & promote the project, thank you. Really, it's just your opinion framed as an objective fact that I should have criticized. That said, I've got to stand by the criticism of your made up claims. They're just made up, so you shouldn't stand by them.
  We actually don't mind more subjective opinions or disagreements just generally dissing an album or the site. It's all just chatter, and we expect negative comments, naturally.
  But the dismissive distortion about the content in VotL ("mostly nonsense techno filth") went a step beyond that, which set that off. There are probably only 6 out of 45 tracks on the FF7 album that could be considered "techno." VotL's mostly rock, jazz, orchestral, acoustic performances, and fusion pieces. When I see our community's music and artists criticized with something that's just objectively and factually UNTRUE, I'll publicly fight that. Some NeoGAF users thought I was a dick in ridiculing that comment. Especially if they haven't heard the FF7 album, my reaction can seem like a simple butthurt pushback against a subjective opinion, but that's not the case.
  I'm here to defend the artists from BS when they can't necessarily be there to defend the facts behind their own music. Even if the person saying it is a backer, I'd like to think that other people would still call out something that's simply untrue and not be pressured by money. I'll be more diplomatic going forward, but WOULD DEFEND THE TRUTH AGAIN! For anyone CURIOUS, http://ff7.ocremix.org, go through the 45 pieces, and you can see for yourself how much "techno filth" is on the album. Objectively, there's not much techno on that album, that's the reason I pushed back so hard.
  
• Mr. Saturn points to the albatross of the FF5 project: "I would never ever ever ever give them money on the promise of an album. They are a year behind on the release of the second part of their five-part FF V series, and that was slated to release over a year after the first part. Would you pay money for this kind of follow-through?" DarkeSword, who's directing that project, got too aggressive with his timetable for it, but his group of artists are actively working on part 2. That said, we're not doing a Kickstarter about THAT. There's definitely more incentive to finish and deliver the FF6 album given the goals and community participation of this whole effort. I wouldn't compare FF6 to the structure of the FF5 album though, which was an experiment in a staggered album release that we were open-minded enough to try but wouldn't do again.
  We bust DarkeSword's chops about it too, you're not the only one.
  
• orioto says "Hm let say i respect their work but it has always been too "pop/techno" oriented for me. I don't want to .. dance to FFVI songs, i want soundtrack style music." - We don't post much poppy techno/electronica nowadays. Maybe in 2001 you could claim OCR was mostly pop/techno. Even that wouldn't be right, but you'd have more of a case. In the past 5-8 years, that's not been the case AT ALL. Powerful computers, home studios setups, and quality samples are so much less expensive, so it's really opened up the range of genres a hobbyist musician can credibly execute. This "OCR isn't just techno" FB post from 2 years ago is still true today no matter what our recent mixes are.
  Feel free to hit our
  , and just work your way backwards. Anyone should be pleasantly surprised by the diversity of genres AND the techno (it's good, don't genre hate!) - Again, all the "nothing but teknoz" nonsense can be denied with the actual evidence if you bother to check.
  
• As far as what orioto meaning of wanting "soundtrack style music" on the FF6 album, it won't primarily be a dance album, but I can't tell if "soundtrack" refers to wanting it to sound like a cinematic score or a lot like the FF6 SNES soundtrack. There's the chance both orchestral and chiptune stuff could be represented in some form, but if you're looking for a one-genre album, it's not going to be for you.
  
• Holy Order Sol said "I can't recall a single time where I didn't recognize the original material if I was familiar with it in the first place." Having been a submissions judge here for 8 years, that's generally how it turns out, so thanks for affirming it. There are definitely some arrangements where, even giving it a much closer comparison than a casual fan would, the connection can be hard to piece together. But those are rare, and we still vet them to make sure those connections to the source tunes are in fact there before we post them. We like VGM TOO and don't see the point of posting original pieces of music with little or no connection to the source VGM. So we don't.
  

[Brandon Strader]

I just want to point out that all of the answers given concerning the Vampire Variations situation were completely inaccurate.

Vampire Variations was going to be a 2 disc professional print for a donation of $8 each, whereas FF6 is going to be 4 discs for $50.

I can't help but feel slightly peeved at the way this was answered, and also wouldn't mind knowing the actual print cost per disc of FF6 when that information is available.

In that thread djp said they should price VV at "2 to 4 dollars"... shouldn't it be reasonable then that this 4-disc album could have been priced at 4 to 8 dollars?

[Bucky Bantam]

I'm genuinely flabbergasted by some of the negative reaction to this Kickstarter.

A FREE site, that on a daily basis offers FREE music, and occasionally FREE albums, by a community that do it out of love and get no money for it, for over a decade, and some punks are grumbling because they've married a VOLUNTARY donation scheme with their latest project?

Really??

The album will be FREE for all - does the fact that some people are paying for a physical copy really irk you so much? Sure, $50 might be a little steep, but I don't see this as paying the going rate for a particular item, I see it as getting a nice little "thank you" for donating.

The box-set isn't the project - the music that's on it is the project. Download it and burn it onto some CDs yourself if this is such a deal-breaker.

To be honest, the fact I'll be getting 4 CDs through the post is almost an irrelevance - I just want to give something back. If you don't, then that's fine. But don't be a whiny bitch because you're inexplicably offended that they had the gall to ask for donations...

[djpretzel]

I just want to point out that all of the answers given concerning the Vampire Variations situation were completely inaccurate.

Vampire Variations was going to be a 2 disc professional print for a donation of $8 each, whereas FF6 is going to be 4 discs for $50.

I can't help but feel slightly peeved at the way this was answered, and also wouldn't mind knowing the actual print cost per disc of FF6 when that information is available.

In that thread djp said they should price VV at "2 to 4 dollars"... shouldn't it be reasonable then that this 4-disc album could have been priced at 4 to 8 dollars?

Which answer was completely inaccurate? You said all of them were, then failed to cite a single one. It's your right to be peeved, but I'm failing to see the inaccuracy. This kickstarter is supporting OCR as a whole, in addition to printing an album. My answer about accountability remains true, as does my statement that no one HAS to follow our/my advice, and the only repercussion to not doing so would be degree of promotion by OCR. Where's the inaccuracy? If you're going to say something is wrong, and then not explain why, that's a conversation best had in private with me, right? The pricing we suggested was to avoid ANY possible overhead margins. That's not our goal w/ this kickstarter, and we've explained that elsewhere. If you want to be antagonistic about a topic that's already been covered, in public, and make claims that our responses are "inaccurate" just know that I'll certainly remember this unnecessary and redundant drama-bait.

[Brandon Strader]

My answer about accountability remains true

Until everyone printing albums starts publicizing their bank statements, there won't truly be accountability anywhere. I'm not saying I don't trust your word -- I do, but I also trusted the word of the people running VV.

I'll certainly remember this unnecessary and redundant drama-bait.

Why do you have to be like this?

This TURNS it into a drama bait. If people give negative feedback they are doing it for positive reasons. This type of statement is intended to dissuade people from ever criticizing and that will always be counter-productive. But if that's how it has to be, then I will be silent with any opinions in the future.