With the Audio Overdrive contest over, it's time to decide what to do for the next month's contest. For now, I propose to allow things to settle and see what happens for May. I still like the idea of a contest that promotes remixes from newer games.

Remixes from newer games is a genre that has been underserved by other outlets. I performed a detailed analysis on the tens of thousands of songs I have in my collection last November, and determined that 9% of the entire video game remix canon is from Chrono Trigger. Almost 22% of the canon is from Final Fantasy games before X.

Seeing as how Final Fantasy games are popular, but the newest games have very few remixes, why don't we host a contest where the only games that may be remixed are Final Fantasy 13, 13-2, and 14? This is a significant challenge because it is difficult to improve upon modern game music.

Another idea is to wait until August, and then challenge people to remix songs only from Lightning Returns beginning on the day the soundtrack is released. This would be different because the remixes would come out before the game was actually released, which would attract attention for the contest's uniqueness.

Another idea is to wait until August, and then challenge people to remix songs only from Lightning Returns beginning on the day the soundtrack is released. This would be different because the remixes would come out before the game was actually released, which would attract attention for the contest's uniqueness.

Remixing songs from a game that hasn't been released yet? That's easily the craziest idea I've heard since Snake's appearance in Brawl. I love it. I think we should totally go for it.
Additionally, would the rules make it so that the remixes have to be purely from Lightning Returns' soundtrack, or could they contain other songs from the PS360\WiiDS generation of consoles onward?

If we did that version of the contest, then I would propose that no other games be allowed. With Final Fantasy XIII-2, the lead time for the soundtrack release was 47 days, so it we announced the contest a few weeks before the soundtrack release and made it end a few weeks before the game release, the competitors would be guaranteed to be the first people in the world to have remixed songs from the last game of the Final Fantasy XIII trilogy.

If we want to do another contest with the current generation of consoles, it should be a separate event since those games have already been released. But if we decide to do that, I think "the current generation of consoles" is too broad, since these consoles are pretty much obsolete and have been around for eight years. Such a contest would be better defined as "video game music from the '10s" or something, sort of like how oldies stations advertise they play music from the '70s, '80s, and '90s.

the competitors would be guaranteed to be the first people in the world to have remixed songs from the last game of the Final Fantasy XIII trilogy.

That's one hell of a hook if you ask me. I absolutely think that this is a brilliant idea.

If we want to do another contest with the current generation of consoles, it should be a separate event since those games have already been released. Such a contest would be better defined as "video game music from the '10s" or something, sort of like how oldies stations advertise they play music from the '70s, '80s, and '90s.

It's going to be a good few months until August anyways, so we can either do a filler contest (Racing Games, or something), try that "songs from 2010 or later" contest, or just twiddle our thumbs until then. If I come up with any other ideas later I'll post them here.

The only big-name releases I can currently think of are two open-world games (that use 'real' music for their soundtracks) and a Sonic game that won't be released for a very, very, very long time.
Does anyone else have any ideas? Are DJtheS or Huddini still posting to the forums?

I don't really have an opinion on this. Aside from certain tricks that can be pulled off to make a song sound really great in a DAW, I don't know enough about music composing/producing to attempt a significant remix of a "modern day" VGM from a modern game like FFXIII. I'd be sitting this one out :P