There's also a patch from LucasArts which adds MT-32 music to the original LOOM EGA version. It sounds quite good, even with the AWE32 MT emulation mode.pelayo wrote:I know, but loomtowns use a very bad synthesized music at least for me (I liked more the original ADLIB music), and loomCD is awful, they took away half of the game and the music is also synthesized. And replacing loomtowns tracks with orchestral ones doesn't work, as they need to have the correct size or they cut... the track length is scripted or hardcoded in scummVM?
DotT - Music Remake Project
Moderator: ScummVM Team
Just my two cents, being a tracker musician for a decade:
If MT-32 emulation at its best (haven't heard) isn't enough quality, I seriously doubt module formats would be much better. The traditional 2nd generation formats just don't have the basic effects like reverb and chorus MIDI people are used to and how well are the 3rd gen DSP/VST tracker formats supported by libraries? Poorly, that's how. To get better sound you need a lot of high quality samples to build your instuments and that route leads to modules ending up so big they'll hardly be manageable. You can mute instruments (or rather voice channels) in real-time and you can jump to different positions in the music depending on game events but smooth transitions like in the original game would be hardest part, if not impossible. As said before, with available techniques it will require insane amounts of work and that's because trackers' arrangement unit is a pattern, not a track (in the sense of a voice channel) nor an instrument voice. All the possible mixes of tunes and themes would have to be written in the patterns manually. If tracks could be separated from their pattern context and arranged to music in real-time, approaching the iMUSE technique was made a whole lot easier.
Now, if this technique was realized it would still be a hell of a lot easier to first implement it in a new, original game. Building the system and making it work would be an achievement on its own and trying to make it act and sound the same as the music in the original iMUSE games would probably seem too tall a mountain to conquer right away.
If MT-32 emulation at its best (haven't heard) isn't enough quality, I seriously doubt module formats would be much better. The traditional 2nd generation formats just don't have the basic effects like reverb and chorus MIDI people are used to and how well are the 3rd gen DSP/VST tracker formats supported by libraries? Poorly, that's how. To get better sound you need a lot of high quality samples to build your instuments and that route leads to modules ending up so big they'll hardly be manageable. You can mute instruments (or rather voice channels) in real-time and you can jump to different positions in the music depending on game events but smooth transitions like in the original game would be hardest part, if not impossible. As said before, with available techniques it will require insane amounts of work and that's because trackers' arrangement unit is a pattern, not a track (in the sense of a voice channel) nor an instrument voice. All the possible mixes of tunes and themes would have to be written in the patterns manually. If tracks could be separated from their pattern context and arranged to music in real-time, approaching the iMUSE technique was made a whole lot easier.
Now, if this technique was realized it would still be a hell of a lot easier to first implement it in a new, original game. Building the system and making it work would be an achievement on its own and trying to make it act and sound the same as the music in the original iMUSE games would probably seem too tall a mountain to conquer right away.
There are trackers that allow separate tracks that can be arranged in voice channels to form custom patterns. Unfortunately, most of them (or all?) are very rare and mostly implemented as VST instruments by demo groups, or are in very early betas and don't use "standard" MOD formats like XM/IT/S3M. Perhaps Buzz would be a viable candidate, but it'd still be too much work.raina wrote:As said before, with available techniques it will require insane amounts of work and that's because trackers' arrangement unit is a pattern, not a track (in the sense of a voice channel) nor an instrument voice. All the possible mixes of tunes and themes would have to be written in the patterns manually. If tracks could be separated from their pattern context and arranged to music in real-time, approaching the iMUSE technique was made a whole lot easier.
Though in any practical sense, MT-32 emulation is good enough for the LucasArts games since they don't use custom sound banks for the MT-32 sounds (or the AWE32 MT-emulation mode would lock up). LOOM with MT-32 tracks (available as a patch on LucasArts' support server) is certainly one of the most atmospheric games I've played, even with the graphics being EGA.
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LogicDeLuxe
- Posts: 437
- Joined: Thu Nov 10, 2005 9:54 pm
What do you mean by "custom sound banks"? The MT-32 doesn't support bank switch.cappuchok wrote:Though in any practical sense, MT-32 emulation is good enough for the LucasArts games since they don't use custom sound banks for the MT-32 sounds
Loom and Monkey1 only use the default instruments, but the iMuse games make use of custom instruments.
Well, some kind of reprogramming of the MT-32 seems to take place in many games, locking up the AWE32 emulation mode, as said here.LogicDeLuxe wrote:What do you mean by "custom sound banks"? The MT-32 doesn't support bank switch.cappuchok wrote:Though in any practical sense, MT-32 emulation is good enough for the LucasArts games since they don't use custom sound banks for the MT-32 sounds
Loom and Monkey1 only use the default instruments, but the iMuse games make use of custom instruments.
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Laserschwert
- Posts: 280
- Joined: Mon Mar 06, 2006 11:48 pm
Well, if you're just interested in a higher quality version of the DOTT-music you might wanna check out my site LucasArts Soundtracks, although it's not possible to use those tracks in-game (being digital and non-interactive, as already stated).
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eriktorbjorn
- ScummVM Developer
- Posts: 3561
- Joined: Mon Oct 31, 2005 7:39 am
There is some support for replacing the music in Inherit the Earth but I don't know what the status of it is, or exactly how it works.Lechuck wrote:Since i'm a musician this sound kind of exciting remaking the music in the games
What games can you do this on?
Is it Possible on Monkey Island 1&2?
How to I extract the original music files?
For the other games, the only ones that I know of where it's easy to replace the existing music are the ones where each song originally was a separate audio track on the game CD. With ScummVM, these tracks can be replaced by MP3, Ogg Vorbis or FLAC files. That includes the CD version of The Secret of Monkey Island and (I'm told) some of the rare and expensive FM-TOWNS versions of the games.
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optimus$prime
- Posts: 4
- Joined: Wed Mar 01, 2006 10:30 pm
thx for this link but heyLaserschwert wrote:Well, if you're just interested in a higher quality version of the DOTT-music you might wanna check out my site LucasArts Soundtracks, although it's not possible to use those tracks in-game (being digital and non-interactive, as already stated).
compare the two versions:
http://www.scummbar.com/mi2/DOTT/21%20- ... Edison.mp3 (mixnmojo)
http://members.chello.at/optimusprime/dott/red.ogg (my version)
wow what a difference!
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Laserschwert
- Posts: 280
- Joined: Mon Mar 06, 2006 11:48 pm
Well, somehow I like mine betteroptimus$prime wrote:thx for this link but heyLaserschwert wrote:Well, if you're just interested in a higher quality version of the DOTT-music you might wanna check out my site LucasArts Soundtracks, although it's not possible to use those tracks in-game (being digital and non-interactive, as already stated).
compare the two versions:
http://www.scummbar.com/mi2/DOTT/21%20- ... Edison.mp3 (mixnmojo)
http://members.chello.at/optimusprime/dott/red.ogg (my version)
wow what a difference!
Coincidence?