Music Remastered

First try making a faithful version, please. Then, the remixes.

 

That's the thing, how do you define faithful? My Death Egg Zone has percussion that differs pretty drastically from the original and the end of the second verse is quite new, but I consider it faithful to the sound and atmosphere of the original. There's really no way to purely "remaster" this music in the literal sense and have it sound decent.

Personally I think the "if Sonic 2 was made today" policy is a good one. I'm trying to follow the formula of the more traditional style tracks in recent Sonic games. Take Windy Hill for example: theme, variation, extension. The Sonic 3 stages all had variations on the original theme in the second act too. There's precedent for the bridge sections as well on the official Sonic and Knuckles remix album (terrible as it is). Return to the Toxic Caves is the best example of all I think. It's a downright remix, but I think it would be right at home in an updated version of Spinball.

 

Final WIP of Death Egg: http://www.furaffinity.net/view/2686525/

If you think anything else should be changed now's the time to say it.

Also I'm curious whether the experiment I performed in this version is worth pursuing: http://www.furaffinity.net/view/2686497/

 

Sounds very nice, but shouldn't the melody stand out more from the electric guitar accompaniment? It is hard to hear it at times.

 

It is, that was intentional however. I always found the melody to Death Egg kind of ear piercing and associated the bassy riff with the stage more. I'll keep that in mind and nudge the melody up if more people agree though, thank you!

 

Today I decided to give my Death Egg remastered version another go seeing as the other one was seen as too close to the original.

Death Egg Zone v2

I'm happy with it so far but I might look into changing the drums at some point for that extra polish.

 

Don't you dare. For the first time ever I considered the Death Egg music to be bearable and possibly passable as the bgm for a longer level.

 

Haha, duly noted then.

Your avatar is hell of ritzy.

 

Did anyone here check out mine?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GBCfa5bCuHQ

 

<3

Really, I can't put it into words.

 

It's hard to be faithful when your source material is beeps and boops.

 

What.

 

I second that statement.

 

He's saying that "being faithful" when it comes to something like most old video game music is largely up to interpretation. To bring up most old music to some sort of modern standard, you have to add channels, modify the arrangement to use more elements, use patches that can act as one of several hundred potential—but nonetheless fitting—instrument choices... the list goes on.

What's so interesting is that though the music can only be improved by being so open to interpretation, the art can not. How innnnnteresting...

I'm totally not hinting anything. Really!

 

What does "interpretation" have to do with following an existant music composition without adding new parts inbetween? I wasn't talking about the instruments, or channels, or anything like that.

 

No, really.

The instruments can be interpreted into something real, but changing the melody itself makes it fall into the "remix" cathegory. Is it that hard to understand?

 

I like to see how people tend to control Sonic 2 HD, if someone submits an awesome piece of something (art/music) and it is at least a remix of the original, and people like it, it WILL be included. No one is being paid here, this is not an official remake, if some remixes make people happy, there is no problem about including it. Sonic 2 was not perfect, if we find things that can be improved, be sure, they will be.

 

My Death Egg Zone adds new parts and changes the melody in subtle ways.

It's important to understand that certain things work for certain media and not others. The very simplistic, one verse style of composition common in the older Sonic games works well (and was probably out of necessity) on the Genesis. When brought up to modern standards, it sounds flat and repetitive. There's a reason the instrument swap attempts sound so uninspired.

Here's a perfect example. My favourite track from King of Fighters 2000 on the Neo Geo hardware: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dDjn6m9cfP4

Now here's the same people in the same company doing an "arrange" for the versions with CD audio: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2fQyBgGf4og

The CD audio version doesn't just change/add instruments and dynamics. It introduces completely original material, while remaining completely faithful to the musical "intentions" of the original. The composers don't think that these differ enough to be called remixes, and they probably would have done the original tune in this matter on the original hardware if it was possible.


Here's a possibly more relevant example, the Toxic Caves theme: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pbEfadBoE70

And the Return to the Toxic Caves remix: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H4YnlV2AlLk

You can't tell me that even with all the original material in that, it doesn't still fit the level and the feel of the original music perfectly.

 

More examples:

MMX: CENTRAL HIGHWAY
MHX: CENTRAL HIGHWAY

MMX: MAVERICK STAGE SELECT
MHX: MAVERICK STAGE SELECT

MMX: FORTRESS TOWER
MHX: FORTRESS TOWER

MMX: RECON BASE RUINS
MHX: RECON BASE RUINS

MMX: SUBTERRANEAN BASE
MHX: SUBTERRANEAN BASE

MMX: ABANDONED MISSLE BASE
MHX: ABANDONED MISSLE BASE

MMX: PROTOTYPE WEAPONS PLANT
MHX: PROTOTYPE WEAPONS PLANT

MMX: NEW-TYPE AIRPORT
MHX: NEW-TYPE AIRPORT

MMX: ENERGY MINE RUINS
MHX: ENERGY MINE RUINS

MMX: ELECTROMAGNETIC POWER PLANT
MHX: ELECTROMAGNETIC POWER PLANT

MMX: VS. BOSS
MHX: VS. BOSS

MMX: VS. FORTRESS BOSS
MHX: VS. FORTRESS BOSS

BIONIC COMMANDO: - AREA 1
BIONIC COMMANDO: REARMED - AREA 1

BATTLE NETWORK 1-6: VIRUS BATTLE
BATTLE NETWORK 1-6: VIRUS BATTLE (DS ARRANGEMENTS)

MEGA MAN 4: WILY STAGE 1
ROCKMAN 4: COMPLETE WORKS: WILY STAGE 1

Capcom isn't the only example here either:

CASTLEVANIA: VAMPIRE KILLER
CASTLEVANIA CHRONICLES: VAMPIRE KILLER

DRACULA X: BLOODY TEARS
CASTLEVANIA: THE DRACULA X CHRONICLES: BLOODY TEARS

FINAL FANTASY: BATTLE
FINAL FANTASY (PSP): BATTLE

I could go on, but the point should be pretty clear by now.

Not even the developers rearranging their own material stick 100% to the original compositions. When they come back to the source material, they try to add more to the original music to fit with the more modern standards. They don't restrict to themselves to the exact same number of instruments that the original games used, and we shouldn't either. There's nothing wrong with rearrangements of the original music as long as we don't go into OC Remix territory.