OCR03196 - *YES* Sonic the Hedgehog 2 & Sonic 3D Blast (SAT) 'Ruinous Ruins!'

[Chimpazilla]

Contact Info:
Remixer name - Phonetic Hero, Benjamin Briggs
Real name - Pete Lepley, Benjamin Briggs
Site: http://phonetichero.bandcamp.com/, benbriggs.net
User ID - 44763, 3842

Submission Info:
Name of game - Sonic 2, Sonic 3D (Saturn)
Name of arrangement - Ruinous Ruins!
Source names (and links) - Aquatic Ruin, Rusty Ruin
Composers: Masato Nakamura (Sonic 2), Richard Jacques (Sonic 3D (Saturn))

Additional: Whatever who cares!

<3 Pete

0:00 to 0:49 - Aquatic Ruin (pretty much all of it straight down)
0:49 to 1:17 - 0:05 in Rusty Ruin
1:17 to 1:45 - 0:44 in RR
1:45 to 2:04 - 0:05 in RR again
2:04 to 2:23 - Same thing, Ben's solo
2:23 to end - Aquatic Ruin

aquatic ruins:

rusty ruin act 1:

rusty ruin act 2:

[Chimpazilla]

I considered this for a DP but I can't quite make out the source usage past 0:49. The first part is easy, Aquatic Ruins is easy to make out. The rest... not so much. I asked Pete for a source breakdown which he provided (included in OP), but it didn't help me much. My vote is yes if there's enough source, it's a cool tune, fun soloing and well produced. Anyone familiar with these sources, help a sister out.

edit 1/31/15: ok guys, thanks for looking at the source use, it seems to squeak by. Easy vote then.

YES

Edited January 31, 2015 by Chimpazilla

[Nutritious]

Production is hot (no surprise there). Great balance and nice synth lead work throughout. Lots of good ideas on display and an always progressing flow keep it interesting throughout.

Man, loving the arrangement work on Aquatic Ruin for the first 50 seconds of the song. Having trouble making connections on the rest, so I'm gonna stopwatch this one based on what I can concretely hear:

:00-:46 - Aquatic ruin

:46-:57 - Original. The chords from the cited section of Rusty Ruin sound somewhat similar to OST; original bassline. Not enough to call a connection IMO.

:58-1:16 - Heavily modified melody from :23 of Rusty Ruin Act 2 (This was really hard to pin down). It basically uses the first 8 notes of the 15 note melody line, but in a significantly altered progression. Too much of a stretch to count IMO.

1:17-1:44 - RR Act 1 :43. Based on the piano part, but sped up. Repeats twice.

1:45-2:03 - Back to the same heavily modified melody from :58. Again, too liberal to count for me.

2:04-2:31 - Original soloing over the same chords from :58/1:45.

2:32-2:58 - Back to Aquatic Ruin melody line.

Total song is 3:04 or 184 seconds, needing 92 seconds to hit the proverbial 50% bar. Counting above, I get 102 seconds of source connection or 55.4%.

Despite having to rule out 3 of the 4 cited Rusty Ruin arrangement sections, this squeaks over the line by 10 seconds - and, honestly, I'm not as stringent as Larry on negating seconds between melody iterations and such, so his count would likely be lower. That said, I'd love for a second J opinion to make sure I'm not missing anything.

YES

Edited January 23, 2015 by Nutritious

[Liontamer]

I basically had the same timing as Justin's breakdown, but counted less of the ending flourishes for the last Aquatic section. Pretty much all the purportedly liberal use of Rusty Ruin Act 2 didn't count in my opinion either. Besides, Pete's explicitly referring to Act 1 in his notes, so I think that other Act 2 connection is a stretch.

:00-:48, 1:16.75-1:24, 1:26-1:42, 2:32.5-2:53.5

92.25 seconds or 50.13% overt source usage

With the source usage checking out as dominant, this was just a formality. Awesome sounds, including the Mega Man X-style orch stabs first used at 2:22. Great energy and dynamic changes, and smooth interplay between the two source themes. Really enjoyed this collab, great work guys!

YES

[Jivemaster]

Nice mix with a lot original soloing and riffage throughout. I'm completely leveraging off the source breakdowns of my fellow judges to give source usage a pass. As I often say in these situations - try and hit a home run with source usage to take the debate of it completely off the table.

My biggest gripe with your mix is the overall production gets a bit too hot causing it to get crunchy in some parts. Specifically, the orch hits seem to fold a bit under that limiter, and the crash cymbals often waver when they hit that dynamic ceiling. I'm not going to hold the mix back for it, but I think tracks such as this would benefit from more headroom in the mastering department. The strong arrangement makes this easier to overlook.

YES