The music for Sonic the Hedgehog was composed and produced by Masato Nakamura , bassist and lead songwriter of the J @-@ pop band Dreams Come True . The game uses onboard Yamaha YM2612 and SN76489 programmable sound generators to produce a variety of stereo sound effects and music . It was originally intended to have a sound test menu with animations of Sonic breakdancing to the music of a " Sonic Band " of Sharps Chicken on guitar , Max Monkey on bass , Mach Rabbit on drums , and Vector the Crocodile on keyboard . The playable Vector became a recurring character in the series , also appearing in Knuckles ' Chaotix , Sonic Heroes , and Sonic Free Riders . The development schedule scrapped the feature , and Yuji Naka replaced the test with the " Se @-@ ga ! " chant used in TV commercials ( which reportedly used one @-@ eighth of the memory of the four @-@ megabit cartridge ) .