Early fans who owned Sonic CD (US), did you ever find it odd that the past tracks were different?

I don't know if I count, but back in 2008 an uncle gave me a disc with a bootlegged/broken copy of Sonic CD that only copied the main files but not the music, so the music only played for the past. However, when I discovered the US tracks shortly after I thought they were the coolest thing ever, but I did notice the difference in melodies :P

 

Never played the original but my first exposure to Sonic CD was the one from Gem Collection, I did notice how strangely off the Past music were to me back then and always wonder why they felt out of place compare to the rest of the US ost. Then a few years later I learn from this site (2005/6) about the regional ost difference.

 

Would like to point out that the past music tracks were sequenced and played by the Sega CD's 8-channel PCM audio sampler chip, and the US soundtrack (if I recall) had to be rushed out, so it makes sense why they were not touched.

 

I first played the PC version, probably got it December 1996? And yes, they always stuck out significantly to me, and I wasn't surprised to find eventually that they were in fact designed to loop (as they were just regular CD audio tracks there, recorded to play only for about a single loop) given the way they faded out. It was slightly annoying but as a fan of the US soundtrack I eventually found a way to make do

 

I wanna say my grandma got my brother and I sonic CD for PC around 2003ish in one of those bundle releases. Never gave it thought why the past tracks sounded different cause I also played older dos games around that time which sounded a lot worse than them, and honestly didn’t even know Sonic CD had two soundtracks till Taxman’s remake came out. I knew Sonic 3 did but that’s a story for another day.

 

I thank my lucky stars that my first true play thorough of Sonic CD was the 510 version I burned to disc.

I first played it for a brief moment in a special stage in 1995 at Best Buy so I couldn’t hear the music.

Although it’s my preference, I thought calling the JP tracks the “real” soundtrack were fighting words around here

I think with more time, there would have been US past tracks too.

 

I also played the PC version first knowing (I think) there were two soundtracks. The past tracks stood out because they were different, but I didn't make the connection that were the Japanese versions - I just assumed they were inconsistent on purpose, or because they're not redbook audio, compromises had to be made.

It's a weird one - you'd think with Palmtree Panic 3 you'd realise the musical connection between timezones, but such is the nature of Sonic CD, that I hadn't fully clocked that I'd travelled in time on the first playthrough. I just assumed the game used different graphics and audio for the boss area - I'd played Sonic 3&K many years prior.


Incidentally had I not known a Japanese version existed, I wouldn't have thought the US soundtrack was out of place - it never needed to exist, and it would be nicer if it were complete, but it does a pretty decent job. Although again, this would have been after I'd played Sonic Adventure (2), so having heavy electric guitars in a Sonic game didn't seem too unusual.

 

Played it on PC in the early 2000s. It did seem odd. I might've thought it was intentional, a way of making the past levels feel more primitive or something. I quickly discovered that there were two soundtracks, but it wasn't till later that I found out why the JP past tracks were used in NA.

 

As I recall it was a matter of technical expertise with SOA and the Sega CD. They initially committed to new audio without understanding the technical implementation of the past tracks via PCM and by the time they figured this out it was too late for them to invest the effort to change them.

 

I thought the USA tracks were changed just because SEGA America loved to pull crap like that back in the day and also because they wanted to remix the CD-DA audio in Q-Sound.
SEGA Europe was also full of muppets back in the mid 90's but at least they would look to leave stuff alone like the brilliant music to Sonic CD and also the brilliant boot music to the Mega CD itself unlike that god awful crap one got with the SEGA CD menu and also its horrid new look for the cd player interface.

Speaking of silly changes I can't for the life of me work out when the amazing CD-DA sound effects were taken out of Sol Feace on the Mega-CD for the Western versions

 

I can tolerate a lot of things, but utter and complete disrespect of the North American Sega CD BIOS theme is not one of them.

 

Seconding this. Even the Model 1 theme is fire IMO.

 

The Japanese and Pal boot up's both sounded better and also the Pal boot up looked the best of the lot with more colour and better looking fonts and effects IMO

 

As someone who had never heard either of these before, they're both fine, and you'd have to be an anti-intellectual with bad taste to think either of them suck.

 

Anti-intellectual, that's a new one.

I was just one of those who didn't like silly changes like the music to Sonic CD, the new Saturn Pad, The different music to the boot ups of Saturn and Mega CD, the terrible box art Ect, etc, that one got with SEGA America back in the day They were were all needless. I also felt the same with the horrible new sound effects for the USA versions of classic Jackie Chan HK films, but one can't blame SEGA America for that LOL

 

I really wanna know who the composer on this was, this sounds surprisingly Phantasy Star

 

My first experience playing Sonic CD was the October 31, 1996 preview, a downloadable demo available directly from Sega's website. It was basically shareware. If I recall correctly, only Palmtree Panic Zone was playable. However, unlike the CD-based demos available at the time (Sega Proven Family Fun Sampler and Sega Family Fun Pak) this demo actually featured music. The US soundtrack, obviously.

I cannot say I noticed much of a difference between the past track and others, because, 1. I was an 8-year-old kid with horrible ADHD, and 2. Not having access to the other zones, I really didn't have a basis for comparison and probably assumed any differences in music composition were intentional. That said, I really liked the US version of Palmtree Panic present, so much so that I honestly enjoy it ever so slightly more than the Japanese version, if only for nostalgia reasons. I also have a fondness for the creepy US boss music, even if I can freely acknowledge it does not belong in a Sonic game, at all.

Conversely, I loathe the US versions of nearly every other track in the final game, which I never actually played until the Xbox 360/PS3 versions released in 2011. Nostalgia cannot save them like it does Palmtree Panic, as I never grew up listening to them.

 

I got the game some time in 95 or 96 when I was either 7 or 8 years old, so while I indeed thought the shift in style/genre was a bit odd sometimes, I didn't think about it much; I wasn't bothered. Hell I didn't think much of the "P" mixes other than "wow! This is dope!", for the longest. It wasn't until Sonic Jam and THEN fan websites of the 90s such as "KnuxCom" and "Artail Productions" that I realized that these Past songs were basically leftovers from an entirely different soundtrack from across the Pacific.

 

I played the PC version out-of-home in the mid 90s, and owned it in the late 90s. I didn't think much of it. I feel like one or two other members said they had similar experiences already, but for me, in some cases they weren't even that different, at least to my ears. Except for Palmtree Panic, only the Sterling tracks stick to the script among the time zones like the Japanese ones, which made the overall eclectic-ness feel at home for the most part. Palmtree Panic "P" Mix isn't so wildly different from the US Present track for Palmtree Panic, and all of Wacky Workbench is so groovy that I thought it was on purpose, past and all.

Speaking of the Sterling tracks though, there was no reconciling those with the past tracks. Those absolutely didn't mesh, but in Collision Chaos's case, I just took it as "here's a wacky prehistoric beat for a wacky prehistoric looking setting". I had no answers for Metallic Madness "P" Mix living in a whole other country.

Edit: I'll add that after learning about the Japanese/UK soundtrack, I haven't really gone back, but I do like the US one for occasional recreational listening. It serves a better purpose out-of-game than in-game for me, as every time I think to try the US soundtrack again in the 2011 version, the nostalgia isn't there and it wasn't worth the journey. Even out-of-game, though, I'm listening to the Japanese tracks way more often, as they're closer to my tastes overall.

 

Tbh the Past tracks sounded a lot different to the main music for the Pal and Japanese versions too, so I don't really think it was an issue just for the USA version.

I was more peed off with the needless and senseless changes to the main music, the intro music and bonus stage music in the Japanese and Pal versions were a massive standout at the time and it was honestly one of the best parts of the game was with how good that Japanese/Pal soundtrack was. It was just so good back then

But I was always against silly changes like that as someone who also loved horror and Kung Fu movies I always peed off with the cuts to Pal horror films or the dreadful changes to the sound effects in Kung Fu moves. The Western version of Rumble In Bronx and Drunken Master 2 are horrid with the new music and silly new sound effects