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How did you first hear of/get involved with OCR?


Diodes
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Apologies in advance if a thread like this already exists. I felt like sharing my OCR story, because it is pretty awesome. Others who were present at the time, feel free to correct me on the details. :tomatoface:

The year was 2007 or 2008 I believe. I was dating Vinnie (Palpable) at the time, and our good friend Aaron was dating Kaleb Grace, who was visiting from CA. At the time, I was aware of the site's existence, because Palpable was a posted remixer, of course. But I was not at all involved in the site.

The four of us randomly decided to go out to a karaoke night, not something we did often (or ever, really). There we were, sitting at our table and watching the other singers, when suddenly Kaleb said, "I think that's DJ Pretzel." We all looked up at the guy who was singing a (Talking Heads?) song. "Who's DJ Pretzel?" I asked. Vinnie explained: "You know that video game remix website that posted my remixes? DJ Pretzel is the guy who runs the site." We asked Kaleb how he knows that's DJP, and Kaleb says he's seen pictures. (We weren't even aware that Kaleb had any involvement with OCR.) Some discussion over whether that was actually DJP ensued, until finally Kaleb decided to go and talk to him. He came back to our table shortly; yes that was indeed DJP.

There was a little bit of "OMG what the hell do I say to DJ Pretzel," but we got over it and went to say hello. And then of course, when Vinnie introduced himself as Palpable, DJP actually got very excited that he was meeting Palpable (of Oedo Hop fame).

It was then that I made my first real connection to OCR, and afterwards, Vinnie and I both got a lot more involved with the site. I think this is very interesting, because actually, this was a very improbable and completely life-changing event. If Kaleb hadn't been visiting at exactly that time, if we hadn't decided to go to karaoke that particular night, or if Kaleb didn't show up, or if DJP hadn't been at karaoke then, or if none of us were paying attention during the Talking Heads song... I mean, none of this would have ever happened. I would have never met any of you awesome OCR community members, I would probably have never made any video game remixes... my life would just be completely different.

So uh, thank you Kaleb and DJP, for being present at karaoke that night. :)

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back in the day when napster, kazaa, limewire, etc were popular, on a whim i decided to look up "sonic the hedgehog techno" while musing that old sonic games had some of my favorite music, and somebody obviously had to have made a "techno remix" by then

found one of jivemaster's tunes amongst a bunch of shittier things, really liked it, and happened to notice the url in the id3 tag

i imagine mine is not a unique occurrence

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Optional parole condition.

Back then, OCR had a work-release program in place, and you could get a few months off your sentence if you signed up. The only problem was that I didn't sign up, I though you just had to go to the site every so often.

So, after finding out why my three years wasn't down to two and a half, I figured I may as well just get a membership any way.

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Amy, it's kind of scary how you wouldn't be around here at all (or shoot, I would've never gotten to know you as a personal friend) if not for that crazy series of coincidences.

As far as getting involved in the community, that first happened in 2007 with the OCR meetup in DC for Video Games Live. People were going, I had just moved to the area, and I figured I'd go and meet all the cool people. Made friends out of all the ReMixers and site staff in the DC/VA/MD area as a result, and the last six years have been extra awesome entirely because of that.

But finding out about the site itself? I actually used to read THE COMIC, and just started following along with the music site when it branched off. I'm pretty old hat.

Edited by Arrow
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Way back in like 2000 I was a huge fan of djpretzel's Mystery Videogame Theater on overclocked.org. I still think MVT is hilarious. On the sidebar of the site was a little picture of his webcomic character Pretzel with two turntables and the text, "OVERCLOCKED REMIX". It had to be good, right?

I'm so glad I clicked on it. OC Remix became a huge inspiration for me and influenced all of my music from then on.

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i was trying to find game music back in 2004 or so when i first discovered the site in a google search, and then left because i didn't want remixes

it wasn't until 2007 or so i had become interested in arrangements (thanks to the black mages, actually) and had found the site, again, and actually gave the site a chance. probably should've done that in 2004, but i was an idiot back then.

never regretted it. inb4 you're still an idiot

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My story is one of the boring ones. I was looking around for Zelda remixes in 2009-ish, found the site. Joined in 2011. I was never a musician before 2011, so OCR has absolutely changed my life. (so I guess that's more awesome than boring!)

But WOW Amy that's a wonderful story. I love stories like that, where a string of seeming coincidences leads to something life-changing in such a positive way. Thanks for sharing that!

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Was downloading source tunes off of a file sharing site in 2004. I think it was kazaa because Youtube didnt yet have stuff like that and there was no way of getting them if you didn't have the game itself.

Downloaded this thinking it was a Streets of Rage source tune http://ocremix.org/remix/OCR00788/

Loved it and I noticed it had ocremix.org in the file name.

Have to agree with dio. Kaleb's the man.

Edited by Garpocalypse
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My sister showed me DJP's "Pachelbel's Ganon" remix back in 2004 and I loved it. I registered for the forums that day but only posted sparingly for 8 years. Most of my involvement in the past was with the OCR Chess League.

Didn't actually meet any OCR people until I met Amy in April 2012 and then a lot of the staff and others in June when we went to karaoke (I think it was DJP, zircon, Jill, Palpable, Arrow, Shaggy and his wife, Bahamut, Kizyr and probably more). And then I had the opportunity to meet the rest of the band members of OverClocked University at MAG who are all really awesome. Some of the most memorable moments of my life include OCR peeps. So I have OCR and Amy to thank for that. :)

Edited by kitty
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I was in the need for more music after using generic ost megaman music so much in my youtube videos, so I looked for remixes and came upon DarkeSword's 'Beamsabre Beat v2', which led me to find more mixes weekly as I was uploading my Pokemon Crystal playthrough (there were new mixes every week back in 2008...) and then joining OCR finally in early 2011 once a friend of mine asked me to remix Castlevania's 'Bloody Tears'.

Then I left for like four months to practice before coming back for more crits :tomatoface:

Edited by timaeus222
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First I heard of OCR was from winamp. I went into browse radio, typed in "video game radio" from that list was OCR. I queued it into my winamp, pressed play, and saved the link to the radio, and a year later found the site, and was hooked ever since. I think this was in 2003 or 2004.

Too bad the station no longer exists but i still have the mp3s and downloads from this site so its all good ;)

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