Sonic & Knuckles "Million Dollar Death Trap"

[Seth Skoda]

Source Tune: Death Egg Zone Act 1

Also, main inspiration source:

 

Looking for critique before submitting.

Edited July 1 by Seth Skoda
forgot to mention looking for critique

[Seth Skoda]

UPDATE:

 

[Audiomancer]

What DAW are you using?:)

Edit: Also, what synths are you using?

Edited July 2 by Audiomancer

[Seth Skoda]

10 hours ago, Audiomancer said:

What DAW are you using?:)

Edit: Also, what synths are you using?

DAW is Mixcraft 10 Pro Studio.

Synth-wise, half of this is RYM2612 (a paid SEGA Genesis VST), the other half is prepackaged stuff like Messiah, ME-80 and MinivogueVA. Percussion samples from Trisamples Trapstep and Datadrive 80s Futuristic Retro.

[Seth Skoda]

UPDATE: I think I'm ready to submit this

[Audiomancer]

I listened to your latest version at work....I'll comment some when I get home and can listen and type/text more easily:) one thing I noticed and will ask really quickly I....is your bass drum tuned to the bass line? It sounds like the pitch of it changes with the pitch of the bass. That sounds nice. I'll be back later.

Edited July 8 by Audiomancer

[Seth Skoda]

On 7/8/2025 at 11:02 AM, Audiomancer said:

I listened to your latest version at work....I'll comment some when I get home and can listen and type/text more easily:) one thing I noticed and will ask really quickly I....is your bass drum tuned to the bass line? It sounds like the pitch of it changes with the pitch of the bass. That sounds nice. I'll be back later.

Thank you for taking a listen!

And to answer your question: kinda. The kick is layered with an 808, which is tuned according to the main bass note playing behind it. The kick itself remains the same throughout the piece. Low frequencies of the kick reduce the low frequencies of the 808. Low frequencies of both of those reduce the low frequencies of the synth bass. All via filter sidechains. Best I can do (I think) to get loudness without sacrificing too much audio dynamics.

New revision incoming btw

[Seth Skoda]

Newest revision. Added some transition sfx, added new leads and a couple of other things.