Indy 4 (Fate of Atlantis) OST CD

[NewRisingSUn]

The reason I added it there is that I thought it made for a better beginning to the track than the music that plays during the close-up.

Well, I like the close-up music better, but it's your choice...

I thought that the music was used later in the game and that sequence was used there

Where?

I'm rather against too many "bonus" and "alternate" tracks, as it clutters up the CD. I'd just tack 0053 sequence 2 to the end of the recording, as if it played instead of melodiless 0099. As for the three outer circle songs, the best choice would be to just play through each song twice, like you did in the New York music, enabling percussion during the second run. This is possible since all of them loop to the beginning.

[Zemus]

Where?

I have no idea, it was just my initial assumption when I noticed it didn't play after sequence 1 during the fake ghost sequence. I play through the games as I make the tracks to find out if they do anything peculiar with the music during transitions so I thought that if it was used later, I'd pick it up then. It's gonna be a while before I get to the outer ring themes, but I'll try just looping them.

[Zemus]

I uploaded a new version of track 6 with a crossfade and the second sequence of 0053.
Sequence 2 fits nicely, but not sure about the crossfade. Not that it sounds much better in-game...

[Ari]

This line of conversation reminds me of a tour my wife and I took of the Seattle Art Institute a few years back, who offer degrees in a myriad of arts-related fields, including music production.

So there we were. I'd decided to get a feel for their music program, and was shown the recording studio. Several people were within, working on their projects, and I had the opportunity to ask some questions, one of which had to do with what the school was teaching about MIDI.

"MIDI is dead," someone said.

And thus it was, that I looked down at the Korg Triton nearby, and responded with a question as to how said individual imagined that pressing the keys triggered the generation of sound.

I didn't feel inclined to enroll.

This quarter, the local community college finally had a large enough enrollment to offer the "Electronic Music" course that I'd been trying to get into for the past two years. The instructor, on the first day of class, informed us that he wouldn't be going into any sort of detail on the workings of MIDI, because a.) He admitted to not knowing much about it, and b.) He wasn't that interested in it.

It seems we've entered a new sort of age. An age where people just use stuff, and have no interest in how it works. An age of VSTs and loop-based music production, where an instructor's idea of a studio is a notebook computer, a USB audio interface, and a 25-key MIDI controller. An age where people want pre-programmed "naturalism" and dynamics in their sounds, and have no interest in learning about the correct and proper use of CCs, RPN/NRPNs, and SysEx.

Guess I'm out-of-touch or something.

Naturally, MIDI isn't dead at all. It's only dead for computer gamers. It's extremely rare to find any contemporary music that doesn't use some form of MIDI.

When MIDI truly dies, it'll probably mean we're back in the stone-age because of a nuclear holocaust or something like that... 

[MichalN]

Good point, Ari. I'd say that while MIDI is dead as a format for music distribution (and has been for quite a while - ever since distributing digitally sampled music became feasible), it's very much alive as a technology/protocol used in creating and producing music, perhaps more now than ever before.

This actually reminds me of another venerable technology, SCSI. While SCSI drives are becoming increasingly rare, the SCSI protocol is nowadays used more than ever before - because that's what all those new-fangled USB and FireWire drives are using (either rotating magnetic disks or flash based).

[Zemus]

I updated the site with 5 more tracks today.

[NewRisingSUn]

I don't want to be credited.

[Zemus]

Sorry. It's gone now.

[Great Hierophant]

When you are done with digitizing all the tracks, I would really appreciate it if you would provide a MT-32 midi soundtrack.  A tiny download for those of us blessed with the real McCoy. 

Alot of the soundtrack is very low-key and unobtrusive.  Was this to emphasize the mysterious aspects of the game?  The MT-32 isn't known for its thunderous notes either, so it may have been what the musician thought the synth was best at. 

[Zemus]

I'm sorry, but I didn't set out to make a MIDI soundtrack as well this time. The reason is that making playable MIDIs for single MT-32s would involve a lot more work. The LEC composers didn't bother with the polyphony of the MT-32 so there are several tracks that end up with missing notes if you play them back on a single MT-32. I recorded these in multiple passes and another consequence of this is that when I put the MIDIs together, a lot of them have two different instruments playing on the same channel at the same time because I would simply mute one of them during recording.

Some other tracks, like Jungles of Tikal, don't exist in MIDI form at all. That track, for example, mixes the ambient music with the short sequences that play when you scare the snake and have it kill the rodent. These MIDI files are all at different tempos so putting it together in a MIDI sequencer would mean that one of the MIDIs would have play at the wrong speed unless I started shortening/stretching the events and the time between them. Instead of doing that I simply recorded the different elements into a multitrack mixer and mixed the short sequences into the main music track at appropriate times.

[Boogeyman]

You scare the rodent, not the snake.

[NewRisingSUn]

when I put the MIDIs together, a lot of them have two different instruments playing on the same channel at the same time because I would simply mute one of them during recording.

If you change the channel number of a custom instrument, make sure you change the channel number in the SysEx' device id as well.

That track, for example, mixes the ambient music with the short sequences that play when you scare the snake and have it kill the rodent.

I'm not sure if I wouldn't prefer the ambient music to be interrupted instead for these short sequences.

[Zemus]

You scare the rodent, not the snake.

I was gonna say "when you're scared by the snake and then have it kill the rodent", but it was early in the morning and I messed up.

If you change the channel number of a custom instrument, make sure you change the channel number in the SysEx' device id as well.

I figured that out very early when suddenly some loud vibe sound shattered my ears when I expected a low rumble.

I'm not sure if I wouldn't prefer the ambient music to be interrupted instead for these short sequences.

I agree. I've made a second version of it were those sequences play solo. I didn't get them completely right the first time (noticed after I uploaded) so I wanted to take another stab at it.

[Zemus]

Alot of the soundtrack is very low-key and unobtrusive.  Was this to emphasize the mysterious aspects of the game?

Not sure, but everything's been recorded with the CM-64 set to the same volume so tracks that are lower in volume than others are also like that in-game.

[Marten]

I am using firefox, and the files on that webpage are not downloading correctly.  When I click on any of the "Ogg Vorbis" links, I end up downloading a file titled "Fate", with no suffix.

Hopefully this can be fixed soon

Also, perhaps it is just me, but the opening of the first track (the first 13 seconds) sounds.... off from how I remember it.

[Zemus]

The anti-leech script I'm using removes the underscores from the filenames and adds "Fate of Atlantis -" to the beginning. It worked fine in Opera and IE re-adds the underscores. Which version of Firefox are you using? If it's the latest, I'll see if I can change it.

Also, perhaps it is just me, but the opening of the first track (the first 13 seconds) sounds.... off from how I remember it.

That's the LucasArts logo screen. The weird sound you're hearing at the start is "Fzooom", one of the custom MT-32 instruments made for the game. Any GM conversions will of course not have it and sound different.

[Marten]

I'm using FireFox 1.5.0.12 on this PC, which is the latest FireFox 1.x release.  I have the latest 2.x on another PC.  I haven't tested it there.

Whatever you're doing ought to be compatible with FireFox 1.x though.

And yeah, I know the sound is going to be different in all of those nasty GM translations.  But for some reason I thought the "real thing" was slightly faster.

[Zemus]

I fiddled with the script. Try it now.

[Marten]

Success!  Thank you

[parazythum]

The file download works with Firefox 2.0, renaming included. Stop using old versions, they badly need security patches !