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OCR HAS RUINED MY MUSIC


WillRock
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Ok thats a clickbait and totally untrue headline but I am curious. When I joined OCR, I found that they required a specific style of arrangement. And I think that has generally influenced the way I write my music now. I hate repetition. In fact, I often have trouble making something that has the same tempo throughout, I either have to go halftime, or double time, or change the tempo completely, change my style halfway through the track... my music has gone MEGA progressive thanks to OCRs influence. 

I was talking to Sir_Nuts who claimed he hates repeating himself to the point of reducing his output for the fear of sounding samey. So OC Remixers! How has OCR changed your music? 

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I came from a background in trackers (on a retro computer) where I made looping songs that lasted less than a minute. Now I make stuff that lasts some 3-4 minutes on average, has an intro, an ending, some bridges or breaks and more variation in between. Maybe not as extreme as Will does it, but OCR has definitely help push and grow my arrangement skills.

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OCR has influenced me to reduce my repetition, but also pushed me to make my arrangements as interesting as possible. I do have somewhat of a problem in that I occasionally have a hard time making my arrangements longer than 4 minutes, but other than that I'm very happy with my musical output. If I collab though, that tends to help alleviate that regardless.

In terms of production, thanks to OCR, the difference is night and day. :D My arrangement intuition has basically become a more natural flow.

Now I actually give my best effort with my production and arrangement, even if it's already "pretty good" (past OCR standards).

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I'm another person who got into making music because of OCR, I didn't even know producing music other than general MIDI on a computer was a thing until someone linked me to Terra in Black. So I'd say OCR's influence on my music has been pretty positive

 

As far as repetition it probably helps that OCR and VGMix led me to other places like tracking, which has also been very influential. OCR's preference for more variation is just something I would consider for remixes, but I can be repetitive if that's the direction I want to go

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Funnily, I have a feeling that OC Remix changed my perception on the world rather than my actual music making skill.  Back in 2003, I was a college student that saw OCR as a fun place with a fun premise and wanted to instantly interact with other fans there; turns out, it didn't feel like a safe place for a 16-year-old pencil-using fanartist and amateur fan-writer with a huge admiration for PlayStation platformers, so after failing to interact I felt as if I could just keep my core interests as a low profile and start over when the time was right (i.e. the opening of VGMix's 2nd incarnation served as that platform).

Needless to say, time passed and especially within the past few years, I felt as if I opened up considerably.

As for music writing though, just being aware of the wider community for some time gave me time to experiment with different ideas, see a bunch of ideas work, see others don't, try to see what's supposed to work and keep pushing to blend in, which seems to have had a hand in my versatility.  I STILL experiment to this day, though luckily it's over time when I finally felt I didn't need to break the gamer that I was to still make great arrangements, period.

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When i first found OCR in 2005 I thought EVERYONE on the site was a successful recording engineer/musician with their own professional studios and they opted to do free work for the love of the games they played because recording and editing knowledge didn't get passed around back then like it does now.    

As far as the repetition goes.  if you don't come full circle and bring back the A section before you end the remix, you didn't remix it right. :P

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I've always been obsessed with avoiding repetition in my songs, long before I met OCR. However, that's something I would like to change since many great progressive bands actually use repetition a lot! Some Genesis or Marillion songs have sections that simply build off a base for long without getting stale and that's something I'd learn to do myself. For example, The Invisible Man (by Marillion) has a section (beggining at around 6:30) that lasts like 3 minutes and has the same guitar riff playing through it all the time yet it's very progressive thanks to changes in the other instruments, particularly the vocals and keyboards.

OCR did change my music a lot though since before OCR I only wrote music using Guitar Pro. I used to post my compositions in MySongBook (a tab site) actually!

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I honestly don't get the dislike of repetition around here, especially since a majority of people here usually do some variant of dance music.

6 hours ago, Neblix said:

I learned a lot of production stuff from OCR that I had to unlearn later on in order to get better at mixing :<

This is much like my scenario, honestly. I was just using my guitar and writing music with Guitar Pro and OCR taught me how to actually use DAWs, MIDI, Virtual Instruments etc. I won't name names, of course, but I had a handful of people (who no longer even visit these forums as far as I know) who sort "mentored" me and looking back, they were giving me some real bad advice that both over-complicated things and made me develop bad production and arrangement habits for years.

I think I've finally shook that off between self-realization and forum feedback and now I'm back to composing with my guitar and guitar pro before playing it all in via MIDI controller to Reaper and I think it's working out better than ever. Everything kinda went full-circle.  

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7 hours ago, WillRock said:

So OC Remixers! How has OCR changed your music? 

I'm not sure it has, I don't think it has.  I remember way back when I started producing and remixing I liked Trance and House music and would try creating pieces in that style, but since discovering downtempo and ambient and glitch music (outside of ocr mind you) I changed direction, and brought those styles to ocr with my accepted mixes.

I still think I'm a bit all over the map with styles though, maybe ocr is to blame for that.

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1 hour ago, AngelCityOutlaw said:

I honestly don't get the dislike of repetition around here, especially since a majority of people here usually do some variant of dance music.

Well, tbh, not all dance music is repetitive to the extent that I find it excessive. Everything needs repetition so that it doesn't progress too much too quickly, and for that welcome familiarity you get when you hear a reprise. I find that the less repetition there is, the less memorable something becomes. So of course, I'm not inherently against repetition; I'm against excessive repetition.

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4 hours ago, timaeus222 said:

Well, tbh, not all dance music is repetitive to the extent that I find it excessive. Everything needs repetition so that it doesn't progress too much too quickly, and for that welcome familiarity you get when you hear a reprise. I find that the less repetition there is, the less memorable something becomes. So of course, I'm not inherently against repetition; I'm against excessive repetition.

I think that's true of most people, but Will and Kristina both said they "hate" repetition.

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I honestly think I learned more about how to make music and to play piano than in the twenty years before OCR. Because of a need for not every song to sound the same, I needed to adapt my left hand playing (which was always the same pattern before) and mess more with dynamics, play with more emotions, and do much more. Yes, I've learned a ton about production and how to compose as well, but I think it's funny that I've improved so much in playing piano - even more than from my lessons way back 

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I disagree with any assertion that "OCR did _________ to my music"

OCR will help you learn to write more interesting and concise arrangements. But it doesn't force you to write that way any more than you have to "unlearn" how to write enjoyable, concise songs later on because OCR ruined you and those people on Youtube know what they're talkin' about, why did I ever listen to the judges when fetuspuncher13 and kardashianfan69 is around?

I have to unlearn everything I know so I can go back to making something "pure"! Haha alright dude! Meanwhile the only thing you unlearn is the idea that someone helped you get where you are ^_^ 

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