Better sound for Monkey Island 1 and 2!

holbred · Post by **holbred** » Mon May 21, 2007 3:23 pm

Hi all!

I developed a soundfont which gives you back the original soundtrack of Monkey Island 1 and 2 (and Descent 1 and 2).

It is called 8MBGM ENHANCED. If you have a Creative Soundblaster card that is compatible with soundfonts (e.g. Live!, Audigy and X-Fi series), you can load it instead of the default soundfont. You can find a precise instruction on the soundfont page of my website:

http://www.bredel.homepage.t-online.de/ ... glish.html

Any comments?

iPwnzorz · Post by **iPwnzorz** » Mon May 21, 2007 3:37 pm

Sounds interesting, but isn't this a bit... Rule #0ish.

Post by **eriktorbjorn** » Mon May 21, 2007 5:08 pm

iPwnzorz wrote:Sounds interesting, but isn't this a bit... Rule #0ish.

You mean in that it's based on a SoundFont that's based on Creative's SoundFont? I guess that could be a problem -- I don't know what terms Creative placed on theirs.

Apart from that, it seems I have to use the FluidSynth driver to use SoundFonts that big on my system, or some instruments sound really bad and/or out of tune. I don't know if that's a driver issue, or if my old SB Live! card just can't take it.

I didn't hear much difference between Creative's SoundFont and this one on the cases I tried, though maybe I listened to the wrong things. So while it's interesting, there's no compelling reason for me to use it, I'm afraid.

I wish I could say that in a way that didn't come off as belittling the work that has been put into it. I can assure you that wasn't my intention.

clem · Post by **clem** » Mon May 21, 2007 5:19 pm

the page linked above links to some other website hosting midi files from Lucasarts games - if I interpret the formulation "some midis were taken directly from the games" (in German on that website "ein paar MIDIs stammen direkt aus den Spielen") this could mean copyright trouble - but probably I'm stretching it?

holbred · Post by **holbred** » Mon May 21, 2007 6:10 pm

eriktorbjorn wrote:
You mean in that it's based on a SoundFont that's based on Creative's SoundFont? I guess that could be a problem -- I don't know what terms Creative placed on theirs.

Apart from that, it seems I have to use the FluidSynth driver to use SoundFonts that big on my system, or some instruments sound really bad and/or out of tune. I don't know if that's a driver issue, or if my old SB Live! card just can't take it.

The soundfont 2.0 format is open standard. Creative writes in its soundfont FAQ:

3 - Is the SoundFont 2.0 format public?
Yes. Creative Technology are actively promoting SoundFont 2.0 as an open standard. We have worked diligently on getting complete, unambiguous documentation and a suite of tools available for developers who might want to use the SoundFont 2.0 format.

See also: http://www.soundblaster.com/soundfont/faqs/#link2

Your problem with big soundfont files is known for the SB Live! series. As far as I know, only Audigy cards and above are able to use large soundfont files without using a separate software.

clem wrote:
the page linked above links to some other website hosting midi files from Lucasarts games - if I interpret the formulation "some midis were taken directly from the games" (in German on that website "ein paar MIDIs stammen direkt aus den Spielen") this could mean copyright trouble - but probably I'm stretching it?

The site you mention did not extract the midis of the games. It has only collected midis that were hosted on several fan sites. I do not know what a million dollar company like LucasArts could have against a tiny fan site which has the only purpose of promoting a game of this company?

clem · Post by **clem** » Mon May 21, 2007 7:27 pm

holbred wrote: The site you mention did not extract the midis of the games. It has only collected midis that were hosted on several fan sites.

yeah, but where did those sites get the music from? if they say:
- some midis are directly from the games
- some are fan made (which is meant in contrast to the above?)
- all are collected from other websites

this does not exclude that they didn't just rip the music?

holbred wrote: I do not know what a million dollar company like LucasArts could have against a tiny fan site which has the only purpose of promoting a game of this company?

better safe than sorry :-]

Post by **eriktorbjorn** » Mon May 21, 2007 8:43 pm

holbred wrote:The soundfont 2.0 format is open standard. Creative writes in its soundfont FAQ:

3 - Is the SoundFont 2.0 format public?
Yes. Creative Technology are actively promoting SoundFont 2.0 as an open standard. We have worked diligently on getting complete, unambiguous documentation and a suite of tools available for developers who might want to use the SoundFont 2.0 format.

See also: http://www.soundblaster.com/soundfont/faqs/#link2

I was thinking specifically about the 8MBGMSFX.SF2 SoundFont which, from what I understood, is what Merlin 8mbgm_plus13 is based on. Is this part of the suite of tools?

iPwnzorz · Post by **iPwnzorz** » Tue May 22, 2007 2:17 pm

eriktorbjorn wrote:
iPwnzorz wrote:Sounds interesting, but isn't this a bit... Rule #0ish.
You mean in that it's based on a SoundFont that's based on Creative's SoundFont? I guess that could be a problem -- I don't know what terms Creative placed on theirs.

No, that it's the original sound.

holbred · Post by **holbred** » Mon May 28, 2007 9:34 pm

Version 1.3 of my soundfonts has been finished.

Changes:
- more precise basses
- some improved instruments
- additionally tested with Indiana Jones 3 und 4

holbred · Post by **holbred** » Mon Jun 04, 2007 11:19 pm

Version 1.4 of my soundfont has been finished. I managed to reduce the file size dramatically by removing of all unused instruments and audio samples. This has no influence on sound quality. On the contrary: I improved it to a level that is better than ever before.

The RAR file has now a size of only 16 MB. Unpacked, the soundfont is 25 MB large. This should be good news especially for all SB Live! owners who weren't able to load my soundfont, because of its big size.

holbred · Post by **holbred** » Wed Jun 06, 2007 5:10 pm

Version 1.4a has been finished and is ready for download.

This is merely a bugfix release, since I discovered that two instruments (Saw Wave and Synth Bass 2) did not sound as they were supposed to do. Because of the fact that they are very important for the music of Descent 1, I strongly recommend to download the new version. These two instruments appear, for example, in the following Midis: briefing.mid, descent.mid, game02.mid, game04.mid, game12.mid, game15.mid, game19.mid, game21.mid.

Here is the download link:

http://holbred.koolbear.com/8mbgm_enhanced14a.rar

For a precise description of how to use it, please visit my soundfont page:

http://home.arcor.de/hbredel/Soundfonts ... glish.html

holbred · Post by **holbred** » Wed Jun 20, 2007 11:05 pm

Version 1.5 is ready for download.

It offers improved basses (they sound stronger than before) and a "new" instrument (harpsichord). This new instrument can be heard at the beginning of level 1 of Descent 2.

Just one word about the difference between version 1.3 and 1.5: you may have noticed that version 1.4 and above are much smaller in size than 1.3. This has nothing to do with sound quality. In version 1.3 there were a lot of unused samples. These samples were accumulated when I replaced an instrument with that of another soundfont. The old samples stayed in my soundfont and made it bigger and bigger. But they didn't have any more function. Therefore, I decided to use another soundfont editor. It's called "Viena" and has the big advantage that you can remove "junk" samples with one mouse click. I did that and the size of my soundfont shrinked immensely. But the sound quality is the same as before - and even better now, because I improved it from version to version!