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OCRA-0045 - Sonic CD: Temporal Duality

SuperiorX

By SuperiorX,
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SuperiorX Newbie

SuperiorX

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The Sonic the Hedgehog series has always been very special to me. Growing up, my family had an NES, but when it came time for the next generation, we decided to get a Sega Genesis. The bundled game was, of course, the original Sonic the Hedgehog. From that moment on, I was hooked. I have many fond memories playing those games, especially Sonic the Hedgehog 2 and 3, with my family, and watching the cheesy 90's Saturday morning Sonic cartoons. I remember going through the sound test menus just scrolling through all the original tunes, because they were just so much fun and so addicting to listen to. One birthday, I received a little Yamaha keyboard and was so excited to try to learn and play the Sonic soundtracks myself.

I first discovered OverClocked ReMix in the early 2000's, when I was in high school, and absolutely loved checking out the various Sonic remixes that existed at the time. It was a huge nostalgia rush. Fast-forward nearly a decade, and I had since joined the OCR forums and checked out the site much more frequently. I think I first felt comfortable undertaking this project shortly after I had hosted the Sonic Zone Remix Competition in 2012 and Rexy (Beverley Wooff) had created a thread to generate interest for a Sonic CD project. I have to admit, I never had the opportunity to play Sonic CD until it was re-released on PS3/Xbox/Steam in 2011, but I was familiar with the soundtrack and really loved both the JP/EU and US versions. After some discussions back and forth in the forums, I decided to head up the project.

Given how successful the previous OCR Sonic albums were and just how popular Sonic is in general, I knew I had my work cut out for me. This was the last of the "classic" Sonic games to receive the remix album treatment and I knew we had to deliver big-time. I wanted to arrange both Sonic CD soundtracks and re-capture the general feel of the originals, while still allowing artists the flexibility to bring their own personal touch to the album. Throughout the process, interest continued to grow around the project and I was fortunate to be able to include so many talented musicians from all around the Sonic fan community. Everyone really brought their A-game to this project and I think the end result is truly a top-quality album that spans numerous musical genres that any Sonic fan will enjoy!

There are numerous people I'd like to thank. Without their help, this project wouldn't have been possible. Special thanks to Pete "Phonetic Hero" Lepley, my assistant director, who listened to countless WIPs and provided critical feedback on numerous tracks along the way. His help and dedication really helped ensure a certain level of quality on the album. Special thanks to Jordan "Sir Jordanius" Etienne, who became more and more involved in the project as time went on. First, I persuaded him to help out on a few arrangements, which turned into a few more arrangements, which resulted in him mastering/producing a handful of tracks for the project. He also provided key insights and feedback that helped shape so many of the tracks on the project. Special thanks to Niyazi "DiGi Valentine" Sonmez, who was definitely one of the project's biggest supporters from the onset. His passion around Sonic and Sega was so contagious, and his connections within the Sonic community were invaluable. He helped with numerous things behind-the-scenes and recruited our visual artist, TheSmai, who provided the absolutely beautiful art you see accompanying the album. Special thanks to Beverley "Rexy" Wooff for proposing the original project idea and supporting the album throughout. My sincere thanks to the original composers Masafumi Ogata, Naofumi Hataya, Spencer Nilsen, David Young, and Mark "Sterling" Crew, whose amazing original work inspired us all to create this tribute album. And lastly, my very special thanks to each and every artist who contributed to the project. It was my honor to work alongside each of you and get to know many of you very well. I'm truly proud of what each of you has created for this amazing album!

Enjoy!

- Matt Keller

Working with Matt and all the other staff and artists on the project was an absolute blast. There was lots of immense talent and a general willingness to work together to create an excellent product. It doesn't hurt that we were working with ridiculously great source material either, and even though I've never played Sonic CD personally, the tunes are really outstanding. The whole thing came together in under a year (!!), and even though it's one of the quickest album projects I've ever seen come out of OCR, the quality of the mixes doesn't skimp one bit.

This was my first project being considered staff, and I was much more present for giving feedback in the beginning of the project than I was toward the end. But seeing how receptive everyone was to the critiques and hearing new WIP after new WIP, improvement after improvement, was really an enormous pleasure and I'm very proud to have been involved in the process. Everyone giving it their all and seeing the growth as musicians was gratifying as hell, and coupled with the excellent coordination on the part of our fearless leader, SuperiorX, this was an absolutely fantastic experience. I would certainly not think twice about working with Matt on another project, and in fact, I'm very much looking forward to the day when the opportunity presents itself!

- Pete Lepley

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Edited by Liontamer
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SuperiorX Newbie

SuperiorX

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Wow, you guys finished this and got it out in just over a year. Is that a record for an OCR album?

I think some of the smaller albums/EPs might have been finished in the same amount of time, or sooner, but I think this is definitely a record for an album of this scope/size!

I loved the pre-release listening party, and I know I'm gonna love listening to all of these songs again. I'll even try doing a review of the album.

Yes, please do leave a review if you can! I know we'll all be very interested to hear what people have to say! Thanks for listening! :)

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Subz1987 Newbie

Subz1987

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Great work! But man, i'm so disappointed. The few US tracks i really wanted to hear aren't on the album :(

Stardust Speedway Good/Bad Future and Tidal Tempest Good Future (let me know if they are on it and i've missed them)

Stardust Good future was crying for a Snappleman or Sixto version :P

Yeah, US Stardust Bad Future is my favorite US track and I miss it on the album. But they made up for that with Titillating Tempest and Road Trip (US Stardust) being fucking incredible

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Aeroblaze Newbie

Aeroblaze

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I love the work put into this. My favorites are Two Futures, Night of the Ninth and The Boom (Undeleted) I'd been following this project in the shadows for some time since it's beginnings last October, after finding a previous project somehow that was a bracket style mash-up of Sonic zone remixes. I mean, I've had the link to the forum page in my bookmarks bar ever since. Having played Sonic CD when I was younger, (On PC back then) I once found that even the US PC CD version had tracks from the JP soundtrack by going into the files/opening it in windows media player one day. I thought I stumbled on a whole other game. This was my first introduction to game soundtracks, and 'electronic' music in general. Its grown on me ever since then, and I'd been obsessed with the JP tracks without even knowing it was the JP soundtrack, once I found out the truth I grew an even better appreciation for the music. After finally hearing it's release, hearing the variety of genres within this project, it is amazing, and it gives me the good ol' case of nostalgia.

I made an account on OCR just to comment here and express my appreciation for this project, so in short:

Shoutout to everyone who worked on this project. My ears and I thank you.

Edited by Aeroblaze
Sonic
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Rexy Contributor

Rexy

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Y'know, Rexy is hosting another listening party on Friday with Sega Mixer Drive, so technically it is possible to do that more often. ;) I'll probably be there, and spare the album until then!

--Eino

Eino got it right! The album will be played through this Friday, so if you somehow missed it on NGI, or need some time to digest it, or just want to enjoy the moment, come on in!

So glad the album came through - ridiculous amounts of consistency all around too. This is so easily one for the record books :)

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DiGi Valentine Newbie

DiGi Valentine

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I made an account on OCR just to comment here and express my appreciation for this project, so in short:

Shoutout to everyone who worked on this project. My ears and I thank you.

And a shout out back at ya for signing up here just to say thanks to us! We appreciate it! XD

This was one hell of a project. I feel like how i did when Lucid Dreaming was going through its journey and ended up reaching its release date with no hurdles or major problems at all. Temporal Duality was run just as tightly and neatly, we made release on time ...something which i still can't believe we actually achieved, considering the scope of the project and the amount of people involved.

But just like how the Sonic Zone Competition was run smoothly by Matt did he return and run as smooth a ship for Temporal. Honestly, i really got to hand it to him for keeping this ship running full speed for a year. Never seen a project on this scale make release on time within such a short development window. Great job at keeping us going, dude.

And on all the art stuff, from head hunting the ever expanding sea's of DeviantArt (lol) to finding TheSmai on a random skip through Tumblr, it was an absolute pleasure to discuss the art direction and see the pieces go through their development stages. I'm the kinda guy who just loves nice art attached to great music and i'm so happy to not only have found TheSmai when we did but to have had a helping hand in seeing that part of the project through to completion. Such awesome memories have been made for me, here.

It's been one fantastic journey.

See you, next game ~

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Bored_Man Newbie

Bored_Man

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I'm not sure if I'd be able to see in the project history thread, but I am kind of curious now. Between all the artists who signed up, was there a bias towards one soundtrack or the other? Like, more applying towards Japanese instead of US, or that kind of thing? Or was it more 50/50, so to say?

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Kaiser Newbie

Kaiser

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Just fantastic work. Considering the quality of the original work, I had high expectations.

Been a follower of the OC Remix community for many years. Sonic tunes are what originally drew me here as a child of the Genesis and a stalwart SEGA fanboy. I can still remember being pumped for Hedgehog Heaven and with the release of this project we've come full circle. All the classic Sonic games have been given the full OCR treatment. It's interesting that this release reflects how far video game arranging/remixing has come as well as how music has changed overall in the years I've been listening to OCR music. This release also gains my vote as the strongest tribute album yet.

This collection is nostalgic, fresh, polished and above all a complete audio treat. It truly makes me appreciate the past, present and future ;)

Edited by Kaiser
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Jamphibious Newbie

Jamphibious

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I'm not sure if I'd be able to see in the project history thread, but I am kind of curious now. Between all the artists who signed up, was there a bias towards one soundtrack or the other? Like, more applying towards Japanese instead of US, or that kind of thing? Or was it more 50/50, so to say?

There was a surisingly balanced interest. I know I personally had a bias for the US soundtrack, since it was the one I grew up on. But the love was spread quite equally from what I could tell!

This was a fantastic project to be part of. Matt did an amazing job, as did every single artist involved. I'm so happy to have been involved. :)

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DiGi Valentine Newbie

DiGi Valentine

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Wasn't expecting my posts to be a DiGi Sandwich™, but does anyone know where that footage in the first 30 seconds of the album trailer came from? I swear it looks like something out of a Saturn game or something :o

Oh, you mean

?

It was the official Sonic CD trailer that aired in Japan during the 90's.

Also, sandwiches! :D ~♥

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Allx360 Newbie

Allx360

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I love the soundtrack! The album has so many great tracks like Time keeper and the future is bright but it falls short with to many vocal tracks :tomatoface: One of my favorites is quadrant of rock but halfway through the song they throw an unneeded F Bomb 8O

Over all this album is good there could be a few more remixes for some levels (Stares at Quartz quadrant JP) But its still a good album!

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Bahamut Newbie

Bahamut

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Wow, there's a lot of vocal tracks - it seems to dominate the album.

Not that that's a bad thing of course.

I'll try to give some song by song breakdowns at some point. I do have one critique though - some of the tracks had too much bass. I think it should've been toned a little down.

I enjoyed the album on first listen, will want to listen to more. Great job everyone!

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joltmans Newbie

joltmans

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Yeah, US Stardust Bad Future is my favorite US track and I miss it on the album. But they made up for that with Titillating Tempest and Road Trip (US Stardust) being fucking incredible

I was disappointed not to hear US Bad Future Stardust Speedway as well. I would often listen to just that track on my CD player on repeat.

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