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KotOR2 STEREO Music Restoration Project

markussun
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markussun

markussun

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Hi everyone,

 

in the past 7 weeks I've been working together with others on something that I initially thought not possible: To restore K2's music from its crappy MONO muffled quality to the way it should be -- in high-fidelity STEREO. It's been quite the adventure to research ways to make this happen. I would like you to give me feedback on the small sampler and tell me if I have succeeded:

 

CLICK HERE to download the small STEREO sampler

 

 

No, this is not an April Fool's joke! Sorry for the odd timing... :p

 

Unless LucasArts releases the original high-fidelity true STEREO music in a game-patch, this is really the closest you can get to it, given that I only had the muffled MONO sources to work with.

 

So, grab a good pair of headphones (and make sure your soundcard speaker settings are set to 'Headphones'), and do an A/B listening test. You can, of course, also play it back through your 4.1/5.1 speakers, but depending on your soundcard and driver software the music might be processed in unexpected ways by doing that. For a proper listening test, switch to 2.1 speaker config, or better switch to headphones for a pure STEREO playback. Everything else is explained in the readme.txt file.

 

 

Note to Creative Audigy owners:

 

If you have a Creative Audigy soundcard, make sure you DO NOT have "CMSS 2" enabled (this ensures that you hear the music in pure form without any EAX room reverb effects added). "CMSS 1" and "CMSS OFF" are both ok for the purpose of this demonstration. It goes without saying that you should also ensure that no EAX effects are active in your EAX console.

 

 

Of course, this is just a restoration, and having the real stereo hi-fi music restored by LucasArts would be much more desirable. If you want LucasArts to patch the game and include the proper original STEREO music, it's still not too late to email them in a polite manner and ask them to do so. CLICK HERE to request the proper 44kHz *STEREO* music for KotOR2.

 

I'd like to give credit to John Griffin for being a great aid to this project so far.

 

-markussun

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AnakinSolo2002

AnakinSolo2002

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Hi everyone,

 

in the past 7 weeks I've been working together with others on something that I initially thought not possible: To restore K2's music from its crappy MONO muffled quality to the way it should be -- in high-fidelity STEREO. It's been quite the adventure to research ways to make this happen. I would like you to give me feedback on the small sampler and tell me if I have succeeded.

 

No, this is not an April Fool's joke! Sorry for the odd timing... :p

 

Unless LucasArts releases the original high-fidelity true STEREO music in a game-patch, this is really the closest you can get to it, given that I only had the muffled MONO sources to work with.

 

So, grab a good pair of headphones (and make sure your soundcard speaker settings are set to 'Headphones'), and do an A/B listening test. You can, of course, also play it back through your 4.1/5.1 speakers, but depending on your soundcard and driver software the music might be processed in unexpected ways by doing that. For a proper listening test, switch to 2.1 speaker config, or better switch to headphones for a pure STEREO playback. Everything else is explained in the readme.txt file.

 

 

Note to Creative Audigy owners:

 

If you have a Creative Audigy soundcard, make sure you DO NOT have "CMSS 2" enabled (this ensures that you hear the music in pure form without any EAX room reverb effects added). "CMSS 1" and "CMSS OFF" are both ok for the purpose of this demonstration. It goes without saying that you should also ensure that no EAX effects are active in your EAX console.

 

 

Of course, this is just a restoration, and having the real stereo hi-fi music restored by LucasArts would be much more desirable. If you want LucasArts to patch the game and include the proper original STEREO music, it's still not too late to email them in a polite manner and ask them to do so. CLICK HERE to request the proper 44kHz *STEREO* music for KotOR2.

 

I'd like to give credit to John Griffin for being a great aid to this project so far.

 

-markussun

 

 

(w00t) wow dude, just wow, all I can say is WOW, It wousnds beautiful, soo soo beautiful!!!

 

I didn't need any headphones lol, I ahve Logitech Z680's and it sounds absolutelly magnificent, thank you! please keep on working to get this completed if you can!!!!

 

again, thank you!

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Mark Havel

Mark Havel

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I sounds far better, but I think you get the best you can get from the actual soundtrack : it really sounds like a restauration of an old soundtrack. Anyway, it's a great job and did not think it was possible to ehance the sound from such crappy sources.

It would be better for everyone that Lucas Arts releases a high qualitiy soundtrack.

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markussun

markussun

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Thank you for the comments so far.

 

Dahvernas, yes you're right. Keep in mind that this is a simulation of a stereo recording environment, or in other terms, it is fake stereo. It is impossible to exactly restore the original instrument placements of a live orchestra, since that spatial information is of course lost in the MONO tracks. The whole music collapses into the "middle" of a stereo field, due to LucasArts' treatment of the music.

 

So, my goal was to get the music "out" of that middle position and spread it accross a stereo field again, to make it sound fuller, wider, with more presence. I've tried to do as much separation of the frequencies as possible, without overdoing it (matching the original true stereo recording sample from the composer).

 

If you put the music in a sound editor you can see the stereo separation -- left and right channel are different, otherwise it would not be real stereo. Alas, I cannot do magical things like, say, put the harp at -120 degrees azimuth, the trumpets at -20 degrees, and the cellos at +100 degrees azimuth, or some such. :thumbsup:

 

I'd love to do such magical things, but it's just not possible. The frequencies are Fast Fourier transformed and separated from each other as good as it gets in this restoration. The frequency spectrum has also been improved and restored, matching Griskey's originals in frequency response.

 

I could have overdone the separation easily (and have done so in various tests) to "show off" the stereo effect. But I decided against it and went for the subtle (and correct) approach by simulating the stereo field of Griskey's original recording.

 

This is as close as you'll ever get to the experience of true stereo music within the game, unless LA releases the proper original stereo recording in a patch (which I still hope for).

 

The benefit of this restoration project is that the music won't come out of the narrow front-center direction anymore (i.e. from the dead center of your monitor) but now fully surrounds you, coming from all directions (modern soundcards extrapolate stereo information and extend the stereo field through all speakers). Also, the music sounds clearer than the originals.

 

What this all amounts to, and which I had hoped to achieve, is to make the gameplay experience more epic and intense, through a better musical reproduction and atmosphere. The original muffled mono reproduction just didn't create that epic Star Wars feeling for me, as I know it from the movies.

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markussun

markussun

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It's a great idea! The dev's really should be ashamed of themselves.  Is the file still hosted - can't download it.

I'm sorry, the STEREO music sampler file was temporarily unavailable due to some server problems. This has been fixed in the meantime.

 

The file is available for download again. Go back to the top of this thread for the link.

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Arcite36575

Arcite36575

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Yeah man. If you can do so than please, remaster it. I'll download it and I believe you'll get a whole lot of others who do so too.

 

not only that, I think I would actually PAY FOR IT!!!! :ph34r:

 

Ditto!

 

I have been very reluctant to get this game because of school/bugs/incompleteness of the game, but this would be great when I do get to play this game (hopefully within the next month).

 

Please keep up with good work!

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Ravager

Ravager

Posted
Posted
- Cool Edit Pro

- Sound Forge

- LAME 3.90.3 encoder

- Sennheiser HD 580 precision audio monitor

- Audigy 2 ZS

- my ears

Can you tell me if Cool Edit Pro, Sound Forge or LAME Encoder are sharewares or freewares ?...

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JRM

JRM

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Searching the web for 10sec would kill you ?

 

But I'm nice today so the answer is :

- Cool Edit Pro = Adobe Audition -> $

- Sound Forge is owned by Sony -> $

- LAME is free software (as in beer but mainly as in speech)

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Ravager

Ravager

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Posted
Searching the web for 10sec would kill you ?

 

But I'm nice today so the answer is :

- Cool Edit Pro = Adobe Audition -> $

- Sound Forge is owned by Sony -> $

- LAME is free software (as in beer but mainly as in speech)

Thanks, JRM !...

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JRM

JRM

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the answer is...no.

 

I don't know why but I quite sure that it's something they'll never do even if it cost them nothing. It would take 1 hour. Time is money and 1 hour would cost 15$. A fortune.

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