Music Remastered

You bring up good points. I believe others have talked about the importance of listening music vs. game music as well, so rest assured that it is most definitely being factored in. As for it just sounding "good", take a look again at the basis we're looking at for accepting pieces. It absolutely must be a faithful remaster of the original tune above all else. With that as the foundation, I'm confident the final score will flow well.

Don't worry about frequency ranges just yet. If it becomes an issue we'll address it.

 

And obviously - to me - the best way to test to see if the music 'feels' like it belongs there, and so it doesn't cause distraction:

For the lay-person, just mute the game and listen to the remastered tracks while playing the relevant Zone


If you've got a keyboard where you can press a button to change the songs - like I have, that's be ideal [WMP does that perfectly for me]. I imagine pressing the 'next' button will change the track if you've put it on repeat, but I haven't tried it yet.

Or alternatively, you could use a player where you can use keyboard shortcuts to change the track, if you don't have such a keyboard.

 

I don't mean to nitpick but it's also important to get the terminology correct to make sure that the project's intentions are clear.

From Wikipedia: "...mastering refers to the process of creating a master. This might be as simple as copying a tape for further duplication purposes, or might include the actual equalization and processing steps used to fine-tune material for release. The latter example usually requires the work of mastering engineers."

The issues I brought up in my previous post are mastering issues.

We are not remastering the Sonic 2 soundtrack, we're remixing it. While we're trying to remain as faithful to the source material as possible, it's still remixing. A more accurate term which is commonly used for this exact process when dealing with game soundtracks is that we are creating an "arrange" soundtrack.

My girlfriend and I are in the process of making a very high quality recording of the Sonic 3 & Knuckles soundtrack using the Genesis module in her Laseractive to record the audio out directly from the soundtest. I then process the audio with EQ, noise elimination, compression, and other effects to improve the perceived quality and make it more suitable for listening purposes. That is remastering.

 

Ugh.... I hate the word remixing for what we are doing. It implies that the tracks are being rearranged as well as the sounds being done differently to what they represent. I think the term what fits closer to what's being done is faithful remake. Same story, different coat of paint but faithful to the original representation.

 

Okay. SF. Seriously? Fuck words. Make music. God.

 

Tell the sprite artists to just "make pixels" and I'm sure you'll get great results.

This project really lacks direction, and that concerns me because I really want to see it turn out well.

 

SF raises a solid point. There is a very, very significant difference between a remix and an arrange (or "cover," as I call them) that I think need to properly be taken into consideration. The idea is that the songs are arranged with some minor additions and interpretations that take proper advantage of the increased sound capabilities that a PCM-based file format is allowing us to use. Teck's MIDIs do this, the Mega Man 9 arrange album does this, and quite a few other album releases do as well. It's not as if there isn't a precedent for this sort of thing, you know?

Remixes are cool and all—I like them as much as the next guy—but they don't really fit in the context of a game, where a catchy, somewhat-repetitive melody is what keeps the player into the spirit and vibe of the relevant game scene without being over the top or breaking the flow of things. Emerald Hill is relatively upbeat, but if you started cutting the beat and going into these synth-based saw solos or something, it's going to stand out and be awkward. Sticking close to the original arrangements is the best way to avoid this potential issue.

So, in closing—no, let's not fuck words. They're just as important as the music itself.

 

You've now expanded your comment from the music realm to the scope of the project itself. I'd like to hear reasons why.

 

Lol - woah @ the troll. All butthurt because he got a little criticism. Psh, and he expects to be successful if he cries when someone tells him they don't like his work?

 

After some work, I present to you peoples: Casino Night Zone!

When I went to do this one, I thought to myself "How can I make this sound like it was an actual casino?" I thusly went and used jazz guitars, painos and jazz drums to try to get that 'Casino' feeling I tried to create here.

Hopefully you guys like it, and tell me what ya think and how I could fix it up, ok? :v:

 

Hey, that's the best elevator music I've ever heard! :v:

Honestly, I didn't like it. It sounded too mellow to really fit with the stage. You would be more likely to hear this during a Technical Difficulties screen than in the midst of the roaring nightlife of Las Vegas.

 

It might sound better if it was actual instruments. It sounds very artificial. And it does as mentioned lack impact.

 

I thought it sounded quieter than the original. Maybe you should double up on the jazz guitar? Trumpets playing the secondary half of the piece in the background might help, too.

 

I couldn't put my finger on why this sounded different in a good way, but then it hit me -- this style of CNZ would be about perfect to get put in with the ending credits. The mellow style is great for it. Care to apply a similar touch to the rest of the songs and blend them together for the first real remaster of the credits?

 

My thoughts exactly. ancara use a rompler that has a round robin.

 

Casino Night Zone v2, now with 50% more alto sax. :v:

Also, tell me if what I did for when the third verse happens(you'll know it when ya hear it) was ok, or if it shuld be changed, ok?

 

As for the effect on the third loop... no. Putting a delay across a whole mix is never a good idea, unless you're going for some crazy effects in a breakdown or something... And even then I wouldn't do it. It just sounds bad.

The sax you added is gonna need some work too, as it sounds rather stiff and unrealistic. Some of the other instruments still have this problem, too - the bass drum in particular is sticking out like a sore thumb. I might try replacing that sample altogether, and work on making the note velocities (for all instruments) sound more natural, since everything sounds a little robotic right now. If you haven't seen it, I previously wrote a bunch of stuff on getting rid of that "MIDI" sound which is now in the first post. Hopefully some of that can be some help

 

The delay effect did give it a more fuller sound and covered up the obviousness of it being midi files. But as a side effect it made it sound like a mess and in the end, it still sounds like a midi file. Now not everyone is a musician especially in multiple instruments and mixing really is its own thing. I haven't been following the music section so much but I don't see why it couldn't be a more of a collaborative effort.

For example have a trumpet player lay down some tracks from an actual trumpet while getting the bass player to lay down his tracks from an actual bass and you work together exchanging tracks and mixes until you get a full product. If you have a midi keyboard with pressure sensitivity it can really give it a genuine feel of instruments to the untrained ear.

 

I have mentioned that it would be better that we should collaborate. But no one stepped in for it. Even ScubaSteve said something about doing a collab and no one stepped up for it.

 

I would like to see some collaboration too, but I think the problem is that it's somewhat difficult to collaborate in an organized manner when we all have vastly different sets of software, samples, etc. Really, the only realistic way to do it would be as MaximusDM said, exchanging entire tracks and submixes. (I'm personally still up for collaborating, btw... even if someone just needs some help mixing or something, I'm game )