Scorcher - Suburbs (SEGA) (PRC434)
Outline
Source: Scorcher - Suburbs (SEGA Saturn)
"The last few rounds have been pretty organic in sound, so let's go 180 an really go all out in electronica. This is also pretty lengthy, structured almost like a full song running at 7 minutes.
The game we are talking about is Scorcher, a futuristic racing game involving motorcycles. It's not a commonly recognised game, only certain diehards might even know about it, and if you actually play the game, your getting not much of a immersive experience. It's a fun game, but that's about it. It's got a pretty negative rep, both for it's difficulty, and the shortage of race tracks. However you may notice it's developed by Zyrinx, who are known for their beautiful graphics, and difficulty curve. Zyrinx eventually became IO Interactive, after the parent company went bankrupt. The game company might be familiar to some as it houses their own inhouse composer Jesper Kyd. This game is one of his lesser known moments, as people usually think Hitman or Assassin's Creed when Jesper Kyd comes to mind, which is sad, because this soundtrack should not be ignored.
Scorcher also remains the most technical video game in terms of Graphical developments. Some say it's the most attractive game at the time, this company was really renowned for their super hi-tech advanced graphical capabilities. Honestly not much else in terms of the game, no significant history behind it. Instead we should move on to music, which is a must listen.
The soundtrack plays to the strength's of Jesper Kyd, who at the time was heavily digesting rave music, which you can clearly tell it's from that era. Now since this was released in 1996 a lot of the music does kind of feel representative of it's time, but there are tracks you don't often hear in a video game. The Downtown level really goes for a full industrial techno approach, but that's not the track i picked. Instead i went for a track called Suburbs (Which are the names of the stages). This one is a full on 90's hard trance number with lots of bass. It's like a bass overload lol. It has a lovely well developed but simplistic melody, some great developments throughout, and a breakdown where it goes into a full rich chord sequence and ambience. Now yes this is quite the repetitive tune, most of it is 1-4 bars of material looped for quite some time, but the beauty of electronic music, is that it gives you the canvas to create and explore. You can add to this, make it rich and exciting. The tune is amazing on it's own, it's so groovy, but with the hands of you guys, it will become something magical. Hope you do this one justice.
Note: There is also a PC port of this game, which not only transforms all the tracks into CD audio, it also includes 2 exclusive tracks, which are pretty cool too. However the Suburbs track is exactly the same on both versions, so there's not much to worry about. I thought that since it's CD audio the sounds would be different, however it's not. Just writing this to avoid confusion.
GAME: Scorcher (Sega Saturn)
Source: Suburbs
Also note: It's listed as Track 2 on the video, but that's an error on the uploaders behalf. The actual name is Suburbs.
And as expected from me, my own custom MIDI:
https://www.vgmusic.com/file/5a205b4c6e69423db812f381612e3bc6.html#disqus_thread
Resources
Rules
Deadline is Wednesday October 20th 2021, 10:59 AM ThaSauce Time (18:00 UTC, 20:00 GMT).
Check the following site for the rules:
https://sites.google.com/site/bambombim/prc
Check the Ocremix thread for more information (you can post questions there. It is also the place to post a song if you're not able to use this page):
https://ocremix.org/community/topic/50800-prc434-racing-to-the-future-scorcher/
After uploading, please check if your song plays and can be downloaded and played without problems. Only upload MP3 Files.
It is not necessary to use ThaSauce. You can upload the song anywhere you want, but I must have a download link. So if you use SoundCloud, don't forget to allow downloads, otherwise your song does not count as an entry or bonus mix. I will still use ThaSauce as a possible place to submit songs and upload all the songs to the ThaSauce page to have the songs at one central place.
If ThaSauce is down, please also submit the song somewhere else with a download link and post the link in the Ocremix Thread.
Entries (6)
Tried to fill this with a ton of futuristic sounding motorcycle synths throughout (revving, accelerating, etc.)! The original seemed to just sort of repeat the same things over and over again, so I took each section and tried to give it some harmonic variations while still tying everything together with what I felt were the main themes and motifs. Because the original track is called "Suburbs," I thought it would be fun to add tubular bells to represent a mega church totally displeased with these racing antics. Happy accident--the quiet breakdown part in my remix happens at the same time as the original! I did not plan this, but it just ended up working out that way! For that part, I decided to use a similar sound to that of the original.
This was a fun one and a great practice for EQing, still feeling rusty, but I really like how this one turned out!
Named purely because of a voice sample...
Anyway, I disagree about the original being a Trance piece. To me it has more in common with Prog House of the era, but ho hum.
So, what did I do? Well, that depends on how you look at it. Essentially, the entire intro is like 99% from the original. The difference here is that rather than let the individual parts be their own separate sections I opted to layer them into a more complete piece. Then I built an entire middle section based on the late breaking chord progression before going into an outro that really references the intro. I also tried my best to keep a big old kick and bottom end like the original, but I did try my best to get as much other stuff in there as well. Not an easy task. Needless to say I had to break out a few techniques that I try not to use too often because of they often have some nasty downsides. In this case things worked out all right. Rather liked this one, minus the production side. Been a while since my ears got tired on me lol.
Get it? Like Velocity/city? Puns? eeeeeeh?
I initially wanted to focus this piece around the chords introduced in the later part of the song, but challenged myself to try some new electronic elements to replicate a bit of the originals flowing nature. I made sure to tackle each different section of the original with some new synthesizers, but my favorite parts were playing with the pad chords and guitar. I didn't have as much time to work on this as I hoped, but was glad to participate!
Mutilated the style with my attempt to add my "symphonic metal" template to a few synth sounds. Kind of a throwaway with the mixing and balancing, but there's a few touches I like in there.
My attempt at techno. Sounds more like hardstyle to more I look at it. Couldn't get the kick right neither the atmosphere I wanted. I wouldn't vote on this I just want to submit what I came up with.
BONUS, DON'T VOTE. I MEAN IT!!! I WILL BE ANGRY IF YOU VOTE FOR IT.
Content Warning:
The following remix is a 14 minute, very repetitive, (At least to the specifications of what i might consider repetitive) very fast, very violent and quite synth heavy. Although this is not meant to be taken seriously, and i'm mostly goofing around, it can be quite challenging to listen to, because of the length and assault in sound. I was mostly just messing about with sounds, having fun, and wasn't intending this to be a serious listen. I know it sounds like it's a bad thing, and that i hate what i've done here, but that's not the case. I'm just explaining that this is long, and repetitive, and to those who aren't a fan, to take caution. Please listen away, if this does not bother you.
I won't bore you with the specifics really, because it's just taking up description space, but i essentially did this:
- The original track was 150bpm. I boosted it to 185bpm.
- The drums in the original were standard trance like beats (I believe it's trance, some peeps might disagree). I instead opted for distortion and room reverb on my drums for heavier dance beats.
- The original is 7 minutes. This one is 14 minutes.
- I added an build up and a outro. The original had an intro yes, but this one essentially is the build-up to the intro if you catch my drift lol.
- I added a few heavier synth sounds, in contrast to the original, even though most if not all sounds remained the same.
- Vocal samples are rife in this remix.
- More emphasis on risers and FX are placed here, in contrast to the original.
- And lastly, certain sections that are more background material, get emphasised in this remix.
That's it really, hope you like it (Or at least have fun. I was really just messing around at this point lol)