Music Remastered

Thanks for the submission XavierCrow. Lots of new contributors coming to this part of the project recently! I heartily enjoyed the epic feel you put into WFZ. I'm more a proponent of a slightly remixed style than some others, so I'll admit to being biased on that front. I did hear a couple areas that bear correction: the trill section was way out of balance tempo wise, especially toward the end of its section, and the light cymbal strikes me as unnecessary - even given the style of this arrangement. Everything else in the piece is very straightforward and precise, so the bit of randomization in the trill just throws the entire thing off. Tighten that bit up, remove the cymbal or find another substitute for it and let's hear the next version. If you've got similar ideas for HTZ and ARZ, by all means let's hear them

Kinichie, you keep on impressing me. Kudos on the fast turnarounds for those. CNZ is great now. ARZ has also been tightened up a lot. Maybe I just didn't notice it before, but it feels like your claps are just barely there, and some of the other excellent submissions we've seen have really used that to drive the style. Pushing those out a bit more will add a lot more character there. From a faithful remaster perspective of the original theme, WFZ is now right where it needs to be as well I feel. You've managed to take some very challenging pieces and flow them into what we're after nicely. We'll definitely be putting more than one version of each zone's theme in the game for musical variety (and to appeal to both sides of the straight remaster vs. interpreted remix debate).

From what I've seen so far, yours are in the top running to be included. I'm all for approving what you've submitted so far, but final word on these has to come from scubaSteve, our music coordinator. Just out of curiosity, what sort of musical background do you have?

 

Thank you once again for your great feedback on this. I'll look into the claps of ARZ and give the percussion a good old tweak. I'm not a drummer myself so most of the percussion probably isn't great. When I was originally making WFZ I was focusing more on making the notes flow into each other, rather then the military feel of the zone. I also wanted there to be a somewhat 'sense of the urgency' that Sonic is in as he navigates Robotniks Flying Fortress, and with your advice on the staccato I feel it now has that.

When I toned down the bass for CNZ I understood what you meant when you said it was being far too dominant. As A creator, I only really create what I want to hear and sometimes I need to realise, especially for this project, that I'm not actually creating this for myself anymore but for others to appriciate. I'm glad now that this theme is complete with it's Jazzy/Vegas feeling to it. If that even makes sense.

It's great to know I'm in the shortlist. Very nice feeling to have. As for my musical background, I did Music for GCSE and A Level and have been playing Guitar for 7 years. I was taught by a tutor for guitar for the first 2 years but unfortunatly he passed away on holiday and I've been self teaching ever since. I was introduced to Mozart at the age of 5. But, as a child, I never truely appriciated the music. It wasn't until I was 13 or so and I was getting bored of the late 1990s/early 2000 UK pop music and decided I needed something new and refreshing to broaden my horizons. These days I listen to pretty much anything from Jazz, Country, Classical, Power Metal, Techno and Lounge/Easy Listening.

Once again, thank you for the very useful feedback. I actually plan to release a track for every theme, but Emerald Hill is already done by the sounds of it so tonight I'll probably work on CPZ.

 

Thanks for the kind feedback, I tried out your suggestions on the second version aswell as adding a saxaphone to the lead to jazz it up a bit. Heres my latest attempt.

Chemical Plant Zone Remake (Version 3)

EDIT:Also I understand what you ment by pushing the drums back a bit, the bass does shine through alot better :D

 

Thanks for all these submission guys.

While almost all of these tracks needs to be further improved to included in S2HD, I feel they'll have the potential to be developed into great pieces for the final build (as main or either alternative tracks), and of course, for your names to be rightfully written on the Credits list! ^^

Keep going!

 

Canned Karma already hit most of the problems on the head, but there's one thing that kinda made me go "???" and it's where you have the "violin stabs" that answer the call of the trumpets around 0:35, it seems like there should be one after the third trumpet call. It kinda "tripped" my ear, since I was expecting that.

The timpanis are pretty effing epic though, you pretty much captured the essence of that level down to a T.

----------

I talked to scubaSteve over AIM last week, and made some edits to my Hidden Palace Zone remake.

Hidden Palace Zone Remake

I'm debating whether or not I should add some slight vibrato to the horns you hear in the back behind the main melody, that's up for you to decide.

This is also added in as a little bonus. Hidden Palace Zone (8bit)

 

After listening to the original theme again (HPZ is the only one that doesn't immediately spring to mind since it wasn't in the main release), I can't think of anything else I'd like to see done with your revision Tora. Great work. I think the steadiness of the horns makes for a solid background as it is.

 

Thanks Karma and Tora!

I knew there'd be problems with the track all right, just didn't see the timing ones myself. All the notes are in the correct place, but I've encountered this problem before with the strings, it's like there's a natural limit to how fast the VST wants to go. I think I need to fiddle with the velocity and make the strings a little earlier, by maybe a 64th of a beat.

Karma, you were saying about the light cymbals, I'm just wondering if you're referring to the large crash at the beginning as well as the snaller ones? I usually get comments about how loud and often I make my cymbals in music, so it's no surprise. I might just remove the smaller ones all together, I'll have to look at it more closely to see what I can do.

Tora, you mentioned the violin strikes after each of the trumpets, I hadn't even noticed that they were doing that. XD I guess I have a choice of doing as you said, or making them slow strings like I originally intended. I'll try messing around with them to see what sounds best.

The only problem is that when I went to master the track, I accidentally SAVED OVER MY ORIGINAL FILES! -_-' So I have to redo the whole thing so I won't be able to post it for a couple of days at least.

P.S. Tora: HPZ is sounding class!

 

Kinichie - There are some missing parts in ARZ that need to be taken care of... PSG channel 1, and the second half of PSG 2. Also, there are some drum parts missing as well - I don't hear the bass drum or the hihat (originally on PSG 4). Also, the track seems to be extremely light on bass frequencies overall... adding the bass drum will no doubt help, but the bass guitar could use a bass boost as well.

Overall, as CK said, you have some great samples, but I think you just need to put them to better use to avoid the very MIDI sound some of them are exhibiting right now. Try things like adding vibrato/tremolo to some of the instruments (especially lead instruments), automating their volume levels on long notes to gradually soften (though you can sometimes get away with just modifying the ADSR envelope), or adding punch to the staccato notes with a sharp decay phase or a compressor.

Powellman - The drum entrance on v2 is just kickass. However, the snare is a bit too loud afterward, as it's stealing attention from everything else. Also, the two slides on the lead instrument are each too short. I believe they're supposed to be 3 and 5 notes each, including the sustained note... I'm pretty sure I listened to each individual note in an audio editor and came away with that. (Someone might want to check me on that though.)

XavierCrow - Don't worry, it's definitely close enough to the original... (I'll comment more later, I have to run to class right now )

 

Yeah I made the snare quieter in version 3 and I'm not sure I understand what you mean about the slides. Do you mean the slide from one note to the other needs to take more time to release? or that the notes themselves need to be longer? I'm pretty sure you mean the release but just to make sure... and yes I am a drummer myself so its probably my strongest attribute :P Thanks for the comment :D


Chemical Plant Zone Remake (Version 3)

just incase you missed it

 

Is this the same version you sent me on AIM? (Just curious.) There's one big thing I just noticed - the descending notes at the end (on PSG 3) seem to be missing.
Aside from that I have two little gripes - the high end of the snare is a bit too muffled (it sounds dangerously close to an '80s snare... the #1 sound guaranteed to make me hate a song :p), and to me the horn-like synth playing the chords sounds too aggressive for some reason... I think it might be because there's really no decay on the amp envelope and they tend to drone on a bit on the long notes.

Throw some SID in there and that shit will be unstoppable.

 

Yeah, it's the one I sent you on AIM, but with a few more tweaks from our conversation. I'll see what I can do about the snare and the horns.

As for the PSG 3 notes... I'll have to go take a listen to the original tracks once more.

And what did you mean by SID? ?__?

 

That's the sound chip that was in the commodore 64... by far the most recognizable 8-bit synth ever made :p

 

Thanks for the input, I'm not much of a drummer so I sorta skipped the drums and admittedly ripped someone elses until the main theme is right :S. Sorry. I'll start working on it and adding some variation to get rid of the midi sounding. I'll probably have some re-releases tomorrow as I'm far too knackered right now and I want to go to bed. I'll focus on ARZ and maybe add vibrato to the sax on Casino Night. Eitherway, I'll work on it, expect something within 48 hours.

 

Bed? At 11:30 ?? :P

Yeah, Kinichie, the drums in ARZ are rediculously hard. I'm working on it myself. Drove me nuts for about 20 hours straight. Oddly, I think they make more sense as you make the rest of the song. I'll upload my version tomorrow and you can tell me what you think.

 

I been working from 10am to 11pm. And the whole bed idea was thrown out the window the minute I started working on Chemical Plant because erm... I procrastinate sleeping.

Sure, depending on the software we use I'm very willing to collab if you want to.

 

This awesomeness, please. A few fixes and it could be just perfect.

This is also pretty nifty, but the instrument you hear right behind the main melody (the very first one that starts playing) might sound a bit "too synthy" compared to the others.

I think your typical "chorus voices" (like those you can hear in Mario Kart 64's highway circuit, and certain songs in Chrono Trigger, etc) might be a nice replacement for it, also adding to the level's "mysticism".


EDIT:

Is it me or do the main instruments sometimes sound a bit like accordions/harmonicas? There's something strange about them...

 

Okay, so I think I've finally got the tracks to a point where I can show them.

XavierCrow - Hill Top Zone
XavierCrow - Aquatic Rune Zone

Hahah, thanks man! Yeah, I'll have to redo the whole of WFZ from scratch so I've been putting it off until I got these tracks done. I'll get started on it again soon though. Shouldn't take too long.

Thanks for the comment, it's good to know! ^_^

 

XavierCrow, the HTZ feel has a lot of potential to it, but the sax sample you used is just way, way too rough for my ears. We've had a submission that used sax for that before, and it came out very nicely. I wouldn't be surprised if it's just a stylistic preference on my part though. ARZ could use some revising as well, starting with the shakers. Very distracting to me, I mostly agree with what Aquaslash said about it.

 

Hmm... I can try that, see how it goes. I guess I got so used to liking the sound of the horns though. I'll be glad to post up another version with a chorus'y type sound.

In the mean time, I fixed the missing notes (and doubled the octave of the keyboard for psg3) and fixed some eq'ing on the snare to not sound so muffled.

Hidden Palace Zone Remake (Revision)

Hidden Palace Zone Remake (Choir Voices)