Influences overview

Each song may be associated with one or more influences. A song's influences are other songs from which melodies, harmonies, and other characteristics of music are taken. For arrangements and remixes, influences are usually the original songs being mixed. Songs that have no influences are referred to as "original works." A song may have one, many, or no influences, and each version of a song tracks its influences separately.

The Video Game Music Database

At remixSite, all data on influences comes from the Video Game Music Database, which is often abbreviated VGMdb. The VGMdb is a collection of data on video game soundtracks. Data in the database is contributed by members of the public. While many sites classify music based upon its origin game, the VGMdb classifies music according to albums. Each album contains a number of tracks. Albums may contain music from one or more games, and one track may be contained in many albums.

All of the albums in the Video Game Music Database were released commercially or non commercially. Most can be purchased in CD form at stores in Japan or the United States, although some are currently out of print.

Why select influences in this way?

Some sites associated with movie and video game remixes classify the tracks upon which the remixes are based by the origin movie or game. Usually, the data is entered into a text field. Instead, remixSite requires the selection of specific tracks from the VGMdb as influences. The key difference to understand is that the VGMdb is organized by game soundtrack albums, not directly by the games themselves. While searching for tracks takes a few extra seconds for the artist, there are many current and future benefits for the user and the greater Internet community.

First, each track in the VGMdb is associated with a great deal of information: all games in which it is featured, the album in which it is contained, the game's console or system, the song's composer, the song's performers, the song's arrangers, the company publishing the album, the track's release date, user reviews and ratings, and more. By selecting specific tracks as influences, all of this data is now associated with a remix. Instead of limiting ourselves solely to game names, the game names can be retrieved from the influence data, along with a huge assortment of other information.

The most obvious benefit is that a general user can search the influence data to find tracks in which (s)he might be interested to listen to remixes of. For example, someone who is a fan of Nobuo Uematsu, a famous video game composer, can currently search remixSite for all remixes of songs composed by him. You can try it yourself by searching all songs, selecting "Influences (Composer)" in the search field, typing his name, and pressing [ENTER]. Another benefit is the ability to display album covers instead of tediously creating a database of game images.

In many cases, all of the available VGMdb data isn't displayed in remixSite. For example, while it is possible to search by influences' composers, the composers' names are not listed anywhere on remixSite. To avoid reinventing the wheel, users can click on an album to see all of its data at the VGMdb site directly. remixSite's creators decided against displaying all but the most essential information because the VGMdb has already created an efficient presentation of the data on their own site.

Other benefits of the influence system include the possibility to interact with user-created data from the VGMdb. Every album listed in the VGMdb contains a rating associated with it. In the future, it will be possible to compare album ratings to remixSite song ratings, for example, to determine how the strength of remixes is related to the quality of the original tracks. It will also be possible to determine which original composer's remixes are most popular, in another example.

The future

You may have gathered that, while there are many benefits to selecting influences now, even greater benefits will be realized in the future. When developer time is available, we will be able to display more data and can provide more statistics, search options, and features. To allow these future enhancements, it is important to enter data on influences now, so that it is available when the new features are available.

Finally, gathering influence data on remixSite provides the eventual possibility of allowing the VGMdb to list all known remixes of each track in its database. In such a scheme, visitors to the VGMdb can search for an original song, and then find every single remix of that song that's been written. This functionality is already present to some extent on remixSite, and you can access it by searching the "Influences (Track)" option across all songs.

Criteria artists should use to select influences

Because the meaning of the word "influence" can be vague, our original goal was to allow artists to come to a consensus themselves as to what an influence is. However, many artists have since recommended that more guidance on influences be provided.

In order for an original track to be an influence to a particular remix, the listener must be able to recognize a distinct melody, harmony, rhythm, instrumentation, or other feature of the original track that cannot be easily confused with other tracks. For example, a remix of the "Main Theme" from "Lost Odyssey" would almost certainly be required to contain the seven note motif that repeats throughout the piece in some form for the user to recognize the original song.

In the "Lost Odyssey" example, if a song contains these seven notes, anyone who had listened to the original would immediately recognize that the artist's song is a remix of it. However, exact repetition of notes is not required for a song to be listed as an influence. Notes can be lowered or raised by an octave, changed from a major to a minor key, varied in tempo, played with different instruments, and so on. As long as there is some idea in the submitted song that a listener can tie to the original, the original song should be listed as an influence.

Sometimes, a submitted song is based upon more than one track from a game. In this case, an artist can add multiple influences to the song. If a medley consisting of three Chrono Trigger songs is being submitted, then each influence should be listed separately, even if many influences are involved. This separate listing of influences allows for more precise classification and searching of the VGMdb database.

Four states of song influences

Each song in the remixSite database is classified in one of four states:

• Selected:  Songs with influences selected are remixes of the selected original tracks. These songs display thumbnails of the originals' albums' covers in song listings, along with the titles of the original tracks.
• Not selected:  These songs have had no action taken by their artists, and this is considered an erroneous state. The artist must take action to classify "not selected" songs in one of the other three categories as soon as possible.
• Original work:  Original works are not based upon music from other games, and are video game tracks unique to themselves. They are not remixes in any sense of the word. Original works are allowed and welcomed on remixSite.
• Not in VGMdb:  These songs are influenced by more obscure or less popular games that have never had soundtrack releases, or games that nobody has added to the Video Game Music database. The artist was not able to find the song in the VGMdb. In this case, the artist should consider submitting the missing information to the VGMdb for inclusion.

Artists select the influence state of their song through the "select influences" screen in the artists area of remixSite.

Adding data to the VGMdb

The Video Game Music database is a wiki-type project that includes contributions from anyone. Users can sign up for accounts at the VGMdb site and submit tracklists for new albums, or correct errors in existing listings.

If an influence is not available on remixSite, the most likely cause is that the VGMdb does not contain the data that is missing. Artists who select a "not found" influence status for their songs should consider visiting the VGMdb and adding the missing information. The information will then be reflected on remixSite and the song can be associated with the new addition. Both sites benefit from these additions.