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Small/obvious/misc. bits about the Sonic 3 Prototype music files

Discussion in 'General Sonic Discussion' started by Ramona T., Nov 28, 2024.

  1. There was a thread a while ago by MDTravis, who already looked at the voice banks of Sonic 3, and this inspired me to look a little closer at the music files themselves for the smallest of hints and similarities between tracks in the instrumentation.
    For the digging and slight comparisons, I've been looking at both the S3&K disassembly from Retro as well as the Sonic 3 Prototype assembly by Awuwunya (which luckily included the tracks converted to .ASM for easy reading)

    I used to check that out some months ago but I never documented it so I'll have to recheck some stuff, I ask for forgiveness in advance when some smaller bits are false/incomplete.

    Voice Banks & Similar/Matching Patches/Instruments

    SEGA Sound Team Patches/Universal Voice Bank
    Tracks that have exact copies of the Universal Voice Bank in them
    Angel Island 1 & 2, Hydro City 1 & 2, Carnival Night 1 & 2, Launch Base 1 & 2, Lava Reef, Hidden Palace, Sky Sanctuary
    Competition Results/Continue, Balloon Park, Chrome Gadget

    Tracks that derive their Patches fully from the UVB
    Ice Cap 1 & 2, Desert Palace

    Use an additional instrument present in a different version of the UVB
    Carnival Night 1*, Data Select, Act Clear, Competition Menu, Gumball Machine
    *Additional instrument $22 on top of the otherwise same UVB as the first list

    Assumed Sawada Patches, based on the UVB
    Tracks whose Patch $01 match 1:1:
    Title, Invincibility, Ice Cap 2
    also found in Ice Cap 1 but slightly modified (slightly different "spMultiple")

    Fairly similar Patch ("spAlgorithm $05 spFeedback $07 spDetune $00, $00, $00, $00 spMultiple $01, $02, $02 ̶,̶ ̶$̶0̶3̶"):
    Ice Cap 1 & 2, Staff Roll

    Same PSG3
    Title, Ice Cap 2

    ssModZ80 $15, $01, $06, $06
    Same Mod Instruction used in
    Title, Invincibility, Extra Life

    ssModZ80 $14, $01, $06, $06
    Same Mod Instruction used in
    Title, Invincibility, Extra Life, Special Stage


    Maeda(?) Patches
    upload_2024-11-30_12-10-43.png
    Same Patch found in
    Angel Island 1 & 2, Hydro City 1 & 2, Carnival Night 1 & 2, Ice Cap 1*, Launch Base 1 & 2, Lava Reef & Hidden Palace, Sky Sanctuary
    Data Select, Act Clear, Competition Menu & Results, Balloon Park, Chrome Gadget

    Same PSG1 & PSG2
    Data Select, Act Clear, Sky Sanctuary
    Same PSG3
    Data Select, Angel Island 1 & 2, Launch Base 2, Competition Menu

    Same PSG1
    Angel Island 1 & 2, Launch Base 2, Competition Menu & Results
    Same PSG2
    Angel Island 1 & 2, Launch Base 2, Hidden Palace, Competition Menu & Results, Chrome Gadget

    Same PSG1
    Hydro City 1 & 2, Carnival Night 2, Lava Reef & Hidden Palace, Balloon Park
    Same PSG3
    Hydro City 1 & 2, Carnival Night 1 & 2, Launch Base 1, Competition Results

    Same PSG3
    Hidden Palace, Sky Sanctuary, Chrome Gadget

    upload_2024-11-30_14-28-23.png
    Same Mod Instruction used multiple times in
    Angel Island 1 & 2, Hydro City 1 & 2, Carnival Night 1 & 2, Launch Base 1 & 2, Lava Reef & Hidden Palace, Competition Menu & Results, Balloon Park

    ssModZ80 $0A, $01, $03, $06
    Same Mod Instruction used multiple times in
    Hydro City 1 & 2, Carnival Night 1 & 2, Lava Reef, Competition Results, Chrome Gadget

    ssDetune $00

    Angel Island 1&2, Hydro City 1&2, Carnival Night 1&2, Launch Base 1, Lava Reef, Hidden Palace, Sky Sanctuary
    Data Select, Competition Menu & Results, Balloon Park, Chrome Gadget
    3DBlast Boss 1

    ssDetune $03

    Angel Island 2, Carnival Night 1, Launch Base 1, Lava Reef
    Data Select, Competition Menu, Balloon Park, Act Clear

    ssDetune $04

    Data Select, Launch Base 1, Sky Sanctuary
    3DBlast Boss 1

    ssDetune $05

    Angel Island 1, Ice Cap 1&2, Hidden Palace
    3DBlast Boss 1

    ssDetune $FC

    Data Select, Launch Base 1, Sky Sanctuary

    ssDetune $FD

    Angel Island 2, Carnival Night 1, Launch Base 1, Lava Reef
    Data Select, Competition Menu, Balloon Park

    Senoue(?) Patches

    Same Patch $00
    Extra Life & Slot Machine

    upload_2024-11-30_0-16-1.png
    Same Patch found in
    Extra Life ($02), Game Over ($02), Gumball Machine ($00) & Slot Machine ($02)


    Misc. SEGA Patches
    Same PSG1
    Extra Life, Desert Palace, Unused Track
    Same PSG2
    Extra Life, Desert Palace, Unused Track, Knuckles' Theme
    Same PSG3
    Desert Palace, Unused Track

    ssModZ80 $07, $01, $01, $05
    Staff Roll, Game Over, Knuckles' Theme

    sNoisePSG $E7

    sVolEnvPSG v02
    Ice Cap 1&2, Special Stage, Gumball
    Title, Extra Life

    sVolEnvPSG v02

    dc.b nB6, $06
    Special Stage, Knuckles

    Assumed CUBE/Nagao Patches
    Tracks whose Patches
    $00 ("spAlgorithm $00 spFeedback $07 spDetune $04, $07 ̶,̶ ̶$̶0̶1̶,̶ ̶$̶0̶4̶"),
    $02 ("spAlgorithm $03 spFeedback $07 spDetune $07, $01, $01, $07")
    closely match somewhat, minus some finetuning which I've crossed out:
    Marble Garden 1, Flying Battery 1, Mushroom Valley 1 & 2, Magnetic Orb

    Tracks with the same Patch $04 except for its volumes I assume ("spTotalLv"):
    Miniboss, Major Boss, Big Arms

    Tracks with a somewhat matching Patch $01 ("spAlgorithm $00 spFeedback $07 spDetune $07, $07, $01, $01"):
    Marble Garden 2, Sandopolis 1 & 2, Death Egg 1 & 2, Azure Lake

    Tracks that share unique Algorithm & Feedback combinations not also found in the UVB, presumably from M.Nagao
    ("spAlgorithm $00 spFeedback $02"):
    Marble Garden 2, Flying Battery 2, Sandopolis 1 & 2, Death Egg 1&2, Major Boss, Endless Mine
    ("spAlgorithm $02 spFeedback $00"):
    Marble Garden 2, Flying Battery 2, Sandopolis 1 & 2, Death Egg 2, Endless Mine

    + More Presets after but I think the connections between a few of these tracks are already there

    Nov 29 edit:
    Lightning Round with more similar Patches
    Patch $00 ("spAlgorithm $00 spFeedback $07 spDetune $04, $07, $03, $04")
    Marble Garden 1 , Flying Battery 1, Mushroom Hill 1 & 2
    Patch $02 ("spAlgorithm $03 spFeedback $07 spDetune $07, $01, $01, $07")
    Marble Garden 1 , Flying Battery 1, Mushroom Hill 1, Magnetic Orb
    Patch $03 ("spAlgorithm $04 spFeedback $06 spDetune $06, $00, $00, $06")
    Marble Garden 1, Flying Battery 1, Mushroom Hill 1 & 2

    Same PSG1
    Marble Garden 1 & 2, Mushroom Hill 1 & 2, Flying Battery 1 & 2, Death Egg 1 & 2, Miniboss, Big Arms
    Same PSG2
    Marble Garden 1 & 2, Mushroom Hill 1 & 2, Flying Battery 1 & 2, Sandopolis 1 & 2, Death Egg 1 & 2, Miniboss, Major Boss, Azure Lake, Endless Mine, Magnetic Orb
    Same PSG3
    Marble Garden 1 & 2, Mushroom Hill 1 & 2, Flying Battery 1 & 2, Sandopolis 1 & 2, Death Egg 1 & 2, Miniboss, Major Boss, Big Arms, Doomsday, Azure Lake, Endless Mine, Magnetic Orb

    Same PSG1
    Sandopolis 1, Endless Mine

    Same PSG1
    Sandopolis 2, Magnetic Orb

    Same PSG1
    Major Boss, Doomsday, Azure Lake

    upload_2024-11-30_14-36-6.png
    Same Mod Instruction used multiple times in
    Marble Garden 1 & 2, Mushroom HIll 1& 2, Flying Battery 1 & 2, Sandopolis 1 & 2, Death Egg 1 & 2, Miniboss, Major Boss, Big Arms, Doomsday, Azure Lake, Endless Mine, Magnetic Orb


    Unused bits in the Header
    upload_2024-11-28_20-4-16.png

    While the "F2"s are an actual instruction in the SMPS, they come directly *after* the header and thus are unused (folks already commenting them as such)

    In the prototype, these "F2, F2"s are (very conveniently) found in the files for:
    Angel Island 2, Hydro City 1 & 2, Carnival Night 1 & 2, Launch Base 1 & 2, Lava Reef, Hidden Palace, Sky Sanctuary
    Data Select, Competition Menu & Results/Continue, Ending/Staff Roll, Balloon Park, Chrome Gadget

    And while not inside the header, some unused "F2, F2" are also found in the midst of Big Arms and Doomsday.

    Comparison Proto VS Final
    upload_2024-11-28_20-16-56.png
    While Angel Island 1 in the proto doesn't have any "F2, F2" in the header, in the final game there's one single "F2" (which the S3&K disassembly has already translated into the SMPSStop function).

    Meanwhile, Sky Sanctuary and Balloon Park lose their "F2"s in the header of the final game's versions. And my guess for this is that Masayuki Nagao removed those when touching the tracks somewhere in between.


    Same/Similar Patches between Sonic 3 and Sonic 3D Blast (Maeda/Senoue)
    We can check out more of Maeda's possible own sound programming/preferences by checking out the instruments he used for Sonic 3D Blast

    upload_2024-11-30_11-57-37.png
    Found in 3's Miniboss and 3D Blast's Volcano Valley 2

    upload_2024-11-30_12-0-35.png
    Found in 3's Staff Roll and 3D Blast's Rusty Ruin 2, Diamond Dust 2, Volcano Valley 1 & 2

    upload_2024-11-30_14-43-39.png
    A mod instruction found in 3's Staff Roll as well as 3D Blast's Rusty Ruin 1 & 2, Diamond Dust 1 & 2, Volcano Valley 1 & 2


    Either Senoue or Maeda could be
    ssModZ80 $07, $01, $03, $05
    A mod instruction found in 3's Gumball Machine, Game Over, Knuckles' Theme as well as 3D Blast's Intro, Menu, Invincibility, Green Grove 1 & 2, Spring Stadium 1 & 2, Volcano Valley 2, Panic Puppet 1, Special Stage

    Same/Similar Bits between S3, 3DBlast, J. League Pro Striker 2 & Golden Axe III (Tatsuyuki Maeda)
    Checking out a lot Maeda's first work, can be valuable in identifying his programming
    *All tracks from Golden Axe III, J. League Pro Striker 2, and 3D Blast listed here are confirmed to be his work. He solo-composed for Devi & Pii (tracks are not yet identifiable; I'm not familiar with splitting roms).

    saTranspose $F4 ($FB, $F4)
    saTranspose $0C ($FB, $0C)

    Devi & Pii: ??? ($F4 found 14x, $0C found 12x in the rom)
    Golden Axe III: Opening, The Vast Field, Bloody Street, Campsite, Staff Roll
    Sonic 3: Carnival Night 1, Ice Cap 1&2, Launch Base 1, Staff Roll, Balloon Park
    3DBlast: Rusty Ruin 1&2, Volcano Valley 1&2, Gene Gadget 1&2, Panic Puppet 2

    ssModZ80 $01, $01, $01, $02 ($F0, $01, $01, $01, $02)
    Devi & Pii: ??? (Found 4x in the rom)
    Sonic 3: Staff Roll

    ssModZ80 $01, $01, $01, $04 ($F0, $01, $01, $01, $04)
    Devi & Pii: ??? (Found 8x in the rom)
    Golden Axe III: Bloody Street, Fight with Adversary
    Sonic 3: Staff Roll
    J. League Pro Striker 2: Team Select
    3DBlast: Rusty Ruin 1&2, Diamond Dust 1&2, Volcano Valley 1&2

    ssModZ80 $01, $01, $01, $06 ($F0, $01, $01, $01, $06)
    Golden Axe III: Opening
    Sonic 3: Staff Roll
    J. League Pro Striker 2: Team Select
    3DBlast: Rusty Ruin 1&2, Diamond Dust 1&2, Volcano Valley 1, Panic Puppet 2

    ssModZ80 $0F, $01, $01, $06
    Sonic 3: Angel Island 2
    3DBlast: Volcano Valley 2

    ssModZ80 $0A, $01, $03, $06
    Sonic 3: Hydro City 1 & 2, Carnival Night 1 & 2, Lava Reef, Competition Results, Chrome Gadget

    ssDetune $01 ($E1, $01)
    Devi & Pii: ??? (Found 6x in the rom)
    Golden Axe III: The Vast Field, Dim Jungle, Bloody Street
    Sonic 3: Angel Island 2, Hydro City 1&2, Carnival Night 1&2, Launch Base 2, Lava Reef, Hidden Palace, Competition Results, Act Clear, Staff Roll
    3DBlast: Rusty Ruin 1&2, Diamond Dust 1&2, Volcano Valley 1&2, Gene Gadget 1&2, Panic Puppet 2

    ssDetune $02 ($E1, $02)
    Golden Axe III: Staff Roll
    Sonic 3: Angel Island 1, Hydro City 1&2, Carnival Night 2, Launch Base 2, Lava Reef, Balloon Park, Chrome Gadget

    ssDetune $FE ($E1, $FE)
    Golden Axe III: Bloody Street, Staff Roll
    Sonic 3: Angel Island 1, Hydro City 1&2, Carnival Night 2, Launch Base 2, Lava Reef 1, Balloon Park, Chrome Gadget
    3DBlast: Volcano Valley 1&2

    ssDetune $FF ($E1, $FF)
    Golden Axe III: Map Screen, Dim Jungle, A Voyage to Castle, Fight with Adversary, Final Boss
    Sonic 3: Angel Island 2, Hydro City 1&2, Carnival Night 1&2, Launch Base 1&2, Lava Reef, Hidden Palace, Sky Sanctuary, Data Select, Act Clear, Competition Results, Balloon Park, Chrome Gadget

    -----

    "$E8, $04, $00, v00"

    Same PSG1 in
    Golden Axe III: A Voyage to Castle, Fight with Adversary, Final Boss
    Sonic 3: Major Boss, Doomsday, Azure Lake
    3D Blast: Volcano Valley 1 & 2

    "$E8, $03, $00, v00"
    Same PSG in
    Golden Axe III: Campsite (PSG1)
    Sonic 3: Endless Mine (PSG1)

    "$00, $05, $00, v00"
    Same PSG in
    Golden Axe III: Bloody Street (PSG3)
    Sonic 3: Ice Cap 1 & 2 (PSG2)

    "$00, $05, $00, v00"
    Same PSG in
    Golden Axe III: Dim Jungle (PSG1)
    Sonic 3: Staff Roll (PSG1 & 2)

    "$00, $05, $00, v00"
    Same PSG in
    Golden Axe III: Dim Jungle (PSG2)
    Sonic 3: Knuckles' Theme (PSG1)

    The point I'm trying to make with all this
    While it won't help us collect flawless and clear proof, I still want to get as close to the truth as possible; who composed/worked on which tracks. And those findings can help give us more of a direction.

    CUBE Works & Nagao's Arrangements
    Masanori Hikichi had already confirmed that he worked on the Zone Boss/Major Boss track, and he also recognized Marble Garden and Mushroom Hill as possible tracks from him.
    And the patches simply further support the idea; There are a fair bit of differences in how many SEGA and CUBE tracks were programmed.

    SEGA Works
    The header bits and the Voice Banks do make a case for which tracks were clearly SEGA's.
    With Hikichi now also being out of the race we only have Tatsuyuki Maeda and Sachio Ogawa left to talk with directly.

    And my personal stance hasn't changed; I do think of Tatsuyuki Maeda as a key figure in the music of Sonic 3; Compositing the original renditions of tracks like Angel Island, Hydro City, Carnival Night, Launch Base, Lava Reef, and Chrome Gadget

    Maybe also the original rendition of Sky Sanctuary.
    Though that track is an odd case. Setsumaru already said the track may have been from someone outside of SEGA. Even though I can be ultra wrong, I want to believe that he may slightly misremember things or has simply worded it confusingly; Maybe with "written" he simply meant "programmed/arranged" and referred to Nagao there. Due to the leftover header bits and the UVB present I want to believe it was a SEGA composition arranged and polished up by Nagao.


    Summary
    SEGA Sound Team
    Tatsuyuki Maeda: Angel Island, Hydro City, Carnival Night, Launch Base, Lava Reef, Sky Sanctuary**, Miniboss*, Big Arms*, Doomsday*, Azure Lake*, Balloon Park**, Chrome Gadget, Staff Roll, Data Select, Competition Menu & Results, Unused Track
    *Arranged by Nago by the time of the prototype and/or already used a heavier bank
    **Arranged by Nago in the final game
    Tomonori Sawada: Title Screen, Invincibility
    Jun Senoue: Slot Machine, Gumball Machine

    CUBE
    If CUBE composed eight tracks according to an old listing it could've been
    Masanori Hikichi: Marble Garden**, Mushroom Hill**, Flying Battery, Sandopolis, Death Egg, Major Boss*
    *His assigned track
    **Recognized by Hikichi as a possible piece by him
    Miyoko Takaoka: Endless Mine*, Magnetic Orbs**
    *Her take on Marble Garden?
    **Her take on a Special Stage?
     

    Attached Files:

    Last edited: Dec 20, 2024
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  2. Very nice work you have here. I would've checked back to see if UVB voices have been implemented into non-UVB songs, though that wasn't important for my Origins research.

    There are some things I think are worth mentioning outside of what you've already found:
    Special Stage
    The special stage music seems to use an even older version of the UVB, or in better terms, seems to be what the UVB was built on top of. Applying any version of the UVB on top of the special stage track results in it sounding more echoey, yet very close to how it usually sounds. This is especially interesting, given this track pre-dates Sonic 3 entirely.

    Mega Man: The Wily Wars UVB
    This game, which has a completely different set of people working on it (even an entirely different company!), also uses a UVB. This UVB is very similar to what's present in Sonic 3, though more similar to what can be heard in the Special Stage music (can be heard in the opening music). I have not yet found a way to extract its data, but I believe it's worth looking into.

    Stock voices in the SMPS source code
    Back in 2020, Hidden Palace released a set of disks containing the source code to various different versions of SMPS. In the Z80 floppy, there's a file called "voice1.s" which contains various voices used across many early first party MD games. Plenty of these voices also ended up in the UVB we're used to. I've converted all of them into a format that can be loaded into Furnace, which will be in the attached file.
     

    Attached Files:

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  3. Very interesting stuff indeed :0
    If I can motivate myself I will continue looking for more and correcting some stuff above.
    (I already edited the page in-between to have way more matching instruments and whatnot)

    Another interesting angle to determine more of CUBE's sounds would be checking out the patches found in Mean Bean Machine, which came out around the same time and got more of Hikichi and Nagao's work.
     
  4. Chimes

    Chimes

    The One SSG-EG Maniac Member
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    Galaxy Force II might be of interest. I instantly recognized the ending theme's drum samples has being reused in the Robotnik Kraftwerk build.
     
  5. sonicthesnot

    sonicthesnot

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    Great work Ramona. To me it's always been a near-given that Doomsday and Big Arms were done by the same composer. Zero chance two independent composers came up with such unique and structurally-similar basslines. Similar idea with Flying Battery, Death Egg, S3 Boss, and the S&K Miniboss. Good to see my theory at least passes a sanity check here.
     
  6. I've rechecked the old list of discovered credits for the Sonic 3 tracks reused in Sonic 3D Blast since it always irked me that Senoue somehow did Competition Results/Continue and the Act Clear theme even though...
    • Sonic Adventure and Sonic 4: Episode II credit the Act Clear theme to SEGA rather than Jun himself.
    • He told us he only worked on 2-3 tracks, those being the bonus stage ones (Slots and Gumball)
    • The sound programming, from what I found above, links Competition Results/Continue & Act Clear to Angel Island/Hydro City/Carnival Night and co in multiple ways (the use of the UVB, the PSG setup, and one or two modulations)
    When editing the headers and trying out the Sound Test, my modifications for all Jun related headers (messing up the pointers so that the music doesn't play I assume) only led to the Game Over theme being affected.
    The Game Over track being Jun's makes sense from this angle as well as the sound programming, where some PSG setup, modulation, and bits of the Voices match up with Slots and Gumball. It also admittedly got his goofy kinda sound he had during that time working on Sonic stuffs.

    Actually, the sound programming in those files leads to another Sonic 3 track being more likely Jun's; the prototype Knuckles' theme. Got some matching bits of programming and also generally a goofy vibe to it I also hear in the Game Over track and the infamous unused Sonic 3D boss theme. (He somehow made his stuff sound kinda "circus"-ish at points)
     
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  7. Brainulator

    Brainulator

    Regular garden-variety member Member
    By chance, where do those credits come from?
     
  8. You mean Sonic 3D Blast, or Sonic 4 & Sonic Adventure?

    Sonic 3D Blast would be the bit I've embedded in my previous post, and now here again. The attributions to each track are stored in plain text before the actual SMPS track, inside the final game's as well as the prototype 94 rom. And the bits that come after the text seem to be the pointers for the song data etc.
    Going through them again myself, most of it does perfectly line up with ICEknight's original finding except for Act Clear and Competition Menu.

    The digital release of Sonic Adventure's OST (here) got Act Clear credited as "Written By SEGA".
    Same for Sonic 4 Ep 2 (here) albeit also as "Performed By Jun Senoue" which is just because of his arrangement work.

    Jun having done 'Slot Machine' is a guess based on his own claims to have done the bonus stage tracks, the programming bits that match up with 'Gumball' in places, and the latter being directly credited to Jun in Sonic 3D Blast.
     
    Last edited: Dec 17, 2024
  9. Antheraea

    Antheraea

    Bug Hunter Member
    so this is odd to me because this Act Clear theme is not at all on the physical releases, not the original nor the 20th anniversary, despite all the other jingles being present. This was also true for SA2, and I couldn't find an analogous one for Heroes either.

    A rendition of the Sonic Act 3 jingle does show up in 06 (disc 2, track 34) but is solely attributed to being re-arranged by Hideaki Kobayashi. I pulled out my copy and checked the liner notes myself too and yeah, there is not even a "composed by SEGA" mention in that one. Sonic Generations has it and it's listed as "composed by SEGA" and remixed and produced by Jun Senoue - and is also explicitly stated to be taken from Sonic 3 in this release.

    Sonic Mania uses the Sonic 3 act clear jingle. Frustratingly, in the digital release for Sonic Mania's OST, every single track I have is attributed to Tee Lopes. But this is where it gets really vexing: VGMDB says that the Sonic Mania act clear on the Mania Plus physical OST release is by Jun Senoue. However, I own this release and the booklet just says it was arranged by Tee Lopes with the original music taken from Sonic 3. Also vexing, the page says 1, 2, 7, 8, 12, 15, and 22 - most of these Sonic 3 tracks - are "music by SEGA". They had to have gotten this somewhere but I'm not sure where.

    Further, all Mania releases exclude the Nakamura tracks, so there is some royalty concern with this release. The jingle is here, yet the nakamura tracks are not...
     
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  10. Yeah, this is just one of these credits bits that are based on the the previous belief that Jun did rather than any direct credit.
    Fairly common with a good amount of VGMDB entries where external credits are also being included. (Would be cool if the person included any sources or hints that the credit comes from somewhere else)

    That's just how quickly that stuff can make its rounds. Though I will not blame anyone for this; I also just really wanna see those credits filled out proper DX
     
  11. T.Q.

    T.Q.

    The Sims 2, Tim Drake [Robin] Member
    Ah, perhaps it's been misinterpreted for a while that lines 64 to 67 in the coding belong to the same group. Perhaps line 64 belonged to line 67, and that there's information missing for the composer and arranger on those other lines 65 and 66.
     
  12. In the same thread, they discussed the tracks appearing grouped, but Tweaker point out that it was simply due to these tracks using the UVB.
    Either a small optimization thing, or the tracks were imported all at the same time and thus end up next to each other in the compilation process.

    The existence of those credits in general are quite interesting. Were the folks internally a bit disappointed in their credits for Sonic 3 being hidden?? (or just completely undocumented, leading to the mess were at right now)


    Anyways, Maeda not being attributed for the other two tracks (or Competition Menu at the very least) does ruin my agenda IF it's not as straightforward as Maeda simply having nothing to do with these credits in general;
    he probably just did his work and someone else from the team wrote those notes into the game files when porting it to the driver.

    The Sonic 3 development was a huge mess especially after the presumed crunch getting the Jackson tracks ported over and then polishing it up to his satisfaction. Nagao doesn't talk about working on Sonic 3 in a very positive light.
    Setsumaru and co. may have not have kept track of exact credits and thus didn't include anything for the other two tracks. Jun just did a few pieces before the complete rework so it was easier to identify (either that or he pointed it out)
     
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  13. Mastered Realm

    Mastered Realm

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    I disagree. In my understanding, there's only one Maeda track on the OST, which is this:



    It has some sections almost 1:1 to Panic Puppet Act 2 and it sounds completely different from the rest of the Sonic 3 OST.

    Nagao said earlier that he produced over half ot the tracks in the game (mostly Act 2's and some competition tracks...) and considering how Milpo's special stage style is all over the other tracks, I'd guess Angel Island, Hydrocity, Carnival Night, etc are Milpo's with Nagao making the Act 2 variations.

    LB2 is definitely Nagao, I wonder if LB1 was made by Ogawa.
     
  14. Azure Lake, Balloon Park, and Endless Mine do immediately come to my mind since they all got his presumed heavier sounds to them.

    As someone slowly getting into composition myself I would love to learn more and thus want to ask out of pure curiosity if you could elaborate a little on that?
    Most songs do use the UVB, that's why they will feature much more similarities in instrumentation to each other than the CUBE tracks and some of Nagao's overhauls.

    Yoshiaki Kashima/MILPO was asked back in the day and he only said he composed the special stage track.
    Yeah, he did say he "worked on the others too" but that's super unambiguous in my view and could just mean tweaking them and managing the UVB.
    (The language barrier with a few of the Sonic 3 staff does bite us in the neck ngl.)

    He was ultra open about the Special Stage to the point he hosted a full-on MIDI file of the track on his site back in the day. (It's sadly not archived... DX)
    I would see no reason why he would have, and would have had to, keep quiet about more of his contributions.

    ----

    In terms of style, I would at the very least argue that Hydro City and Carnival Night could still be Maeda's, they remind me a little too much of the overall styles of Rusty Ruin and Diamond Dust.
    Also; one GBA game with Maeda and Setsu on board got this one track that will always remind me a little of Angel Island, but that one's super shake-y since that got no confirmed credits too.
    But that style of call-and-response, tremolo, and stereo work is fairly similar to me.
     
  15. Brainulator

    Brainulator

    Regular garden-variety member Member
    3D Blast. And thanks; that helped a bunch.
     
  16. Splashdown

    Splashdown

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    For what it's worth, the Japan-only CD release of Sonic 4's soundtrack does have more specific credits:
    [​IMG]

    (The digital releases of "A Duel with Metal Sonic" and "Cut Scene: Reboot" also retain the non-Senoue credits, if you check their descriptions.)
    The way I see it, if they went out of their way to properly attribute the original composers, that makes it more likely that Senoue really did compose "Act Clear" for 3. (Whether he arranged it for that game is more nebulous.)

    Similarly, I'm less certain about "Continue" - the 30th Sessions Version from 2022 was arranged by Senoue but simply credits the original composition to Sega. I want to trust the 3D Blast ROM text here - to me, an internal composer breakdown made just a couple years after 3&K came out seems especially trustworthy - but I can't deny the technical arguments otherwise. (It is a little odd that it would only be wrong about those songs in particular, admittedly.)

    As for his old interview statement: this is just speculation on my part, but I think he may have been thinking about "proper," full-length songs rather than short jingles. That leaves room for both the 2-3 bonus stage themes as well as the Game Over theme, the Act Clear theme etc.
     
    Last edited: Dec 19, 2024
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  17. upload_2024-12-19_21-17-22.png

    I've finally started to just read the raw bits of the dumped .ASMs of some Golden Axe III and J.League Pro Striker 2 tracks, allowing for even more searching for matches (as easy as looking up the instructions over there).
    Regardless of how much of it actually is Maeda's work, he still absolutely loved to play around with the pitches on the sound chip. In contrast, the CUBE tracks seemingly feature no Detune instructions in midst of the tracks.

    I am glad that we can at least agree on the prototype Staff Roll being a Maeda track; Saw some folks assuming that already throughout the forums, but the exact Modulation on top of the screenshot being featured in so many of his confirmed tracks just make it 1000% clear to me.

    Again, the list itself is seems super accurate and I don't doubt it a single bit; it's just that we need some solid proof that Game Over, Act Clear, and the Continue tracks are indeed part of a block like how it was initially assumed.
     
  18. Harmony Friends

    Harmony Friends

    it's the whole gang Oldbie
    Just for the record, when I met Senoue-san at MAGFest a few years ago, I directly asked if he composed the Sonic 3 act clear jingle and he told me that he straight-up was not allowed to say. I don't know what that changes but it feels odd to me that it would be casually revealed in some credits if that's the case…
     
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  19. nineko

    nineko

    I am the Holy Cat Tech Member
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    This actually seems to be the norm. Some time ago I was looking to actually legally purchase a song from the Outrun 2 OST, though I couldn't find it anywhere at that time, so I did some research and I directly contacted the manager of the person who recorded that song, saying that I was willing to pay for an mp3 or something. They couldn't even confirm (nor deny) that their client actually recorded that song.

    I ended up downloading that song from *somewhere else* later that day. I did my best to obtain it in a legal way, but my attempt failed.
     
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  20. upload_2024-12-20_10-50-37.png

    upload_2024-12-20_11-1-5.png

    I just randomly realized that Maeda definitely couldn't have only composed the unused Staff Roll track since some sources keep on loosely mentioning that he did tunes for Sonic 3 (be it through his old bio at WAVE MASTER or the Skies of Arcadia Eternal Soundtrack booklet).
    His contributions are just straight up a bit of an open secret, I swear. I will fight for Hydro City and Carnival Night at the absolute minimum.
    Also interesting is Maeda listing his works as just Sonic 3, while Jun does list both Sonic 3 and S&K. May indirectly give us a hint that he was mostly contributing to the game prior to the split and the inclusion of Jackson later on.

    upload_2024-12-20_11-3-58.png

    I also started looking a little into his very first Genesis game, making for a total of FIVE of his games I'm checking for some matches in instructions etc. Though unfortunately I've got no idea how to split a rom so I will not be able to know which of the Devi & Pii tracks use those + I definitely need to verify these findings in Devi & Pii on occassion.