Oopsies! This was supposed to be here quite a long while ago…
EDIT: Video temporarily retracted because it didn’t render properly. This why you should always double check…
EDIT 2: AND we’re back.
Since it’s been so long since the last music post, I’ll start with a reminder of the context that these weren’t meant to be video projects. I wanted these medleys for my own personal listening, since listening to all of the Movements separately would be too long/repetitive. And once I had them, I figured I might as well share them with the world (stick around till the end of the post if you like that idea too).
The simple reason why this video ended up coming late is because this time around, I didn’t love the mix that I made, and I didn’t quite feel it was ready to share. In particular, I couldn’t find a great transition from 4th & 5th to 6th & 7th, nor could I find a great way to include the vastly different intros of 6th and 7th. I took a short break from the project, came back to make a second attempt, and decided I liked the first attempt better anyways. So I greedily kept the music I liked better and forgot to look back at the video aspect of this project.
In terms of the differences between each Movement, this island looked a lot more like Ares than Kronos. Just like for 6th & 7th of Ares, for the 2nd & 3rd section I had to start off with 3rd rather than 2nd, because the 2nd intro is effectively repeated later in both tracks. In general, I think all of the Movements have a lot more distinct intros on this island than the others, making this medley idea a bit more awkward than usual, feeling like it’s stopping and starting over and over. The intros being so clear is interesting, because I feel like once you get past the intros, they all just kind of blend together.
I’m sure there’s lots of audio editing stories I’m forgetting because it’s been so long, but that’s what I can remember.
As for the video, I’m proud to say this was my best composition yet. As per usual, I was intending to replicate the style of this particular video:
And this time around (like with Cyber Space 1-7), I didn’t have to put any guesswork into what background I would use for this video. The official video above picked out a perfect one for me! It can be seen right from the beginning. I wouldn’t say I replicated it precisely. I couldn’t get quite as strong of a lens flare effect on the Cyber Space portal as I wanted, the original seems to have 4 layers of particle effects that I dumbed down to 2, and most noticeably, I gave up on the camera shake this time because I couldn’t get it to play nicely with the other effects. On the flip side, I feel like I made a much better smokestack coming out of the volcano than the pathetic little piffle of steam in the original. To make that happen, I had to cut away the static plume seen in the official version of this background, which was a lot harder than it sounds because the colors blended in with the rest of the sky. I also had to separate the various background layers and blur them at different levels. Of course, I needed them separated anyways so they could pulse in time with the music at different intensities, so that was barely any extra work. I would have erased those extra static red particles as well, but the original video kept them as they were, so I did the same.
So this leaves us with one last question. Will there be an Ouranos Island Medley? Well…as I said before, I made these other medleys for my own personal listening, because I didn’t want to cram up my playlist with 30+ minutes of samey content per island when these 14 minute medleys could do a better job. I don’t have that problem with Ouranos. Of course it would have been pointless with only 2 tracks before the Final Horizon update. But even now, each of the character themes stand well both on their own and back-to-back. The only outlier is the two versions of the main Ouranos Island theme, but those two are so close to identical that I’d rather pick one and stick to it than mash them together for no reason. Still…it would be fun, just to round out the set. So I’ll think about it. No guarantees right now. (Does anyone else feel like the choir voices in Chaos Island sound like they’re saying something like “guaranteed, not to…” something or other? No? Just me?)
As usual, if you love the music of Chaos Island as much as I do, you should buy the official album from iTunes or your music platform of choice.
And now that you have done that (on your honor), if you would like to listen to this arrangement on your own time, as I did, then this link may be helpful for you.
-And until next time, remember to live and learn every day!
The Chaos Project: Sonic the Hedgehog 