OCremix?

[Skywalker]

...Am I the only person that doesn't like OC Remix? Yes, some of the remixes there are good, but most are just blah. The judges expect you to spend hours butchering your newly-created song using generic Fruity Loops effects. The "dynamic" sounds often ruin the entire song in my opinion; just try to stick with basic MIDI instead, man. I don't want to hear a repetitive dance club groove added to every single ****ing song on OCRemix. Seriously. This isn't DDR. Also, you are expected to modify the melody and catchiness of the source song to the point where it can be unrecognizable. Doesn't that combat the whole point of nostalgia?

/rant

Please do discuss.

 

[SirroMinus1]

My favorit oc remic is Aquares transgression. and a couple others.

 

[Skywalker]

That wasn't the idea.

 

[SirroMinus1]

There are ALOT OF ocremixes that sound dance cluby techno typish and thats the mot easiest to find for some reason but there are some oc remexes that does the song justice if not make it better i would give examples but i cant ATM. but your reason for not liking them isnt bad.

 

[Liontamer]

...Am I the only person that doesn't like OC Remix? Yes, some of the remixes there are good, but most are just blah. The judges expect you to spend hours butchering your newly-created song using generic Fruity Loops effects. The "dynamic" sounds often ruin the entire song in my opinion; just try to stick with basic MIDI instead, man. I don't want to hear a repetitive dance club groove added to every single ****ing song on OCRemix. Seriously. This isn't DDR. Also, you are expected to modify the melody and catchiness of the source song to the point where it can be unrecognizable. Doesn't that combat the whole point of nostalgia?

/rant

Every track we approve nowadays needs to be strongly connected to the source material it's paying tribute to, and in my book that means using the original themes more than 50% of the time. Once you do that, you can do whatever else you want, and most tracks are much more strongly connected than that. Our website is about intelligent and creative interpretation of the original music. If you want something very, very similar to the original music, just listen to the original music.

And anyone who says OC ReMix is mostly techno or generic FruityLoops or some other hyperbolic statement has 0 idea of what we post. There's was a lot of techno/electronica back in the older days of the site, but we're proud of our history. Back when do-it-yourself music was more cost prohibitive, the easiest way for amateurs to put together music was with digital music software.

These days, the programs, samples, and recording & mastering techniques are more sophisticated and comparatively cheaper, so there's a lot more diversity in what type of tracks amateur musicians can put together, something that's clearly reflected in what OCR posts now as compared to, say, 2000.

As a snapshot, out of the most recent 25 mixes on our front page, only 5 fall under not even techno, but the wider banner of electronica:

http://www.ocremix.org/remix/OCR01747/
http://www.ocremix.org/remix/OCR01753/
http://www.ocremix.org/remix/OCR01754/
http://www.ocremix.org/remix/OCR01757/
http://www.ocremix.org/remix/OCR01760/

We have Last.fm previews available on every track. I'd argue they're all objectively strong pieces of music regardless of whether one would keep them on their iPod. The other 20 tracks currently on our front page include rock, orchestral, acoustic guitar, piano, metal, live jazz, light jazz, and waltz. There's even a recent mix in the style of a funeral dirge.

We certainly have some material from the past that doesn't hold up compared to what we post today. I'm glad you enjoy some of our material, but any statement implying that our recent music isn't creative, technically sound and diverse is nothing but an ignorant statement.

Larry "Liontamer" Oji
Head Submissions Evaluator, OverClocked ReMix
Creator, VG Frequency
Staff, VGMdb
http://www.ocremix.org
http://www.vgfrequency.com
http://www.vgmdb.net

 

[Skywalker]

perhaps looking solely at the Sonic2/3&Knuckles/MM2/FFVII projects wasn't nearly enough...

EDIT: Though I don't want to reveal my old account, a judge turned down a submission of mine and told me to get FruityLoops -.-

 

[Liontamer]

perhaps looking solely at the Sonic2/3&Knuckles/MM2/FFVII projects wasn't nearly enough...

EDIT: Though I don't want to reveal my old account, a judge turned down a submission of mine and told me to get FruityLoops -.-

You're free to disbelieve it, don't get me wrong, but there's no need to keep your old account secret; we're not gonna exact interweb vengeance on you.

There's plenty of non-electronica on all 3 projects you mentioned (we don't have a Mega Man 2 project yet), and for any game at OCR that gets a lot of coverage, there any plenty of ReMixes that aren't electronica. Examples:

Our most recent Sonic the Hedgehog 2 ReMix: http://www.ocremix.org/remix/OCR01763/
Our most recent Sonic the Hedgehog 3 ReMix: http://www.ocremix.org/remix/OCR01592/
Our most recent Final Fantasy VII ReMix: http://www.ocremix.org/remix/OCR01758/

Also, I have no idea what you subbed, but if a judge told you to get FL Studio (formerly FruityLoops), then the sound quality of whatever you sent in was probably pretty poor, which is not meant to be an insult. FL Studio is a very powerful digital audio workstation (a.k.a. "DAW") for a comparatively inexpensive price, so it's a good gateway for beginner musicians to get started without having to break the bank. That's why it was recommended to you, and not because we "expect you to spend hours butchering your newly-created song using generic Fruity Loops effects."

Here's a Zelda II ReMix by Rellik made in a competition where the only thing the artists could use was FL Studio with default sounds and effects: http://www.ocremix.org/remix/OCR01475/
You certainly don't have to like it, but even there, that's an example of creatively using the program right out of the box. Yet most newbie musicians don't know how to put something together that's this sophisticated.

Also, keep in mind that as a DAW, FruityLoops isn't limited to slapping some ****ty, generic breakbeats over a track. We reject stuff like that. You can use your own sounds and samples with FL Studio to come up with some awesome stuff. zircon is one of the most well-known OC ReMixers and he uses FL Studio to put together his music. Here's an example of what FL Studio can ultimately do when you get good with it. This one's a Super Mario World ReMix called "Monstrous Turtles!": http://www.ocremix.org/remix/OCR01558/
Check out any of zircon's music; it's all made in FL Studio.

Now, I understand how a rejection can make you feel that you got burned and make you think we suck. You wouldn't be the last person to feel that way; no hard feelings! You don't even have to like the music of OC ReMix overall. But the only thing I think needed to be cleared up for everyone reading is that we encourage any and all styles of video game music at OCR, and that you can make great music from programs that other people flippantly dismiss as sounding poor.