SS2 Vaxquis Vintage Song Remake v1.0 (music)

[674190aa74b37Vaxquis]

°sound°SS2

SS2 Vintage Song Remake v1.0

SS2 Songs as they were meant to be - HQ CD-quality tracks sticking as close to the original SS2 soundtrack as possible.

* SS2 VSR v1.0 - why another Music Update Mod?

After listening to SHMUP, I got really disappointed... not only did Shatten forget about dynamics matching, resulting in much louder soundtrack with unequalized volume between songs, and with much dynamic lost due to acoustic compression with too high gain ratio on some songs (well, that one thing is not exactly his fault, as it's just how the EB tracks used by him as the source were produced); the main problem is that ADPCM 4-bit compression with 22kHz sampling gave most of the upbeat tracks a distinct, crispy EQ, which the "studio" soundtrack doesn't have (many oldschool DnB DJs downsample songs just to make them feel more vinyl-y). Also, changes made to some songs (Eng1, Command 1) seem just bad to me. Still, all ambient tracks gained much with hiss removal and, usually, no clipping occurring (there was mild clipping in original songs).

I remade those ambients (namely 02-07 & Eng2), fixing the gain factors, for everybody to have a playing experience most consistent with original one - and with developer's intentions too - as far as my e-mail correspondence with Robotkid and analysis of the samples in the tracks goes.

* who should use this?
a) vanilla players, expecting in-game soundtrack matching the original one perfectly, albeit with less noise and higher fidelity,
b) veteran players, ditto.

* who shouldn't use this?
people who can't hear any difference between original SS2 songs and SHMUP.

* what changes can I expect here?
All tracks are raw 44.100 kHz, 16-bit PCM WAVE data.

Basically:
tracks 02-07 & Eng2 are based on EB soundtrack, with RMS volume level matched vs original tracks. Basically the same as Schatten's, but about 4dB less louder.
tracks 08-13 & Eng1 are based on SS2 soundtrack, with lo-fi digital resampling from 22.050 kHz/4-bit ADPCM, resulting in lo-fi equalization similar to the original soundtrack, albeit with a little more "air" than original samples. As to the "feel", it's slightly "clearer" than original, but still with much lower high-frequency content & distortive resonance than EB soundtrack. Also, they are *exactly* the same cuts as in the original game, so they're quite different from Schatten's. Biggest differences are for Eng1 & Command 1, obviously. e1beet1 was also resampled by analog, not digital, means, to preserve the most of the "groove" - namely bass, hats & extreme low/high-frequency content. See samples in the 7z to check *how* the versions differ (vanilla vs VSR vs Schatten's).

* credits

RobotKid & Eric Brosius - for the original soundtrack
Schatten - for the idea
Vaxquis Poponuro ( vaxquis at gmail dot com ) - the author (yup, that's me)

* as a bonus, a link to the WIP remix of the Eng1 song I've made some years ago, with the usual "maybe one day I'll finish it" disclaimer. recently finished, after about 5 years of being WIP - yay!

https://soundcloud.com/sparm-ove/engineering-1-robotkid-vs-poponuro

===

side note: since this is the first release, I would kindly ask everybody interested in testing the soundtrack, both out-of-game and in-game, for possible bugs & omissions.

[674190aa74c95Vaxquis]

PS some samples, showing clearly *why* I made VSR.
[soundtrack-difference-e1.7z expired]
[soundtrack-difference-08beat.7z expired]

[674190aa74f9cMarvin]

Very interesting. Judging from your examples, SHMUP is missing some of the music cues? I didn't know that.

[674190aa755a5Join2]

https://soundcloud.com/sparm-ove/engineering-2-robotkid-vs

Nice tunes.

Each to each: enjoyed this one, though perhaps took a touch too long to progress and the looping vocals were waaay overused.

Engineering 2: Quite liked. I love the original engineering 2 but I'm not a huge fan of the industrialized amen break. It's badass and fits the theme but could have been chopped a little better I believe. Your version? Well you threw dubstep in, instant -1 rating penalty.  However, I enjoyed certain segments/styles very much, especially the one around 08:30.

Red Aura: I recognise this one from a Bukem set or something, wasn't fond of the remix.

Lol @ Jingling Jazz. Not even touching the dubstep one.

Anyway, liked each to each, would pirate    ...just kidding.

[674190aa759f5Vaxquis]

Very interesting. Judging from your examples, SHMUP is missing some of the music cues? I didn't know that.

He (Schatten) states that explicitly in the readme.txt in the mod zip, covering every single track compatibility with original bits.

AFAIR, the "0th version" was the master tracks Robotkid provided; they were made very early. EB compilation soundtrack was the "1st version" made by JR and EB collectively before the game was actually made - later it was cut & edited to fit the game content, mainly by Eric, so some things were removed/unused, while some new cuts appeared (let's call it "2nd version"). Thus, I think that an actual CD-quality recreation of game music should take that fact into account and try to match "2nd version" more than "1st version", whenever possible - and that's exactly what I did.

@Join usss!

those tunes are some random odds-and-ends I've had as WIP for some time. I've already changed E2E a bit, although I'm obviously too lazy to re-record it and reupload it... And yeah, it got a bit more rapid progression and steeper drops, since I found it too lazily going too.

RA was a 2-minute demo of a 10-minute megamix of DJ Rap's Spiritual Aura (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v9uLmF_RARs). Later, it got cut in a drastic way, and now it goes in completely different direction, being instead a mix of Rihanna's Rude Boy (sic!).

As for Eng2 - about the dubstep-y part:

"I really like the slowed-down part - that rules."

is a direct quote about it from Josh Randal (it's not about the 9:00 downtempo, since it wasn't ready yet when I asked for his opinion) *chuckle chuckle* de gustibus, and all that...

I haven't actually made a lot of tunes for the last couple of years, for those so-called "real-life reasons" (playing live instruments and creating analog synthesizers from scratch being some of them, alongside with divorce, Masters degree in Physics etc); still, I'm very glad for your feedback.

[674190aa75de1Join2]

RA was a 2-minute demo of a 10-minute megamix of DJ Rap's Spiritual Aura (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v9uLmF_RARs).

Ah Rap, the female jungle DJ.

As for Eng2 - about the dubstep-y part:  is a direct quote about it from Josh Randal (it's not about the 9:00 downtempo, since it wasn't ready yet when I asked for his opinion) *chuckle chuckle* de gustibus, and all that...

Oh dear. -1 rep for robotkid too then 

[674190aa761edVaxquis]

Ah Rap, the female jungle DJ.

... and softcore porn model in her early days, too. Then she started mixing and done her jungle/DnB episode. And then, she switched to doing vocals, pop and dubstep.

(NSFW) http://vintage-erotica-forum.com/t6877-charissa-clarissa-dawkins-saverio-aka-dj-rap.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VgD_6jFV1dU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XDb0LmV_i_Y

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KXtMGvb00Ow

"evolution of music"... It's kind of ironic when I think of it.

Also - I'm not a fan of dubstep myself, mind me, I mostly hate it myself, because of what became of the genre when it went mainstream (it was the same with punk, heavy metal, rap, liquid d'n'b - as it usually is) - but it's kind of funny how easy you can mix it with everything - rap, heavy metal, drum'n'bass & ambient included...

[674190aa763eaJoin2]

You've reminded me of this hardcore classic by Rap: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ffxom5oYFJk

Love that bass.

Edit: ok, I listened to Engineering 2 remix again. I redact my penalties. the dupstep-y bit isn't bad, and not even dubstep-y really. These days if I hear anything remotely dubstep-y I want to kill it with fire, so I was quick to judge.
I really like how you approached the track with such variety. Unfortunately it wouldn't be suitable for the game as the sense of technophobia in it is completely gone, but it wasn't your intention for it to be played in the game anyway.
Interesting remix.

[674190aa765feKolya]

I repacked the linked archive from deposit files to adhere to our mod format (archive root = game root) and attached it to the first post. The comparative examples are in the second post.
I also added you (Vaxquis) to the contributor group to make handling of attachments a bit easier. In case you would like to update this mod, note that attachments size is limited to 100MB (for contributors) for technical reasons. So for updating I suggest you proceed as before, ie link to an external download and I'll put up. It's quite cumbersome for me as well, so for minor changes I suggest to upload a smaller addon archive that can be merged into the main download after a while.

Thank you for your work.

[674190aa76778Vaxquis]

@Join usss! : I've recently *almost* finished this tune - it's *another remix*, but the setting is completely different to what I was doing in terms of computer music - but at the same time a lot nearer to what I actually play live [funk/jazz].

https://soundcloud.com/vaxquis-poponuro/funking-all-night

[674190aa7687eJoin2]

*Standing ovation*

Loved it 

What is it a remix of?

[674190aa769d4voodoo47]

so let me get this right - this is SHMUP, but better? if that's the case, we should replace the link in the mod guide.

[674190aa76ad7Kolya]

I would like to hear some opinions from people who used this mod.

[674190aa76d81Vaxquis]

@Join usss!
Jazzin' All Night [ http://modarchive.org/index.php?request=view_by_moduleid&query=168624 ]; I'm giving full credits for the original version to Stephen Hemstritch-Johnston (FearOfDark); I mailed him before doing it and he said "OK". I found the hook riff in the original version superb, but drums, pads and editing/samples lacking, clearly hinting the piece was made with tracker software - so I got my tools up and running and came up with this upbeat funk remix.

@voodoo47
yup, that was the idea; I'm open to peer review of the quality of my edits, but, speaking for myself, I find it more strictly adhering to the original "feel" of the tracks, and I find the original "feel" fantastic, without any need to change it by reckless editing.

@Kolya
I would like that myself... especially for some people to a) compare vanilla/SHMUP/VSR samples out-of-the-game (regular listening test), b) compare them in-game, especially upbeats (I've done a short playthrough and everything seemed to be working alright, but some testing is always nice). I've provided some samples for comparison in the zip, but they were specifically chosen to show the most of the difference - and because I don't want anybody to be too heavily biased by them, I'd be grateful for "full sanity check" of the mod. Any volunteers to meet/beat SHODAN *yet again*?

[674190aa7711eSchatten]

If you or anybody else wants to redo/update SHMUP, by all means, go ahead. I don't see myself coming back to it anytime soon, too many RL and other distractions to count.

In other news, I'd never thought I'd stumble upon FearOfDark outside of the chipmusic scene. Heh.

[674190aa7725cVaxquis]

@Schatten

Good to hear from you! As to FOD, well, I've stumbled upon him because, frankly, I *was* on the 8-bit/chip scene for a short while myself (quite a long time ago, since it was about 10 years back from now); I've been trying some compos of the era (Barwars mainly), making chip samples (I've recently switched to building real analog BJT/op-amp/555 synths and sequencers, as a side note) - and even in DnB I still love the sine bass, saw leads and square chirps.

[674190aa77570unn_atropos]

Is there a high quality version of the Intro music (military, science, consumer)?
Because in the SS2-E3 trailer (http://www.sshock2.com/ss2mmdb/movies.htm), there is no background music for the advertising speaker, which means that a higher sound quality for Muzman's Cutscene could be made.

[674190aa77883Vaxquis]

Is there a high quality version of the Intro music (military, science, consumer)?
Because in the SS2-E3 trailer (http://www.sshock2.com/ss2mmdb/movies.htm), there is no background music for the advertising speaker, which means that a higher sound quality for Muzman's Cutscene could be made.

By "Intro", do you mean "Intro", "CS1" or "CS2"? AFAIR, BGM from CS2 is one of the SS2 songs, the others ain't there - but, in any case, remixing music for cutscenes is somewhat impossible, for a bunch of reasons; mainly: little application, no source data, no apparent quality gain for a regular player.

[674190aa779d4Vaxquis]

@Schatten, I got this from FearOfDark a couple of days ago:

[...]good job on the remix - sounds great so far. Much better than the original (it's a very old module file released in my "Early days" as a module musician) [...]Kind regards,Steve (aka FoD)

- he's alive and kicking, he set up a SoundCloud a while ago, and is still "in the business".

[674190aa77b86Kolya]

A while ago I asked Schatten about his opinion on Vaxquis' mod, because I wanted an informed opinion. I will summarise the points he made in his emails here in English for those interested:
He confirmed that the SHMUP ambient tracks had unequalized volume and praised the 'new' upsamples for their good equalizer work. He also made it clear that Vaxquis' mod is generally closer to the original sound and contains breaks/parts that SHMUP does not have. While he understands the liking for a vintage sound, he prefers a broader midband for the rock tracks and recommends to users to test a mix of Vaxquis ambient + SHMUP rock tracks and see what they like.

[674190aa77cd7miracle.flame]

I forgot how to tag this as sound.

[674190aa77e79Kolya]

The tech faq has a list of the most common tags. Otherwise it's just writing the word, selecting it and clicking the

button, available in the full editor.

[674190aa77f70miracle.flame]

I did it! I did it! Thanks for letting me Kolya... nice to see you again after those years

[674190aa78080Kolya]

And you, miracle. I hope life's been treating you well. What brought you back out of the void? The anniversary? Either way, stay around, we have a few things on the assembly line.