Search by genre

[evanarnett]

Is there any easy way to search for remixes by genre? Say, you just really want to hear some video game reggae, or are in the mood for an epic orchestral remix? I was going to start a thread asking for reccomendations for a specific genre, but "favorite" threads are not allowed.

[atmuh]

uh NO

[OverCoat]

You can ask on Community for types of songs you're looking for, and get recommendations. Those don't count as "favorites" threads.

[Liontamer]

And there you have it.

[TheThoughtfulOne]

I have a feeling that this might dig up a big smattering of debates on what is what, but I still want to ask it for I think that it will be a good way to help people organize and select (for occasions) their music.

I was wondering if there is a list out there, or if it is at all possible to talk to the staff and get a listing (and have it posted with the songs) of the Genres of all the songs currently on OCRemix.

I know I already have most of the songs here on the site, and know a good chunk of the songs genres by heart... but I'm at work, and after 30 hours of awake or so my brain stopped functioning correctly... so if anyone has a fairly current list, or if we can get the staff to concider adding it to the song profiles of what song is genre, please let me know?

I know alot of people would like this idea and support it if it were to get implemented.

Anyone got a list, or any other ideas pertaining to the subject matter at hand?

[lazygecko]

No genre classifications. It'd make it too easy for close-minded listeners to just stick to their little niches and leave everything else in the shadows.

[Nutritious]

OCR Site FAQ addresses this.

I'm personally glad there's no classifications, it's forced me to listen to all the music and find what i personally like - regardless of a genre. You're free to make a playlist based on your mood or whatever though.

[TheThoughtfulOne]

Alright, I can completly understand the site reasons, and might be doing the same thing myself, if I were running it...

I love all the song on here, but when searching for genre to fit a spefice mood when you don't have the massive list (Like I do on my PC) it's kinda hard sometimes, and I end up listening to the same things over and over....

So perhaps does someone have one that they can post/host/e-mail per chance?

Or just a good list of mellow songs, preferably full or psuedo orchestral?

[Liontamer]

Gecko and Nutritious summed up why we explicitly don't classify by genre. It limits listenership and it's also hard to do in the first place.

You can make a separate thread if you're looking for some suggestions by a specific genre, which will at least be more of a discussion (and will also eventually go away

LISTEN TO ANY OC REMIX. DON'T END UP AVOIDING SOMETHING YOU'LL LIKE BECAUSE YOU WERE TOO SCARED OR STUBBORN TO LISTEN TO IT. Form an opinion based on what the track sounds like, not on what you THINK it would sound like.

Use the Ormgas.com official OCR radio webstream to sample different mixes with 0 effort from yourself.

[ThePianoPlayer]

Like everyone else here, I've gone through many of the remixes here, but one thing that I noticed that was lacking was the abillity to search for remixes by genre. There are times I wan't to listen to a classical song, and sometimes I want to listen to some rock, and I don't always have time to go through all of the songs to find those. I think that it would be helpful, expecially the new people to the site, to have that abillity besides those that are already given, even though they too are really helpful.

[Hardbeat Acolyte]

Mm, personally, I agree.

Although many songs may be a bit hard to classify.

[OverCoat]

The powers that be think genres are overrated and that you'd be missing out on several quality songs.

[nrich]

The powers that be think genres are overrated and that you'd be missing out on several quality songs.

Which is very contradicting... Say you got someone who loves Shnabubula's solo piano arrangement "Anachronism" from Secret of Evermore and wants to hear more tracks like that. How? By searching through hundreds upon hundreds of remixes? Yes, genres are overrated but when you keep them down to a point (rock, jazz, classical, etc., and nothing like progressive swedish death metal, neo-psychedelic rock, baroque indie pop) it would probably work out just fine.

[Dhsu]

Yeah, if you want stuff in a particular genre, typically just ask here and we'll try to make a list for you. Although there have been so many "relaxing" and "piano" and "orchestra" and "vocal" requests that I start to wonder if it wouldn't be easier to just have a permanent list somewhere to save everybody the trouble.

Actually, the more people ask for this, the more I wonder if it might be a decent idea after all. I don't see educating "close-minded" listeners as an overly valid reason...if they want to be close-minded, they're going to find some way to do it no matter what, and it doesn't seem appropriate to force tolerance on them. Judging from the friends I have that go here, the main selection criteria people have is actually the source game and tune...should we then eliminate those identifiers as well in the hopes of inducing open-mindedness in listeners?

I guess I can understand that some ReMixes are hard to classify, but I see djp try to do it in his write-ups all the time anyway. I think a multiple tag system would help in that aspect. It might even help open people up to other genres...for example, if someone searches for "rap" and gets "Oil Ocean (WT-40 Mix)," he might become interested in ethnic, rock, or electronica music as well.

[OverCoat]

I believe joshua morse [???] has a website for genre sorting of OCR mixes

I forget where it is though

[nrich]

I think a multiple tag system would help in that aspect. It might even help open people up to other genres...for example, if someone searches for "rap" and gets "Oil Ocean (WT-40 Mix)," he might become interested in ethnic, rock, or electronica music as well.

Integrating a web 2.0 function like that could be the sensible way of tackling the situation. If shitty blogs the world wide web over can use it, why not a legit and thriving music community like OCR?

[Hausdog]

Hallelujah, a good suggestion, and no one has flat out disagreed ITT yet (I THINK)

And yeah, no one says things have to fall into exactly one genre. Just rock, classical, electronic, jazz, whatevs.

With maybe "fast" and "slow" or "vocal" and "instrumental" options.

[Kenobio]

I believe joshua morse [???] has a website for genre sorting of OCR mixes

I forget where it is though

I belieeeeve he took it down, sadly.

[Ray Falling]

I wouldn't mind setting up a site for that as a temporal fix, but it'd have to be very clear to me which song fits in which genre. Not to mention it'd take a while to go through alllll the remixes.

Still, I'm a webdesigner...I need practice..I'd do it for free

[Dyne]

Integrating a web 2.0 function like that could be the sensible way of tackling the situation. If shitty blogs the world wide web over can use it, why not a legit and thriving music community like OCR?

But think about how much time it would take djpretzel to code everything. He's already got a full schedule as it is. Splitting time between work and OCR as well as his fiancee and just generally having a life as is. And of course, remixing for projects he's involved in and what not. Like I said, he's got a busy schedule, but also, he's the solo coder of the entire site. What else would you ask of him?

Not that I'm putting down a genre sorting concept, it's a great idea, but as has been said many times before, it's hard to tack a genre down to any remix on the site. Some remixes are multi-genre, others are genre nobody's heard about. So, I don't know what else to say.

[djpretzel]

Actually, the more people ask for this, the more I wonder if it might be a decent idea after all. I don't see educating "close-minded" listeners as an overly valid reason...if they want to be close-minded, they're going to find some way to do it no matter what, and it doesn't seem appropriate to force tolerance on them. Judging from the friends I have that go here, the main selection criteria people have is actually the source game and tune...should we then eliminate those identifiers as well in the hopes of inducing open-mindedness in listeners?

I guess I can understand that some ReMixes are hard to classify, but I see djp try to do it in his write-ups all the time anyway. I think a multiple tag system would help in that aspect. It might even help open people up to other genres...for example, if someone searches for "rap" and gets "Oil Ocean (WT-40 Mix)," he might become interested in ethnic, rock, or electronica music as well.

I guess I'm open to it... actually, vb 3.7 allows for thread tagging, and since each mix has a dedicated review thread, we could simply cross-reference those tags to the mixes and bam... or do something custom if for some reason that didn't work. It'd need to be moderated heavily... In terms of developing anything separate, like Josh did, give me some time; we're doing a LOT of development this year in particular that should start seeing the light of day Q4.

[DarkeSword]

I suggested objective tagging in J-disc years ago, but it got put on the backburner I guess.

I wouldn't open tagging up to the general populace though; too many people tagging stuff as "AWESOME" or "VIDEO GAME." Plus you'd get rabble-rousers tagging stuff as "shitty techno" and other such nonsense.

I think we'd need a dedicated team to--given a set of ground rules--go through the archives and tag everything appropriately, with objective descriptors.

[Nohbody]

I have trouble classifying most song from this site into genres. usually they end up as electonic becuase most songs are done on a computer. we would need to create a few genres before we could classify all the songs here

[Rozovian]

I share Darke's concerns when it comes to bad tagging, but I'm positive to the idea of letting people tag the tracks... assuming there were clear guidelines for how to classify stuff. Perhaps it'd be best to start with pretty large tags and go into more specific details if the system works well.

Essentially, there'd have to be a brief description of the genre, not just its name. While electronic implies "done with a computer", pretty much all music passes through a computer these days. Electronic would have to refer to synth-centric music. Of course, there's synthetic elements in everything, sampling ios something of a typical aspect of electronic music... but it's not what defines the genre.

I think some of the basic tags would be orchestral, jazz, electronic, rock (should probably be more genres than that, tho), and then a tag for multiple genres and a tag for just one. Some remixes jump from genre to genre or blend them together so much, so there'd have to be something for that. Then, if these general tags work well, I guess just adding a layer of more detailed tags for people to attribute would be next.

--

An idea: Should the tags be yes/no, or should they be "% of tag voters"? The latter system comes with the benefit of ranking tracks in people's opinion of what they think it sounds like, and also allows mods to remove tag voting privileges from people who intentionally mistag. If 80% of voters feel a track is jazzy enough to be "jazz", then people looking for jazz are probably gonna find the track ranked fairly high among remixes. This way, tracks could be sorted by how fitting they are in a specific genre, allowing people who are looking for a genre to more easily find everything in that genre.

On the other hand, it could make people more selective about the remixes they dl.

[Sinewav]

Even though I normally think it's a crappy way to evaluate someone's credibilty, you could possibly only allow people with a certain postcount to add tags. Generally speaking, if someone has been around for 500 posts and hasn't been banned yet, they can probably be trusted with something like tagging a song. It won't eliminate the need for moderation, but it would cut down on it quite a bit.

A few other ideas I had for a private tag system that doesn't involve dumping the whole workload on the judges:

• only allowing remixers to tag songs, or
  
• only allowing a large group of appointed members and/or remixers who can be trusted not to abuse their power.

I guess I just really like the idea of a democratic system where the people (even if it's only some of the people) to tag the songs. If djp and the judges are the only ones doing it, it's going to add a lot to their already heavy workload, and the tags are going to be very limited. If the a larger group is in charge of it, then you'll get a wider variety of tags. A newcomer could make broad searches like "guitar," "relaxing," or "angry," or make very specific searches like "power metal," "sawtooth wave," or "female vocals." Theoretically, they would always get the results they were looking for, without necessarily missing out on the huge variety of styles available here.

In regards to users being more selective, I personally think the opposite would happen. Most people that I know only download songs by remixers they already like or only from the games they've already played. Someone who might otherwise only download Castlevania mixes might listen to a new song because he saw something in the tags that caught his interest.

I'd like to hear peoples' thoughts on turning something like this into an unofficial site project (possibly on a different webserver if necessary). I'd be more than willing to spend the time on it, and I think it would make the site more accessible to newbies and non-gamers (I know there are a few who listen to remixes). If the djp administration does decide to do this officially, we could take a huge workload off his back by having a lot of the groundwork laid out before he gets all the necessary coding done. Thoughts?