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Final Fantasy VIII: Collision Course - History


Brandon Strader
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I just sent out the message -- groups of 5 people at a time, that was pretty.... inconvenient. Dunno why it wouldn't just let me send it to everyone. 

Anyway, we have our first casualty. Sam Ascher-Weiss, aka Shnabubula, drops The Castle. I guess he knew he wouldn't be able to cut the mustard within a month, despite sitting on his claim for almost 8 months. :) 

Let's see if we can get something big and epic to replace it! 

OA dropped Ride On, the difficult airship theme that is really upbeat

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@HeavenWraith, @Chernabogue, @Tuberz McGee, @Chris Porter Music, @Wiesty, @Sagnewshreds, @Manji, @RiverSound, @Ivan Hakštok, @XPRTNovice, @Gario, @Geoffrey Taucer, @DjjD, @jnWake, @shadowpsyc, @bluelighter, @Larsec, @fxsnowy, @DusK, @Jackson Alexander Parodi, @Jorito, @theshaggyfreak, @audio fidelity, @zykO, @Jivemaster, @Cyril the Wolf, @Hat, @Hipnotyk, @Amphibious, @Jason Covenant

Bad news...

Unfortunately, due to recent events, Brandon Strader has been permanently banned from these forums.

In the interest of full disclosure, if you have not already read through them, the relevant threads are linked below.

We have always tried to keep both the submission evaluation & album direction processes about the music, and not about the politics, personalities, or drama surrounding anyone participating, and for sixteen years we've been able to do a pretty good job with that, but a line is crossed when there's libel involved and when someone consistently spreads unfounded accusations and bad faith rumors about this site and its staff.

I'd like to apologize to all artists contributing to this project who have been doing an excellent job; one thing I'll certainly say is that Brandon DOES know how to run an album project, as he has shown. In a perfect world, we would never dream of interfering with or jeopardizing the successful completion of what should be an amazing album, but alas, our world is not perfect. In spite of the risk to projects Brandon has underway, we feel that his threats, accusations, and general attitude towards the site do not make him an appropriate director of a community album, or an acceptable presence on these forums.

But wait, the show isn't over...

I've spoken with @JJT & @zircon and between the three of us, we feel that we can direct this album and continue on the path laid out, towards a successful release. This is absolutely dependent on whether you, the contributing artists, are okay with this change of leadership. We will completely understand if this leaves a bad taste in your mouth, if you are more loyal to him specifically than to OCR and wish to contact him and resume work via another avenue, or if the whole thing is now dead to you and you want to crawl in a hole somewhere and drink cocoa, however, we HOPE that you will choose to keep trekkin' and see this thing through as an OCR release, and the three of us are going to do our best to make that happen.

To that end, we have set up a poll in the FF8 project forum - please vote ASAP so we know where things stand!

If you're on the album but can't access the above link, let me know.

Absolutely no hard feelings if you wish to continue working with Brandon elsewhere - it won't be an OCR album anymore, and we hope to continue this effort here regardless, but it'll probably be pretty good, based on his track record.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/1304971649533011/permalink/1345644188799090/

 

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Clicking that link (poll) gives me a "site can't be reached". 

Naturally, really bummed to hear it came to this. Brandon was one of the few people who instantly gave me his approval&trust when I first auditioned to him a long time ago, and he was always proactive, inviting me on projects and trusting me with key songs... Now I can't rely on that anymore, gotta try and get posted at long last lol.

What will become of the FF3 project? I've been involved with it quite a lot, with 2 key songs to my name, would be a real shame to see it cancelled. 

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8 minutes ago, RiverSound said:

Clicking that link (poll) gives me a "site can't be reached". 

Good call; link should be fixed, thanks for pointing that out!

8 minutes ago, RiverSound said:

What will become of the FF3 project? I've been involved with it quite a lot, with 2 key songs to my name, would be a real shame to see it cancelled.

I just posted on that thread as well: http://ocremix.org/community/topic/33986-final-fantasy-iii-finish-song-or-risk-being-cut/?page=14#comment-815281

Short version is that with FF3, I really don't know - I can't IMAGINE it would be cancelled 100%, but unless Brandon's okay with it being released here under new direction or every last artist strongly opposed it being released outside of OCR, it seems like it won't be an OC ReMix album.

If all artists are in agreement that they don't want to participate UNLESS it's an OC ReMix album, then I think a case could be made that it should still be released here, but the FF I - II - III trilogy has really been a Brandon Strader production... I'm hoping something can be worked out, but I'm not optimistic. I'm guessing that Brandon will reach out to artists and communicate his own wishes, which hopefully someone will convey back here on the forums, and everyone can make an educated decision.

It's sad.

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Whoa huge bummer to see how he broke down like that and it got to the point of a perma ban :(. I was hoping things would just kind of mellow out after a bit. The entire time I was reading his posts on that thread I just kept thinking about how I hope the album projects stay in tact. I'm definitely still in, but still need to get a WIP together for my claim. Is the September 12th deadline still a thing?

I will also probably need some help/guidance when it comes to mixing/mastering/anything production related for my track. I'm not so good at that stuff as arranging and playing are my specialties (still new to the whole recording aspect of music) and Brandon was going to do that for me. If anybody wants to mix my track that'd be rad :) probably won't be necessary for at least a few months.

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3 minutes ago, Sagnewshreds said:

I'm definitely still in, but still need to get a WIP together for my claim. Is the September 12th deadline still a thing?

  1. Awesome, glad you're still down!
  2. YES, the Sep. 12th WIP deadline remains in place. No need to change it, let's keep things moving forward, and once the poll has a majority of votes, we'll be modifying the roster accordingly, reaching out with new contact info, etc.
3 minutes ago, Sagnewshreds said:

I will also probably need some help/guidance when it comes to mixing/mastering/anything production related for my track.

No worries, we can make that happen.

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Even if it's not technically a thing, that deadline should still hold. It'll probably be the thing to finally push me to get something going, at any rate, lol.

But yeah, this really is a huge bummer, but at the same time it's not hard to argue that it's for the betterment of the site at this point, too. You can't let people do what he was doing without repercussion.

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Everything else aside, I think we can agree that Brandon is a force of nature when it comes to these kinds of projects. No one is happy with how the last week has gone, and it sucks that he and OCR are going to part ways. 

That being said, we're excited to see this album get completed, and I hope that you (the remixers) all want to stay on board with us and see it through. Let me know if I can be of any help or assistance.

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It's a shame to see that things got so bad that Brandon had to be banned, but I trust in the decision you guys have made and I'm totally still down for doing the album - being on an OCR album release has been a bucket list item for me for a long time, and especially a Final Fantasy one given how important those soundtracks have been to me! Let's get it done :)

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@djpretzel @zircon @JJT

Well shit. Thats sucks. I don't know what happened or what was said but for someone who has given a lot of time to this community and then be cutoff is rough. Hopefully bridges can mend in the future, but its nice that you guys want to keep this going. I also do hope that @OA @Sam Ascher-Weiss can get back on the project cause I was rather looking forward to their tracks. 

 

I appreciate Brandon and his hard work but lets move forward and see this through for the community. We're all welcome to release our music elsewhere but contributing together is what makes it special here.

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7 hours ago, jnWake said:

I was kinda doubtful on my participation thanks to last week's drama but I'll continue as long as the project is alive.

However, I'm not sure I can make the deadline lol.

If you can get us ANYTHING before the deadline you'll be good to go. Doesn't matter how bare bones it is.

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19 hours ago, audio fidelity said:

@djpretzel @zircon @JJT

Well shit. Thats sucks. I don't know what happened or what was said but for someone who has given a lot of time to this community and then be cutoff is rough. Hopefully bridges can mend in the future, but its nice that you guys want to keep this going. I also do hope that @OA @Sam Ascher-Weiss can get back on the project cause I was rather looking forward to their tracks. 

 

I appreciate Brandon and his hard work but lets move forward and see this through for the community. We're all welcome to release our music elsewhere but contributing together is what makes it special here.

 

My thoughts resonate with Jays. I only known a bit of the situation from what I've read and it seems to bad that some sort of middle ground could not be reached. Brandon was a HUGE contributor to this website, and although sometimes controversial, he did bring a lot to this community. I've voted in the sub-forum. 

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On 8/17/2016 at 9:54 PM, djpretzel said:

Bad news...

Unfortunately, due to recent events, Brandon Strader has been permanently banned from these forums.

Ok, but what's the bad news?


Honestly, I was considering pulling my track from the project just because of how much of a jackass Strader was being (not that it was in any way out of character for him).

Now I'll actually do my best to finish it.

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I thought September was the final deadline and was pretty far along toward finishing this... However...

Strader is our buddy and the guy who introduced us to OC Remix. He's been helping us over the years to get to a point where one of our songs would finally be accepted. With respect to all of you involved in the project (except Geoffrey) Juja and I are going to bow out.

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