An appreciation of OCR

[linkspast]

I don`t know exactly what I want to say, and none of this is planed out, but I think its wild this place is still around. For one reason or another Ill check the remixes and get a wave of "the good old days"  and not just from the music but this community, Which Ill admit, I was not super active, but from the time when I first came across it, I think maybe a  TechTv show sent me this way? Its wild people are still mixing Aquatic ambiance, and it still puts a smile on my face. 

I remember the first album I watched get released was Kong In Concert, I burned it to a disc (mp3 cd players were so cool) and would listen to it in Algebra 1, perhaps its why  took algebra one twice.  
I always wanted to be musical I would love to be able to contribute in that way. Thank you to everyone that still makes music for this community even If it gets said once or thousands of time it's very appreciated. 

 

[Patrick Burns]

Agree with all

Tangential... but reflecting on the past is also a moment to reflect on the future: It will be interesting as generative AI gets better and encroaches on music, and someone decides to feed the OCR library and their source tunes into it. "Make a breakbeat remix of StarTropics in hybrid style of Ziwtra and McVaffe, please and thank you"

[Geoffrey Taucer]

I pretty much grew up in this community. OCR is my home town, just as much as Raleigh is. Almost all of my best friends are OCR people, and at least a third of the guests at my wedding were people I know through OCR. This community is where I met my people, and where I learned and grew as a musician.

[timaeus222]

I don't think I could have become who I am today without OCR. You guys helped me develop my character as well as my musical ability.

[Nase]

all in all, hella good site. really formative. not without problems. partly, my own.

truth be told, the judging institution and the whole "aura" surrounding it was pure ego mindfuck for insecure me seeking appreciation (and being bad at admitting it, naturally).

perfect site for me would've been a strange concoction made of OCR and OLR ingredients that never quite happened...hek i could've nudged the site a little into that direction along with other folks.....woulda shouda.

 

here's one purely theoretical example:

as a JUJ i would've fought to the death to never remove Daknit's Simlish-mix in the purge. as awesome as his shitty Music Maker - prefab Techno piece with the Deckard Cain speech was, i probably wouldn't have fought for keeping that - it's just the verbatim speech in linear fashion, after all. the Sims mix, however - that was pure acid techno spoken word music collage. brilliant idea, should have stayed on the site just to highlight creative multiplicity and question what is music, what is sound, what is arrangement, sampling, collage, blabla.

again, tiny example, indicating larger principle - fuck that mix. it's just one. i'm talking thousands upon thousands of decisions in aggregate.

talk about me: i always dreamt of making these awesome "OLR" style, but next level remixes 10+ years ago, stuff that transcends quality standards and thus contributes to keeping stuff fresh. didn't end up doing much of that. woulda been cool.

the judge's panel in hindsight was cool in its own way... at the very least, it created a lot of "lore" as part of a legendary site.

 

but...as a whole, i think the mentality over the years didn't push to be PUNK enough. the site could've used more PINK and maybe PANK decisions to keep it as bustling and vibrant as it once was.

you guys MADE the site with your blood and sweat and tears and all that other stuff. you`re great. thanks. i am posting this in an appreciation thread. stupid me.

i tend to say stuff i wanna get across in this edgy fashion that maybe sucks, but when i try to soft-cushion/mediate/sandwich it, it just gets worse - 

 

WHAT I WANNA SAY IS, I THINK OCREMIX OR A SIMILAR SITE SHOULD STILL BE MASSIVELY HUGE BECAUSE IT IS AN AWESOME INSTITUTION FOR CREATIVE OUTLET!!!! WHY ISN'T IT?!?!?!

i genuinely mean that, i DON'T REALLY KNOW WHY IT'S NOT. "NOT PUNK ENUF" is not meant as some scathing critique...it's my tiny simplified opinion meme bit on the matter.

i think this whole scene kind of grew old but not wise enough to become the kickass underground cross-generational thingumagick that VG remixing deserves...and i think DJP in principle had the stuff to do it. enthusiastic dude. you inspired a LOT of people to start with music.

 

 

i guess my style of appreciation comes a little crooked...

this site still deserves to thrive. it sucks that it aint.

 

but thanks for the exp!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Master Mi]

I'm not quite sure when the pretty cool trend of remixing video game soundtracks really started.

But I remember listening to some video game remixes while I was still in high school about 20 years ago, and I had some music files on my mom's notebook and later on my first MP3 players.
Some years later I noticed more and more of these really sophisticated remixes with "OC Remix" in the title.

If I remember correctly...
After scouring the internet to find out who this amazing "OC" was, I came across a platform where you could download these pretty cool video game remixes - for FREE!
I mean, a platform that combined the two great passions of video games and music - how cool was that at the time?

And I really loved listening to a lot of those remixes back then, whether I was doing my workout, riding my bike around town, or taking a break from studying away from my hometown by taking a walk in a calm forest nearby, for example.

So, OCR was already a small part of my life before I knew what OCR actually was.
And I'm really sure that over the years it fed my desire to start remixing and composing soundtracks even before I knew what DAWs, VSTis and VST plugins were.

But then, around 2013, I got much more into it, I finally had the chance to buy my first little DAW software, I had no idea about working with DAWs - and I managed to share my first remix on OCR.
It was really terrible, uncreative, kind of deafeningly loud, hyper-compressed, the track radically clipped - but I was kind of numb to those "little sound artifacts" and totally loved it.

Back then, music was some kind of magic for me.
It still is - but with the help of the OCR community and several other platforms, some subject-specific literature, blogs and videos, I've also learned a few lvl.1 and lvl.2 magic spells over the years...
... yeah, after learning the basics like working with a DAW (almost took me over 2 whole years to figure out the main functions of my DAW by trying out a few things and reading through huge parts of the over 1000 pages within the digital manual), creating the first arrangements with VSTis, synths and VST plugins, learning music theory from the very beginning, making my first steps towards own composition ideas later on, improving my listening and mixing skills over the years and finding my own style.

That's a really exciting process of self-development which may never fully stop in a healthy lifetime.
You might quit weightlifting and full contact martial arts when you're around 90 years old, but you can still compose 'n' cast an atmospheric Star Tropics remix at such a magic wizard age when you are already the second-oldest rock on the southern islands.

To cherish that soulful opportunity, you should watch your diet, also take your physical training behind your magical composer desk seriously, never go to any wars (if somebody asks, you might answer that you learned from legendary soldier Solid Snake that there are no real heroes in wars - if even this fails, you have to become something like a Saiyan-like master composer wizard who can touch the hearts and feelings of living beings so deeply with just one charming composition that they will give up any desires of greed, war and destruction within a few seconds)...


... and, of course, you should praise the serene gods who have created and who still maintain OC Remix. ))

[Jedimichael]

I first found this place sometime in 2003....so hitting 20 years already....so crazy to think.  But I've never gotten into making music and can't play even one instrument.  But listening to it, and editing videos to the music, thats my thing.

Back in 2003, I was trying to record every game soundtrack into the computer so I could then burn tons of CDs to listen to.  I had to hook a mini DV camera to the game system, record each track in real time, then hook the camera via firewire and record to the computer, also in real time.  It was an extremely time consuming process.  A lot of games have a sound test, so that was used, or at least some place, area or whatever to get a clean recording.  I wanted the original Star Fox soundtrack, but had no way to get it without just playing each level.  I didn't have the internet at that time, but sometime in the summer, I went and visited my parents, from Florida to Idaho, where they lived.  They had the internet, so in trying to find the Star Fox soundtrack, I instead found a Star Fox remix....which was here.  I do not remember which remix, but once I explored the place a bit more, my two week visit was mainly downloading every single remix from the games I already loved....and still on dialup at the time, it was such a SLOW process.....

I think I was actually surprised to find SO many people that also loved video game music.....I really thought I was all alone and maybe just crazy. Way before I recorded in the camera way, I would use a basic tape player/recorder up next to the tv, which was surrounded by pillows.  Hit record, play the track, and after it looped once or twice, turn the volume down on the tv for a fading out effect.  I think the Streets of Rage games were the first I ever did that to....and then the Sonic games.  Good times.

[Jedimichael]

As stated above, I never learned how to really make music of any kind.  With a blank canvas I'd be like....duuuhhhhhhhhh...........

BUT, I did have ONE way, technically.  One that I'm sure plenty of people have tried and used, maybe even got their start in music.  Thats using the 1999 Playstation game, MTV Music Generator, aka Music 2000 in some areas.

I've spent years and years playing around in that, which thankfully gives you the premade riffs to add, and then expand on those.  Its really been the ONLY way for me to figure anything musical out.  Sad, I know.

Just this last December, I took every song I had made, remastered them and made this 5 hour long video.

So while NOT remixes from video game music, IT IS music made on a video game.  So despite my lack of knowledge of creating music, I am still proud of what I made here and what I was able to figure out.

I do use sound programs for sound design and mixing, so that probably at least helped.