VG Frequency

Hey everyone, this is Fishy (also known as Cain irl). I would imagine only a few people know who I am, and I would wager that most of those people are on some of the ongoing OCR projects. This is because I’m what’s known as a ‘total project whore.’ The projects are probably my favourite aspect of the OCR community. It’s an astonishing feat for a large-scale album to be made and hosted totally through voluntary and unpaid contributions. A huge amount of work is put into them, and the end results are usually pretty damn cool, so I thought I would chronicle my thoughts and experiences on the projects here.

When I joined OCR mid-2006, practically the first thing I latched onto was the project thread for the Pokémon project. This was mostly because the track I ended up completing had “Reserved for awesome guitarist” in massive font written next to it and I was feeling cocky. Once I was in the forums and posting WIPs, I suddenly realized how preferable the environment was. For a new guy, it was pretty easy to be ignored in the WIPs forum, in fact the only person who replied to my craptastic first ReMix was good ol’ Geoffrey Taucer. In the project forums though, suddenly I was getting loads of useful help from some guys I was really looking up to at the time. I enjoyed being a part of a team, and getting involved and helping out so I set out in search of what would become a very long list of projects.

Recently, I started downloading many of the existing projects to check them all out. From the 60%-Protricity Relics of the Chozo, to the latest Project Chaos, they are some really great moments out there. If you haven’t downloaded some of them yet, I really do recommend it. Theres always a few songs in every style, so there really is something for everyone.

It’s easy to see what has come, but its harder to see what is coming. I’ve seen some people only just realizing some projects exist even though they’ve been running for months. The mods have been kind enough to put them all in one place though, so now it’s a bit easier, but heres the list (of the officially recognized ones anyway) with who’s running what:

Boss Themes: Crescendo to Chaos – Pi_R_[]ed
Doom 2: Delta-Q-Delta – The Orichalcon
Dragon Warrior series: Children of Erdrick – Rexy
Kirby Super Star: Milkyway Wishes – Nicholas
Mega Man 4: No title yet? – Dafydd
Pokémon: No title yet – The Damned
Radical Dreamers: Thieves of Fate – The Prophet of Mephisto
Seiken Densetsu 3: Songs of Light and Darkness – Usa
Super Dodge Ball: Around the World – Murmerli Walan
Super Mario 64: Portrait of a Plumber – POCKETMAN (and yours truly)
Tales Series: Summoning of Spirits – KyleJCrb
Tim Follin: Dirge for the Follin – Liontamer
Xenogears: Humans and Gears – Avaris
Zelda: Link’s Awakening: No title yet? – Aetherius

And they say they are too many projects going on. Sorry if I missed anyone but uh… I don’t think you can blame me. You may have noticed I left out one project in particular, but I want to talk about that now.

The humongous, and highly anticipated Final Fantasy VII project, Voices of the Lifestream. This game is the cream of the fanboy crop and the thorn in the elitist gamers side, but no one can deny its popularity or its significance, which is why it’s being run by zircon. If this project was going to be made, it had to be totally awesome to live up to its source, so who better then a judge to run it? I left this project until last because it is more or less definitely the next one to come out, and soon too. zircon will be announcing the date at Otakon, but I can tell you its not far off at all.

It’s also, interestingly enough, going to be my OCR debut. I’ve had a ReMix in the ‘to be posted’ queue for months now, but its not going to be released until the Pokémon project is released, much after the FF7 one. Funnily enough, its my highest quality ReMix so far, so when my other project tracks come out you’ll see a regression to my initial abilities, which is odd.

Lastly, I just wanted to mention two recently planned projects. The first one is Ladies of Legend of Zelda, which is DarkeSword’s quest to reveal the true pimp that is Link. The other (which was announced literally hours ago from me writing this) is a Final Fantasy VIII project proposed by kungfuchicken. I hope these both take off, as they should make great albums, but for now, I’m gonna gtfo.

Tl;dr.

Now I’m no anime geek, but I do love spreading the gospel and playing video games with the peeps. So I look forward to Otakon in Baltimore, Maryland once again this weekend. Courtesy of our crew of djpretzel, zircon, pixietricks and myself, OC ReMix will be officially representing there on Friday, July 20th for our second annual panel. OCR’s latest press release gives the dirt.

Last year featured two hilarious guys cosplaying Maniac Mansion: Day of the Tentacle. Who knows who’ll be there this year. The Phoenix Wright girls from Video Games Live plan to make an appearance.

Dale North (providing coverage for Destructoid), Injury, José the Bronx Rican, MIDIman, and Xaleph plan on being there, and SGX will be arriving later in the day on Friday.

I’m also looking forward to two of the con’s musical guests in particular. Hitoshi Sakimoto (Final Fantasy XII, Final Fantasy Tactics, Breath of Fire V) with be at the con, also performing alongside part of the Eminence symphony orchestra.

If you see anyone with OC ReMix t-shirts on, let them know how sexy they look. Hope to see you there.

Recently at the OverClocked ReMix forums, one new user, “ContinueTheEnd”, made it a point to decry sequenced music as being a lower form of art than live music…

“Why is it that people have to mock the concept of real instruments by imitating them with technology?”

“Evidently, [JigginJonT,] you abandoned your previous ambitions about making music with instruments and replaced them with the lower, easier ambitions of sequencing music.”

…going so far as to say that he did not consider sequenced music as part of his personal definition of music.

That being said, it was quite a while until the $64,000 question came up from Andy Jayne:

“The majority video game music has been sequenced, do you consider it not to be music? If so then what are you doing at a place which is based on the appreciation of video game music?”

Considering that OverClocked ReMix is predominantly a community of amateur musicians, it is understandable that the major majority of the arrangements hosted there would be sequenced rather than performed with traditional physical instruments. Continue’s cutoff point for what was acceptable vs. unacceptable use of sequencing all hinged on live performances:

“Still, you could make do with a synthesizer of some sort and still avoid the sequencing - as long as it’s a human playing it and not a computer, it’ll have that human quality, though it won’t be the actual instruments playing. One of bladiator’s mixes, “Super Mario Grand Valse” [sic], was played by a synthesizer, and it retained that human quality; it did not have that precise sequenced quality that is often so easily detectable in those types of mixes. By far, the most abominable thing I find about sequenced music is that it lacks that “human quality” - as soon as you insert sequenced material in a song, you have that mechanized, precise, machine-like taste, even if the instrumentation you used doensn’t [sic] sound “techno” or mechanical.”

None of the debates or arguments such ignorant statements were due to conjure up resulted in any understanding on the part of Continue until one man showed up and laid the debate to waste. Mike “Kanthos” Chase encapsulated a definition of music that worked under no pretentious assumptions, reaching more to the heart of music-making:

“If sequenced music lacks human qualities, that’s because the arrangers suck. There is nothing inherent about sequencing that *forces* music to be made in a more mechanical way. Besides, some people like me who have musical ideas that they can’t translate to sound using an instrument alone (I have tendonitis [sic] and was forced to really reduce the amount of time I spent playing the piano, so my playing skills now are not what they used to be, nor will I ever hit that level again); should those good musical ideas be lost because of some idealistic, pretentious crap?

Also remember that a lot of people use things like MIDI keyboards to play their parts in, only resorting to sequencing tools like a piano roll when editing is needed. And before you say that editing is just trickery used by sequencers, you’re ignorant if you don’t realize the amount of editing that happens on nearly every album released in every genre, including classical and jazz.

Either way, I’ll be damned if some pretentious loser comes along and says that because I don’t have the skills to make top-quality recordings live and don’t have a band to play with or a drum kit or piano in my apartment to record on, that I’m not making real music because I use a MIDI keyboard and a bit of editing to get good results.

Music isn’t notes on a page, data on a computer, audio waves, tone colors, and anything else that someone like you would typically associate with music. Music is a language of self-expression that transcends and encompasses all of these. Maybe someday you’ll realize that.

So tell me, what do you do? You play a handful of acoustic instruments and jam in a garage with your brothers. Have you accomplished anything creative? Do you fairly regularly create music that makes people with more musicality (note: this doesn’t just include technical skill or even experience as a player) be impressed, not because of your tone quality or things like that, but because of what you’ve done? Have you taken any genre and pushed its limits? Have you re-imagined any music in such a way that would get the original composer, should he happen to hear your music, take notice? Have you tried coming up with a new sound that no one else has done before? If not, then why are you insulting those here who have?

Every new genre of music has had its critics. There will always be some narrow-minded buffoons who will hear something going in a direction they didn’t imagine and try to discredit it, because they have mechanical skills and maybe even some semblance of musicality, but they do not have creative ideas. Right now, you are one of the ignorant.”

And in fact, there was really only one appropriate way for Continue to respond. Mea culpa:

“First let me say that you’ve just convinced me to accept sequenced music as music - I guess I was being a little ignorant of others’ preferred performing methods. I kinda got too obsessed with fending off all of your arguments and didn’t pay attention to what I was actually implying. To everyone out there, I’m truly sorry if I said some things that got you upset. When I read Kanthos’ post I realized that I really was ignoring one aspect of music: the fact that it’s a “language” that everyone can express in their own way; whether it’s with instruments, computers, synthesizers, etc. I shouldn’t expect everyone else to create music by my own standards (which are now changed) that I inherited from my childhood - again, I’m sorry if I offended anyone. I’ll gladly say that both sequenced and instrumentalized music forms have their ups and downs, and neither is in any way “superior” to the other, especially when some people have disabilities or medical conditions that prevent them from using one way over the other. I see now that everyone has the right and the choice to express themselves musically in any way that they wish.”

It’s belief systems like Continue’s, touting the worthlessness of sequenced music, that negatively affect the reputation of video game music and the video game music arranging community. Half-jokingly, perhaps we can enlist Mike Chase to be the community’s spokesperson, opening eyes and ears, converting one listener at a time. Good start, Mike.

Having attended both nights of concerts (June 29th & 30th) from the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, I finally wanted to get my thoughts down. My girlfriend, The Lady, has her own take on the concerts, available at Century Fille. She has a great outsider perspective on things, and always speaks her mind.

As the OC ReMix group stopped by after rehearsal was over on Friday, one thing I really liked about Tommy Tallarico was that he wears what he wants whenever he wants. His outfits are crazy (love his Spider-Man shirt; wish they had it in black), but I relish the freedom he has to do as he pleases.

Tommy and his brother Mike Tallarico (VGL’s merchandise manager) dipped their hands everywhere trying to coordinate things leading up the show. As noted by my colleague Jimmy “Big Giant Circles” Hinson, Mike in particular was very attentive and integral to getting djpretzel and the OCR representatives set up for prize giveaways on both days, as well as stocking OCR t-shirts for sale alongside VGL merchandise.

Every time we needed help, Mike was more than willing to assist, and we were thankful for his help the whole way. “Merchandise Manager” doesn’t begin to describe the amount of things Mike assists with or is responsible for. In lieu of djpretzel’s unavailability for Saturday’s show, Mike provided Jimmy & I (and our respective ladies) with the backstage hook up, which we greatly appreciated. Luckily, one of Jimmy & I’s last memories of VGL was taking a picture with Mike and saying our goodbyes as he and the rest of the tour got ready to leave DC and head to Detroit for the July 6th leg of the tour.

I was very impressed with The Lady, as she worked effortlessly to get djpretzel involved in media coverage of the Friday night show, working the room and obtaining interviews with the National Symphony Orchestra’s in-house media team as well as National Public Radio and Wired Magazine. She also spoke afterwards at length with Cindy Wall (Jack Wall’s wife) regarding both Video Games Live and OverClocked ReMix and also provided each of the celebrities at the Friday meet-and-greet with Andrew “zircon” Aversa’s latest CD Antigravity. She’s very well suited to be OC ReMix’s press liaison, and I liked watching her in action.

The shows themselves were a great experience. It was rewarding hearing OC ReMixes playing in the Concert Hall as people entered in to take their seats. DjSammyG of our meetup group managed to snag top honors in Friday night’s costume contest as a red L-block from Tetris. (Check him out in the Washingtonian’s blog, hoping to be outdone by Mega Man.) Sammy won, thanks to the crowd’s nostalgia of Tetris over all other games. The OCR delegation made sure to whoop it up.

The music itself was excellent. My lady thought the more traditional-sounding orchestral arrangements (e.g. God of War, Medal of Honor, World of Warcraft) felt too similar, and that you only got a substantial change of pace from the arrangements based on non-orchestral soundtracks (Super Mario Bros., Sonic the Hedgehog). I’m a fan regardless of genre, and I felt like the pieces arranged from orchestral originals were significantly different. For more modern game scores, the soundtracks are more to create moods rather than hooks, thus seeming less defined by any one particular aspect. It gets into the debate of the values of older vs. newer game music, but that’s neither here nor there.

During the Metal Gear Solid portion, one could tell that Tommy was the guy under the box on stage due to his telltale shoes. What I didn’t learn until I hung out backstage the following day was that Mike was actually the soldier who ended up being alerted to “Snake’s” presence, with real armor (but a plastic gun). Definitely a cool tidbit just illustrating how into the nitty-gritty these guys are in terms of putting on the show.

djpretzel got a little of the VGL shine reflected on him not just via the interviews and autographs he gave, but also being able to head up on stage and give away the swag from Friday’s Space Invaders intermission (courtesy of DreamAuthentics and the very affable Rick Baretto [President & CEO]), including a DVD full of OC ReMixes. Having gone on stage Saturday night, I can confirm the excitement one feels. It’s just good to be involved in something that helps legitimize the quality and professionalism of video game music, which is a mutual goal of OCR and VGL.

Martin Leung, the Video Game Pianist, also tore it up with a 10-song medley from the Final Fantasy series. There was a cool video crossfade effect that was done on Friday but not Saturday (one camera on keys, one on Martin), so I was glad to be in the audience when it was possible. The guy reminds me of Shnabubula’s material, not in terms of writing, but in terms of sheer speed. The speed Martin maintains on the keys was impressive, straight up.

Martin seemingly almost had to have his set trimmed down in order to maintain the show’s rigid schedule (a Kennedy Center issue, not VGL’s), but it was cool seeing Tommy check in with Martin every few minutes just keeping him aware of what would end up happening. Luckily, Martin’s planned Final Fantasy set went off without a hitch, though we didn’t get to see him perform blindfolded.

Laurie Robinson of Advent Rising was on board for soprano for AR’s portion of the show, with some amazing vocals. Being a regular part of the tour, Laurie really seemed in her element backstage on Saturday in terms of simply enjoying the show and chatting with the other performers, frequently joining we backstage onlookers at the right wing of the stage to check out her colleagues in action. The power in her voice was only made better being a mere 10 feet or so away just offstage.

At any point, I would have loved to have gotten anonymous comments from members of the National Symphony Orchestra on their feelings regarding the concert. The Lady mentioned that one member loved the God of War set in particular, while another member seemed pretty dismissive of the whole affair. I’d think it would be a great thing to play two back-to-back sold out shows with very enthusiastic crowds, but crowds aren’t everything.

The meet-and-greet Friday night was fun, and I enjoyed getting acquainted with the pros there, who were all very friendly. Along with other pros, I also met Laurie’s husband, fellow composer Emmanuel Fratianni, Brothers in Arms‘ Stephen Harwood, Jr., as well as Civilization IV’s Christopher Tin. The post-show was pretty long though, and I could tell by Jack Wall’s demeanor that he was hoping to get elsewhere. As the conductor, he’s got as busy a time as anybody as compared to some of the pros who were merely part of the crowd and after-events. Jack was nice enough to snap some quick pics with Jimmy and I on Saturday before getting the hell out of dodge, hopefully for some relaxation.

After mentioning Mazedude’s recent God of War ReMix “Minatour Nightmares” (arranging material by Cris Velasco), Gerard Marino gave me his business card and mentioned that if anyone wants to arrange pieces from God of War, he’d hook them up with sheet music, MIDIs, SFX samples, anything they needed to help get the job done. Indeed, Big Giant Circles was yet another person who was astounded by God of War’s set in particular, so he confided that he may take Gerard up on the offer.

It was a real pleasure meeting up with the OverClocked ReMix group for our Washington, DC meetup. After traveling to other meetups in the Mid-Atlantic area, it was nice to have one right in my backyard that didn’t involve any meaningful travel on my part. Meetups are always fun, and I met a lot of new faces, especially arrangers I’d never met in person yet. I finally got to meet face-to-face with former judges panel colleague Shariq “DarkeSword” Ansari, as well as successfully have Vinnie “Palpable” Prabhu, Wilbert “bustatunez” Roget II, and Brandon “Harmony” Bush all snap up loose tickets on very short notice. I missed having pixietricks and zircon there, especially zircon (who had unexpectedly suffered from appendicitis on Friday and had to convalesce). If I had to “trade them away”, I was glad to at least substitute in a lot of really talented musicians who I’d never officially met before.

We all had a great time attending the festivities. One of the most encouraging things I’d heard from Tommy backstage was that ticket demand for the back-to-back shows was so strong, both in pre-sales and walk-ups on the day of the event, that DC could have run a third show. Very promising news in terms of future shows for a concert series that, in its infancy, almost ceased to be soon after it started. Looking healthy and gaining momentum, whenever Video Games Live swings by again (Tommy hopes for next year), I’ll certainly be there.

OC ReMixer and former OC ReMix judge Antonio Pizza just posted an essay at the OverClocked ReMix forums likening his upcoming marriage to Miss Robin to Super Mario Bros. 3. But for better or for worse? Or for both?

For posterity’s sake, we reproduce the entire essay in full:

Why I hope my marriage is like Super Mario Bros. 3:
an improvo-essay by Antonio Pizza

On Monday, February 12, 1990, Super Mario Bros. 3 was released in the United States. I don’t know when I got my copy, but I do remember the anticipation leading up to it. I remember seeing the trailers for The Wizard; I remember hearing from a classmate that it was at “The Fun Factory”, the local mall’s arcade in a Playchoice-10 machine; I remember the brilliantly effective hype commercial with thousands of kids all across North America grouped in different colored shirts chanting “Mario! Mario!” until the camera pulled back into outer space revealing that the kids had formed Mario’s smiling face upon the face of the earth. I was hyped, I was eager, I was amped. The classmate (Jeff Kraak, if you’re out there somewhere, what’s up?) told me magnificent things about the game such as not reverting directly to small Mario if you were injured as Fire Mario, a frog suit(?!), and (get this) the ability to fly! Oh! I had to have it! Everyone knew and loved Mario 1, and Mario 2 was, though not identically, equally loved and adored. How I asked for it, I don’t recall. How I convinced my mother to buy it, I don’t remember. When we went, I couldn’t tell you. What I do remember was traveling to The Crossroads Mall in Portage, Michigan with her and purchasing Super Mario Bros. 3 from K.B. Toy Store for $55.

What I remember next disturbed me at the time and disturbed me in later retrospect, but now I recognize it as an important life lesson. We walked out of the mall and I had Super Mario Bros. 3 in my hands. Finally! I could get this weird “frog suit” and “teddy bear suit” (Tanooki Mario) that I’d heard about. I could try and get the whistle just like Jimmy Woods did in The Wizard, I could do better than Moira Grissom who stupidly fell and died in World 1’s first miniboss castle, and I whoop the snot out of the evil and arrogant Lucas and his crony Toby Maguire. I could see if “Wart” was coming back!

I could finally do what I’d been waiting so long for. But the strangest feeling washed over me on our way back to the car.

I didn’t want it anymore.

The excitement, the fever, the hype, the rush… all of it had vanished. I wanted to take the game and just throw it away. Not because it disgusted me, but I just didn’t want it anymore. It was taking up precious space in my hands. Though nine-year-old me couldn’t articulate it at the time, twenty-six-year-old me can say that it wasn’t the game I desired most. It was wanting the game that I desired most. And as soon as I had it, my need had been fulfilled and I felt extremely disappointed at what I now had. Keep in mind, this is before I ever got home. This is still on the way to, and in, the car. Of course I hid this from my mother who had just shelled out $55 on something she had not the slightest interest in. I feigned excitement and contentment as well as a nine-year-old could in 1990. The inevitable logical question arises: “Why on earth would you desire for your marriage to emulate that?” Follow me and I’m going to bless you…

I’m not much of a gamer. The Legend of Zelda came out in 1987, Super Mario Bros. came out in 1985. I didn’t beat either of them until 1996. I don’t know how long it was until I beat Mario 3 but I’m sure it was well into the 90s as well. But that didn’t stop me from playing it over and over again. Initially disappointed, I took the game (since I had it now and dare not even attempt to conjure up the notion of maybe suggesting that it should possibly be returned to the store), played it, eventually embraced it, and grew to love it. My next door neighbor and I would have all night Mario 3 sessions in the summer to see how far we could get without warping before we finally fell asleep (he always fell asleep by Water Land, I usually got tired around Level 7 or 8 ). I mastered the timing to hit the star at the end of every level. I could line up the Starman in Toad’s scrolling extra lives game every time without trying. I memorized patterns in the N-card memory game. I discovered other whistles, I’d hunt the mysterious coin ships and blue Toad houses, I’d hoard P-Wings and Lakitu clouds until Dark World. Above a bachelor’s, but not quite a doctor, I had mastered SMB 3 except for one part… I couldn’t beat the freakin’ thing. Getting through Dark World was hard enough, but throw in Bowser’s castle plus the fact that I had no initial idea on how to beat him and it wouldn’t be rare for me simply to get to Dark World and turn the game off. I wasn’t unfulfilled, but I wasn’t at a level of skill where I could face what was facing me. This wasn’t, nor is, a matter of disappointment for me as Super Mario Bros. 3 ranks as one of my top 5, if not number one, favorite video game of all time. This isn’t necessarily for matters of excellent construction or graphics or challenge, but because when I think of joy I’ve experienced when playing a video game, Mario 3 is at the forefront of my memory. I associate Super Mario Bros. 3 with pleasant memories and experiences. And though I have no difficulty breezing through the game today and stomping Bowser in the mud (or letting him stomp himself rather), it still brings me great pleasure despite it being 17 years old.

What I mean to say is that on the sixth anniversary of the party by the pool thrown by Flowerguy, I will become a married man and I have great expectations, hopes, and dreams. Admittedly, there are a few anxieties that I would not call cold feet, but merely recognition of the tasks and responsibilities that lie before me. I do not take what I am about to embark upon lightly. I am very excited but I hope that my excitement isn’t quick to wear off in the eventual normalcy of everyday life. Keep in mind, I never imagined that upon walking out of the store in 1990 that I would no longer want what I’d been fiending for for weeks on end. But the redemption in that (besides a true calling from the Lord for me to marry this woman and my own personal desire and love to do so) is that my own life has revealed a wonderful precedence. What began as intense desire became, through time, hard work, passion, and zeal, a timeless and lasting experience. I get a kick every time I play Mario 3. It’s as much fun now as it was in 1990, ‘98, and ‘06. I couldn’t beat it at first, but by not giving up on it and sticking it through I eventually mastered it and began discovering fun new elements all the time (like getting all the coins in World… 2-2 I believe, makes a blue Toad’s house appear). Yeah I’d throw the controller in disgust at times, and of course I’d angrily hit the power button on the NES and declare “I DON’T WANNA PLAY THIS NO MORE!” but rash statements can’t quench a love of the game that easily. Of course I had to try again. I’d had too much fun to give up on it forever.

People say marriage is no picnic, but I youthfully disagree. Having been in the relationship with my fiancée for an adequate number of years, I know that it takes actual work to build on what you started with and to keep the two of you growing together. And if you and your honey want to go on a picnic, it takes work. Food must be bought and prepared. Decisions must be made on what to bring. An agreement must be made on when the time to have the picnic is available and where the two of you are going to go. How much is being brought? What is being brought? Is anyone else coming? Someone has to carry the stuff and if your locale is far off someone has to drive, be it you, your honey, the bus driver, the cab driver, or your grandma. The site must be set up and cleared of debris. But once all of that has taken place, you and your mate can literally enjoy the fruits of your labor. I’m not going into Dr. Phil mode, but I submit unto you folks in relationships; when was the last time you and (s)he went on a picnic?

Just as I’d heard and seen so much about Mario 3’s fun (and difficulty via The Wizard) without ever having played it, I have high hopes that my initial eagerness and excitement about my upcoming and only marriage will mature into a lasting love and appreciation upon which I can fondly reminisce in 17 or, God willing, even 71 years from now. My father once wrote a poem about how we do not desire the sunshine, but desire the desire for sunshine. Immaturely, I fell into that trap as a 3rd grader in mid-1990 (and again when DKC 2 for the SNES came out) but now I realize that the desire for the desire can occasionally confirm that what you were chasing after was your true treasure after all. You didn’t enjoy the desire of Mario 3, you actually wanted Mario 3 the whole time. You just didn’t know it. You were merely sidetracked, but time can correct and redirect the course of that river. Have I stretched and exegied too much out of my illustration? Possibly. Does any of this make a lick of sense to someone out there? Possibly. Could it impact someone for the positive? Hey, anything could happen. That was not my inspiration for this improvised essay, but instead one of those quick 1½ - 2 second thoughts in which is compacted and compressed an entire day’s worth of meditation and verbal dialogue. Nonetheless, I fancied it an interesting simile worth sharing and figured that if it could be appreciated anywhere, it would be on a videogame webforum.

If you read all of this, I thank you. If you’re a Christian, we’d appreciate your prayers for our marriage. If you’re not a Christian, I still would still love to cheerfully accept your well wishes. We need all the support we can get. And if you’re like one of those types who has been on the forums since I first joined but still have yet to grow or mature any in the past 6 years, your immaturity, bitterness, snide attitude, and anger at the world is cause for great sadness. There is a world outside of your computer. The sunlight doesn’t hurt. Embrace it occasionally. I beg you, turn away from Dustin Diamondism. I don’t say this to whore out congrats for myself, but I believe in the prayers of the saints and would love their prayers for my marriage. However I recognize that everyone does not believe what I do and I don’t want to deny a well meaning person the opportunity to say “ur gettin’ /\/\4rr13|)??!!!11~ omg kewl.” So I leave you on a positive note. Buy yourself an ice cream sandwich, fire up your NES if it still works, and play through all of Super Mario Bros. 3 (with the one you love if you can convince them) without warping, and beat the game.

Till next time, peace out, God bless, and may the force be with you.

-ap

P.S. But if you really want to show us you’re happy for us, we want a Wii. :)

The coolest aspect by far of working at OC ReMix has been the job of helping select which tracks are posted. Especially as a listener/non-musician judge, being invited on board the Judges Panel validated the extent of my fandom for the amateur video game music community. Getting into the stories of my time on the panel will be cool for those interested enough of the inner workings of the site, so I might as well lead off with how I ended up joining them.

Dain “Beatdrop” Olsen had recently stepped down from the panel after his second go-round, again for a lack of time. Long-time judges Ari “Protricity” Asulin and Binnie “Digital Coma” Katti were pretty merciless in pointing out that they thought he was a shitty judge for being so inactive at the end of both of his stints. I wouldn’t know firsthand, but their complaining was probably a significant reason that pressure came down on Beatdrop to step down.

Myself having been on the panel for almost 3 years, I can tell you that the collective mindset of the panel never dwells on a loss. When someone resigns or is removed from the panel, it’s unfortunate, but the gears immediately spring into motion for selecting a replacement. At the time Beatdrop left, several people were immediately brought up. JigginJonT likely would have been invited had he had the free time to join, but told whomever asked him about the opportunity that he didn’t have the time. In the end, the two serious candidates brought up were Jack “Adhesive Boy” Ryerson and myself. If you ask me, Adhesive Boy got a raw deal when he was nominated. If you listen to his material, you’ll find that he’s an A-grade arranger that’s come out with some really impressive and creative pieces. By the time of his second posted ReMix, Treasure Hunter G “Linoleum Stalactites,” I had felt that he was on the road to making it onto the panel if he continued on that level, as he was only bound to get better.

When it came down to him or me, I ended up winning out, but at the same time, the potential to simply take on two new members was there, so AB and I weren’t in any direct competition. After I joined though, I learned that close to the end of the selection process, the panel collectively decided they didn’t need two people (which would have put the panel size at a then-unheard of 12 members). On top of that though, two mainstay judges felt AB made calls that nitpicked details and missed a lot of the big picture, and unfortunately that was it.

I was nominated by Protricity after a brief AIM conversation. From the looks of it, he had read the summer music reviews I had maintained for VG Frequency as he told me that he had the impression that I was enthusiastic about the community’s music, but was able to call and spade a spade and be honest about when something was weak. I’d never find out that he was actually the one who nominated me outright until I joined.

Because I had always gotten along well with Gray “GrayLightning” Alexander, and he was my main source of communication as to what was going on in the judges panel, I had assumed that he had been the one who put my name forward. In actuality, he had reservations about me because I was already devoting so much time to college and the VG Frequency radio show there; he was wary of a someone coming on board who wouldn’t make the panel something of a priority.

Digital Coma had bigger reservations about my objectivity but was ok enough to give me his support. I wouldn’t know it until years later, but a long vote on one mix in my third day on the job caused him to go on a rant in the private judges chatroom on how I ended up being a terrible choice.

Vigilante initially had a bad vibe about my objectivity as well, but after he got a hold of me on AIM and gave me some test songs, I ended up with his strong support. Paraphrasing him, he could tell that I was capable of giving critical opinions and not trying to figure out what he wanted me to say. I forgot the other songs I listened to, but my first vote was one of the test batch songs Vig asked me about, Koelsch1’s Valkyrie Profile “Blind Eternity.” I figured it was worth it for my first vote to be a submission I would remember. My first YES vote went to a young up-and-comer by the name of Andrew “zircon” Aversa, for his very first passable submission Chrono Trigger “Calamitous Judgement.”

When I was finally selected for the panel, djpretzel messaged me that night and made the official invitation. While I was secure in my skills, I was ecstatic that I was selected. As a non-musican, the fact that I had won the support of a very talented and selective group of musicians was especially gratifying.

Five hours later, after talking with djpretzel about the responsibilities of the job, getting congratulated by my new colleagues, and reading through all the old topics and policy debates in Judges Discussion, I was ready to go. In my first four days, I had voted on everything there was to vote on, which was around 35 submissions.

After seeing my opening flurry of voting, Gray immediately warned me about working too hard and risking burnout. I dunno if he had ever seen anyone come in and annihilate the queue like that. And as soon as djpretzel posted the next flood of submissions a few days later, I voted on all 20 of them in 16 hours. There’s no way I could do that nowadays, but my overall work ethic remains the same to this day. If a submission comes through the panel, I’ve voted on it 99% of the time.

Working these past three years evaluating OC ReMix’s submissions has been almost nothing but fun. There have been plenty of internal squabbles, bouts of panel ennui, emo artists, ignorant assumptions by outsiders, and straight up crappy subs to weather. Depending on how forthcoming I am, you’ll get to hear bits and pieces of all of that stuff if you stick around the blog. At the end of the day however, I’m currently one of only 10 people on earth who decided what you hear at OC ReMix. It’s an envious job if you have an open mind and really, really love video game music.

And ever since I found it, I’ve really, really loved video game music.

Let’s talk about someone other than me now.

If someone had told me back in 2002, when I first found OverClocked ReMix, that I’d end up handling much of its day-to-day operations I’d be surprised. But not too surprised.

It doesn’t happen at the drop of a hat, but when I’m passionate about something, I invest a lot of personal time in learning everything I want to know. When I first started choosing ReMixes to keep at OCR, I researched tons of information like the artists’ real names and websites, the original composers, and the source tunes. One other byproduct of that passion is the desire to befriend the people involved and offer my assistance if needed.

From 1999-2001, I spent a lot of time around LatestWrestlingNews.com, a now-defunct pro wrestling news site that had a reputation for only posting hard news. After establishing myself as someone who could present their point of view articulately and getting to know site creator Derrick Flippin, he offered me a position as an opinion columnist. After proving myself as being dedicated, I moved onto posting news, providing show coverage, handling discussion moderation, and handling some limited administrative duties, and we talked on the phone a good deal.

Derrick closed down the site in 2001 to focus on his music (and he’s a great musician; at the time he was friends with artists like Pearl Jam, Lisa Germano & Neil Finn), and I haven’t heard from him in a while, but working for him and with him was one of my first experiences on the web learning everything I could about a site I cared for, befriending its head honcho & joining the staff, and amassing more and more responsibilities over time.

After finding OCR and becoming very familiar with the material there, I private messaged djpretzel in January 2003 hoping to help fill out the vastly empty OC ReMix informational database. I’m not sure how much flack djp received at the time, but aside from the strong core of the database actually existing, there was virtually no complete information for anything. Given the amount of work involved, I can see how it wasn’t a priority vs. evaluating and posting new material. Nonetheless, games frequently has no composer listing, no release year, and no publisher. The major majority of ReMixers had no information filled out as to their real names, websites, email addresses of forum profiles. With the actual skeleton of the database there, it was up to someone else to flesh it out and realize its potential.

Back then, I worked through an Excel spreadsheet to amass the data, focused on game information (year, publisher, composers), but in retrospect it was a pretty cumbersome task as djp would have to transfer all the Excel data into SQL query strings he could use to add the information. I would never actually get to hand over that Excel information as my laptop at the time fried in the middle of my work. After recovering the data a few weeks later, I didn’t revisit the project until 2004 after I had officially joined the staff as a judge.

My largest projects have involved populating the site database with information on the games, composers & source tunes, and details on the ReMixers, with most of the work as well as research acumen already cultivated by the years my own personal interest. Being able to collect and (finally) apply that information to the site itself is arguably something that would have otherwise taken a team of people to accomplish.

In case you don’t know, by far the most important aspect of OCR are the ReMixers who contribute their material. Even on the sidelines, I was disheartened by the lack of readily available information about them in the OCR database. Again, djpretzel is only one man. But, to me, empty information meant that fans would have fewer resources for learning more about the artists themselves, as well as what other works they created. One thing that’s obvious over time is that people are inherently lazy. I don’t even mean that in a bad way. But in terms of information, most want it at their fingertips; they don’t want to dig around the internet the way I did. Then you have the contingent that don’t even know they want the information, but end up appreciating it once they find it available.

Thus, the first major improvement to the database was filling out the ReMixer information fields, of which the major majority was done from 2004-2005. I ended up having to redo about a third of the work after that aforementioned laptop disaster, but I was able to retrace all of my steps and discover some new information.

Back around 2003, OC ReMixer Zac “Psychrophyte” Brier also spearheaded an community effort to fill out the nearly empty source tune information fields in the database, which I was a small part of. Much of the work done amounted to cataloging the original songs from popular games, amounting to about 300 added and associated tracks. After taking over and continuing the effort in 2005, I’ve updated incorrect and unofficial track names for existing songs and added over 700 other songs. In short, if a ReMix on OCR is associated with an original song, you probably have me to thank about 80% of the time.

Those initiatives explain much of the development of OC ReMix into a more useful tool for promoting the knowledge of both original video game music and the ReMixers who make it all happen at OCR. To the average person, however, that stuff is all pretty cumbersome, all unsexy research and data entry. The real fun of joining OCR’s staff was being invited to join the site’s judges panel. To be given a say in deciding what music actually makes it into OCR…that’ll take us to Part 6…

After a semester of my (Insert Name Here) radio show, split between my favorite mainstream tracks and tracks from the amateur VGM arrangement community, I realized that most of my listening audience stuck around for the video game music. Having promoted my show more thoroughly on OverClocked ReMix’s message boards, I managed to secure a tight-knit group of listeners who I’d gather up on AOL Instant Messenger in a chat room. Among them were Scott “SeattleOverCoat” Porter (later just “OverCoat“, my first regular listener), a.p. “analoq” matthews, Candy “Juverna” Bullard, and Danny “SuperGreenX” Adler (now “SGX“). I honestly don’t remember if any specific track prompted me to also follow the original music that amateur VGM arrangers made. Having done a great amount of personal research on the artists’ homepages, I was able to familiarize myself with the fact that many of them also had original works on MP3.com or personal homepages.

As far as I recall, it was around the end of the 2002 school year when I decided to do an episode of (Insert Name Here) exclusively featuring original tracks by artists in the OC ReMix community. Mixers who had already heard of my show quickly turned out, so I ended up with material from all the names mentioned prior. SGX’s stuff in particular was very impressive (and continues to be to this day). I was also excited to receive material from top names like Disco Dan, Ailsean, Injury, DarkeSword, Protricity, and Star Salzman.

One particular thing I remember in preparation was that I printed notes on each musician and track to reference for the introduction of each song. Not to sound egotistical, because my shows were both very loose and tongue-in-cheek, but I’m impressed at the degree of seriousness that I gave to the subject matter at the time. I was able to note real names, music competitions that they had recently taken part in, as well as previous works and relevance to the community. There was no moment where my audience went “Damn, he respects the community. He knows his stuff,” but I feel those things were inherent and unspoken to those from the VGM arrangement community who tuned in.

In the summer of 2003, I finally made the move to focusing on video game music and the amateur VGM arrangement community entirely. After being stuck on a name for weeks (the best I could initially come with was VGM: Very Good Music, which I allowed Steve “D-Lux” King to steal years later), my friend Joe bantered out a few radio sounding words, including the word “Frequency.” As soon as I put “VG” in front of it and said it aloud, I knew I had a very strong name for the show.

Looking back to my first episode’s playlist from VGF, I’m certainly astonished by a few things:

*I forgot about my penchant for inserting songs into my playlists on the fly when requests popped up; my first track of the show was a request for Gröûp X.
*Just friends at the time, “The Lady,” Paige, called into the very first show. Though basically a hater (you’ll hear more from her when the time comes), she was impressed by the music of Jared Hudson and Quinn Fox.
*My selection was nowhere near as deep back then. Most of the tracks were favorite OC ReMixes.

It would take too much time to go through all the various developments in the show that were very important to me at the time. The ball started rolling with people I had known beforehand, and soon enough I was joined by people I didn’t know well but knew of the show. The show clearly became more important over time as ReMixers started going out of their way to catch it, started providing me with audio bumpers, tracks to play (many times, before anyone else had heard them), works-in-progress to provide feedback to or interviews, and started treating the show’s chat room as a important place to be to interact with lots of community members.

Memories of those 3 years, in shorthand:

*The headache that was streaming in RealAudio
*Commercials for Zwings ‘n Things (”Miss the old days when a wing was a wing?”, which Spencer Koch later admitted he had no idea how he came up with that when recording the ad)
*Bubb Rubb during all of the early aftershows
*Coining the term “e-penis” while interviewing KyleJCrb and reading the chat room window contents over the air; if you’ve ever heard the term anywhere, I somehow invented it
*The Wingless explains the meaning of bukkake
*The Valentine’s Day shows
*Being saved in a big way by 5 interviews when audio from my computer was a no-go one week
*Interviewing Protricity, the arrival of Jim Holland and newly being able to record the shows myself, leading to jump in popularity once show MP3s became available every week
*Having friend, Emory student, WMRE DJ, and old-school OC ReMixer Electron on board as guest host
*The yearly “Best of the Best” episodes capping off each year’s run
*Interviewing OC ReMix founder, David “djpretzel” Lloyd
*The surprise return for one more season after graduating from Emory University in 2005

VG Frequency certainly was a memorable experience that fueled my love for broadcasting to this day. The radio show kept me in tune with the goings-on of the amateur VGM arrangement community for quite a long time in an Internet age where people move fast and events move faster. The casual fan misses out on the high quality, diversity and vast selection in arrangements outside of OC ReMix and especially original works from artists’ homepages. It made me respect the community’s musicians even more, and bringing those tracks awareness they may have otherwise not received is something I’m proud of doing.

Though I served an unconventional role in the community as a radio DJ, the role was one that provided me not only the opportunity to observe the community’s contributors, but ultimately the ability to actively shape the community’s direction in my own small way. After doing community music reviews during the summer of 2004, I entered a few people’s radar as a serious candidate for a position on the OverClocked ReMix Judges Panel. That’ll take us to Part 5…

When Matt Kertz mentioned to me to check out remix.overclocked.org in early 2002, I was definitely interested, but never became a hardcore fan of the site until the following summer. The first newly posted track I remember being interested in back then was DarK PurPLe’s Super Mario Bros. 2 “The DarK Underground.”

When I first browsed OC ReMix, I only downloaded and kept about 30 tracks. All were from games I was familiar with, including Super Mario Bros. 1-3, Super Mario 64, Sonic the Hedgehog 1-3, Streets of Rage 1-2, F-Zero, Street Fighter II and Mega Man X (which I had downloaded a ROM of). Any other games I had played had no mixes at the time, and I only played a limited number of games growing up. I quickly added enjoyable tracks from OCR to my radio show playlists, impressed at the sound quality and creativity of guys like McVaffe (Mike Vafeas). Even as a newbie, I could instantly tell the guy was treated like a huge deal there.

The advent of torrenting years later would make OCR’s catalogue much more accessible than when I first arrived. But in retrospect, what’s funny to me is that I initially treated the site rather nonchalantly, armed with downloading habits I’d chastise newbies for having nowadays. In that sense, I wasn’t there broadly looking to find good music, I was strictly there for nostalgia. My attitude wasn’t rude or dismissive, but other mixes on OCR might as well have not existed; they simply weren’t on my radar.

Even when I got my first taste of ReMixes that were from games I didn’t know, my horizons weren’t broadened at all. I simply downloaded the new tracks that I liked and did no further exploration. My roommate back then, Dave Share, managed to download Chris J. Hampton’s Chrono Trigger “New Zeal” and McVaffe’s Castlevania Adventure “CV2k” (since removed from the site, no thanks to me) searching for cool stuff himself once I told him of the site. When he played those tracks on his comp, they were so catchy that I asked him what they were from and was surprised that they were also from OC ReMix. You’d think I would have learned to check out everything, but then again the task of amassing every mix back in 2002 was time-consuming and potentially not worth the returns.

Some n00b things I remember about my earliest days:
*Before realizing he was the site creator, wondering how egotistical djpretzel was for being the only person using the first person in the ReMix writeups
*Visiting VGMix shortly after learning about the ReMixer Exdous, downloading several mixes there, realizing most of the tracks sucked and subsequently never visiting it again; they had no quality control system in place at the time, and it showed
*Severely disliking Super Mario World “Flat Goom Beat” (also since removed) for being uncreative
*QuasiKaotic & Jade Gemini

Luckily I passed on the good word about OC ReMix onto my best friend, Joe Mauri. If Matt Kertz was the one who guided me to OverClocked ReMix in the first place, then Joe was the one whose actions ended up making me a hardcore fan. Back in the days when bandwidth was costly and speed was inconsistent, OCR’s downloading policy strongly discouraged people hitting the site hard and snagging lots of tracks within a short period of time. About a week after telling Joe about OC ReMix however, he had unabashedly downloaded everything, the site having around 600 songs by that point. He was there for nostalgia, but he was also broadly looking to find good music.

The summer of 2002, Joe came to stay with my family during summer break, which was great for both of us. One of the most influential activities of mine that summer was taking three days to sit down and listen through all of the nearly 700 ReMixes he had, starting from the letter A and working my way down through Z. It was definitely a rewarding experiencing, as I ended up keeping about a third of the mixes, becoming familiar with lots of the artists there, and becoming indirectly familiar with a lot of popular game soundtracks. I didn’t know Mega Man II’s “Dr. Wily Stage 1″ or Final Fantasy VI’s “Terra” beforehand, but I definitely knew them now. From that point forward, OC ReMix was a daily visit. Once I lurked the forums, I decided my best approach for becoming a community regular would be to post a handful of mix reviews first to have some posts to my name; you can still see those archived posts today.

Much like my habits with mainstream music I liked, I meticulously tagged the OC ReMixes I held onto. While the framework was good, OCR’s informational database was really lacking back then as it was only as complete as djpretzel’s spare time or interest could manage. Thus, my curiosity had me researching the source tunes of the mixes at Zophar’s Domain, original composers, ReMixer real names, email addresses and homepages; whatever wasn’t readily available, I worked hard to track down out of my own personal interest.

My burgeoning interest in OverClocked ReMix quickly led to me altering the divided focus of my radio show singularly to the amateur VGM arrangement community. That’ll take us to Part 4…

Along with using Napster to seek out the occasional video game tracks, I also amassed a collection of mainstream tracks that I had liked over the years. Being detail-oriented, I always changed filenames, and I used Winamp to tag my tracks pretty meticulously: release year, album, publisher. But also being a very particular fan, I didn’t have anything more than maybe 275-300 tracks, most bands or artists having only 1 or 2 tracks. Still though, whenever I found something good enough to keep, it was always a big deal. Especially in music, I’m of the view that one should be open to all new music, but also feel one’s preferences to be the most interesting out of anybody’s.

In late 2001, I guested a lot on my friend Anna Scruggs’ radio show at WMRE, Emory University Student Radio. She played a good deal of pop music, but within the mix she had a lot of interesting bands, including Coldplay just before I was familiar with ‘em. She picked her music well, and at the time she was a particularly big fan of Guster as well as the Moulin Rouge soundtrack. I don’t even recollect why I first joined her on the air other than to hang out; I hadn’t been bitten by the radio bug yet.

Due to WMRE having a webcam and being broadcast on Emory on-campus cable system, Anna, much like any and all females visible on WMRE, was frequently propositioned to flash the webcam by horny male students, always funny and/or mildly annoying on- or off-air. Thems were the breaks.

One aspect of WMRE I particularly enjoyed was working with its primitive soundboard (which was eventually upgraded to a very professional one). Using it to broadcast was pretty fun, and joining the station to be allowed to actually work with the equipment was one reason I joined. The other reason went back to my earlier mantra: one should feel one’s musical preferences to be the most interesting out of anybody’s. Discovering the opportunity to share my favorite music with people and spread the good word about it was all the impetus I needed to ask about having my own timeslot on the station in February 2002.

One thing job-seeking websites and books promote heavily for hungry individuals looking for opportunities is to grab tenaciously at even the smallest bite, in order to get one’s foot in the door. At WMRE, that meant eagerly accepting the Thursday night, 2-4AM timeslot when it was the only one offered to me. While an objectively lousy slot, the time wasn’t bad relative to my Friday class schedule, so I went for the hand I was dealt. My original show name, (Insert Name Here), sounded witty enough given that I couldn’t come up with anything else. In any case, that’s where seizing the opportunity factored in.

Where luck and the ability to stand out eventually factored in was in how diligently I filled in for DJs who couldn’t make it to their scheduled shows. Most of the time, whenever a DJ announced they couldn’t make it, I would swoop in and reply offering to cover their slot. Most of the time, it didn’t matter how short notice it was; I was able to compose a fresh playlist in half an hour that I felt had pretty good flow and subsequently hotfoot it with my laptop over to the Longstreet dorm where the station was housed. Being committed to only 4 two-hour shows per month, within my first month at WMRE I instead managed to host over 40. By that time, I frequently got calls from people recognizing me, telling me that they saw me in the studio all of the time, with most people liking what I was playing.

My format at the time was a mixture of mainstream music, mostly UK-based bands (Travis, The Verve, Coldplay) and video game music that I could find at reasonable quality in MP3 format. That limited me to stuff like Street Fighter Alpha 3, GoldenEye 007, Marvel vs. Capcom 2, Capcom vs. SNK and other assorted goods, but I still had a fairly deep selection.

After coming in on one occasion to cover for a timeslot after another friend of mine, Matt Kertz, Matt asked me what my show format was and I mentioned the video game music portion of the playlist. Particularly a fan of the CastleVania series mixes available there, Matt recommended me to http://remix.overclocked.org, emphasizing that the tracks available there were abundantly free. Making a mental note of it, I followed up on it a few days later, which I’ll elaborate on next time around.

After that month of constantly filling in for people, I received an email from WMRE’s then-Program Director Caroline Riegel, who had also provided me my initial DJ training. It turned out that the Saturday night, 10PM-Midnight slot had been freed up and she had noticed my dedication to being on the air. She had sent me the email letting me know that the timeslot was free and that, due to my enthusiasm, she was offering me the opportunity to take it over or decline it before she publicly put it up for grabs. I quickly thanked her and accepted my new slot. And of course, I kept right on plowing through and substituting for other people. I loved being on the air.

While I felt it important to plug video game music on my radio show, it truly took on a life of its own once I became familiar with OverClocked ReMix. That’ll take us to Part 3…

For those that ever had a basic inquiry about OverClocked ReMix’s beloved/hated judges panel, your questions may just be answered.

Major revisions were completed this past Friday to the OCR knowledge base’s Judges Panel article, adapted from years of encountering various questions and misconceptions about the panel and its procedures.

To learn more about the ins and outs of the judges panel, including criteria for choosing judges and how many submissions are accepted to OC ReMix, visit Judges Panel at the OCR Wiki knowledge base.

OverClocked ReMix is looking for individuals to fill three staff positions.

Japanese Language Correspondent/Translator (2)

These two positions would be available to djpretzel, the judges panel, and other OCR staff or project coordinators for translating material to and from Japanese. Possible contexts would be contacting Japanese composers for questions/interviews, translating site materials into Japanese, translating submission emails made in Japanese, and performing site-related research using Japanese websites.

We’re NOT looking for third or fourth-year Japanese students who have a basic proficiency with spoken Japanese and hiragana/katakana only. We’re looking for fluent readers & writers specifically, with a strong grasp of Kanji, who can visit text-heavy Japanese websites and without much effort know what’s being said. I don’t want to discourage people *too* much, but I know that a lot of OCR visitors are anime fans, like myself, who know at least a little “otaku” Japanese from watching Evangelion, etc., and I want to be clear that we’re looking for fluent readers and writers of the language. There may be some sort of test involved, depending on interest.

Neither of these positions would require too much time/effort - it would be intermittent, from month to month, probably going weeks or months without any requests - but when a need does arise, we’d like a couple dedicated, fluent folk interested in helping OCR out to be available.

If you think you could fill one of these positions, contact djpretzel@ocremix.org.

T-Shirt Shipping Assistant (Southeast Michigan ONLY: Ann Arbor, Saline, Dexter, Ypsilanti, etc.)

As some of you are (painfully) aware, we’ve been having problems shipping shirts out on time. Part of this is because Zachary Williams, who hosts OCR for free and runs the store from which the shirts are sold, simply doesn’t have the time and resources to actually do the shipping. He’s looking for an assistant in the Southeast Michigan area that’d be willing to help ship things out as orders come in. This would involve some traveling to his house and perhaps to the local shirt store where the shirts are printed, preferably on a weekly or bi-weekly basis.

Zach’s got more details if there’s anyone in the area that can help us, and him, out. There’s a possibility of limited pay involved, but certainly there’d be a free shirt or two, and some other goodies that the ztnet store sells.

If you think you could fill this position, contact admin@ztnet.com.

2005 has been another eventful year in the video game music arrangement community. Now that we’ve reached 2006, join us for an informal retrospective at some of the important goings-on in the scene last year.
(more…)

Mazedude’s The American Album is an album of 15 video game music arrangements of material exclusively created by American video game music composers. The album is Mazedude’s first, and was conceived as an alternative to the overwhelming attention given to Japanese composers by video game music fans.

Having been released to the public weeks before its scheduled December 1 release date, the album also enjoyed a spotlight at OC ReMix coinciding with the posting of the Commander Keen: The Armageddon Machine ReMix “Slick Rippin Keen.” According to Mazedude, Slick Rippin Keen “has been acclaimed as the ‘catchiest’ track off the album,” arranging Bobby Prince’s “Make It Tighter.”

The album’s website features a feedback area where, alongside fan commentary, several of the composers honored on The American Album have already expressed their appreciation including Jack Wall, Tommy Tallarico, Jeremy Soule & Peter McConnell, as well as Doom lead designer John Romero, as it continues to pick up recognition.

In light of working on The American Album for over a year and offering the finished product for free, Mazedude has solicited for donations at any comfortable level from fans who enjoy the album. Along with feedback, those can also be made via the album’s homepage.

After completing updates for all of the ReMixer profiles at the top of this year, OC ReMix now has updated composer information for all of the games represented on the site, as well as information on which original VGM source tunes have been arranged. These updates will hopefully lead to more appreciation and acknowledgment for original game music and the many composers whose works have inspired the game arrangement community.

The column’s out on Monday this week, since I got the chance to chill with Vigilante this past weekend. After chillin’ around with my friends here in Connecticut, I headed back with him to Massachusetts on a whim, and had an awesome time in Boston and Cambridge. I got to see and help Jesse work on some Donkey Kong Country remix material, and despite being a fan of the scene for such a long time, I had never actually seen any mixer’s setup before, so that was a pretty cool experience. Of course, the trip wasn’t all about OC stuff (Béla Fleck & the Flecktones and sushi!), so we’ll both post some thoughts soon on how we didn’t get along at all WHATSOEVER for your amusement! One more week until I head back down to Atlanta, so I’ll finally have some cable network speed dammit. Now let’s pimp out what we had for the week ending August 14th:
(more…)

Slow week in terms of side developments in the community, or at least any that I’m aware of. We’re only a month away from the return of VGF on the air, so hopefully we’ll get some more good stuff to fill up the very first show back. In any case, the music takes center stage, so let’s see what dropped for the week ending August 7th:
(more…)

Congrats to ravon & the Ormgas.com crew for collaborating with djp to get a link to the webstream on the OCR front page (and the return of the ReMix Roulette). It’s all looking good, and we’re more than glad for the extra attention! Good work, bros.

Quite the good week for stuff, IMO, but let’s leave that up to you. I’ve looked all over in particular this week, so let’s jump right into the material for the week ending July 31st:
(more…)

Last week was a nice week for me personally, but things have been rough for us as at Ormgas.com. Fellow Ormgas member Mattias “Sockan” Ström, whom we knew as SockULF, passed away on July 21st after being viciously assaulted on Saturday the 17th by a drugged up man who, seemingly at random, knocked Sockan down and attacked him by kicking him in the head repeatedly. After suffering severe brain damage and only being able to breathe with the aid of a respirator, he passed away this past Wednesday. He was only 22 years old. For his friends and family, along with others such as myself who didn’t know Sockan closely, it’s a very difficult situation made more difficult by how senseless it was. If you need more information about the attack on SockULF, it’s available at Ormgas.com. Even though most of you do not know him, you can nonetheless view the condolences given at http://sockan.ormgas.com. Ormgas went silent from this past Thursday until late Sunday as a memoriam.

The news that I was personally happy about this past week was that I was nominated among a list of candidates and subsequently chosen by the OCR Judges Panel to be the newest Judge with OverClocked ReMix! Without gushing over the news like a fanboy, I have to admit that it’s an honor to be among the people that help in large part on deciding what music is chosen for OCR. After first coming to OC in early 2002 as a guy with a casual interest in video game music, I’ve come about as far as a fan possibly can in the community. I’d like to personally thank my friends Matt Kertz & Joe Mauri, since it’s their “fault” that I found out about OCR, later listened to every OC ReMix ever made, and got serious about playing video game music on the radio. Without them, I wouldn’t have ever found a community with such talent and creativity. I’ll get into some more thoughts about judging later in the Pimp Section, but for now, let’s get into what music caught my attention for the week ending Saturday, July 24th:
(more…)

I’m glad we got a nice bunch of entries for the Ormgas radio jingle contest. Myself, the other Ormgas staff, and some select others judged things up this week and the winner was Neskvartetten with a cool Legend of Zelda 2 mix. Check it out below for the info. Now let’s see if, for my own sanity, I can do some quick writeups for the week ending Saturday, July 17th:
(more…)

I’m glad we got a nice bunch of entries for the Ormgas jingle contest. Myself, the other Ormgas staff, and some select others will be judging things up over the next week. Once a winner is decided on, I’ll highlight what we collectively chose.

Everytime I think I’m gonna be quick with the writeups for the week, I always find more stuff to say. The only way I could say less was if you paid me too. Let’s sort through what was going down for the week ending Saturday, July 10th:
(more…)

Liontamer wrote…

Ormgas.com, OverClocked ReMix’s unofficial internet radio station, wants YOU for its jingle contest, now underway and set to end on July 10th. We need artists, remixers and anyone willing to have some fun with a microphone to check out the contest and submit 20-to-40-second station identification style jingles, and if you’re one of the top 3 entrants, you can clothe your body with hot OMG FREE Ormgas.com gear. As long as your entry is quality, you can potentially earn radio infamy along with other legends (like Liontamer) as one of Ormgas.com regular jingles, so be sure to check out more information at the OCR forums thread as well as the full set of contest rules over at http://oc.ormgas.com/news.php?extend.36. Antonio Pizza, SgtRama, Neskvartetten & OverCoat are already in the game with their own entries, and I encourage you reading this [Larry points at you] to consider submitting your own jingles in support of Ormgas while you get in the hunt for free, fashionable swag. Please don’t delay. July 10th’s the final deadline.

Y’all need to make some Ormgas jingles, or I’ll kill you. Pick the fun choice. Make a jingle. Let’s check out what was going on for the week ending Saturday, June 19th:
(more…)

Liontamer wrote…
Ormgas.com, OverClocked ReMix’s unofficial internet radio station, wants YOU for its jingle contest, now underway and set to end on July 10th. We need artists, remixers and anyone willing to have some fun with a microphone to check out the contest and submit 30-to-40-second station identification style jingles, and if you’re one of the top 3 entrants, you can clothe your body with hot OMG FREE Ormgas.com gear. As long as your entry is quality, you can potentially earn radio infamy along with other legends (like Liontamer) as one of Ormgas.com regular jingles, so be sure to check out more information at the OCR forums thread as well as the full set of contest rules over at http://oc.ormgas.com/news.php?extend.36. Antonio Pizza, SgtRama & Neskvartetten are already in the game with their own entries, and I encourage you reading this [Larry points at you] to consider submitting your own jingles in support of Ormgas while you get in the hunt for free, fashionable swag. Please don’t delay. July 10th’s the final deadline.

JigginJonT had the foresight (i.e. gall) to make sure that if I had my own forum at Ormgas.com I’d be open for plenty of the Larry-bashing that makes VG Frequency such an enjoyable experience for all. Register at Ormgas and drop by your insults at the official Larry Oji hate thread. Because I LOVE to hear what you bastards have to say. I hate you, Jon. And because I hate all of you out there so much, it’s time to once again use some of my free time this week to look around the remix community for tracks so you don’t have to. What the hell was I thinking? Let’s take a look at some of what’s good for the week ending June 12th:

(more…)

Ormgas.com, OverClocked ReMix’s unofficial internet radio station, wants YOU for its jingle contest, now underway and set to end on July 10th. We need artists, remixers and anyone willing to have some fun with a microphone to check out the contest and submit 20-to-40-second station identification style jingles, and if you’re one of the top 3 entrants, you can clothe your body with hot OMG FREE Ormgas.com gear. As long as your entry is quality, you can potentially earn radio infamy along with other legends (like Liontamer) as one of Ormgas.com regular jingles, so be sure to check out more information at the OCR forums thread as well as the full set of contest rules over at http://oc.ormgas.com/news.php?extend.36. Antonio Pizza, SgtRama & Neskvartetten are already in the game with their own entries, and I encourage you reading this [Larry points at you] to consider submitting your own jingles in support of Ormgas while you get in the hunt for free, fashionable swag. Please don’t delay. July 10th’s the final deadline. Now let’s see what was up in the remix community for the week ending June 5th. Kind of a lighter week this week, but, hey, I can’t complain:

(more…)

VG Frequency #028: Quite the Contrary
Larry Oji - WMRE (Emory University Student Radio; Atlanta, GA)
Saturday, May 1, 2004 / 10 PM - 12:45 AM EST
Liontamer f/DarkeSword, JigginJonT, Vigilante & D-Lux
(more…)