Ultima VII Enhanced Soundtrack

LinkDragon · Post by **LinkDragon** » Mon Oct 20, 2008 6:31 am

I'm reviving my old project from 2004, from when I was previously known as LinkDragon, the Exult Digital Music Enhancement Project. I'll be periodically adding songs to the soundtrack at this webpage.

Once this is completed, I will be releasing an OGG pack that will allow you to use the new music in Exult. For now, I'm focusing on doing songs from The Black Gate, but I may do a few from Serpent Isle.

As a request to any fellow musicians, my project could benefit greatly from any SF2 files you may find for me to use, such as high quality orchestra instruments, specifically brass instruments.

In the meantime, enjoy my music.

Post by **marzo** » Mon Oct 20, 2008 10:29 am

I like the alternate version of stones more than the other version, but they both sound great.

Gruck · Post by **Gruck** » Mon Oct 20, 2008 12:46 pm

They all sound great! I can't wait to see a complete soundtrack.

LinkDragon · Post by **LinkDragon** » Tue Oct 21, 2008 12:03 am

I like the alternate version of stones more than the other version

I went back and listened to both and I think I liked the alternate (aka the old version from 2004 better) so I went and redid the song again from scratch and I think I did something that sounds better than the other two. It's listed as "Stones (Revised)" on the album page.

Post by **artaxerxes** » Tue Oct 21, 2008 3:17 pm

I absolutely _LOVE_ the wisps song.

Well done.

Artaxerxes

Gruck · Post by **Gruck** » Tue Oct 21, 2008 4:39 pm

I love The Wisps. Musicbox is nice too. I hope Ultima VII Theme (Work in Progress) still has some progress to go because I feel right now it is quite weak. Danger is coming a long nicely though. Good work! Can't wait to see more.

Post by **drcode** » Tue Oct 21, 2008 6:53 pm

Very nice! Stones is my favorite.

Earthquake Damage · Post by **Earthquake Damage** » Wed Oct 22, 2008 12:47 am

Neat! Musicbox is good, as is your rendition of Rule Britannia. The Wisps is by far the best of the bunch. I agree with Gruck on the title theme as it stands. Danger mostly needs some volume balancing, best I can tell (e.g. the low notes at the beginning are too soft). I find the ?lute? sound in Stones painfully harsh, but the rest of it's quite nice (flute and background strumming and all). I'd love to see how this all turns out as you finish it.

Johann Amin · Post by **Johann Amin** » Wed Oct 22, 2008 4:48 am

Musicbox:
Nice. However, the continuous stereo panning of the "piano" makes me dizzy when I listen to it with headphones on. Not so obvious with narrow field desktop speakers.

The Wisps:
Another nice track. The reverb on the flute(s) sounds a little "unnatural" to me.

LinkDragon · Post by **LinkDragon** » Wed Oct 22, 2008 10:09 am

Thanks for all the feedback everyone!

I've taken note of everyone's feedback and they're all issues I'll be looking into. I definitely agree about the guitar on Stones to being too harsh. I'm not professional at this, but I'm certainly trying my best to get better. I have a newer version of the Title theme and Danger that are nearly ready for upload, and I'm quite happy with them. I also have the Introduction (with the bird and the flute) more or less completed, and I like how it sounds. Oh, and Johann, that's actually a music box, not a piano. I personally like the stereo panning, but maybe it's a little too strong. I'll tweak it a bit and make it a bit more subtle.

TDI · Post by **TDI** » Wed Oct 22, 2008 10:33 am

Nice work. I like how you stay true to the original sound while improving the quality. I probably wouldn't use enhanced music if it derived too much from the original "feel".

LinkDragon · Post by **LinkDragon** » Wed Oct 22, 2008 1:47 pm

Nice work. I like how you stay true to the original sound while improving the quality. I probably wouldn't use enhanced music if it derived too much from the original "feel".

Yes, this is exactly what I try my best to do. I do not remix. If I could transcribe, I'd make the MIDI myself, but I have MIDIs that were directly converted from the actual in-game music, and I feel those are the best source. I'm trying to get as close to the original feel of the music as I can. I might change an instrument or two when I feel it works better for the song as a whole, but I usually stick pretty close to what it originally sounded like. I more or less try to imagine the soundtrack if it were orchestrated and go for that.

And on another note, nothing that is up on that page has to be final. This is a learning experience for me, and this whole project will most likely make me better at it. The feedback is extremely appreciated, so keep it coming.

DarkAvatar · Post by **DarkAvatar** » Sun Oct 26, 2008 4:55 pm

I love it! your doing a great job it feels like the original game music with a new kick to it. i like it 'the wisps' would have to be my favorite it has like a medieval feel to it.

Olarin_-_password_forever_lost · Tue Oct 28, 2008 5:21 am

Using the original MIDI's is a good idea - they were well constructed in terms of expression in timing and velocity and such (not just careless quantitized note values like in some games; presumably they were originally recorded in on a keyboard or else very carefully 'humanized'). However, there are places where you may want to add to the original MIDI data. For instance, if memory serves the sound that was originally used at the beginning of the Theme decayed / mellowed a lot faster than the low string patch you're using now, which as a result stops rather abruptly at the end of the note; you could compensate with some manual fades.

There's a wrong note at the beginning of the Musicbox mp3. Sounds like some sort of recording accident.

Rule Britannia sounds nice. Again, you might be able to get even better results by tweaking the phrasing on individual parts for a more sensitive and realistic performance, to really get the maximum mileage out of the improved instrument libraries that weren't available to the original composer. That could end up being a lot of work though.

In addition to the aforementioned harshness of the guitar on Stones, the entire track seems very bright and treble-y - I don't know how much of this is the individual instrument patches used and how much is the overall mixing and mastering, but I think it loses the mellow wistfulness of the original. Also, I'm not sure I agree with the choice of the bowed bass. Note that the bass and guitar parts are really one part in a sense - together they form a complete accompaniment pattern suited to playing on a real guitar. I know the bass notes do stick out just a little bit in the original - the composer obviously intended to give them some emphasis - but I think the choice of dry arco bass (combined with the panning and the bright guitar sound) really seperates the two parts too much; I'd stick with pizzicato.

Danger is the track that really shows the most improvement on the source, to my ears - very nice extrapolation of the atmosphere of the original. Maybe you could find a stronger sample for the solo brass instrument that doubles the melody with the low strings? Then again it might be easy to overdo it on that one.

Incidentally it would be nice to have more 'combat' and 'danger' tunes in the same style, and be able to have the game choose them either randomly or based on the situation or something. The combat musics are the ones I get real tired of real quick in Ultima games - even in Ascension where there were several different tunes based on the type of opponent, I got really sick of the combat tunes.

Wisps works real well too, a definite sonic upgrade. The guitar and flute parts seem a little bit too seperate sonically though - like the reverb and EQ is too different or something? I'm not an audio production expert so I can't put my finger on it. Actually, maybe if you just slightly adjusted the guitar velocities to make the loudest notes and quietest notes not so extreme - seems like the instrument you're using exaggerates the contrast compared to the original (but maybe I'm just remembering poorly), and the loudest notes kinda punch out too much and the quietest notes get buried.

Sorry for the long post. Hope I don't seem too critical or long-winded; it's a cool project you're taking on.

Olarin_is_an_idiot · Post by **Olarin_is_an_idiot** » Tue Oct 28, 2008 5:31 am

ah crap, i managed to TRIPLE post. and a very long post at that. many apologies.

LinkDragon · Post by **LinkDragon** » Sat Nov 01, 2008 9:00 am

Hey, thanks for all the critique Olarin!

I've got a much better version of Danger sitting on my computer that I have yet to upload. I've not worked on the project for a few days though, thanks to getting Fallout 3. I'd say more but it's late and I'm quite tired. And don't worry for the long post.. everything you had to say is important and I'm making note of all the critique I'm given.

Thanks again!

LinkDragon · Post by **LinkDragon** » Mon Nov 03, 2008 3:29 pm

Not exactly on topic, but it's Ultima VII music related, so I figured it's close enough.

Here's an awesome rock cover of Stones by Vertexguy for the Dwelling of Duels over at VGmix.com.

http://dod.vgmix.com/past/jul08/10-vert ... ad-DoD.mp3

WWWWolf · Post by **WWWWolf** » Tue Nov 04, 2008 10:19 am

So far, seems pretty amazing.

Hate to toot an unrelated project, but since you asked for SoundFonts, I must say I'm a big fan of Frank Wen's Fluid R3 soundfont. Probably available from hammersound.net.

Warder · Post by **Warder** » Tue Nov 11, 2008 11:10 pm

Great stuff. I've been bugging Terilem to remake a few of the Ultima VII pieces for me for a long time, but he never gets around to it!

_HoppyDragon · Post by **_HoppyDragon** » Thu Dec 11, 2008 12:11 pm

I've been occupied by other things for a while, but I should have some new stuff really soon.

(Don't seem to be able to login anymore..)

RyuRanX · Post by **RyuRanX** » Thu Dec 11, 2008 2:04 pm

Awesome! I can hardly wait to replay Ultima VII with this new soundtrack.

tedreedy · Post by **tedreedy** » Mon Dec 15, 2008 2:13 am

Hey everyone, this project is awesome. Hoppy (and others), I'd love to get in on it and help out. I've started with one track here (apologies for the minimal design):

http://www.tedreedy.com/u7/

tedreedy · Post by **tedreedy** » Mon Dec 15, 2008 10:46 am

link
http://www.tedreedy.com/u7/

Jaesun · Post by **Jaesun** » Wed Dec 17, 2008 5:32 pm

This is actually a fantastic idea HoppyDragon. Ultima VII has been in need of a musical "face lift" so to speak, for a long time. I was actually working on such a project myself, but never really got too far with it.

I was curious, are you using actual acoustic instruments and a keyboard mix?

And are you using a software based program for the instruments, or keyboards?

I LOVED the Musicbox and The Wisp songs. I did feel the guitar in Stones was a bit too... jarring however.

Anyways, keep up the work on this! Would love to see this project finished.

tedreedy · Post by **tedreedy** » Sun Jan 04, 2009 6:05 pm

Updated with new track:

Wall of Lights

Also updated Magic Tricks with enhanced volume... was too quiet before.

http://www.tedreedy.com/u7/

tedreedy · Post by **tedreedy** » Tue Jan 06, 2009 8:12 pm

Updated with new track:

The Fellowship

http://www.tedreedy.com/u7/

_HoppyDragon · Post by **_HoppyDragon** » Tue Jan 13, 2009 12:24 am

I'm busy with preparing to move to the other side of the country and haven't had time to work on the enhanced soundtrack. Ted, I have to say I love your work and you're much more talented than I am. If you like you're welcome to take over the project, otherwise when I can I'll get working on it again. Again, Ted, awesome work. I'm jealous.

wmhunt · Post by **wmhunt** » Thu Jan 15, 2009 3:38 am

Hoppy, you should keep working on this too! I've enjoyed listening to all the remade tracks, it's made some of my favorite tunes come alive again. You're both very talented.

wade · Post by **wade** » Fri Jan 16, 2009 3:06 am

How can one use these with exult?

tedreedy · Post by **tedreedy** » Fri Jan 16, 2009 6:58 pm

wade,

Similar to the current Digital Music Pack currently available for Exult, the tracks would just need to be encoded into OGG format. If you've downloaded the Digital Music Pack, you'll notice in your music directory you have a bunch of files named 00bg.ogg, 01bg.ogg, 02bg.ogg, etc. You need to convert the MP3 to OGG, and then just replace the correct file.

For instance, the "Magic Tricks" OGG file is 33bg.ogg. So convert the new Magic Tricks MP3 to OGG format, rename it 33bg.ogg, and place it in your music directory, overwriting the original. Also the Fellowship music is 35bg.ogg and the Wall of Lights is si09.ogg.

If we were ever able to finish all of the tracks, I'm sure we'd convert them all for you and release a complete OGG pack. But that has yet to happen.

Kalad1 · Post by **Kalad1** » Mon Jan 19, 2009 4:53 pm

keep up the good work!

Kalad1 · Post by **Kalad1** » Mon Jan 19, 2009 4:56 pm

btw, you'd better update the Kilrathi theme!

tedreedy · Post by **tedreedy** » Mon Jan 19, 2009 9:07 pm

Haha, Kalad1, I was thinking the EXACT same thing as I was playing through the game the other day listening to music I'd want to enhance.

tedreedy · Post by **tedreedy** » Sun Feb 08, 2009 4:08 pm

added new track:

Stones

http://www.tedreedy.com/u7/

alagner · Post by **alagner** » Sun Feb 08, 2009 4:38 pm

I hate to say it, but I don't like it. I have Wall Of Lights as my cell phone ring

and Fellowship theme also was great, but Stones...Sorry to say that, it sounds way too synthetic for me. And I think that the instruments lack the original hmmm..."sharpness" if you know what I mean. Some parts are too soft and mellow imho.

tedreedy · Post by **tedreedy** » Sun Feb 08, 2009 9:22 pm

alagner,

I know exactly what you mean, and I'm kind of with you. I took a little more artistic liberty with this one, rather than simply creating an enhanced version of the original... and once I was too far in I had to finish it. when I listen to it, I think it's a cool re-inspired version of Stones, but I don't necessarily think it would carry the right vibe if you actually heard it in the game.

I'm working on another version that pays more homage to the original, which I think you'll really like. in the meantime, let's see what everyone else thinks.

also, pretty cool to know someone's using my sound as their ring.
what did you think of Magic Tricks?

alagner · Post by **alagner** » Sun Feb 08, 2009 9:55 pm

Magic Tricks is also a very good remade melody, though I can't tell you much more, as it isn't that complex as, let's say, Fellowship or Stones - it's just almost the same, but in better quality [or my guitar amp made me partially deaf. Which is also possible

] - it will work great within the game, but I don't think I would listen to it separately, as I do to Fellowship or Wall of Lights themes.

BTW - I can't wait to listen to your arrangements of Kilrathi theme and the one played when Dupre dies in SI.

And I've a question - what program do you use to compose and mix these tracks? If, of course, it's not a secret

tedreedy · Post by **tedreedy** » Sun Feb 08, 2009 11:13 pm

the reason I ask about Magic Tricks is because I actually added more of my own sound to it than say the Fellowship or Wall of Lights... listen to the chord changes in the background strings & synthesizers.. they're kind of soft, but definitely weren't in the original (I did a little too much of this in Stones). but yes, I have overwritten the OGG files in the digital music pack and actually had it play in the game (like when visiting Rudyom) and also tested the Fellowship, right when the game opens in trinsic, and I think they sound appropriate within the game, while like I said my current Stones might not.

I am currently working on:

Stones (alternate)
Kilrathi
Dupre's death.

let me know if anyone else has any other requests. I would love to do the Wisps but for now Hoppy's version is pretty solid.

also I use Apple GarageBand, with the orchestra jampack for the instruments.

alagner · Post by **alagner** » Mon Feb 09, 2009 6:37 am

Yeah, you're right with the softer different chords, now I listened to it again and ther're there really

. But still, they don't stand out that much [if ever] and do not the disturb the song's original feel. And that's the reason I consider it a good job.

tedreedy · Post by **tedreedy** » Sun Feb 15, 2009 12:40 pm

Hi everyone, here are some updates

updated Stones to pay more homage to original

added Sir Dupre's Sacrifice

and of course, The Kilrathi.

complete list:
http://www.tedreedy.com/u7/

alagner · Post by **alagner** » Mon Feb 16, 2009 5:34 pm

Too much reverb on trumpet [or general. I'm not sure] in Kilrathi in my opinion. And too large volume swell. But these are details really, maybe due to different midi synthesis we use - so I can have other expectations than you

T. J. Brumfield · Post by **T. J. Brumfield** » Mon Feb 23, 2009 1:11 am

Could you also post on your site appropriately named ogg files for direct inclusion in the game?

Petrell · Post by **Petrell** » Thu Feb 26, 2009 3:56 pm

tedreedy, would you be interested in helping The Ultima 6 Project as their February Update posted at RPGWatch states that they won't be able to make all the needed music tracks for the final release with their current resources?

To anyone interested:
Ultima 6 Project Team is currently looking for 3D modellers, 2D artists (portraits/textures, etc.), writers and music creators to help with the project. If you're interested please post at U6 Project forums