ThaSauce Development Update

What’s going on with VGMix? OverLooked ReMix? ReMix:ThaSauce? Compoverse?

Hi. Hello. Is this thing on? It’s been a while since I’ve made a post on this site.

The days of using ThaSauce.net as a news portal have been behind us for a while, but development on ThaSauce websites has been active for some time. Over the years we’ve inherited a lot of your favorite sites and with them a lot of responsibility. We get a number of questions from time-to-time about the status is of a particular website. The answer is always the same: It’s…coming along. There’s a larger, overarching plan we’re working on and I think I’ve explained it enough times in enough places to finally sit down and write it out. So here it goes…

A bit of history…

Before we can talk about everything that we plan on doing, let me take a short moment to talk about how we got here. What originally started out in 2005 as an idea to make a VGM news portal, eventually tacked on “yet another arrangement site” and then a compo portal? Now things are just out of control.

As mentioned above ThaSauce Network currently consists of this site “ThaSauce.net”, ReMix:ThaSauce, Compoverse (our rebranding of Compo:ThaSauce), OverLooked ReMiX (officially handed to us by richter), VGMix Archive for all known files from former VGMix sites, and a version of VGMix (currently called VG(Re)Mix) based on the vision of the would-be new site as laid out by virt.

The story of OverLooked ReMiX is a pretty short one: richter is just too busy these days and wanted to hand it off to someone who would maintain it. We control the hosting, domains, the full gamut. Future development of the site is…difficult as it’s so closely tied to a particular version of PhpBB and software updates have gotten even harder. We’re describing the current status of the site as “archival,” which basically means it is in a read-only state for the foreseeable future.

The story of VGMix is a more complicated one. In 2013 we started development on what we were initially calling “VGMix 4”. Users had been asking when a new version of VGMix would pop up, and some had even tried to roll out their own, but we decided we’d take the responsibility onto us. After reaching out to virt and getting his ideas for what a new version of VGMix would look like, we went to work. There were a lot of details about VGMix that virt had envisioned, but the basis was this:

  1. Users should be able to upload their own tracks, freely, whenever they want. This includes completed tracks and works-in-progress (or WIPs).
  2. Users should be able to provide feedback to each other for the above tracks.
  3. Users should be able to host impromptu compos on demand.
  4. Users should be able to fully host and release album projects on the site, including submitting applications, WIPs, and feedback.

Much of our vision for the future development of all the sites revolve around these goals and, ultimately, VGMix will likely be the center of this “network.”

The Vision

So VGMix is the cornerstone of the future, but where does that leave all of the other sites? In the current vision for the future, each site plays a role in a sort of “music development pipeline”. A process to take a beginner musician to, potentially, a full video game music composer. Here’s the breakdown:

Compoverse

Everything starts with Compoverse. For the uninitiated, Compoverse is where we host “compos,” or music composition competitions. As the site explains:

Compo is a slang word for “composition competition” commonly used by the arrangement community. It is derived from the demoscene competitions by the same name.

Contrary to this, compos are less of a competition and more of an exercise in composition abilities. Each compo has its own unique format and guidelines and while some are as short as 1 hour, others can last anywhere from a month to a few months.

It’s important to remember that the primary purpose of compos is to hone your skills and abilites by working within, sometimes very constricting, guidelines. These techniques have proven essential to the growth of countless musicians.

Remember: the only way to lose a compo is to not participate.

The site currently hosts about 7 compos on weekly or monthly schedules. One particular compo, One Hour Compo, has been hosted every week for over 10 years. During these compos, users work on tracks, following a particular theme, under a constricting time-limit. In many cases after the compo is completed we host a live listening party on our community Discord server, and users can get live peer review. This process has been invaluable to the growth of countless musicians throughout the years, including VGM composers virt and Danny Baranowski.

Compoverse offers new users an opportunity to develop experience with new tools and techniques and receive live feedback. Additionally, it challenges veteran users to try new things and streamline their workflow.

Compoverse will continue to offer a small number of “ThaSauce-hosted”, regularly scheduled compos. Additionally, the system will be expanded to offer a number of new features to admins that will also allow us to white-label the service to other compo communities. Making it easier for admins of all compos to host and administer regularly scheduled compos anywhere they desire.

VGMix (Part 1: WIPs/Compos)

Once users gain some confidence and experience it’s time to move on to VGMix. Here, users will be able to submit WIPs of more full-featured game arrangements and receive feedback. Additionally, users can join, or create, impromptu compos. These compos can be created by anyone, at any time, and is a great opportunity for a few friends to quickly jump in, create some constraints, host their files, and even have a live on-site listening party.

VGMix (Part 2: Releases)

Once users are comfortable with the feedback they received from WIPs, users will be able to convert their track from a work-in-progress to an actual released track. Once released they can continue to receive private critique, or simply receive public comments like “This song is great!” Users will receive on-site “Achievements” as they progress as artists to help encourage them to keep working as well as try new things. Additionally, VGMix will provide templates to allow for easy submissions to other arrangement sites including ReMix:ThaSauce, OverLooked ReMix, and even OverClocked ReMix.

ReMix:ThaSauce

ReMix:ThaSauce will maintain a similar position to where it has previously been: a bridge between self-released tracks and submission to a curated platform. Users will be able to submit tracks, that will be evaluated by panel, for an opportunity to be included within the curated collection. Consider this to be a badge of pride for user growth.

OverLooked ReMiX

OverLooked ReMix will continue to do exactly what it excels in: provide ridiculous interpretations of video game music and video game culture. Users that want to create joke, parody, or just simply outlandish tracks will be able to submit them here. Again, songs will be evaluated by a panel of passionate administrators for an opportunity to be included within that collection.

OverClocked ReMix

Though not within ThaSauce Network, OCReMix’s existence can’t be ignored. It has long been the center of the video game arrangement community and it too is included within the overall vision of our future development.

As it has always been OCReMix remains the “pinnacle” of achievement within the VGM community. A mountain for users to climb, and conquer along their journey. As previously mentioned, VGMix will work to not only prepare but also help facilitate users’ transition to OverClocked ReMix releases by hosting their tracks and providing them with formatted submission templates. This will, hopefully, make the process easier not only for users of both sites, but also administrators at OCReMix.

VGMix (Part 3: Albums)

Once users have confidence, experience, and prestige, they can move on to creating and participating in full album releases on VGMix. These can be solo albums or collaborative albums. VGMix will facilitate gathering of private feedback, providing consistent MP3 tags, and of course file hosting. Users will be free to host these final releases anywhere, but VGMix will hopefully make the process of collaborating on, and creating full-length albums much easier.

The Process

Whew. Now that we have all that outlined, how do we get there? Over the years we’ve amassed a number of incredibly talented developers, musicians, graphic designers, and other experts to help outline and flesh out our goals. We have a very clear process in mind and we’re confident we can achieve it. It all starts with what we’re calling Akatosh in development.

In the Elder Scrolls lore Akatosh is the name of the Dragon God of Time. The chief deity of the Divines. In ThaSauce development Akatosh represents the backbone of our infrastructure. Users, songs, albums, compos, all exist on Akatosh.

Under the hood, most of these sites follow a very similar structure:

  • A song is posted on the site
  • The song is “owned” by a user or a group of users (bands, etc)
  • These songs can be organized under a grouping (album, compo round, etc).

In the Akatosh system, a song on VGMix isn’t very different from a song on Compoverse or a song on OverLooked ReMix. The difference is the flourishes, and the presentation. All sites will be powered by Akatosh, and users of all the sites will have a single, unified, ThaSauce Network login account. One big community, spanning a number of websites.

Where are we now? What’s the timeline?

Given the nature of the system, it doesn’t look like anything has been done, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. Most of our time up until now has been focused on the underlying Akatosh system and structure, so there isn’t much “front-facing” progress. Admittedly as well, we are all employed full-time and very busy with our personal lives. So where are we actually and what are the next steps?

Right now, the Akatosh system is in a pretty solid place as far as structure and efficiency. We’re comfortable with the foundations we’ve laid out, and we’re ready to move on to incorporating actual, useable sites into the system. Compoverse is currently our most active site and, as a result, will be one of the first sites to be integrated into the new system. If you’ve followed the site recently you know that it has been in active development for a bit over a year. The current iteration of the PHP site is at the end-of-life for new features and any new development for the site will be moved to the new platform. This also includes the conversion of all the existing songs, compos, and users to the new system. This will take time as we’re rebuilding the site from scratch, but the timeline here, realistically, will be months, not years, as we continue.

There is also a chance you will see a version of ReMix:ThaSauce pop up soon after, or even before Compoverse. R:TS is one of the simpler, smaller sites, and would be a very straightforward transition. It’s also a great opportunity to test some of the data migration with a small, static dataset.

Conclusion

Still with me? Ok, good. Whew, that was a lot. So I guess what I’m trying to say is we’re still here. We’re still alive. We’re still passionate about the community, and we’re still working really hard to help the community continue to grow, evolve, and thrive in the modern, post-YouTube/Soundcloud internet. It’s been a long road, with a lot of changes and iterations, but we’re not going anywhere any time soon. Hopefully, hopefully, we’ll have some of you along for the ride to see everything through to the end. We’ll get there, and we’re getting closer every day.

Announcing ThaSauce Presented by VGMix; Launches VGMix Archive

[The following is an April Fools’ Joke and is satirical in nature. None of it should be taken seriously EXCEPT the launch of VGMix Archive, which is an actual website that serves it’s advertised purpose.]

After an unfortunate turn of events we regret to announce that ThaSauce has ended our relationship with OverClocked ReMix indefinitely, active immediately. This is a really sad day for all of us, but after months of discussion and preparation, we have to call it off. Negotiations broke down soon after our announcement after we reached unresolved circumstances between ourselves and the OverClocked ReMix staff, particlarly Stevo “Level99” Bortz.

Things aren’t all bad, though. As we realized we were reaching an impasse we began exploring our other partnership options. With that said, we are now proud to announced new relationship between ThaSauce and Jake “vert” Kaufman and his VGMix team. Jake has been very understanding of the circumstances between us and OCReMix, and as a result we have decided to join forces to make the best online community that video game arrangements have ever seen!

As a celebration of our new, hopefully long-lasting, partnership we are proud to announce the launch of VGMix Archive. VGMix Archive is a large, searchable index of every VGMix 1, 2, and X song we could pull together. Preview and download your favorite tracks, or download the whole collection via BitTorrent! We hope to keep VGMix Archive a constantly updating archive, so anyone who has any tracks that we might be missing, feel free to let us know!

We apologize for all the preceding drama, but we are dedicated to moving forward and making the internet a better place one video game remix at a time, no matter how many beards try to stand in our way!

VGMix Coming Back? A Nugget of Hope?

For anyone that doesn’t know, VGMix has been down for quite some time now. Not just VGMix 2, but even the new stand-in VGMix X had disapeared from the internet entirely. virt had mentioned there was issues with the hosting, and the content management system had problems anyway (new user registration had been down for a long time as it was.)

However recently it seems there has been some activity. A nugget of hope in the form of…well, virt’s puggle Nugget. Does this mean the gears are in motion once again? Could we see VGMix 3 finally sometime in the foreseeable future? Hopefully we’ll get more information about this sometime soon.

Post kwakfest report.

VGMix held a kwakfest Friday night/Saturday morning in which I, and 34 other mixes from around the community participated. Other mixers include Ubik, virt, injury, Spamtron, SnappleMan, tumult, and many many moreeeeeeeee.

This was actually my first kwakfest, even though I’d listened in on
quite a few before. It was a LOT of fun and I can’t wait to join in on
the next one.
kwakfests are a 1-hour midi compo held in #kwakfest on VGMix’s IRC channel. They include a theme which…is more or less a suggestion. Afterwards everyone listens to the tracks produced together.

A Kwakfest is, simply, a one-hour General MIDI compo. Compos are timed contests in which musicians, artists, or programmers create the best possible example of their work — from scratch — within a given time limit, under a specific set of limitations. The most common compos are hour-long tracked module competitions, where musicians use a composition tool called a tracker to write a song in 60 minutes. Surprisingly, many musicians are quite good at this, and can write several minutes worth of music with time to spare. One-hour music compos are typically referred to as OHCs, and have a long history with many notable participants. Most of the VGMix crew work primarily with MIDI sequencers as opposed to module trackers, so we’ve adapted the OHC tradition to our working method, noncompetitive spirit, and general rejection of any seriousness at all.

Last week’s theme was…well it was lookin’ something like JPOP + Sports, and you can find the tracks here:

http://www.thasauce.net/downloads/kwak_2008-02-01/

Hello, VGMix.

Aside from the inside jokes people receive when posting some inane comment on the ETA thread on the VGMix 2.5 forums for not reading the VGMIX LAUNCH FAQ post that virt made, there is a large amount of misinformation on the internet. Some of this is due to some comments Jake made during the VGMix panel at MAGFest. “Bahamut” of OCReMix (a forum moderator) was recently seen saying that virt said within a couple of weeks. Other people have made similar comments about “Spring 2007,” but there is no ETA beyond a vague “As soon as it is wholly complete.” Yes, it has been over a year. Yes, they missed the original ETA. The VGMix administration and development team KNOW all of this, and there is no need to restate the facts every other day. Just be patient, and…
Read this FAQ: http://vgmix.com/vg25/viewtopic.php?id=4499

When you compound Jake’s ambition with Real Life (work, school, family obligations) and realise that the dev team is spread around the country (seriously, ask Gulopine and Richter where they live on IRC some time), it should be clear that any kind of ETA is impossible to judge. Go through and read the ETA thread (starting from the beginning), too.

Also, if you want to release your songs, send them here!

VGMix 3.0 – ETA January 8, 2007

“Wow.

“The better part of a year has passed with
no updates from us, just a lot of cheerleading. We’ve never attempted
ANYTHING of this magnitude before. We have been silent about our ETA to
avoid any disappointment or loss of credibility if we blew the target
date. More like Duke VGMix Forever, right? This whole thing is
incredibly difficult for a team of guys with full-time jobs and, for a
few of us (not me), even social lives!

“Excuses aside, it’s INSANE that it’s taken this long,
and I apologize. I had hoped to relaunch mid-year at the latest, but it
just didn’t happen – we have changed our approach a few times, written
hundreds of pages of documentation, even switched programming languages
and adopted a web framework so we wouldn’t have to reinvent the wheel
with databases and templating.

“Our feature list has not
changed, and our goals of security, speed, and expandability are
finally being addressed. With our truly amazing programmers, I’m proud
to say that we’re actually getting stuff done.

“So, here it is. Our ETA. January 8, 2007.

“Seems like forever, but it’s only a few months. It’s the day after we return from Magfest.
An ETA is of course an ESTIMATE, and with work and life how it is,
anything could come up. But we deeply, truly believe in this site, and
we’re not going to give up – no matter how long it takes. For the first
time in my life I’m able to afford the server comfortably, so no
donations are needed right now.

“We need sufficient time to work
out the bugs in beta, which will be conducted with a small number of
regulars – We need people we know personally who can thoroughly
describe how stuff breaks, and who know the site backwards and forwards.

“Another,
more unfortunate reason we withheld an ETA is the jerk factor. There
are folks out there – the same who brought down 2.0 – who like to
sabotage things just because they can, and then laugh about it.
Launching unexpectedly would help rule out any planned disruptions. But
honestly, if people want to break our stuff, they’ll probably break it.
We’ll just do the best we can. With our new web host and vastly
improved security, we can lock things down a lot better now, if it
should come to that.

“So hang in there. We’re coming back very, very soon!”
-virt

Kwakfest

There was a Kwakfest tonight in #kwakfest on irc.vgmix.com. There was no specific theme but there didn’t need to be! Read on for the link and more info.
http://kwakfest.vgmix.com/kwakfest-2006-06-10.zip

Tonights kwakfest was: ansgaros, coda, flik, frantic, kaijin, merkizmo, nightsb, OverCoat featuring special guest DJ Michel Der Heidi, P2E [HAHA OKAY], Paragon, shonensamurai, spamtron, tumult, ubik, and virt.

Kwakfests are one hour general MIDI compos. They’re always good fun, just make sure you have working email until they get the upload system fixed [SIGH]. Anyway, they’re in #kwakfest on irc.vgmix.com and announced on the VGMix forums well ahead of time.