GrooveWatch – N00neImp0rtant – Christmas Update

Just in time for Christmas, N00neImp0rtant (reported on earlier today) has released a third remix especially for his subscribers. If you are familiar with his first remix “Sonic Blast” then his latest addition will not surprise you in the slightest. Although it doesn’t have an official name “My Christmas Present to my Subscribers” should really be changed to “Sonic Blast 2: The Sequel”.

In much the same style as the original, SB2 offers a mix of 2-3 sonic tracks at a time, mashed together to create what can only be described as a unique medley. The juxtaposition of each sonic track makes for an odd piece that, like its predecessor, flows coherently at times and flops at others, including an ear wrenching 10 seconds of Death Egg mixed with something else (any idea? 6:50). As a whole, I do think this track improved upon SB1, but drum/tempo issues presented previously continue to plague the interesting remix. If you know your sonic music, you’ll find yourself trying to recognise the origins of each track before being hurled into the next mash.

Let us know in the comments below what you think and take care these Christmas Holidays!

GrooveWatch – N00neImp0rtant

The remix thats tops my itunes play count (now at 35) has good reason to be standing amongst Live and Learn and the like. Its creator, N00neimp0rtant (NOI), is a remixer/youtube-pooper who made a breif appearence on the front-page of TSS with his now famous mash-up “Sonic Blast“. Featuring 48 different sonic tracks (Yes, I counted) spanning the history of sonic music pre-black knight, Sonic Blast is both a great and horrible example of how tracks both old and new can be intertwined. Let us review this track first, following on straight after with what I think is NOI’s greatest creation.

Sonic Blast suffers from the same problem that faces most mash-up creators, finding drum tracks from 2 seperate tunes that match. While a tempo to tempo match can easily be fixed with a little Audacity, to connect two sets of drums is much more difficult. First great example is Speed Highway mixed with the End Credits from Sonic 3D Blast (4:14). while the tunes tempo seems to match, the mismatch of the drums makes it alot harder to imagine the resulting mashbeing one coherent song, and instead both tracks stick out like sore thumbs on a builder with bad hand-eye co-ordination.

While it may seem like i’m trying to beat the track up, many songs meld increadibly well. Both Emerald Hill and Hill Top with Carnival Night Zone (at 4:22) sound superb, while others just plain hurt the ears, Sky Sanctuary and Spagonia Day (8:20). NOI has also been found guilty of trying to do too much. At some points combining three sets of tracks together creates a warzone, with all 3 competing for your attention.

Since Sonic Blast, only one other sonic remix has been released by NOI. Having evaded the ears of most sonic fans I present to you “Sonic CD Japan Extended Theme“. Its name is fairly self explanatory, a remix of the Japanese Theme song to Sonic CD, “Toot Toot Sonic Warrior”. The remix is extremelly simplistic, with minor changes that help freshen up an already funky tune.

The simplistic changes, like the inclusion of loops to the ends of each chorus, the extention of the outro with a pitch change as well as the inclusion of a “genesis style” completes the track that many had considered to be only a “half track”. To get extremelly picky, the genesis outro is almost undetectably out of timing, and probably should have been integrated a little earlier in the piece instead of smacking you in the face all of a sudden at the end. Regardless, its a “must-have” for your mp3 player.

If NOI is able to produce remixes of this quality, there is no telling what could come next. Stay Tuned!