*NO* Sonic the Hedgehog 'Hogtied'

[OceansAndrew]

Remixer 1 name: Rexy (real name: Bev Wooff)

Email: bev.wooff@gmail.com

OCRemix user ID: 7528

Remixer 2 name: Brandon Strader

Email: bstrader@verizon.net

OCRemix user ID: 3123 (what, he's *really* been here longer than me?!)

Remix info:-

Remix title: "Hogtied"

Game covered: Sonic the Hedgehog 1 (both Genesis and Master System versions)

Individual songs covered: Genesis Boss (main song covered), MS Scrap Brain Zone, MS Boss

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Hey, Rexy here. I can't believe it's been nearly 5 years without a submission... >_>

So anyway, I thought I'd try and submit something more recently done; in fact, Brandon in particular is very keen to see this get sent off to the judges, so I'll give it a go.

As you may or may not know, Sonic 1 was the very first videogame that I ever played. So when I found out that halc was running a project on it, that was something that I *so* wanted to do. However, by the time I got there, most of it was already taken, and it was assumed the only way I could get involved was to try and do something with the game's boss theme. It's not easy given that it's only 10 phrases long, but I still had an idea.

As a way to try and stand out amongst the more groove-specialised personnel, and to better fit the source tune, I thought I could do something that I had wanted to do for a long time - to write and collaborate with a community guitarist. Before that, I managed to see about writing the foundations of the track; partially inspired by the works of The Sword (minus the drop C tuning), the idea was to portray a feeling of ominousness to contrast what the zone arrangements would provide, which would explain the choice of genre. A hogtie in handling cattle secures all its limbs together and lead it helpless, much like the bosses throughout the game; heck, I cleared most of the *other* Sonic titles on the Genesis before even plucking up the courage to try Sonic 1 again after countless deaths at the Labyrinth Zone boss.

But enough about me and more about others - there had also been people asking for coverage of songs from the Master System version of the game, and the even shorter riffs of the Master System boss theme plus the second half of the source for said version's Scrap Brain Zone theme also helped to bridge parts together.

I got to thank Brandon for stepping in there and providing his performance services here on bass, lead and rhythm guitars. Aside from some of the smaller licks, he had free reign to see what he could do with the lead and to hear him add his OWN contributions to the collaboration made the track sound a lot better than what I imagined it in my head, so a big thanks there

And I guess that's all I have to say other than to thank halc for putting the project together with such miliarty precision, and one that I can't wait to see the finished results. It was also brilliant working with Brandon and I hople this first collaboration won't be our last.

Thank you everyone for seeing and considering the submission

Peace out (lol been years since I last said that too),

-Rexy-

sources

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XYxEAXWqb74

[OceansAndrew]

The initial lead guitars sound a little too far forward compared to the rest of the track, though the rhythms are sitting ok, and the backing leads sound better too. Once the song takes a further rock turn, it sounds better, but those initial lead guitars should be pushed back slightly to fit the rest of the track.

The performance of the rhythm guitars frequently sounds behind the beat ever so slightly at 1:22, which is somewhat distracting. I enjoyed all of the piano work, though some of the arpeggios at the beginning felt a bit mechanical.

Otherwise, the theme use is pretty good, and the song itself feels pretty good. The ending is a little weak, as the guitar fade out out-of-tune, but overall the strengths of the track weight out the weaknesses. The drums range from being interesting to well thought out to autopilot, and some of the fills feel pretty copy-pasted.

I'd say the strengths weigh out the weaknesses of this, and I still consider it passable. Nice collab!

Yes

[DragonAvenger]

Considering how short the source is, I think you both managed to expand on it well, and using the other sources was a good choice to give the track a little more meat. I like what you've got going on for the arrangement.

Right away I'm noticing some crackling in the organ. I'm not sure if it's intentional, but since I don't hear it anywhere else in the arrangement, it feels out of place. As Andrew mentions, the lead guitar is coming in a little loud at the beginning, though it fits much better once things start to rock out. I can also hear the rhythm guitars being a little out of time as he mentioned around 1:22. Overall the organ feels a little mechanical overall, and it's being enhanced when it is compared to the guitar playing.

I'm a bit torn on this, because I think it could pass as is, but I could also see this getting fixed up. I will say YES for now, but based on the other judges' opinions on the production I might consider revising.

YES (borderline)

[Palpable]

I thought the drums was neat even though there was some copy/paste. The sound was good, and the fills were cool. The arrangement was also a strength, the source was handled in a multitude of ways and this was a good fit for it. I can't say I was totally behind how the song was mixed together. I can hear the rhythm guitars but they sound kind of gutted and they didn't have that much power. Maybe they were overcompressed, but it felt more like a drone lacking the dynamics a song like this needed. Hard for me to articulate my problem there as I haven't mixed much with rhythm guitars. The timing was also off and that detracted. The organ crackling sounded intentional to me though.

Tough call. I liked the arrangement, but I think the rhythm guitars are a prominent enough element that they should be fixed before this can go up. Let's see what others think.

NO (resubmit)

[halc]

arrangement-wise, Rexy killed it. she always sneaks so many neat cameos into her pieces. this mix in particular is an unexpected change of pace given her previous works, with some nice original writing and solos by Brandon as well. excellent.

production-wise, this cuts it close, I'm generally digging the performances (although there are slight timing issues at times) and the samples were pretty good despite being slightly mechanical sounding. and as mentioned, the rhythm guitars could use some more bite. I know Brandon could probably take this to the next level with his current skills, but I think it is still above the bar in it's current form. the mixing doesn't have any vital flaws (though it has it's share of minor ones), and the arrangement is stellar. positives outweigh the negatives for me; nice mix.

YES(borderline)

[Vig]

Man I hate B4's artificial distortion.

The intro is tense and I really like it. The more elements come in, the more the mix sounds kind of muddy. The lead guitar is too close; got to give it more verb, and maybe trim some low mids, more high mids.

In general I'll say I really dig the writing and the arrangement. The mix does tend to be a little crowded, I'm not sure you really need the chorus underneath the distorted guitars. They are just taking up low mid frequency space, and there's plenty other stuff to fill that range.

I think if you make those little tweaks, this will be passable.

NO

[anosou]

Definitely both good and bad qualities here. Arrangement is very cool, clever source usage and "cameos" as halc so eloquently put it. On the production side of things it wasn't as impressive though. The sounds were rather bland and stiffly sequenced, the guitars lacked clarity and the performance wasn't the best one. Since I've heard a few tracks with you, Brandon, that have slight timing issues that seem consistent.. have you checked the latency of your sound card and the buffer size? Make sure it isn't because of your set-up this is happening.

Overall it's a good track but it needs some more polish to be at it's best. It's VERY close but I'd like to see some mixing tweaks before this was passed. Some careful EQing of the guitars, maybe give the organ some grit and edge, just to make a more balanced mix.

NO(resubmit, and soon)

[DarkeSword]

Great arrangement. Straightforward, but still expands. Not crazy about the synth lead; kind of vanilla. Love the organ stuff at 2:20.

Some timing issues on the rhythm guitar, but it's not a dealbreaker.

YES

[Liontamer]

The opening organ and synth work sounded stiff, but everything was decent to start.

Really scratching my head at the percussion at 1:17. The constant beat didn't really click for me, IMO, but I can live with it. Overall, the percussion writing was handled alright. For every vanilla part, there were much more lively, progressive parts.

The one pet peeve I have on Brandon's electric guitar work is that his performances always sound stiff and not as expressive as they should. It was like that for his God of War piece from HvV, and it's like that here. That said, he had a lot more instances that were problematic in Random Encounter (IMO), to the point of dragging down the entire arrangement. This was on the better side of all those examples, and he got the job done here, even though he isn't realizing his potential here. And that's a shame because it's like he topped out at "Trapped" (which was great) and never rose to the occasion like that again.

The mixing was way muddier than I'd expect and made it harder to appreciate the details. Gladly, I'm not the only one who pointed this out, so I'm gonna be bad cop. Lots of good organ and rhythm guitar writing underneath the leads got muffled as a result of this undeservedly weak mixing job. This could really use another stab at the mixing to clean this up. It's definitely on the lower side on what I can tolerate, really lacking a lot of clarity and undermining the otherwise-passable quality of the arrangement.

Tweak it, get it sounding a LITTLE better, and I'll flip my vote.

NO (borderline)

[CHz]

I really liked the first thirty-five seconds of this. The meat of the arrangement is pretty good too, though. Expanded very well.

Gonna have to fall in line with everyone about the guitar timing and mixing with everyone else, though. The supporting writing is good, so make sure we can hear it clearly!

NO (resubmit)

[The Orichalcon]

Very muddy.

I don't mind the timing on the rhythm guitar. It's actually not an uncommon thing to hear in some heavier rock songs to be a little sloppy on the rhythm, so long as it comes back into time, which is what happens here.

I want to hear thing balanced better. Broaden the EQ on the percussion/drums. It's very flat. I'm going to trust the others on the ties with the source. The arrangement sounds fine to me. It's fun and interesting to listen to. Just touch up the balance and anything else the other judges had issue with.

NO