Project Guidelines

By releasing an album for this site, you and the other participants are agreeing to our Content Policy; please read it before proceeding.

The Projects forum showcases collaborative efforts affiliated with OCR. This includes, but is not limited to, album project collaborations, database information compilation, and development of software for OC ReMix.

If you wish to head up a site project that is NOT an album, contact zircon or Liontamer via PM, and they can discuss your potential project and work out the details.

For those planning on coordinating an album project, here are the steps required to become an official OCR album project:

Before creating a thread

• Come up with a concept. You can choose to arrange the entire soundtrack from a single game, like Relics of the Chozo or Kong in Concert, or create an album project that is more selective with its track selection, like Rise of the Star. You should also decide on whether or not there will be a general style/theme; will there be a wide variety of genres on the project, or will there be only one genre (such as the orchestral-only Chrono Symphonic)? You can also choose to arrange music from multiple games. Deciding on a concept you are happy with is important, because you'll be running with it for several months, perhaps even over a year.

• Contact artists you want on the project. This is crucial. Using OCR's ReMixer database and the forums, find people you would like to have on your project and contact them via PM, AIM, IRC, or even email. Even if you don't personally know many people in the community, contacting artists whose music you really like is a good place to start. We suggest getting the support of at least 5 artists whose works are known in the community.

The development phase

• Once you have generated some interest, post a recruitment thread in General Discussion. This is where you will be notifying the general public of your project and filling out its roster. Be detailed with what the album is about, the type of deadlines people can expect, the recruitment criteria, and so on. On that note, holding auditions for artists interested in participating is strongly recommended. Have those interested submit a recent work to you so that you can evaluate their current level of artistic ability and see whether it fits in with the rest of your roster. While auditions are not required, they are highly encouraged, as album projects on OCR require a certain degree of quality control. A project that has very little quality control may not be accepted as an official OCR album project.

• Once it is observed that recruitment has taken place and progress has started on songs for the album, the project thread will be moved to the Works (In-Progress & Completed): OC ReMixes forum. You are welcome to continue recruitment at this stage in the project and change the roster or tracklist around. The Works forum is where the project will stay for awhile, so be sure to keep the initial post updated with any relevant information. Any further discussion of the album will take place in this thread, though arrangers are still welcome to create WIP threads for individual tracks.

• Alternatively, if after a few weeks in General Discussion significant interest has not been generated, the album project thread will be closed. If this happens, you are encouraged to rethink your approach - choose a more popular game, attempt to make your name more well-known in the community, get to know more ReMixers, etc.

While in Progress

• If your project has any songs that don't fall under your project scope for some reason, but you don't want to remove them, they can become bonus tracks. These are tracks that are included with the project but not as part of the main portion. This is not required or recommended, simply an option. If you need more clarification on what qualifies as a bonus track, contact the OCR project staff.

• Keep in mind that there is a quality requirement for projects: 1/2 of all final tracks, including any tracks included in the project but not as part of the main release (known as bonus tracks), should be OC ReMix passable; ie. they would receive the requisite amount of votes from the judges to be passable as an OC ReMix.

• Keep in touch with OCR project staff: they are there to help let you know that you're on track and if you have questions about running your project.

• When a significant amount of work has been completed on the album project (e.g. 75% of the songs have a work-in-progress track) the project thread will be moved to the Site Projects forum. This is where it will stay until (and after) the project is finished. At this stage, continued progress and forward momentum towards completion must be displayed. All projects hit low points as far as activity is concerned; it's to be expected. But complete inactivity for extended periods of time will warrant removal from Site Projects. If this is ever considered, the issues will always be discussed with the project coordinators beforehand.

• Take into consideration any requirements you have for artwork for the project. This is not a requirement, though usually a project will at least have some cover art.

• Begin considering how you will go about creating a website. Look for potential web designers and get an idea started. If you are unable to secure website creation, our default project website template can be applied to your project.

Approaching completion

• In order for a project to be considered complete, there are a number of requirements. The following need to be complete:

• • Music (in WAV format)
  • Any artwork
  • Website
  • Consent Emails from contributors to the project (directors, musicians, artists, site designers, etc.)
  • Any directors notes to be included
  • Information on all musicians, what tracks they are arranging, and games being arranged.
  • Lyrics for any songs that have vocals.

• We require consent emails from all contributors to the project. Each contributor is required to go to the following form, fill it out accurately, agree to the guidelines stated therein, and click "Submit":

https://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?formkey=dFNlTmlYYUJtUVNNd2hpSWxXa19Ra0E6MQ

• Figure out what website mirrors your project will have.

• When the album project is complete, contact the OCR project staff at projects@ocremix.org about arranging a release date, arranging torrent distribution, and selecting debut tracks. There is typically at least a two month wait between album completion and album release. 1 month is used for album evaluation, to make sure it meets our quality and arrangement standards, and 1 month is used for project release prep. However, if a director submits multiple projects concurrently there will likely be a delay in evaluation of up to 6 months or more. Furthermore, if there is a project queue in place, it may take longer than 2 months to release as projects are typically released on a first-come, first-serve basis. If you have a specific release date in mind, speak with project staff as soon as possible.