SZRC - The Sonic Zone Remix Competition 2012

[Lucavi00]

He did indeed nail that solo. I am sad that you are running unopposed because I'm sure Akumajou would have given you a run for your money. Big time.

[Phonetic Hero]

Damn Finger, your mix is groovy as shit.

Yes, I'm at work

Yes, I can get on OCR at work

EDIT: Holy wow everyone, AMAZING mixes this round. Proud to be a lzrindsansandrd

OH, also, this mix marks the end of my first year of making music seriously (as in, using something other than Finale )

[Lucavi00]

I hope you guys noticed (and enjoyed) the little Sonic 3 reference in one of my fills. Keeping up my weird trend of paying small tributes to games that aren't actually represented by me or my opponent. (Last round had the Sonic Boom clip despite neither being from Sonic CD)

Edit: Also in case anybody doesn't pick up on the reference in the track name, Sonic makes Speedy Gonzales seem like Regular Gonzales. Yeah... I've been rewatching the good 'ol, pre-cancellation days of Futurama again.

I noticed this and that. I guess it's easy when you are a nerd like me.

[KingTiger]

I'm on break at work. I will listen to the new lizard music when I am off.

On a side note, while I've been working, my brain has been working on ways to combine Sky Sanctuary and Panic Puppet. i'm thinking that you guys can look forward to a smokin electronica track this round (as opposed to my rather experimental rap from the first round)

[SuperiorX]

I hope you guys noticed (and enjoyed) the little Sonic 3 reference in one of my fills. Keeping up my weird trend of paying small tributes to games that aren't actually represented by me or my opponent. (Last round had the Sonic Boom clip despite neither being from Sonic CD).

Yeah I noticed that too, cool stuff! I had a blatant Spring Yard reference in my song during the break at 2:18 that I wrote cause it just fit perfectly and then I was like "oh that's Spring Yard..."

He did indeed nail that solo. I am sad that you are running unopposed because I'm sure Akumajou would have given you a run for your money. Big time.

Hahah Akumajo still probably would've destroyed me, but I was really looking forward to how this would've stacked up to him. I'm pretty proud of this song, and I've never attempted a really "chill" song like this before.

[Ryan Jobson]

I have no idea what i',m going to do yet for Launch Base and Mystic Cave. I am currently trying to finish up a project for my course right now which involves creating music and sound effects for a cutscene in Aeon Flux, interesting stuff, but I'm hoping to finish that and get started on this remix in the next couple of days

And you cold blooded folk never cease to amaze!! Awesome mixes from you guys!!

[Tuberz McGee]

There's no way I won by 7the when we were tied or Tuber had the lead all along. Please do a vote recount of my round just to be fair

Edit: sorry im not home and I'm on my phone so I didn't see the votes after 10am

I'm so glad to have had the honour of fighting along side you my friend.

Though I lost the battle, I have not lost the war.

I will continue to break shit with my musical prowes- oh wait i'm totally supposed to be humble

...

I will learn the art of recording and de-muddifying my tracks. Because hell, my track was MUDDY.

[AMT]

Why can't all songs have a bassline as funky and awesome as Planet Wisp?

[Main Finger]

Damn Finger, your mix is groovy as shit.

Thanks! Your mix really took me by surprise. I was expecting some uppety Hill Top thing and got... something I'm not even sure how to describe, honestly. It's a very interesting mix.

[DiGi Valentine]

Just checking in now since i was out yesterday and missed the closing votes, but man some of those final votes were clooose, man. Congrats to all those who made it through to the next Round.

Downloading Round 2 of the Sonic Bracket. What you got for me? *listens*

--edit--

oh ...... oh i see .....so that's what you had for me?

Well, i'm literally two seconds away from not voting on anything this time because i honestly can't choose. Every single song in this Round is a killer ... seriously, this is too much, man. Fantastic work, all of you. Daaaaamn o____o;;

[psychowolf]

oh my... you lot have really upped your game @_@

This rounds gonna be insanely tough to decide on, you have all surpassed my expectations

Great job all of you, i wish you all good luck.

[Lucavi00]

Why can't all songs have a bassline as funky and awesome as Planet Wisp?

This, god dammit. Planet wisp is amazing for bass and guitar awesome.

Just listen to the 2nd act in Sonic Colors. Eff it, I'll link that shit.

Act 1 is amazing too and Act 3 is decent but it's all over the place. Act 2 is just bass/guitar heaven though.

[AMT]

Can I manage to sound like a combination of this and

? Find out next week!

(Or maybe it'll be nothing like this. I have no idea.)

[psychowolf]

Just so you guys know this competition is getting publicized on RadioSega tonight http://www.radiosega.net/listen/ its on atm

[Ryan Jobson]

This is... the greatest thing....... I'm just hearing about this radio Sega for the first time.. I now know what I'm going to be listening to from now on when at work

[DiGi Valentine]

Yeah, Radio SEGA, they have been following the competition since day 1 after I hyped this thing to the SEGA communities over Twitter and facebook. I'm a community guy, aint i, lol. They had no idea this was going on until I tipped them off. But I'm glad to see Gavvie and the crew are pushing your musics to the fans, getting your stuff out there. It deserves to be heard beyond an OCR forum

[SuperiorX]

Yeah, Radio SEGA, they have been following the competition since day 1 after I hyped this thing to the SEGA communities over Twitter and facebook. I'm a community guy, aint i, lol. They had no idea this was going on until I tipped them off. But I'm glad to see Gavvie and the crew are pushing your musics to the fans, getting your stuff out there. It deserves to be heard beyond an OCR forum

Awesome, thanks DiGi! I was trying to think of other ways to hype the compo, but I'm just not that well connected with the fan communities outside of OCR, so I didn't even know where to begin. Being the host and all, if there is anything else I can do, or if they want to talk to me about the compo for more information or something, please let me know! Thanks!

EDIT: I just tuned in and heard my Round 1 song, hahaha, nice. I'd like to know more about this Radio SEGA thing.

[Dj Mokram]

Gavvie actually played a few SRZC compo entries in recent SNS episodes. All you lizcakes and panzards should check it out.

ITT I'm a ghost and nobody ever reads my posts.

*jumps off a cliff*

[SuperiorX]

ITT I'm a ghost and nobody ever reads my posts.

*jumps off a cliff*

haha I saw your post I guess I didn't realize that these were the same thing/community.

[Ethan Rex]

Listened and voted. There were some awesome tunes this week.

Rexy

I'm going to be honest, when I first listened to this I wasn't really enjoying it, but I think that's because it was quite a different take than what I had on the two sources. There's some great source combination here, and the DusK solo was nice as well. I did feel however, that the instrumentation was rather odd, especially the flute-ish lead. I'm not sure how much if at all that hurt the piece, but that was one of the points I consistently notice. All in all it was a good track, and one I'm happy to go against.

TheRexAsaurous

Man, I really wish I'd had a little extra time to listen to this in my car or on something other than headphones/speakers, because then I probably would've noticed some issues here with parts being too loud. The other glaring issue here is the length, but after listening to it for days I had some serious writer's block. I threw in the piano and the ending FX to add some length, but I would've really liked to add another section. However, I do like a lot of the groovy sections (the piano part for one and the solo at the end for another), and if I do go down this round, I'm glad to have made this as the one to go out on.

Main Finger

Some good drums in here, and I like the way you incorporated both themes. However, the first bit with the lead from Chem Plant (like :35-:37) seemed to trail on too long. It sounds like the Hill Top intro, but it seems to break the rhythm for me. Good transitions between themes; sometimes I forgot whether i was listening to chem plant or hill top. NICE WARK.

Phonetic Hero

I think this might be my favorite my round. I'm liking the hard sounds that get in your face, and then die away to the piano. The Hill Top theme does sound a bit out of place sometimes. The vocals sound very familiar; are they sampled from

Good track, and congrats on your one year music anniversary.

Amphibious

Damn son, you got some pretty good guitar skillz. I enjoyed the how you used the two themes under the same background layers in the beginning. It seemed unusually fast for three minutes, but that must be because I enjoyed it so much.

Ben Briggs

lolwut. Seriously though, props to you on a genre combo I never would've thought of. The lead around 1:22 sounded a little high on the frequency side for me, but everything else was excellent. I especially enjoyed the lead hook in the beginning.

Superior X

Some nice grooves here, the trumpet solo was pretty sweet too. It seemed a little laid back and groovy, which seems to be your style. This is a well done mix, but it would be interesting to see you go in a completely different direction this time. No real complaints from me however, as this is a solid mix that I enjoyed.

[Rexy]

Well I do appreciate the feedback, but there's a reasoning for some of the instrument choices.

Since we're two arrangers with two similar lizard-sounding names, I thought it would be a wise idea to fit in some instruments that have some kind of ancient relevance to the matchup. Some of the selections were inspired by the Fossils portion of Saint-Seans's Carnival of the Animals (particularly the xylophone countermelody and additional strings and pitched percussion); other elements came from studying music's primitive origins and wanting to look for a good flute timbre to fit the set (and indeed I settled for a lovely one through Zebra); while some of the other musical inspirations happened after studying a lot of the Past themed tracks in Sonic CD (particularly Stardust Speedway, which appears to be the most similar to Casino Night in feel).

Getting DusK involved also has a bit of symbolism as well. If anyone played the original Rayman, the first boss he would defeat - Moskito, a giant purple bug-eyed insect - would be openly unhappy with the loss, leaving Rayman to sympathise with him. Indeed, Moskito remained as an ally throughout the series, even going as far as to assist in defeating the final boss in Rayman Origins. This also mirrors my sympathetic nature as a person as well - DusK gave it his best in round 1, and feeling rather impressed I felt keen to see if he could help out in round 2 (which indeed he responded really enthusiastically).

And of course, you mentioned sound effects in the thread? Well, not long after you did, I loaded up a sampler and put the pinball bumper SFX in as an instrument - taking a leaf out of GaMeBoX's book. If using the actual FM synth was fun enough last time, what can be done was to take it one step further.

So there you go - an explanation for my instrument selection. Like them or not, there is a solid reasoning for my choices this time

[SuperiorX]

Some nice grooves here, the trumpet solo was pretty sweet too. It seemed a little laid back and groovy, which seems to be your style. This is a well done mix, but it would be interesting to see you go in a completely different direction this time. No real complaints from me however, as this is a solid mix that I enjoyed.

Thanks! Yeah I guess I tend to make jazzier, more laid back songs, although this was the most laid-back "chill" piece that I've made before. And yeah C7 did a great job on the trumpet solo, I'd be interested to what everyone else thinks too!

And yeah don't you worry, I definitely have something different in mind for Round 3, in my face-off with either you or Rexy!

[Ethan Rex]

Well I do appreciate the feedback, but there's a reasoning for some of the instrument choices.

Since we're two arrangers with two similar lizard-sounding names, I thought it would be a wise idea to fit in some instruments that have some kind of ancient relevance to the matchup. Some of the selections were inspired by the Fossils portion of Saint-Seans's Carnival of the Animals (particularly the xylophone countermelody and additional strings and pitched percussion); other elements came from studying music's primitive origins and wanting to look for a good flute timbre to fit the set (and indeed I settled for a lovely one through Zebra); while some of the other musical inspirations happened after studying a lot of the Past themed tracks in Sonic CD (particularly Stardust Speedway, which appears to be the most similar to Casino Night in feel).

Getting DusK involved also has a bit of symbolism as well. If anyone played the original Rayman, the first boss he would defeat - Moskito, a giant purple bug-eyed insect - would be openly unhappy with the loss, leaving Rayman to sympathise with him. Indeed, Moskito remained as an ally throughout the series, even going as far as to assist in defeating the final boss in Rayman Origins. This also mirrors my sympathetic nature as a person as well - DusK gave it his best in round 1, and feeling rather impressed I felt keen to see if he could help out in round 2 (which indeed he responded really enthusiastically).

And of course, you mentioned sound effects in the thread? Well, not long after you did, I loaded up a sampler and put the pinball bumper SFX in as an instrument - taking a leaf out of GaMeBoX's book. If using the actual FM synth was fun enough last time, what can be done was to take it one step further.

So there you go - an explanation for my instrument selection. Like them or not, there is a solid reasoning for my choices this time

Very nice explanation. I love this kind of stuff with songs, and I'm glad you shared!

[Damashii!!]

Wowww... I was expecting Sir Jordanius' silky smooth voice to take this one... Anyway so happy the matches all were so close! Great effort by everyone and also thanks to everyone who voted for me!!

Can't wait to listen to those lizard remixes!!!

naw dawg, the internet connection over here is so wikki wikki whack and i doubt i'll be back in the next few days, so either way i wouldn't even be able to come up with a passable arrangement..... just like last time.

(translation: aw fuck you maaaaane, next time i'm bringing my whole damn crew to bust a musical cap all up in you mane, shiiiiit.these pancakes don't even know me, mane)

seriously, i tried downloading all of the rounds to show my cousin some of em, and the download time for each zip was about 2+ hours.

radio sega? aaaaaaaaaaaaaaawwwww yyyyyeeeeeeah

Strader vs. AMT, i don't think my body is ready. i'll try to listen and vote for the sonic round 2 once i get back.

[Brandon Strader]

Strader vs. AMT, i don't think my body is ready.

My goal in this round is to focus 100% on loudness, arrangement and enjoyability is secondary.