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I'll be doing the GMRB for sure. I've already got a few ideas for Maverick themes to pick too

Whoa the 160kbps sounds like it's been remastered or something. Is this something Dan went back and re-did later? I like it! We need to find some sort of way (a thread or link or something) to organize updates or remasters of older OCR songs. I'd love to know if someone has since fixed up an older track. I imagine it would be hard to keep track of all that stuff though.

I only have the 96kbps OCR version I'd even take the 128kbps version... where'd you find that Larry?

Alright folks, it looks like we're going to plan to begin the Sonic compo the first full week of May, barring any unforeseen circumstances (which are bound to come up ). We'll have a 2-week recruitment period that will run towards the end of April and the beginning of May. Depending on how well recruiting goes during that time, we may push back another week to accommodate. That will have us finishing up at the end of June, or early July, depending on the exact start date and the number of participants (16 or 32). This will also allow for minimal overlap with DarkeSword's upcoming GMRB and GRMRB 2012. Closer to when the time comes, I'll send some PMs to everyone who said they were interested here as a heads-up. GET EXCITE!

I would have to agree with you Pete! I would extend my condolences to any insensible gentleman who's Anti-Mr. T!

And there was much rejoicing!!!

Sheep Man is awesome.

Mmmm sweet tasty album release. Yeah you only got two weeks of February left! I request it come out next Tuesday for my birthday please

I've seen you hanging around my Sonic compo thread, so I figured I'd comment on your track I haven't heard any of the previous versions, but I saw you got a lot of mod feedback already, so I'm not sure what else I can add. I'd take what they say and run with it. Overall I'd have to say the biggest thing holding this song back is the overall quality of the samples and the very mechanical feeling to the notes themselves. What software/VSTs do you use for your instruments? Sound quality isn't everything, but it's a major factory in enjoyability (for me at least). They're not terrible, but I guess they just kind of sound generic too me. Like stock instrument samples. I'd recommend playing around with the presets, adding your own effects to them, filters, modulation, maybe some vibrato here, tremolo there, stuff like that. You don't necessarily have to scrap everything you have, just try making it more your own. With that said, the piano and pads in the intro sound especially hollow though. That ties into my second criticism, which is the mechanical feeling to the track. Every note sounds completely quantized. Like it's hitting on every beat like it's supposed to. There seems to be little movement. Like with the melody at 0:41 for example, sounds really abrupt and choppy. Try overlapping some of the notes to make it flow better (unless you're going for that sound on purpose). Adding some instrument effects like I mentioned above will also help with that "mechanical" MIDI sound. Having some of the notes slide into each other, so each one isn't hitting with it's full velocity. Just adjusting some note velocities in general should help too. The drums also sound pretty weak to me. I'd beef them up, get a snappier snare sample, a more menacing bass drum, etc. I also have to echo what Arceace said about EQing. There seems to be a lot going on in the mid-range. The bass range sounds particularly lacking. In that mid-range, there also seems to be little variability in the instrument selection. That same synth carries the melody almost the entire song. I'd introduce a different lead or two to pass the melody between. It will help keep things interesting and not sounding the same throughout. With all that, I'm not trying to sound negative. I really like the arrangement and think you did a great job blending the two themes (I can see where that might come in handy soon). So kudos there! I think the song just needs some work in terms of instrument selection, sample quality, and a bit filtering/EQing to bring out the best in what you do have. Keep it at, cause I really do like what I'm hearing despite my negative sounding crits!

Thanks Darke, I appreciate the offer! I think the main thing I want to work on now is just nailing down a start date. I do have a few other questions on how you ran things though, so I'll PM you! ---------------------------------------- On an unrelated note, I'm completely excited about starting this thing so I made a couple mock-ups of possible remixer sigs for the compo. I tried to make it resemble a "zone start" screen that would appear right when you start a zone. The mixer's name would be in the "Sonic" font and their zone would be below in the "zone" font from the games. An image of their zone would serve as a background with that black-to-transparent gradient overlay. Blue color scheme with Sonic for the Sonic bracket and red color scheme with Robotnik for the Robotnik bracket. I know it's waaaaaaaaaaay too early to start doing stuff like this, but I had some ideas and wanted to make a mock-up. When we actually start the compo, I'm completely open to other ideas from others who may be better at Photoshop than I, but otherwise I like these a lot! And FYI, I don't want Green Hill Zone, this is just an example. What do you think? Hopefully I'll have some info on a start date soon!

Cool! I really like this. It has a great "chill" vibe to it. Nice trumpet playing as well!

Cool! I'm glad everyone is liking it pretty much! Well the Japanese soundtrack was the default and I didn't realize I could switch them, so the first playthrough was with the JP soundtrack. I started a 2nd with the US soundtrack, but haven't gotten all the way through yet. So far though I have to give the edge to the JP soundtrack. Yeah I EQed and mixed most of the other instruments, but I haven't adjusted the piano or the vocal clips yet. I think some are fine, but others definitely need adjusting. I actually recorded the piano myself with my MIDI keyboard in an attempt to make it sound more natural, but yeah that part sticks out a bit to me too. It's weird cause where that part repeats at 2:44, it sounds fine (in my opinion) because there is a lot of other stuff going on, so I think it's just where it's exposed it sounds a bit weak. Or even more importantly, I think the left hand part is making it sound bad. I was trying to do a bit of chord playing there, but I think since they overlap nearly identically it sounds kinda off. When it's just the right hand part playing (1:36 - 1:44, 3:00 - 3:33), I think it sounds ok. I'll take another look at it though. I like the piano at the end, but I'm going to try to clean it up a bit and adjust the bass drop out a bit more, cause that feels a bit awkward to me too. I'll play around with a few things though and see what else I might come up with. Thanks for the feedback everyone! I'm having a lot of fun with this source! It's been making me even more excited to get my Sonic Remix Compo started

Which hopefully will be starting soon

Happy Birthday Emu! Keep being awesome and stuff!

Hahahaha, that is kinda awesome. Drawing covers, that's dedication! Nice! Just keep in mind you may not end up with the song you pick. Just like DarkeSword does in the GRMRBs, I'll have people pick their top 5 themes. If anyone picks the same two songs as their #1, then a coin flip will decide who gets what, and the loser will get their #2 (unless that also results in a conflict with someone else's #1, then another coin flip will decide, etc.). Hopefully we won't have too many conflicts like that!

Final (3/22/12): Supersonic Stardust - Final Update (2/22/12): Supersonic Stardust v3 ------------------------------------------------------------------ So over Christmas I found Sonic CD on the PSN for $5 (5 bucks!?!). This was a game I missed out on growing up because my family never had a Sega CD. I played all the Genesis Sonic games to death, so I'd always wanted to try out Sonic CD. I played through the game with the Japanese soundtrack and I was pleased to hear some awesome tracks. My favorite was Stardust Speedway, in all of it's cheesy jazz/hip-hop 90's glory. I knew I wanted to try a remix of that song so that's what we've got here. The arrangement and style are pretty similar to the original, but I mainly wanted to make a spiced up, jazzier version of the track and then do some of my own improv with the melodies & backing stuff. Plus it gave me the opportunity to use my large collection of brass hits, vocal clips, and DJ scratches that I never thought I'd get to use This is still a work-in-progress, but I wanted to hear what you guys think. The arrangement is pretty much done, but I plan on switching out the crappy brass sample that you hear throughout much of the first half of the track with either a better brass sample or a different instrument altogether. If I switch the instruments, I'll compliment that with some additional brass hits (like in the second half of the song). I recorded the piano myself too FYI, which was fun. Source is all Stardust Speedway (JP - Present) with a tiny itty bit of Hydrocity thrown in there for kicks. Tell me what you think, thanks! My Mix: Supersonic Stardust v2 Source: Sonic CD - Stardust Speedway (JP - Present)

Yes, it is! And I've thought of that too. I don't think we'll have a ton of overlap, hopefully, but then again who knows. You and me both! And AkumajoBelmont

That would be the one exception (that I can think of for now at least). They are two completely different soundtracks, so someone could pick Palmtree Panic (US) and someone else could pick Palmtree Panic (JP) if they wanted to. Allowing someone to remix all 6-7 of the sources would be insanity. INSANITY! That's the only Sonic game I know of that has different soundtracks, so we should be good otherwise. Thanks for bringing that up!

Happy bday Ecto!

Yeah we're trying to. Darke's got a couple of things planned, but not any definitive start dates yet. I'm pretty flexible as to when I could run mine, but I want to avoid overlap for those mixers that may want to participate in both. It may end up being impossible to completely avoid any overlap though, we may have a week or two where they'd coincide. We'll see. A lot of the people that expressed interest in this compo have never participated in one of the Mega Man compos though (not saying they wouldn't), so I'm not sure ultimately how big of a deal it will be. Plus both my Sonic compo and Darke's next GMRB and GRMRB are both elimination-style compos, so not everyone will be participating the entire time: once you lose you're done

I know, me too! We could start sooner if people want to! I was mainly waiting because I don't want to conflict a lot with Darke's next Maverick Remix Battle. But we don't know exactly when that will be (probably this Spring) nor how many people would be interested in both that and this compo.

I think that's what I'll probably do. There really aren't any zones I can think of where there is a huge difference between Act 1 & Act 2. Even in Sonic CD the Past, Present, & Future themes are all pretty similar, just different styles/arrangement of the same melody. I don't think that would be unfair either. In your example, yeah if someone has Green Hill and only 1 source, but they're going against someone with Stardust Speedway (Sonic CD - with three variations), that person can choose how they want to arrange those themes. So it's not like one person is going to have more to work with because both mixers will be mixing all the same themes.

I would say "any level from any main series Sonic game". I was calling them "zones" because most of the Sonic levels are labeled zones, like "Green Hill Zone", "Chemical Plant Zone", "Lava Reef Zone", etc. I'm not sure if they kept that naming scheme in the newer sonic games with zones like "Speed Highway", "Rooftop Run", etc. so I'd have to check. But that's what I had in mind. We'd also need to differentiate between Act 1 or Act 2 of some zones. I think I'd want to limit the compo to one Act per zone, for example if someone picks "Hydrocity Zone Act 1" then the Act 2 theme can't be chosen, because the themes are very similar. Or if you pick a zone with 2 themes, then you could use both or parts of both in your mix? I'm not sure on that. I'll need to investigate to find out how many zones have significantly different themes for Act 1 or Act 2. And I'd say no to multiplayer/tutorial, special stages, and boss themes. We'd be using just the main zone themes.