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OSV Site News – May 2019

May 31, 2019 | Brenna Wilkes | 980 Comments Share this OSV Site News – May 2019

Hello dear readers of OSV. As you may have noticed, we’ve been on a bit of a hiatus in terms of content for the past two months. We’re in the process of planning the future of Original Sound Version and consolidating how we report on VGM and media music moving forward. The site has been struggling in the past year or so, and we’ve come to the conclusion that something needs to change in order for us to continue creating content and sharing our love of gaming and media music with the community.

While plans are firming up in terms of the next step in the life of OSV, we’ll be continuing to be on-break in terms of writing up new content. Rest assured that we love reporting on VGM and game music-related news and will continue to do so moving forward, and we will update you on the next step when it becomes solidified.

Thank you for being our readers and our community and we’ll keep you posted on things to come.
Editorial

Site News: Website Update & Design

October 2, 2017 | Brenna Wilkes | Comments Off on Site News: Website Update & Design Share this Site News: Website Update & Design

Welcome back OSV readers to thew new Original Sound Version!

Okay, so the new OSV isn’t a super dramatic change from the old. We’ve done some redesign tweaks and updates to the overall layout. You’ll notice we’ve consolidated the main page and updated the menu on the page top, so we encourage your all to take a looky through that. The menu bar and search functions now cover a lot more categories and our “Features”, “Interviews” and “Reviews” have the most recent articles highlighted. In the side bar, you’ll now find that we have a brand new events feature, which we will update with any VGM, chiptune, game audio and other related events in calendar format which can easily be added to your Google, Outlook or Apple Calendars. (If you have any relevant events you think should be listed in the calendar, feel free to send us a tip on it.) There’s a lot of other tweaks made to the site so we encourage everyone to explore and check it out! (As well as let us know if you find anything weird.) There might be a few additional minor adjustments we make throughout the week, so don’t be alarmed! We just didn’t want to wait any longer to bring the site back up for everyone!

I want to extend an enormous thanks to Shawn for his work on helping with renovating a good majority of the heavier, code-intensive parts of the revamp. He managed to work some real magic with a lot of things that might have not been able to be done like we wanted and this wouldn’t have gotten done half as quickly or as nicely without his help.

As always, we will continue to shape OSV to be the best we can make it in order to benefit the VGM, chiptune, and multimedia audio communities. If you’d like to help contribute to OSV, either by writing/contributing content, by providing us with content to review, or just by clicking on some ads to help with our revenue, we’d greatly appreciate it.

Here’s to the improved OSV!
Miscellaneous

A Fond Farewell

January 6, 2014 | Jayson Napolitano | 3 Comments Share this A Fond Farewell

Hey all. Long time no talk. As many of you already know, I haven’t been involved with the site for some time. I’ve moved on to other ventures, the latest of which is Scarlet Moon Productions, a new record label and PR company that will focus on the same types of things I’d done on OSV and DESTRUCTOID: making sure people are hearing the great music coming out of videogames.

While I haven’t been involved, I have been reaching out to OSV writers Brenna Wilkes and Michael Hoffmann, who will now be managing the site, to work on coverage of clients I’m working with and on albums that I’ll be publishing on my label. I thought it would be appropriate to post a formal farewell to the front page to ensure there was no confusion as to what my status was with the site, and to dispel any potential conflicts of interest. The keys are being fully turned over to Brenna and Michael, and, like the rest of you, I’ll only be dropping in to read articles and comment.

I want to say thank you for all the support over the years and for your continued support. I had a blast with the site, and look forward to seeing what a new team of writers are able to do with it. I hope the stuff I’m working on with Scarlet Moon Productions is worthy of continuing coverage on OSV, so I’ll hopefully still be in touch with you all, but in a different way.

With that, enjoy some early drafts of logos that I prepared for OSV back in 2008 on a plane ride back home after spending time with Dale trying to work out the launch of the site. If you look closely, you can see they were drawn on the back of my boarding pass.
Miscellaneous

OSV in 2013

May 10, 2013 | Patrick Gann | 6 Comments Share this OSV in 2013

Hello, dear readers!

You’ve probably popped in on our site a few times in the last few months, expecting new content but getting virtually nothing.

“What gives?” You might say to yourself, exasperated by the disparity in content regularity from prior years to this year. “Is OSV dead?”

Well … not exactly. Some quick history:

In late 2011, Jayson Napolitano accepted a position as a music-focused editor at Destructoid. At that time, I (Patrick Gann) accepted an “Interim Managing Editor” position. Throughout 2012 I wrote 70% of the posts of OSV myself and worked with some great new writers such as Brenna Wilkes and established OSV bloggers such as Audun Sorlie and Gideon Dabi.

But I told Jayson that the “Interim” in my job title meant something. There was a ticking clock, and a line in the sand where I would need to stop generating regular content. The reason why will be revealed in my next post here.

So, the site has gone leaderless. There was talk of merging OSV content with other sites, or vice versa, but that all fell through.

Here’s the deal: OSV will continue to exist with its legacy of great content (seriously, I’m so proud of all we’ve done here in the last 5 years!). All of our writers are free to post here as needed, but there will be no scheduled content or expectation for regular posts. We are open to guest posts, and if there are responsible writers out there interested in taking up the mantle, just contact myself or Jayson; we’re willing to hear your case!

Before I finish out this little announcement post, I would like to say that among the great music released in the past 6 months that we haven’t had the chance to review, I’ve very much enjoyed the following on a personal level, in no particular order:

Me and My Dinosaur 2 OST
Fire Emblem: Kakusei OST (5 discs, easily the best Fire Emblem soundtrack yet)
FZ Sides F and Z (the new FEZ arrange albums coinciding with the PC/Steam release of the hit game)
The Binding of Isaac Piano Collection
Ys ZANMAI
Final Fantasy XI Seekers of Adoulin OST
Final Heaven: A Melancholy Tribute to FFVII (among many other Joypad releases, this has been my favorite from the Spring season)
Ginga Force Complete Soundtrack
MONACO soundtrack / “Gentlemen’s Private Collection” (hurray Austin Wintory!)
Game Music

OSV Special Content: Castlevania Week(s)!

October 22, 2012 | Patrick Gann | 1 Comment Share this

Greetings OSV readers!

First of all, an apology that the site has been inactive for the past few days. We needed a time of rest to prepare for the big week ahead.

Timed intentionally with that wonderful, “spooky” autumnal holiday in mind, we are going to dedicate the next week (and spilling over some into next week) covering the music of the Castlevania series.

Castlevania, known as Akumajo Dracula (Demon Castle Dracula) in Japan, is arguably Konami’s biggest and most successful franchise. It started as a simple, stage-based 2D platformer and eventually grew to encompass a variety of genres, including one that it essentially made up with the help of another franchise (the “Metroidvania” genre: a form of 2D platforming with save points, map exploration, non-linear or semi-linear paths, and power-ups allowing access to new areas).

In the coming days, expect reviews and impressions of a variety of albums released in the franchise’s lifetime, from the very beginning all the way to some of the most recent OSTs and arranged albums. We’ll also be posting an interview with Kinuyo Yamashita (composer for the very first Castlevani), alongside the three other composers who attended the VGO Boston concert on October 7, 2012.

Until then, feel free to check out all of OSV’s previous Castlevania coverage, listed below!

Akumajo Dracula Tribute Vol.1 and Vol.2 Review
Akumajo Dracula X ~Nocturne in the Moonlight~ OGS Review (that’s Castlevania: Symphony of the Night) – Soundtrack of the Month April ’09
Castlevania: The Adventure ReBirth Review
Castlevania Judgment game and soundtrack review
Castlevania Lords of Shadow Soundtrack Review
Castlevania: Sonata of the Damned (Joshua Morse / OCRemix) album review
Daniel Brown’s Castlevania piano album review
Gideon Dabi’s Castlevania and Nostalgia Editorial
Kinuyo Yamashita 2009 Interview with Audun Sorlie
Speedrunner “Nario” Beats Castlevani with a dance pad
Sweden’s “Castlevania The Concert” Concert Report from Surasshu
Wikipedia vs. Kinuyo Yamashita (result: we won, here’s her Wikipedia page with no threat of deletion!)
Game Music

Four Years of Original Sound Version

June 24, 2012 | Jayson Napolitano | 6 Comments Share this Four Years of Original Sound Version

Yes, it’s that time of year again. Sometime around mid-June of 2008, Dale North and I flipped the switch and OSV was born. At the time we covered a pretty wide variety of topics, but things have since narrowed down to game music as a focus. You can read more about how the site came to be, including a story about how the band Lonestar tried make me turn over my login to my Last.fm account, in our second birthday write-up.

Anyway, I don’t have any big insights this year. A lot has changed, most notably with Dale North being promoted to Editor-in-Chief over at Destructoid, and me joining the team over there as an Associate Editor. I’ve had a blast trying to get gamers more excited about the audio they’re hearing in their gaming experiences, and I think it’s going well with my new monthly reviews feature, Note Worthy, and the revival of The Sound Card, a top ten list and miscellaneous game music topics feature. Expect some more cross-overs between OSV and Destructoid in the future.

In the meantime, Patrick Gann has been kind enough to handle most of what’s been going up on OSV lately. But we need your help! If you believe in what OSV is doing and want to see it continue, we’d love to see somebody rise up and take the reins; the site is way too important to let it slide into obscurity. If you or anyone you know may be interested in helping this nerdy music blog, shoot us a message and let us know.

We’re extremely proud of what we’ve accomplished with OSV, and are grateful to our readers who’ve stuck with us over the years. We’re counting on you to let us know what you want to read on the site, so whether it’s game music, anime soundtracks, J-pop, hip hop, or technical music stuff, let us know, and feel free to share your favorite OSV moments from the past four years!
Chip Music, Doujin, Featured, Game Music, Indie Music

3rd Annual OSVOSTOTY 2011 Awards: Winners and Runners-Up Announced

February 21, 2012 | Jayson Napolitano | 7 Comments Share this

The smoke has finally cleared, and we can finally announce our winners and runners-up for our 3rd annual Original Sound Version Original Soundtrack of the Year 2011 Awards. As always, there are a few surprises, and while I know some editors are still passionately clinging to their given favorite, I think that points to the amazing quality and variety of music that was released in 2011. This year in particular saw a number of new franchises and sequels that went in radically different directions, and I think the music accurately reflects this fresh and exploratory direction.

While nearly all of our winners and runners-up are included after the jump, we’re reserving our Composer of the Year award for an individual post that will come at a later date, as we did last year. So don’t freak out when you don’t see the winner of that category announced. Aside from that, enjoy, and please feel free to comment with your top picks for the year, including those that didn’t make our list of nominees.

On that note, I just want to say congratulations to all of our winners and nominees. We had a lot of debate among the staff, even about the list of nominees themselves, again pointing to the caliber of music released this year.

Enjoy! (more…)