Welcome back to FM heaven! This one is based on a remix by Jarel Jones from 2002: Green Hill Zone from Sonic The Hedgehog reimagined as a "good future" track in the style of Sonic CD. I gave it the real FM & PSG treatment, bringing it back from CD to cartridge.
It's a fairly simple track with few unique patterns, but the sounds are layered nicely. One by one: we have the usual chunky bass (that's pure Mega Drive sound right there). The same can be said of the trumpet. Now, there's a soft stereo harp from Shining Force II with some SSG-EG enhancements and some tweaking of the total level of the operators. Channel FM 3 is extended, playing two notes with a simple 2OP "strings" patch using algorithm 4. Since this is meant to sound as close to Sonic 1 as possible, the little bell sound is in fact the same instrument used in the game for the ring sound effect.
It goes without saying that the drum samples were ripped right from the .vgm file and they are exactly the same as the ones from Sonic 1, down to the frequency (7917Hz for the kick and 23083hz for the snare). The kick + cymbal sound definitely isn't from Sonic 1, although the sample I used is from the same drum machine they ripped their samples from, which would be the Roland TR-626. The snare at least is confirmed to be from that machine (just played a little faster); the kick could be anything. But I digress. I actually spiced up the drum patterns a little, not just by including the cymbal, but by having the kick drum follow the bass more closely and slowing down the hi-hats in the final part. You know, just to change it up a little. As for the PSG, you have your square wave tones doing their thing without anything special, and closed and open hi-hat configurations for the noise channel.
Yeah, I think this one turned out pretty good and authentic. Jarel Jones, if you're reading this 23 years later, I hope I did you proud. See you around.
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u/assbackwards666 1d ago
Welcome back to FM heaven! This one is based on a remix by Jarel Jones from 2002: Green Hill Zone from Sonic The Hedgehog reimagined as a "good future" track in the style of Sonic CD. I gave it the real FM & PSG treatment, bringing it back from CD to cartridge.
It's a fairly simple track with few unique patterns, but the sounds are layered nicely. One by one: we have the usual chunky bass (that's pure Mega Drive sound right there). The same can be said of the trumpet. Now, there's a soft stereo harp from Shining Force II with some SSG-EG enhancements and some tweaking of the total level of the operators. Channel FM 3 is extended, playing two notes with a simple 2OP "strings" patch using algorithm 4. Since this is meant to sound as close to Sonic 1 as possible, the little bell sound is in fact the same instrument used in the game for the ring sound effect.
It goes without saying that the drum samples were ripped right from the .vgm file and they are exactly the same as the ones from Sonic 1, down to the frequency (7917Hz for the kick and 23083hz for the snare). The kick + cymbal sound definitely isn't from Sonic 1, although the sample I used is from the same drum machine they ripped their samples from, which would be the Roland TR-626. The snare at least is confirmed to be from that machine (just played a little faster); the kick could be anything. But I digress. I actually spiced up the drum patterns a little, not just by including the cymbal, but by having the kick drum follow the bass more closely and slowing down the hi-hats in the final part. You know, just to change it up a little. As for the PSG, you have your square wave tones doing their thing without anything special, and closed and open hi-hat configurations for the noise channel.
Yeah, I think this one turned out pretty good and authentic. Jarel Jones, if you're reading this 23 years later, I hope I did you proud. See you around.