OverClocked ReMix
is a website and musical community "dedicated to the appreciation and promotion of video game music as an art form." Naturally, it focuses on remixes of video game music. Since 1999, it has been a place for musicians to perfect and share their work, and has accumulated over 2,500 remixes, covering games on everything from the
Amiga to the Xbox and ranging from hard-rock to classical to trance/electronica and everything in-between. Besides hosting individual tracks, the site has also allowed artists to collaborate on remix projects, starting with the acclaimed
Super Metroid album
Relics of the Chozo in 2003.
These aren't just a few amateurs messing around with keyboards and chiptunes - some of these guys are pro musicians who offer remixes on the side, while a few have gone on to do work in the video game industry after getting exposure on OC ReMix (see below). Thanks to a panel of judges that assures quality control, the majority of the music on the site can qualify as
Crowning Music of Awesome, depending on your tastes, and in some cases, it's better than the original music that's being remixed. And it's all
absolutely free to download.
There was a general bias towards techno remixes early in the site's history. However, due to advances in samples and decreasing costs for quality home studios, it has since expanded to include rock, folk, acoustic, jazz, and even orchestrated symphonic mixes as more musicians contribute to the site.
OC ReMix had a
Crowning Moment Of Awesome in 2008 when several artists from the site
were tapped to handle the Remixed soundtrack for Capcom's
Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix. And it
rocked.
The site has its own
YouTube channel (
subscription) for those who prefer to stream instead of download, with pretty much every track you can find on the site available to listen to.
The site celebrated its ten-year anniversary in December of 2009, officially making it an Internet
Long Runner.
The list of recommended remixes has been moved to the
Awesome Music subpage. Please put your recommendations there.
Tropes:
- Affectionate Parody: Has one of its own in OverLooked ReMiX. It even has a judges panel and a small but dedicated community.
- Celebrity Endorsement: Among OCR's contributors are veteran game composers George "The Fat Man" Sanger, Jeremy Soule, Alexander Brandon, David Wise, and Grant Kirkhope.
- Chiptune: This is specifically defied by the judges, who will reject any straight chiptune arrangements. However, you can get away with using 8-bit synthesizers as long as they're not the only instruments. halc in particular is known for using a chiptune + drums style he calls "9-bit".
- Contemptible Cover: The cover for their Super Dodge Ball album is a tad... risque, even if it's not the real cover.
- Defeat Means Friendship: In the Sonic Zone Remix Competition, one of the finalists collaborated with three of his defeated opponents for the last round.
- Long Runner - Originally founded in December 1999. By internet standards, this site is practically ancient.
- Product Placement - Mentioned at least Once an Episode on the video game music podcast Nitro Game Injection, which also plays at least one song from the site on almost every episode. Considering Larry Oji, OCR's Head Submissions Evaluator, is a co-host of the show, well...
- Promoted Fanboy
- The site's members were chosen by Capcom to provide the arranged soundtrack for Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix. The soundtrack was released digitally as a free download on OC ReMix.
- Eidos Montreal commissioned and promoted their free Deus Ex series album Sonic Augmentation.
- A number of OC ReMixers have gone on to create the soundtracks for several independent and AAA game releases.
- Mattias Häggström Gerdt has composed the music for several games, most notably Kaleidoscope, The Perfect Match and Mojang's Scrolls.
- Jillian Aversa has provided vocals for God of War: Ghost of Sparta, Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary, expansion packs for Civilization IV and V, and vocals and composition for Soulcalibur V.
- zircon crafted the soundtrack for the shooter Fittest, arranged music for Monkey Island 2: Special Edition, and composed music for Soulcalibur V.
- Danny Baranowsky is well-known for the soundtracks to Canabalt, the Meat Boy series, and The Binding of Isaac.
- Jimmy "Big Giant Circles" Hinson composed the music to Puzzlejuice, and contributed music to Mass Effect 2 and Call of Duty: Black Ops II.
- Lee Brotherton, under the name LeeBro, contributed several Sonic the Hedgehog ReMixes. He went on to head Remix Factory, which contributed tracks to Shadow the Hedgehog and Sonic Rivals. He was also the vocalist on the Sonic the Hedgehog (2006) song "Dreams of an Absolution". Currently, he is known as Bentley Jones.
- Spin-Off - Several, including the aforementioned OLR, ReMix:ThaSauce (in itself a Spin-Off of the video game music news site Tha Sauce, and originally began as an April Fools joke), and the most popular, VGMix (now defunct), which had an open song submission system and began as a Take That against OCR, but has since reconciled. The site itself is actually a spinoff of a webcomic called OverClocked. The comic has been silently discontinued (the last update was in 2001), while OCR has become the main focus of the site staff.
- With Lyrics - A fair amount of remixes do this, in everything from Piss Take Rap (ever wondered what it would be like to hear a cactuar or tonberry rap a few lines? Wonder no more!) to epic One Woman Wails.
- Word Salad Lyrics - The lyrical content of this remix of Paperboy by Navi consists of nothing but this.
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