A Thank You to DJPretzel of OverClocked Remix · 7:45pm Nov 9th, 2023
Monday, while I was working on Alpha edits for Axtara – Magic and Mayhem, a bomb was dropped in my inbox. Not a physical one, but one that left me stunned and sort of speechless for a minute or two. With a single tone that indicated a Discord notification, I beheld news that I’d never expected to see. I had to reread it to confirm that I was indeed parsing it correctly, but I was.
DJPretzel was—is—stepping down as the administrator of OverClocked Remix.
Some of you are probably reacting to this with vague approximations of the old Guardians of the Galaxy “Who?” meme but understand that to me, this was a huge surprise. DJPretzel was the founder of OverClocked Remix, the dedicated location for remaking and reimagining video game music. A site that today hosts thousands of reimagined songs from all sorts of games and genres, stretching back all the way to 1999 when the first mix was posted.
Myself? I’ve been listening to OCR stuff since around 2000. Maybe 2001 at the latest. And I’ve never really stopped. If one were to ask which of my books was written while jamming to OCR’s bountiful offerings, I’d have to say all of them. And here’s the thing: I know I’m not the only author for whom this is the case.
I think a number of people might be surprised to know how many mainstream books have been written while the authors were listening to OCR, but without naming names (after all, that is the business of those authors) I can say that it’s many more than most realize.
Now, please don’t misunderstand things. OCR isn’t going away. DJPretzel is just stepping down from his role as administrator after—checks math—about twenty-five years. The site is continuing on. You can read his full post about it here to see his parting words.
But almost as long as he’s been running things over at OCR, I’ve been listening. My OCR music folder is something like 20 Gigabytes (I backed it up the other day). One Drink, Colony, Shadow of an Empire, and yes even Axtara have been written while listening to all the wonderful music the site’s bevvy of talented artists have created over the years. Many of those artists have gone on to have successful music careers, and I’ve got a number of those albums as well.
Look, those who know me know how much of my life is set to music. If I’m up and working, I have music playing. If I’m working out or biking, I have music playing. If I walk somewhere, I have music playing. Back when I was in high school and college, and my car had a CD player, I had a 100+disc binder full of music CDs … about half of which were OCR mixes. I’m listening to OCR right now (this song, as of posting).
The point is, I just want to say thank you to DJPretzel. For all his efforts and what he created. Yes, I thank all those artists who created all the music I’ve spent so long listening to as well (and in a few cases, I’ve done so personally), but DJPretzel created a place where all those artists could come together.
So thanks, DJPretzel. May fortune be with you on whatever project you tackle next. But as someone who’s written millions of words listening to music from the site you brought together, thank you.
And if you’d like a free copy of Colony or Axtara or something, let me know. It’d be the least I could do after so many thousands of hours of jamming came from a project you put together.
May OCR continue long into the future.
As somebody who does their best writing while listening to the soundtrack from Tropico, I understand.
o.O
Man, that brings back memories of someone showing me this remix and me falling down that musical rabbit hole. Crazy!
5754257
Ooh, that's a good one.
Wow. OCR and VGMix were my first introductions to the net-indie music scene(s). The vast majority of my music library is stuff that has not and never will be on the radio, TV, or anywhere other than weird corners of the internet. OCR (and related sites) and pony make up a good chunk of that, and then I found entire micro-genres through BandCamp and YouTube.
DJPretzel did some good music of his own, as well as with the site: