Sonic Music Research/Analysis

Started by vampirefrog, September 02, 2011, 11:35:03 PM

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vampirefrog

September 02, 2011, 11:35:03 PM
Hey guys. Feel free to join in on this with data/research. I'm basically trying to gather as much info on the music on the Genesis games Sonic the Hedgehog, Sonic the Hedgehog 2, Sonic the Hedgehog 3 and Sonic & Knuckles.

This includes: Musician listings, biographies, track listings, music transcriptions, covers, vgm downloads etc.

I'm limiting the scope to these four Genesis/Mega Drive games, cause something tells me a whole lot of information can be extracted.

vampirefrog

#1
September 03, 2011, 12:05:09 AM
I'll begin with vgm downloads, since this looks easy:

Here's some documentation on the vgm file format. Remember that vgz files are simply gzipped vgm files. Some music players support vgz files directly, while for others you have to un-gzip them.

Here's some software you need to play/convert vgm/vgz files. For winamp, just use in_vgm.dll. Linux gnome users can rejoice, as there is built-in support for vgm in gstreamer, that means lots of gnome audio apps can play vgm files, including totem and rhythmbox. To brag, there is also a bugfix I did to the gstreamer plugin, so it would not loop vgm songs indefinately. I think you can use Audio Overload to play on Mac OS X.

There is a website called project2612.org where you can download loads of vgm files (compressed to vgz files, inside zip files, one zip file for each game). This is where we'll be taking our Sonic the Hedgehog music for now. There is also this, but project2612 is good for now.

Downloads:
Seems there was a beta version of Sonic 2, and we don't have separate downloads for Sonic 3 and Sonic & Knuckles.

vampirefrog

#3
September 03, 2011, 12:31:31 AM
Composer listings (taken from Wikipedia)

Sonic the Hedgehog

       
  • Masato Nakamura
  • I need to mention that the 8-bit (Master System) version of Sonic was a different story, and we're not analyzing that here.

Sonic the Hedgehog 2

Sonic the Hedgehog 3

       
  • Supervising Composer:

            
    • C. Cirocco Jones
  • Composers:

            
    • Brad Buxer
    • Bobby Brooks
    • Geoff Grace
    • Doug Grigsby III
    • Darryl Ross
  • Additional Music:

Sonic & Knuckles

  • Howard Drossin

These are the Wikipedia listed composers. To get the real info, we'd need screenshots from the games themselves. The project2612 page lists different names:

Sonic the Hedgehog
  • Masato Nakamura (中æ'正人)

Sonic the Hedgehog 2
  • Masato Nakamura (中æ'正人)
  • Izuho Takeuchi (竹å†...出ç©,)

Sonic the Hedgehog 3 & Knuckles

  • Jun Senoue (瀬上ç´")
  • Tetsuyuki Maeda (前ç"°é¾ä¹‹)
  • Masaru Setsumaru (瀬津丸勝)
  • Tomonori Sawada (澤ç"°æœ‹ä¼¯)
  • Masayuki Nagao (ながお まさã,†ã)
  • Sachio Ogawa (小河幸ç"·)
  • Howard Drossin

vampirefrog

#4
September 03, 2011, 12:57:48 PM
Found Sonic the Hedgehog ending video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xS6gltoX2Hk

It says Sound produce: Masato Nakamura and Sound Program: Jimita, Macky. These last two sound like nicknames. I've been unable to find info on them. It seems that they were the sound programmers. Perhaps Nakamura was the composer, and he didn't have to fiddle with sound chips, cause Jimita and Macky did all the implementation of Nakamura's composition. This is a wild guess.

Masato Nakamura - Well, there's this incomplete Wikipedia page, but I can't find more info. All I can see is that he played an important role in Sonic the Hedgehog 1 & 2 composition. And this is noticeable, since the difference between the Sonic 1 & 2 music and sonic 3 & K music is pretty obvious (I personally prefer Sonic 3 & K music)

sparky4

#5
September 04, 2011, 07:38:16 AM
COOL wwww

vampirefrog

#6
September 04, 2011, 12:40:12 PM
sparky4, can you help find information on these authors? what I want to know is how each guy contributed. In Sonic 3 & K there are several song types, and tracking down the musicians' other works revealed that each had a style. For example, some of the bonus stage music was done by one guy who composed music in that style.
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