Sonic Before & After The Sequel OST

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HEvtUbNho_4

Music for the third Zone of this awesome fangame. It's out and you can play it now*; we're making a 2012 special edition with an original score for SAGE 2012.

Since Rock is in the zone name, I had the amazing epiphany to add rock elements to traditional blues, extend the basic 12 bar format and call it Purples. I AM YENIUS!

The guitar solo way in the back halfway through was done by Ian Charlie Chong who was just chilling at my place a few days before he packed up for LA. Was just a jam that I managed to get on disk.

*http://www.sonicfangameshq.com/forum/showthread.php?t=7437

Friday Purples - For Rocky Ride Act 1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xmf5EsGfFWs

First stage of this awesome fangame. It's out and you can play it now*; we're making a 2012 special edition with an original score for SAGE 2012.

I went with a Sonic CD vibe for this one, with emphasis on clouds and rain.

http://www.sonicfangameshq.com/forum/showthread.php?t=7437

Rivulets - For Hilltop Heights Act 1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rDXldDOlllM

Music for the second Zone of this awesome fangame. It's out and you can play it now*; we're making a 2012 special edition with an original score for SAGE 2012.

This is the first Tails stage, and the "Green _______" trope zone. The music is homage to Richard Jacques and his amazing work with 3D Blast Saturn which I feel helped define the game more than the original Genesis soundtrack. I definitely had a lot of fun working on this one.

*http://www.sonicfangameshq.com/forum/showthread.php?t=7437

In Your Eyes - For Star Shores Act 1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=irslIm22Y2Q

This is part remix, part mashup. Old school DJMAX/bemani fans should recognize quite a bit in this as well. :V

Youtube link above has surprise @ 1m30s mark

Topical Tropical - For Star Shores Act 3

On the Hero's Trail - For Star Shores Act 2

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g7Z9whouusI

Act 2 of the first Zone of this awesome fangame. It's out and you can play it now*; we're making a 2012 special edition with an original score for SAGE 2012.

In many ways Rivulets (Hilltop Heights Act 1 music) is iconic of Before the Sequel as a whole - It's the first piece of music (other than the title screen) that people will hear, and it sets the mood of the game as 'something wildly different from the typical Sonic experience' (as opposed to starting with a Green ____ trope for example).

For Act 2, I decided to retain a lot of familiarity with Act 1's music. I think this should help that feeling of 'a new adventure' to fully sink in, while at the same time building up the intensity level.

p.s. This track has arguably the most recognizable Sonic music cameo so far out of all the stuff I've done for BTS. :V

* http://www.sonicfangameshq.com/forum/showthread.php?t=7437

Downpour - For Hilltop Heights Act 2

1) Okay, so I should stick at least reasonably close to the Sonic CD title screen formula
2) Going reasonably well
3) Added some horns
4) Suddenly Grandia
5) fffffffffffffffffffffffffff :(

Before the Sequel - Title Screen

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=92s47PQNw8Y

Act 3 of the first Zone of this awesome fangame. It's out and you can play it now*; we're making a 2012 special edition with an original score for SAGE 2012.

If Rivulets (Act 1 music) was characteristic of Before the Sequel as a whole, and Downpour (Act 2 music) built on it, this track would be a step towards building expectations for the OST in general. I wanted to, early on, expose players to the full range of genres that could be represented in the soundtrack and dissuade any preconceptions on what a 'retro'-style game had to sound like. Sonic CD was 1992 and its two OSTs fit so well with the game despite it being 224p 16-bit fare.

This was an interesting track to work with. I discovered halfway through working with Act 2's music that the rap I was working with actually mentioned "Rainbows" and "Prisms"- a fact that I didn't know when I was just using its chorus "Feel the Beat" section for Act 1. It worked alongside the orchestral-ish rendition perfectly for Act 3's lighter mood. Kinda funny how things turn out.. ;p Despite the rain being gone, I still get a very chilly vibe from the overall zone coloration (nevermind that it's really Hilltop Zone tiles in the foreground). Hopefully the music conveys that well.

I also threw in Green Hill again like I did with Act 2, except as a feature rather than a hidden easter egg. Musical quotes from Sonic music is going to be another staple for this OST, as it really is my homage to the franchise in general.

* http://www.sonicfangameshq.com/forum/showthread.php?t=7437

Prismatic - For Hilltop Heights Act 3

Rolling Out - For Hilltop Heights Boss Act

Writing the music for Tails' first boss was quite thought provocative. There were quite a few things to consider.

The first is the fact that unlike Sonic, Tails is completely new at this. It's the first real hint of serious adversity in his new adventure. 

The second is that, like the next Tails boss, (which is a pure Rotatatron homage; we're keeping the track from Colors for that boss, even - the entire zone is a series of homages) this boss involves some rotating mechanics. Lake and I decided really early on that dance music would work really well as a 'leitmotif' for the unique badnik that Tails repeatedly faces off for his bosses, the way Sonic's battles with Eggman all borrow from speed-heavy genres. I needed to build up an expectation for Tails' boss music in general.

With that in mind, this short-ish piece is actually two themes. The first is House-ish, rotary, simplistic, all elements which represent the boss. The second half is a retro, Saturn-ish trailblazing theme, with a somewhat awkward trumpet taking the lead. New at this, it's still unsteady and unsure, but it's going to try its best regardless. This section represents Tails, as he sets off on his new adventure pursuing Sonic.

p.s. M.O.A.B. = My Own Adventure Begins

M.O.A.B. - For Star Shores Boss Act

Weow, this one should sound very familiar very fast!

Lost Levels are a tribute to all the canned or otherwise 'lost' levels from the original Mega Drive games. The Mystic Cave 2 Player music is notable in that it's related to a lot of these missing links within Sonic 2. Before the Sequel originally featured the original MC2P music along with an ice remix by Ristar@Andy Tunstall, which flipped on the fly depending on where you were in the level. This new version's Fire side was recorded by him (hence credit where credit is due plz), and the Ice side was sequenced by me based on his ideas. Confusing, eh?

Anyway Ristar is a cool guy and doesn't afraid of anything. He's also done the music for Fortress Flow zone. Check out his Soundcloud page for this - http://soundcloud.com/tunners

Fire and Ice - For Lost Levels Act 3

1 - 20 Evening Dreamscape Pt2 - For Sunset Star Act 3

1 - 19 Interlude - For Sunset Star Act 2

1 - 18 Evening Dreamscape Pt1 - For Sunset Star Act 1

This may be the biggest departure from the original music in the entire revamped soundtrack. There are two things going on here: 

The first is that I wanted to score the 'Lost' part of 'Lost Levels'. It needed something mysterious and perhaps somewhat foreboding. Lost Levels are a tribute to all the stuff that never made it into official releases yet had assets leftover in one game or another. If the fan-canon here is anything to go by (including the zone name) it's something not many people have visited, abundance of badniks aside.

The second is that like I said in the Hilltop Heights music description, with this soundtrack I really wanted to obliterate the usual preconceptions of what a 'retro' and 'sonic' game should sound like musically. It's obviously not 16-bit/YM2612 and perhaps a little more 'modern' than the typical 'Redbook Audio' game of the early 90's.

While technology may have been half of the mold I wanted to break out of, the other half would be... 2D Sonic in general. Don't get me wrong, All of S1/S2/S3&K had awesome soundtracks for slightly different reasons, but there's also just so much more that can be done. Take Sonic Adventure's Mystic Ruins for example. Without the visual association the first thing that comes to mind might not be 'Sonic', at all!

There's also that little tidbit in the form of S2's Hidden Palace unused track. It... doesn't sound anything like a sidescroller Sonic composition, especially when you compare it to the extremely trippy/catchy rhythms and hooks of S3&K. In fact, if you chucked it into RPGMaker or some such it really wouldn't be all that of a stretch to expect a Final Fantasy style random encounter and then battle music out of the blue. That was something I really, -really- wanted to explore, and I think overall it works!

Or maybe that Hidden Palace track went unused for a reason. Or maybe I'm just scratching a JRPG itch. You decide. ;p

Invisible Realm - For Lost Levels Act 1

It's no big secret that Be Cool, Be Wild, Be Groovy from Sonic Adventure is a thinly veiled homage to the flashy guitarists of this generation, specifically mimicking Satriani's Satch Boogie. For this boss I decided to emulate that, by mimicking Steve Vai's Juice. By mimicking a song I in fact mimic another song. How about that?

Due to the short-ish length of the boss there's not much form to this one, just an all-out funfest right from the start. Enjoy.

Guitar solo ft. Ethan Lee.

Meet the Fat Man - For Rocky Ride Boss Act

If butt rock is an acceptable genre, butt funk has to be too, right?

Right?

p.s. I'm a cunning linguist.

p.p.s Butt funk sure is a rocky ride.

p.p.p.s Ha. Ha. Ha.

Sonic Before & After The Sequel OST

Kay