MT-32 digital soundtrack "enhancements"

[Doctor Creep]

To be honest I'm glad everytime I read "There's been no additional enhancements made to the tracks" when I browse through your MT-32 digital soundtrack list, Tom.

This posting is not supposed to start any sort of a flame war- IMO your pages are superb, and I respect all the work you put in this site and all the midi recordings...

Let me explain what I mean with this *.mp3s:

Police Quest 3 "Main Title Theme" + "Introduction" by Jan Hammer

Roland MT-32 score with Sound Canvas "enhancement"

http://66.49.226.244/digital/pq3digital/Track01.mp3

http://66.49.226.244/digital/pq3digital/Track02.mp3

Original Roland MT-32 score

http://66.49.226.244/digital/quest/pq3_1.mp3

Isn't it like "enhancing" a renaissance painting with more or "better" colors?

Especially in the second half (Introduction) I love the MT-32 sound the way Jan Hammer created it - yes exactly with all the limitations and "noise" produced by the MT32...

Lutz

[Ari]

What you're saying is kind of like some of the arguments I hear from people who'd never gotten a chance of playing computer games with an MT-32 or a Sound Canvas, and were limited to hearing the music through the Adlib. They often claim that the Adlib music sounds much better to their ears than that fancy MT-32 (after hearing it for the first time), and that they prefer "the original".

Now, you might argue that a certain soundtrack isn't enhanced very well, and that you prefer the original to the enhancement, and that's fine and perfectly understandable. But I don't think that enhancements are bad in general, and that we should leave the originals as they are, because it's like trying to enhance a picture from the renaissance. some of the original instruments are often very limited and not very good because the technology wasn't advanced enough, but a lot of the MT-32's instruments outshine newer modules' equivalents, and IMO cause certain imbalances in the overall sound of the theme. Adding a real guitar or piano instead, doesn't seem to me like replacing a certain "bad" color in a picture. The "technology" of the color in a picture is usually consistent (as much as you can use the term in painting). I don't think one would look at a picture and say, "hmmm... I really like this red, but I hate this purple, this guy should have used a different kind of purple in his painting". Maybe I'm wrong about this, I don't know.

Come to think of it, pictures and classical paintings are being restored all the time, and in a sense, they are enhanced, even if only subtly.

[Alistair]

Isn't it like "enhancing" a renaissance painting with more or "better" colors?

Especially in the second half (Introduction) I love the MT-32 sound the way Jan Hammer created it - yes exactly with all the limitations and "noise" produced by the MT32...

I agree with this sort of, but in the end strongly disagree with it.

Let me explain- in a perfect world, sure, game music composers get to make game music sound EXACTLY the way they like. For example, the Diablo II score with a symphony orchestra, in digital formats, with no (or hardly any) quality reduction.

MIDI music is different- Sierra's composers generally would much rather have used real instruments/etc, but were constrained by MIDI.

PQ3 is an exception that proves the rule- it's a synth based score, and works very well on the MT-32. Willy Beamish is another good example, try playing some of the tracks on real instruments, you couldn't.


In fact, this reminds me of Rudy Helm telling me that Robert Holmes didn't do the MIDI music, he wanted it all real instruments and it was people like him that "MIDI-fied" it. Definitely, with Sierra's GM scores, GM (and often MT-32 as well) is NOT what they wanted it to sound like. Mark's SSC is an example too.

In fact in fact, Aubrey Hodges just posted on my forums, which contains this:

Additionally, I do plan to revisit some of my early work using real instruments and better samples. Just for the fun of it really. I'll most likely start with some of the QFG4 soundtrack and perhaps a few from Longbow. Believe me...those pieces sounded much different in my head when I was writing...but the hardware was so damn finicky and limited. Also...the writing was fast and furios then...hardly time to even blink before the next piece was due.

So, yeah, in PQ3, if I fundamentally change some of Hammer's synth tracks, sure, that might be a little 'blasphemous'. But enhancing scores like GK1 and so on I think is more of a necessity than blasphemy, I don't consider most of Sierra's GM scores worth listening to "straight-up". Most MT-32 scores benefit from enhancement as well.

Essentially, it's not about disrespecting composers, it's about celebrating their music and trying to arrange it for CD in such a way to keep the original melody and instruments, while making it a more enjoyable, expansive CD-listening experience.

- Alistair

[NewRisingSUn]

Doctor Creep, I understand your sentiment. We had a discussion about this a while ago:

http://queststudios.com/smf/index.php/topic,2229.0.html

Basically, it boils down to how talented the person doing the "enhancement" is. You'll find the more talented enhancers on this site, but there's some REAL hacks out there on the 'net.

[Tom]

The reason I originally started mixing and/or rearranging some of Sierra's musical scores came out of my converting MT-32 pieces for General MIDI and Sound Blaster playback.  This is back when I only posted MIDI files -- not digital recordings, and not everybody had a MT-32.  I found that some of the songs I was converting actually sounded quite good with Sound Canvas instruments replacing the MT-32.  That eventually led to mixing/combining the two MIDI devices, and recording the results.  I would listen to a given track and make a decision, based totally on personal bias, which would present better in the final recording.  In no way did I intend any disrespect for any of Sierra's composers in what they had originally created; I only felt their options were often limited and they had wished they had had the opportunity to use any and all means to create the music.

Over the years, there's been a few Sierra songs that I've added to and/or arranged quite differently, and have posted on this site.  (I believe that in almost every case, a non-rearranged version is also presented somewhere on the site. i.e., Code-Name Iceman's "Flight From Tihiti")  Like anyone else that does rearrangements, I find that it's fun!  You listen to a song and feel there's something missing; something that might provide an interesting alternative.  In the "Tihiti" instance, as well as others, a non-rearranged version resides alongside the rearranged version. 

Music, like many other things, is so very subjective to personal taste.  Hollywood remakes movies with the intent to provide an alternate, or even a better way of telling the same story.  "Mutiny On The Bounty" was done three times, and I like each one for different reasons.  But the "Psycho" remake was a disaster.  Maybe a better example would be the Star Wars 'enhancements' which some hate, and some love.

[Caliburn]

In addition to what's already been said, I'd also like to add that one of the things I like about music as an art form is how often throughout history people have successfully re-interpreted the works of others.  (You don't see this in static arts like painting, which implicitly encourage the view that the way something is is the only way it should ever be.)

One of Bach's greatest works, the Saint Matthew Passion, incorporates his own arrangements of five or so pre-existing hymn tunes.  (These are the parts labelled as "chorales;" anything labelled "recitative," "recitativo," or "aria" is wholly original.)  English composers like Holst and Vaughn-Williams discovered folk melodies that they loved and decided to arrange them into classical pieces.  Rachmaninoff's famous Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini is exactly what its title suggests.  And so on.

Jazz and the broadway/pop standards of the 40s (which are often an extension of jazz) wouldn't exist if performers weren't willing to perform and record their own variations on other people's songs.  Love the song "Stardust" by Hoagy Carmichael?  Which version?  Louis Armstrong's jaunty trumpet version?  Nat King Cole's ballad?  Those are two among many, many others.  Improvisation itself seems to be based on a belief that there isn't just one right way to do something.  And that mentality from live performances seems to have spilled over into a free attitude toward different recording artists, too.

What Tom does most of the time is admittedly far less extreme than either of these two historical examples, so that we wouldn't even call it a re-interpretation most of the time.  It is, as others have noted, more an attempt to imagine how these composers might have rendered their music given the additional MIDI devices that Tom has at his disposal.  So I'm not trying to make a grand analogy between Bach and Tom.  (Sorry, Tom!)

I'm just trying to say, I wonder if the purist mentality that so many of us (myself included) have adopted came about partly because we grew up in a generation where pre-recorded performances, preserved for all time, are more readily available to us than live, once-in-a-lifetime-only performances are.  For a drastic comparison, if we grew up in a time when there were only theatre performances and no movies, where we could only hear music by hiring chamber musicians or going to the symphony, would we still feel as certain that artistic vision must be Pure and Singular?

That's not to say that bad "enhancements" aren't still a minor travesty; it's just to say that good ones simply confirm what we should already know, but seem to have forgotten: Creation is organic.  For that reason, I like seeing different versions of things, provided those different versions aren't a waste of my time.

What really annoys me is when one version, already presented to the public, is then hidden away so that only the revised version is available.  I mentioned Orson Welles' film Touch of Evil in another thread.  Even though they restored it to the director's vision as best as they were able (considering he is dead and they had to work from a memo he wrote), I still wish that they would also make the theatrical version available as well.  It's not that I doubt the restored version is superior, it's that I'd like the freedom to compare myself and see what the effects of each directorial decision are.

Tom probably doesn't have the time or the server space to digitally record everything in its unaltered MT-32 or SC-55 version, but as he said, the MIDI files are always made available.  So hopefully people will be able to get hold of MT-32s (pretty cheap these days) or SC-55s (a little pricier) if it is really important to them to hear the unenhanced original.

I hope this doesn't sound argumentative; my intent was more thoughtful speculation.  To restore any imbalance, let me add that I really agree with this idea:

Especially in the second half (Introduction) I love the MT-32 sound the way Jan Hammer created it - yes exactly with all the limitations and "noise" produced by the MT32...

Seeming imperfections really can become aesthetic perfections, can't they?  I don't think it's just nostalgia.  Every artistic choice involves some kind of compromise.  And somehow it is in those compromises that the possibility of beauty arises.

-Luke

[haradan]

One of Bach's greatest works, the Saint Matthew Passion, incorporates his own arrangements of five or so pre-existing hymn tunes.  (These are the parts labelled as "chorales;" anything labelled "recitative," "recitativo," or "aria" is wholly original.)  English composers like Holst and Vaughn-Williams discovered folk melodies that they loved and decided to arrange them into classical pieces.  Rachmaninoff's famous Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini is exactly what its title suggests.  And so on.

And don't forget Mussorgsky's Pictures at an exhibition, which was a piano composition but was later orchestrated by Ravel and today Ravel's version is the standard (because it's great!).

I think the jazz comparison is a wise way of taking enhancements, it's not like someone is pretending to teach the original composer the way their music should be, it's just that they're making their version in a way they feel it sounds better, which you may or not agree.

But you touch a key point: in an ideal world, the best thing would be to have both, the original and the enhancement. Not just so you can choose which one you like better: for me, these MT32 or GM soundtracks, the way they were, are part of history. Computer history, entertainment history, call it what you want, but I feel it's important to have this music preserved exactly like it was. It's like EGA or CGA games. You can have a wonderful enhanced VGA version of KQ2 (which we have, by the way  ) but that would be no reason to disregard the original version in all its 16-color glory. Me, I like to have both, because the original is also part of history and I love to be able to preserve it. Just my two cents.

[Alistair]

I agree and disagree, which is life Let's see here:

Seeming imperfections really can become aesthetic perfections, can't they?  I don't think it's just nostalgia.  Every artistic choice involves some kind of compromise.  And somehow it is in those compromises that the possibility of beauty arises.

Hey, I get nostalgia out of some ancient CD's I have of Tom's GM MIDI files played in some softsynth which I burned to CD when I was a teenager

But you touch a key point: in an ideal world, the best thing would be to have both, the original and the enhancement. Not just so you can choose which one you like better: for me, these MT32 or GM soundtracks, the way they were, are part of history. Computer history, entertainment history, call it what you want, but I feel it's important to have this music preserved exactly like it was. It's like EGA or CGA games. You can have a wonderful enhanced VGA version of KQ2 (which we have, by the way  ) but that would be no reason to disregard the original version in all its 16-color glory. Me, I like to have both, because the original is also part of history and I love to be able to preserve it. Just my two cents.

I think it's pretty futile recording every GM/MT-32 soundtrack as they were originally, if you're into it that much i'm sure you can justify buying the modules or listening to MIDI's with other gear.

I honestly believe the listening experience of listening to raw MT-32 or SC-55 data isn't a very enjoyable one (although raw MT-32 scores are much more listenable to than raw SC-55 ones, usually). Of course, I enjoy listening to the original MIDI soundtracks, but if you want to be technical, they've already been altered, Tom or I have put panning and reverb controllers, and so forth. There's a world apart from raw MT-32/SC-55 data and enhanced MT-32/SC-55 data, even.

I can honestly say the original in-game MIDI scores usually aren't worth listening to as far as CD scores go, reverb and panning does a heck of a lot to solve that issue, but I still much prefer enhancing and a bit of mixing. The amount of effort adds so much proportionally to the end result, I feel.



But I think people are on the same page here. We all love the nostalgia, and different interpretations. And we all love the music

- Alistair

[haradan]

I agree and disagree, which is life Wink

I agree. 

I honestly believe the listening experience of listening to raw MT-32 or SC-55 data isn't a very enjoyable one

I absolutely disagree, but this is a matter of personal preferences, of course. Don't get me wrong, I know the MT-32 or SC-55 are far from perfect. The other day I was listening to LSL3 Dance of the feral pig in Shadowfax's version (Phantom) and I really liked it, the horns are beautiful, which of course are not in the MT-32 version. But I also like the original version, with its synth-like horns, I can't really say why.

Look at it this way, the piano-forte was an instrument that basically substituted the harpsichord, and most people will like the sound of a piano a lot more than the sound of a harpsichord. Bach's works for harpsichord are played with a piano these days. Sounds great, probably better. But the harpsichord still has a certain charm in it, it's different, not better or worse, just different... (and for me, it's part of history as well).

[Marten]

In general, I like Tom's enhancements.  However, I have felt sometimes that it is a bit odd when I look for an original recording of how a song sounded on the MT-32 or the Sound Canvas, and I cannot find that... in some cases, the only file I can find is an enhanced version, which may not be what I'm looking for.

Perhaps those who prefer an un-enhanced version would not begrudge the enhanced versions if both types were available?  Is that do-able?  Or will it consume too much space and drive Tom's bandwidth costs into orbit by visitors who feel compelled to download every version of every song?

Edit I see that "both" is even an option in haradan's well-thought-out poll.    http://queststudios.com/smf/index.php/topic,2447.0/topicseen.html

[Alistair]

Perhaps those who prefer an un-enhanced version would not begrudge the enhanced versions if both types were available?  Is that do-able?  Or will it consume too much space and drive Tom's bandwidth costs into orbit by visitors who feel compelled to download every version of every song?

It's time-consuming, mainly. We had a discussion about this on SMC with the Freddy Pharkas soundtrack- essentially, I believe taking the time to make a SC-55 digital soundtrack really only detracts from making the mixed one.

Bandwidth is another issue of course.

But I go back to my argument that our recordings don't sound much different. We're enhancing the raw MIDI's anyway, so essentially with FPFP you'd have the digital GM version, with reverb and panning changes, or the digital enhanced version, with a couple of instrument improvements and otherwise the same rever level and panning. It makes little sense to duplicate like that, if you want to hear the 'originals', listen to the original MIDI's themselves.

- Alistair

[Marten]

I understand that it's time consuming, but it's a tiny amount of time compared to the time spent setting up the "enhanced" version.

And the point of a digital recording is so that those who don't have the hardware can hear what the music was supposed to sound like.  Playing the MIDI on most computers won't accomplish that.

[Doctor Creep]

Thanks for your comments everybody!

I understand that it's time consuming, but it's a tiny amount of time compared to the time spent setting up the "enhanced" version.

And the point of a digital recording is so that those who don't have the hardware can hear what the music was supposed to sound like.  Playing the MIDI on most computers won't accomplish that.

That sums up what I was looking for when I did a LAPC-1 article (or LAPC-I, I discovered later ) for the sort of fanzine "Lotek 64" http://www.lotek64.com (*.pdf + print)
Please have a look at it (only if you're into german language). Give non MT-32 owners (the oldschool Roland PC-Stuff were/are not so popular over here in Germany/Austria) the possibility to listen to the original MT32 soundtracks. The article is btw not so much about the technical stuff but about the magic moment when you connect the first time ever the mt32 to your hifistuff and load Sierras Red Baron (f.a.)...

http://www.lotek64.com/main/fileretriever.php?extended=0&issue=14

I hope this doesn't sound argumentative; my intent was more thoughtful speculation.  To restore any imbalance, let me add that I really agree with this idea:

Especially in the second half (Introduction) I love the MT-32 sound the way Jan Hammer created it - yes exactly with all the limitations and "noise" produced by the MT32...

Seeming imperfections really can become aesthetic perfections, can't they?  I don't think it's just nostalgia.  Every artistic choice involves some kind of compromise.  And somehow it is in those compromises that the possibility of beauty arises.

-Luke

Very well said. Speaking of limitations - now I run out of talent writing in english language It would easer to say it in german. Anyway I try:
Jan Hammer's "Introduction" in the original mt-32 version sounds for me like directly out of Miami Vice with a lot of (early) 80s style synth feeling. The "enhancement" is "cleaner" - IMO lost its charme a little bit...

I agree and disagree, which is life Wink

I agree. 

I honestly believe the listening experience of listening to raw MT-32 or SC-55 data isn't a very enjoyable one

I absolutely disagree, but this is a matter of personal preferences, of course. Don't get me wrong, I know the MT-32 or SC-55 are far from perfect. The other day I was listening to LSL3 Dance of the feral pig in Shadowfax's version (Phantom) and I really liked it, the horns are beautiful, which of course are not in the MT-32 version. But I also like the original version, with its synth-like horns, I can't really say why.

Look at it this way, the piano-forte was an instrument that basically substituted the harpsichord, and most people will like the sound of a piano a lot more than the sound of a harpsichord. Bach's works for harpsichord are played with a piano these days. Sounds great, probably better. But the harpsichord still has a certain charm in it, it's different, not better or worse, just different... (and for me, it's part of history as well).

I can only second that...

Over the years, there's been a few Sierra songs that I've added to and/or arranged quite differently, and have posted on this site.  (I believe that in almost every case, a non-rearranged version is also presented somewhere on the site. i.e., Code-Name Iceman's "Flight From Tihiti") 

BTW: I had problems to find this (PQ3 - original Roland MT-32 score)  old (?) link again (I used it in my LAPC-I Story) on your site...

http://66.49.226.244/digital/quest/pq3_1.mp3


Lutz