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  #1  
Old Nov 5, 2014, 08:56 PM
Tailikku Tailikku is offline
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Super Metroid Quotes?

I seriously don't hear any.
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  #2  
Old Nov 5, 2014, 09:16 PM
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The arranger has stated that he incorporated Super Metroid into "Heart of the Cave," this isn't something we're making up. I don't know if the source is used anywhere else in the song, but the six note pattern in the intro is from the accompaniment of "Brinstar - Red Soil Wetland Area."
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Old Nov 6, 2014, 02:26 AM
SimonJXZ SimonJXZ is offline
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This entry originally had a colossal section of notes that detailed every song. The information was taken from this album's pages on OCRemix. Here is a relevant copypaste from those old notes:
Quote:
4-03. Rozovian - "Heart of the Cave"
Sources: "Cavern Caprice" (GBA), "Brinstar - Red Soil Wetland Area" (Super Metroid)
Now, I've listened to the song and am doing so again right now, and from what I hear, the Brinstar BGM is just not a source of it. The Brinstar BGM from Super Metroid is in the key of E♭ minor. Its repeating background pattern - the accompaniment - consists of the following notes:

E♭4, B♭5, E♭5, E4, E5, D♭5

The beginning of Heart of the Cave jumps around that idea at best. I believe the first part is in A minor? but actually I'm not a pro at identifying everything.

E4, B5, E5, F4, A5, D5 twice
E4, G4, C5, B4, A5, B5 twice

This melody was not in the original Cavern Caprice song for the GBA, so it was added for this remix, but it doesn't even follow the same pattern that the Brinstar BGM's notes have, even in a different key. Splitting the groups of six notes in half, Heart of the Cave always goes up in pitch - E4 B5 E5 goes up, F4 A5 D5 goes up - while Brinstar does not - E♭4 B♭5 E♭5 goes up, E4, E5 D♭5 goes down on the last note. Also, in Brinstar, the 5th note of the phrase is the highest, while in Heart of the Cave's first pattern, it's the third lowest. That also opens up analysis to the fact that there's two different patterns, and so I won't continue to point out differences - the phrases just simply aren't even that comparable.

Having a phrase of six notes that "kind of resembles" a phrase of six notes in an already existing piece of music... does not make that older composition any kind of source of the new piece other than perhaps one of inspiration. It's one thing if Rozovian took the idea of a melody from an existing one, but I personally wouldn't add Kenji Yamamoto as a featured composer, because his original melody really isn't reused, or even that close - two different scales and three different note patterns. Unless I'm missing something in Heart of the Cave's entire 8 minutes.

Last edited by SimonJXZ; Nov 6, 2014 at 02:45 AM.
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Old Nov 6, 2014, 04:21 AM
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(Blitz Lunar was kind enough to provide the transcriptions in this post and so gets a million e-hearts from me.)

(Also I think you're using a notation where the octave starts at A? In this post I'm using scientific notation where the octave starts at C, so A4 is the A above C4.)


Quote:
Originally Posted by SimonJXZ View Post
The Brinstar BGM from Super Metroid is in the key of E♭ minor. Its repeating background pattern - the accompaniment - consists of the following notes:

E♭4, B♭5, E♭5, E4, E5, D♭5
There are two distinct phrases that are used throughout the whole song: Eb4 Ab4 Bb4 Eb4 Ab4 Db5 and Eb4 Ab4 Eb5 Eb4 Ab4 Db5. Here they are isolated from the audio data: http://quiteajolt.com/vgmdb/brinstarred.mp3. Most of the song just repeats the second one over and over again.

I'm fairly certain there's no part where it goes up an octave and then back down?


Quote:
Originally Posted by SimonJXZ View Post
The beginning of Heart of the Cave jumps around that idea at best. I believe the first part is in A minor? but actually I'm not a pro at identifying everything.

E4, B5, E5, F4, A5, D5 twice
This is E4 B4 E5 F4 A4 D5 | E4 B4 E5 E4 A4 D5.

It's up a half step but I feel like it compares much more favorably to the second of the two source phrases than you're suggesting. Differences underlined:

Brinstar: Eb4 Ab4 Eb5 Eb4 Ab4 Db5 | Eb4 Ab4 Eb5 Eb4 Ab4 Db5
Heart of the Cave: E4 B4 E5 F4 A4 D5 | E4 B4 E5 E4 A4 D5

And the rhythm is exactly the same, of course.

This is obviously a pretty light reference to the Brinstar tune (I'd call it a "cameo"), and if the artist hadn't said anything I might've chalked it up to coincidence, but given that Rozovian did say he used the song, I'm comfortable with calling it a deliberate reference. I hear it pretty clearly. ¯\(º_o)/¯
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Old Nov 6, 2014, 12:01 PM
SimonJXZ SimonJXZ is offline
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Yeah, I started at A, that was dumb. I don't know why I did that.

Anyway, I discovered the problem I'm having with identifying the correct notes used in the Brinstar BGM. What I did just now is muted all the voices in the SPC file but one at a time. Voice 1 is the accompaniment. Now I hear exactly what you're talking about, with two different patterns and the second one pretty much takes over. However, if I only allow voice 2, I get the background bass as well as two notes, landing where the second and fifth notes of the accompaniment would be. They repeat as E♭5 and E5. The E5 is incredibly audible and is of course higher than the final D♭5. If you have Winamp and the SNESAmp plugin, I suggest you try this because you'll hear exactly what I mean. I don't think it's fair to rule out two notes that are plainly there, but the accompaniment itself technically doesn't include them.

And at any rate, it doesn't matter much. I just don't think we should add Kenji Yamamoto as a featured composer because a few notes of a song he composed were almost used in another song. We can spot things in songs we hear pretty much exactly from other songs a lot, I think there was even a thread here along those lines ("Similar VGM songs" or something"). I just heard nearly an exact phrase in one song that I'd heard in another and I wish I had written it down or something because the two games had different composers and it wasn't the case of a sample library. But yeah, this just doesn't warrant a featured credit to me, just one of those occasions where you'd say "wow, those two are really similar in that way" and then you'd post about it in a thread. In this case, I would add it to the notes section or something, but not a full-on credit. That's just me though.

Last edited by SimonJXZ; Nov 6, 2014 at 12:04 PM.
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Old Nov 11, 2014, 02:04 PM
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I asked Rozovian if he wanted to say anything:

Quote:
It's not wrong, because that's what I based the intro on. Or one of the intros. Or the intro to the intro. Or the pre-intro. That track is a little to long to make sense.

It felt appropriate to make a cave reference in a cave track. Also, I used the same reference (although less messed with) in EOTS, and when Emunator picked out this track for me he said he wanted a track similar to EOTS. And it worked well for the track.

So it's accurate to list it as a source. But I wouldn't list it as one, though. Not sure who did. It's a cameo. It's a bit disproportionate, since it's a very small part of the metroid source, primarily used only as a rhythm, and is included only in a very small part of the remix.
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  #7  
Old Nov 11, 2014, 02:50 PM
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Liontamer Liontamer is offline
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I'm a completest, so I lean towards keeping the credit in for the sake of the most accurate data, regardless of artist POV on the matter. That said, and it's a rough/hypothetical rubric, but if the usage is brief enough that you'd never be obligated to report it to a royalty collection agency, perhaps it doesn't merit the mention. That said, I could live with it either way.

The quote's definitely a direct Super Metroid reference (not a kinda-sorta-similar-but-not-actually allusion to it), so it's not wrong to have the credit, but if the usage merely being a very brief cameo makes it a valid-enough reason not to explicitly credit it, then it's no problem with me. I hate to kick the can (I'm just looking for guidance), but maybe SS has an opinion we can work from going forward.
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