Help Does anyone have the original HQ samples used in Sonic 3 & Knuckles?

When I was younger, I found a forum post or article on Sonic Retro or some other Sonic forum where the OP found and compiled together all or most of the samples used in Sonic 3 & Knuckles. These were not rips of the in-game, bit-crushed PCM samples, but the original, raw, high quality, uncompressed samples. I cannot for the life of me find this forum post/article from years ago! Does anyone have the link to that page or have the sample pack? I currently have a few HQ samples: "Go!" from Launch Base Zone, "Come on!" from Mini Boss Theme, and "Jam" from Carnival Night Zone. (Thank you to the people of the DefleMask Discord server for finding them!)

This was years ago, so this HQ sample pack may not actually exist or it may not exist the way I remember it. But if anyone has any info on it, let me know! Having access to HQ versions of these samples would do very well for remixers and composers like myself!

The music in the Genesis Sonic games are rooted in 80s and 90s pop, city pop, and new jack swing. So, it is likely that the composers at Sonic Team used professional drum machines. Some speculate that the Akai MPC-3000 was the drum machine used in Sonic 3 & Knuckles, but—unless I'm missing something—I struggle to hear the connection comparing the in-game samples and the drum machine samples. Perhaps there was external processing done to the MPC-3000 samples before they were put in the game that really changed the way it sounded? It seems people have already found the sources of some of the samples! This list comes from the Sonic 3 page here on Sonic Retro under "Audio Samples List". There is also another similar forum topic to this one called "The Sonic the Hedgehog 3 & Knuckles Quest for Music Composer Research".

• "Jam!" ● Michael Jackson - Jam
• "Come on!" ● Norman Cook - Skip To My Loops
• "Woo!" ● Norman Cook - Skip To My Loops
• "Go!" ● Run-DMC - Peter Piper
• "Uhn!" ● James Brown - Say It Loud, I'm Black and I'm Proud
• Glass break 1 ● Michael Jackson - In the Closet
• Glass break 2 ● Michael Jackson - In the Closet

I'll be updating the "Audio Samples List" and compiling all these samples together as I find them.
You can find the HQ S3&K Sample Pack here.

 

I downloaded an Akai MPC-3000 pack to search for the Sonic 3 & Knuckles samples as well as Roland TR-626 and TR-808 packs to find the Sonic 1 and 2 samples. If I can find the right ones, I'll see about adding them to the original post (assuming that's not against the rules).

 

If I can find them, I will try to be as descriptive as I can so people will have no trouble getting the samples for themselves.

Alas, these were HQ rips of in-game SFX, not the original samples the PCM samples were derived from.

 

The snare seems to be a good place to start! In my entire MPC-3000 sample pack, I have only found one snare sample that kind of resembles the S3&K snare. The differences (besides fidelity) are that the S3&K version seems to have heavy dynamic compression and a gated reverb effect applied to it while the drum machine version is, as expected, very dry. I'll mess around with effects until I can recreate the S3&K snare in DefleMask and post any interesting results. ^_^

 

This is as best I got for tonight. Here is a link to the files I'm working with and my two attempts to make the MPC-3000 snare sound like the S3&K snare. Anyone else can take a crack at it if they like!

Here is my current collection of high quality S3&K samples. I'm working on finding the right Jam sample to put in and will be sourcing the multitrack stems if possible. I think the "glass break" samples from the game also come from Jam, but I could very well be wrong. Both "Jam" and the glass break come from Carnival Night Zone... I'll have to analyse to be sure.

 

Thank you! You seem to have a keen ear for finding these things! I double-checked the Genesis samples with the In the Closet samples and they line up perfectly! I've updated the "Audio Samples List" with links and timestamps and the HQ S3&K Sample Pack. Thank you again!

 

That helps! I'll check them out and see if they're the same and then add them if they are.