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The "Sonic The Hedgehog 3 & Knuckles" Quest for Music Composer Research

Discussion in 'General Sonic Discussion' started by T.Q., Nov 18, 2019.

Choose your favorite soundtrack version:

  1. Sonic The Hedgehog 3 -- Prototype / PC

  2. Sonic The Hedgehog 3 -- Mega Drive / Sega Genesis

  3. Sonic [3] & Knuckles -- Mega Drive / Sega Genesis

Results are only viewable after voting.
  1. The Joebro64

    The Joebro64

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    New update: a Wikipedia user I know was in Japan and met a Sega of Japan employee (I know for a fact he's not making this up, he's 100% serious). The employee told him that Sega hasn't been rereleasing Sonic 3 "because of a dispute to do with Sony owning music." Michael Jackson signed on with Sony in 1991 and was with them for a pretty long time...
     
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  2. Afro Thunder

    Afro Thunder

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    I'm not saying your friend is blowing smoke, they could be telling the truth, but I find it unlikely Sony owns the music, especially when MJ always made it a point to keep a tight grip on owning all his music and publishing as humanly possible (which is a big reason why he and Sony eventually started feuding). I can see Sony/Epic getting involved, because MJ and his team straight up sampled tracks from Dangerous, as we already know.

    (And this is mildly nitpicky on my part, but Sony actually inherited the remainder MJ's contract when they bought CBS/Epic Records in 1987, and he re-signed in 1991 while recording Dangerous.)
     
    Last edited: Jun 3, 2020
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  3. Antheraea

    Antheraea

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    yeah in '94, it'd take you hours if not days to download a potato-quality audio file. Digital downloads, even as "sharing", was pretty niche back then and didn't become an issue people talked about til like the early 2000s IIRC?

    (timeline a bit skewed because I had dial-up until 2005)
     
  4. Antheraea

    Antheraea

    Bug Hunter Member
    If Sony owns the music, then their copyrights would be showing up everywhere - Spotify releases, disc releases. I don't recall such things appearing, because we likely would've been screaming about it by now.
     
  5. The Joebro64

    The Joebro64

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    We've already established that some of the music (Angel Island, Hydrocity) does belong to Sega. I'm taking about the music we know was composed by MJ's team, which to my knowledge has never been reused outside the game.
     
  6. RetroJordan91

    RetroJordan91

    The REAL Blue Sphere Guy Member
    The Knuckles theme composed by MJ/Buxer was used in Sonic Pocket Adventure. I think that’s the only time
     
    Last edited: Jun 3, 2020
  7. Afro Thunder

    Afro Thunder

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    Except while that theme is part of the larger miniboss theme, it's literally just a drum loop. You can't copyright those. For example, if I replayed the beat of Audio Two's "Top Billin'", they couldn't sue me, because I didn't sample the song itself, I just used a similar rhythm. Sega could easily reuse the drum loop from the original theme because of that, but not the actual theme in full.
     
  8. Laura

    Laura

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    I dunno, it's a distinctive drum beat which is directly recalling a song from Sonic 3. I wouldn't count on them using it now with the music controversies going on because they have the excuse that it's "just a drum beat". The track itself is also very similar in its stripped back approach as the other Knuckles cutscene track is, which doesn't give the impression that they were deliberately circumventing legal troubles.

    To me, they used it because:

    A) The developers had no idea the track had copyright problems and none of the offended parties knew it got into the game because it was such an obscure product.

    B) The Sonic 3 soundtrack didn't have music problems at that time. This is possible considering that Sonic Jam was a port and contained the original soundtrack. But it's also possible that SEGA only had access to the music in the Genesis format and not in others (such as NeoGeo).
     
  9. Afro Thunder

    Afro Thunder

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    You literally cannot copyright a drum break. Like the example I used in my original post, it has a distinctive drum beat, but said beat can easily be replayed without triggering legal issues because of copyright law. They could easily replay the drum break without running into issues.

    I will give you that there probably wasn't legal issues with the Sonic 3 soundtrack when they made Pocket Adventure, so there wasn't any risk re-sequencing the music for the Neo Geo. As has been pointed out before, there didn't seem to be any real problems with it until after MJ died. Then again, even before that, Sega never really used any of the known MJ tracks from Sonic 3 in official remixes or OST releases as far as I'm aware...
     
  10. Mastered Realm

    Mastered Realm

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    The thing that's in Sonic Pocket Adventure was completely recreated in the noise channel. Legally it's not the same song.
     
  11. RetroJordan91

    RetroJordan91

    The REAL Blue Sphere Guy Member
    Based on what Laura and Afro Thunder said, I believe, in my opinion, that the MJ tracks were only to be used in Sonic 3 exclusively and then never again. The whole legal trouble is probably because Cirocco Jones and co. think they should be compensated in royalties for all the re-releases but idk maybe SEGA would be in the clear because those re-releases were just ports/emulated and not actual remakes from scratch.

    Again this is just speculation as usual. I apologize if this has already been brought up.

    But just imagine if the original locked on 3&K had replaced all of the MJ tracks from the get-go as opposed to just 3 of them, then I’m sure we would be having a different conversation here.
     
    Last edited: Jun 4, 2020
  12. DigitalDuck

    DigitalDuck

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    My dad works for Nintendo and said that Mario's real name is Hubert.
     
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  13. The Joebro64

    The Joebro64

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    What the hell is that supposed to mean? The dude has lived in Japan for some time and managed to get in contact with Sega through his job. He's not making this up.
     
  14. Devon

    Devon

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    You're gonna have to back up a claim like that. Just saying that "he's 100% serious and legit" and being a bit vague about who this person is who got in contact with an employee and how they managed to get that kind of information is gonna cast some doubt.
     
  15. The Joebro64

    The Joebro64

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    Well obviously I'm not going to interrogate him for privacy reasons, but he knows Japanese and has mentioned in the past he's lived in Japan for job reasons and has done work with companies like Sega before. He wouldn't have said it if it never happened. He also mentioned that the Sega of Japan guy he talked to worked in the arcade business and apparently hadn't heard of the MJ story (he wasn't involved with Sonic) but knew of the legal troubles. The details he provided, coupled with the fact that (A) it's really believable and (B) I've known him for a while and he is a no-bullshit, great guy, is enough to convince me he's not making this stuff up.
     
    Last edited: Jun 4, 2020
  16. Devon

    Devon

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    Well, the problem is that we don't know who this guy is, so we don't really have an incentive to believe it until substantial evidence shows up here. Maybe it isn't to you, but to us at this moment, it's just all hearsay. I understand the whole privacy thing, but my point still stands.
     
  17. The Joebro64

    The Joebro64

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    Alright, I understand your reasoning. I believe him but if you're still not convinced it's fine. I just wanted to add that little tidbit here because I thought it was an interesting development.
     
  18. for all we know, the proto music could’ve been, well, proto music that jackson’s team was working on, only to be redone/replaced in the final release. Considering it was 3~ months before release, it could’ve been very plausible that jackson was on team early on and that was his music. Until we see the credits in the prototype, we won’t know who made the proto music. Thus, the search must still continue before we find more info.
     
  19. RetroJordan91

    RetroJordan91

    The REAL Blue Sphere Guy Member
    IF the proto music was indeed Jackson’s, then I don’t think it would have been used in Sonic & Knuckles collection.. who knows? Maybe there’s another prototype with those tracks & credits out there somewhere but highly doubtful
     
  20. remember that the SK collection was released during a time where micheal jackson’s legal team wouldn’t take stuff down, and later releases would use the final release music for the genesis. If they had that big of a problem, sega would’ve changed the SK proto music.