OCR04626 - *YES* Sonic & Knuckles "Ghost Touch"

[Liontamer]

• Your ReMixer name:  CJthemusicdude
• Your real name: CJ Cunningham
• Your email address: 
• Your website:  https://www.youtube.com/@CJTheMusicDude
• Your userid:  1149

• Name of game(s) arranged: Sonic & Knuckles
• Name of arrangement: Ghost Touch
• Name of individual song(s) Sandopolis Zone Act 1
• Link to the original soundtrack (if it is not one of the sound archives already available on the site): https://youtu.be/sT6POlmybPw
• Your own comments about the mix:  I really like that crunchy genesis FM bass.  I also like panning.

[Liontamer]

I had to turn this up a little louder than normal to hear the detail work here.

When things kicked in at :13, the pacing felt stilted, but we'll see how this goes. Nice dropoff at :42, with a rebuild starting at :56. Things were still feeling relatively empty, and I feel like the bassline from :56-1:24, which had a great tone, was creating muddyness. I can appreciate the way it creates textural contrast with what comes before and after it though. Once that part dropped out at 1:24, the texture got much clearer. I'm liking the ornamentation throughout. Pratically a cut-and-paste of :28 at 2:06, just for 15 seconds before hitting the winddown finish mirroring the intro.

It's going to sound like I'm saying this needs to be sped up to be at the original tune's tempo, but this feels too slow. Maybe increasing the tempo some could mitigate the stilted feel of the sequencing here. There's a lot of good details here, so I'm OK with this as is, but it does feel like the potential's not fully realized.

YES (borderline)

[prophetik music]

short intro with some sfx before the main gig starts at 0:14. larry's comment that it's a bit slow i think is going in the right direction - initially this certainly doesn't have as much vibrancy as the original, and feels a bit low-energy as a result. the early break may be part of that, but also there's a heavy emphasis on the downbeat through like 1:30 and it just feels very heavy on its feet - not particularly sonicy!

there's a nice variety of synths being used (and sfx...never would have mashed up SC2 and S&K!), and the fm bass is indeed fun. the track essentially ends at 2:21, and there's some unrelated beat for a bit until it's actually over.

this isn't anything super groundbreaking, but it's a quick and easy take on a good original track. i liked the gliding synths a lot.

 

 

YES

[MindWanderer]

Nice bass to open up with. Fun choice to do a genre transformation of a track that has such an iconic ethnic flair to it, which you mostly managed to strip out.

I thought the pacing was perfect, not too slow at all.

However, I think the judges above glossed over the amount of repetition. 0:07-0:42 is repeated nearly verbatim in 1:31-2:20 (with two loops of 0:07-0:27). 49 seconds of repetition out of a 2:38 track is 31%, nearly a third of the whole arrangement. Cut out the copy-pasta and there isn't even 2 minutes left.

I like what's here a lot, so I'm actually more borderline on this than I normally would be for a submission with so much repetition, which would normally be disqualifying. So even though it's close, for the sake of consistent voting standards (at least for myself), I feel like I need to come down on the side of

NO

[DarkSim]

That melody from 0:07-0:12 has an Arabian feel, a little nod to Oil Ocean I guess, from the source. It's a tidy package with very cohesive sound design which I like, even if it might sound a little dated. The SFX were unexpected, but they work for the style (putting a Boo cackle from Mario in a Sonic mix - how dare you!). Mixing feels good, although again there's a retro feel to it that comes from the synths and it lacks some of the complexity and richness of modern EDM.

On the issue of repetition, I think that while the percentage may be approaching a third of the track, it doesn't feel overly repetitive, and given that it says what it needs to say and doesn't beat about the bush for too long, I'm happy.

YES

[Emunator]

Banger alert! This track comes in hot and stays there. The synth design is really expressive, even if it doesn't venture too far outside the realm of Genesis FM sounds. I don't really mind repetition in an arrangement as much as other judges, and the ideas that are presented are executed well. Mixing and mastering is solid, let's ship it.

YES