Remastering music

[enumag]

There is a mod on Steam with remastered music generated from midi files.

While we don't really like the music from this patch we do agree with the reasoning behind it and want to try and make some better versions ourselves.

This site should have the original MIDI files: http://k2works.com/nerve/mid_mat.html

[ItaloKnox]

I decided to give it a try. I will probably have to check the craft quality of each midi to make sure the level of realism that can be achieved, but from the looks of it the midis are pretty old so I can suppose they are quite well made.

With that in mind, how would you guys prefer it? Truly faithful in terms of instrument choices or can I make a few changes here and there? How ok would it be to make a few changes in tone (darker songs slightly less dark, instruments recorded with percussive changes...)? I have no plans on changing the notation (that's pretty rude to the composer and the people who liked the originals) so these changes extend only to how the instruments will sound and not how the music is played.

[enumag]

I think I'm ok with a some changes.

[Petsnew]

midi: https://a.pomfe.co/zzpajk.7z (contains an csv with information about the files)
original: https://a.pomfe.co/sfiekc.7z
mod: https://a.pomfe.co/jmlxie.7z
french (thanks @Grelo): https://a.pomfe.co/lljawj.7z

Hmm... I think we could do something similar with Kai as well. The game tracks aren't really high quality, and I have the complete OST in flac. It's pretty easy to reencode them to vorbis/ogg.

[ItaloKnox]

Okay, so I tried something on Days of Children, since it's a pretty easy song.

(players inside the link - don't forget to adjust the volume to a comfortable level)
Original: https://transfer.sh/F3AX9/msys31.ogg
Mod: https://transfer.sh/9zjLH/msys31.ogg
French: https://transfer.sh/qdiiZ/msys31.ogg
Mine: https://transfer.sh/fKx1B/Days%20of%20children%203.ogg

You can see it's quite a change compared to the others. I'm gunning for realism so it will lose some of the original feeling in favor of more instrumental detail.

[ItaloKnox]

One more for today. Wanted to see how you guys react to something that is not very much like the original.

Original: https://transfer.sh/TiSxz/msys22.ogg
Mod: https://transfer.sh/zFwPZ/msys22.ogg
French: https://transfer.sh/jL3a6/msys22.ogg
Mine: https://transfer.sh/Bk3ir/Dancers%201.ogg

After we decide if we're in the right track or not I'll just take my time and do all the remaining tracks. The songs are pretty simple (and the midis well crafted) so I believe I can do two or three songs a day.

[enumag]

@ItaloKnox After hearing these I think I should to take back my previous statement. Both of the songs are a bit too different for my taste. It's not necessarily a bad thing, they are not bad at all. But they do give me a completely different feeling than the original songs.

Listen to other opinions, I could probably get used to your versions over time if the others prefer that. That said personally I'm leaning towards staying closer to the original.

[ItaloKnox]

Well, that's a problem. You see, I'm not doing anything to the midis that would make it differ a lot from the original. That's basically the result of over ten years of improvement in modeling and sampling technology, it will hardly sound the same as we're getting deeper and deeper in making libraries that can substitute humans. I tried to push the notes to force them to play in the same strength they play in the originals but it just doesn't work well with modern libraries.

While I understand it's not really the same, there's not much I can do without being unhappy with the sound quality. I'm really close to finish (only two more to go), so I'll pack everything and upload them as promised, then everyone can decide if they want to use it or not.

Also, I noticed there are a couple things I didn't get right in Dancers, so I'll fix this as well to make it more close to how the original played.

[ItaloKnox]

As promised a couple days ago, I finished, checked, renamed and uploaded all 15 songs I promised to remake. All in record time, and I hope I can use this experience to get over this issue I have with being impatient with things that could have been polished over time. It was a good learning experience.

Download here, I also left the .csv made by @Petsnew in the zip so you can know which music is which. All in ogg 320kbps, I think there's no reason to go with more than this. I will upload the FLACs with proper tags later in case someone really likes it.

This post will probably go longer since I want to explain a few things about the whole process.

• About my initial conception of the project versus the ending of it

Without a doubt, the midis are really, really well made. Perhaps a bit too well made, and that proved to be quite an issue by the time I reached a few complex songs in nature (Fascism and Dawn were a pain in the ass). You see, these compositions were made for a different time. Since then we moved on from the SC-55 and the SoundBlaster to more complex stuff, such as true legato. The latter, for example, was a wild dream back when those pieces of hardware were a thing. For that reason, the midis often conflicted with the workflow and had some crazy issues I still have no idea if I truly fixed them or were them a fluke. In the end, I think I got to a point where the work turned out to be okay, and this is a good reminder to never underestimate old hardware.

• About my approach as a composer

I think no one here (even those who know me outside of the group) are familiar with my music. I've been honing my style for around seven years now and every day is a learning experience. To make it short, I love imperfect, noisy and airy instruments. It is certainly not liked by a lot of people, but I feel like it is very underappreciated. When asked to remake these fifteen songs, it is very hard to not let my influences bleed into the original work. With that in mind, no one should expect a faithful recreation of the music or a substitute to the original soundtrack. It is merely an alternative, that has my own style while I try my best to keep it as recognizable as possible. It will probably stick out like a sore thumb compared to the other music in the soundtrack, but hopefully, you guys can find it fun to listen to.

• What could have been better and what's next

You see, there's a lot I'm unhappy with. I can't tame the strings in Fascism, I can't make the right synths for the songs that used them, I can't make Dawn strings pop out without ruining everything else, maybe I went too strong (or too weak) in the mixing and mastering for a few songs. When you're dealing with sampled instruments these issues will always happen at some point, and there is always a way to solve them. At this time, though, I am not sure how.

I could have worked on this for a longer time (maybe a couple weeks at best) but I'm far too impatient for that and I already have another project that's in the oven for almost three years already, so I can't let the same happen to this one.

In the end, I'm not unhappy with how it turned out, I had a blast working on this. It's not a masterpiece that will be left for the years to come, but I don't think it turned out to be bad. I actually hope to revisit all songs in the future, maybe a few months from now or a year, we will probably be working on this patch for longer than that. As I said, I'm always improving so I hope to reach a point where everyone is happy with the result. Especially @enumag since I can understand his issues with the music but I don't know a way of "fixing" them.

[enumag]

@ItaloKnox This actually turned out pretty damn good. Far better than the original in most cases. Awesome work mate!

I'll give you feedback on each song individually. It's not to say you should go and change them now, just something you might find useful if you do revisit these in the future. It will also be useful to me when I try to put together my own BGM directory by mixing tracks from the anime, original and your remake.

Overall it seems that your versions have lost the basses and background aspects which is quite a great deal for me in certain songs (Dancers 1 and 7). The problem is that this is where the original songs shined so it's far more of a challenge to create something good. This is also the reason for my previously negative feedback - the example songs fell into this category. Remakes of songs that have no important bass aspects to them feel great.

gear.mid, Gear, msys17.ogg
I like how this one turned out. The thing is that I can hear some kind of background noise that feels like it shouldn't be there.

dawn.mid, Dawn, msys18.ogg
I still feel the basses should have more volume. They suddenly changed the feeling of the music in some parts (for example 2:02) and I miss that. That said otherwise this sounds like "what Dawn should have been".

mds2.mid, Theme of owner, msys19.ogg
One of my favorites from your alternative soundtrack.

fascism.mid, Fascism, msys20.ogg
Yeah I see why this is one of the more difficult ones. The notes in the original sounded quite unique, especially the bass notes and I liked that. Your version is great and I can get used to it easily, just missing the uniqueness a little.

rainy.mid, Rainy days, msys21.ogg
Far better. You nailed it.

dancers1.mid, Dancers 1, msys22.ogg
This is a track where I actually like the original more. The part without background notes between 0:50 and 1:13 is far better in your version but. The rest however suffers greatly. Right since the beginning until like 0:50 and then again since 1:13 the original has some really loooong background notes that seem to alternate between whether the note comes from the left or from the right each time. In your version I almost can't hear those notes, never mind their awesome left/right alternating. It's a big loss for this song.

dancers7.mid, Dancers 7, msys23.ogg
The longer notes that begin at 0:18 are somewhat similar to the long notes in Dancers 1 (except they don't seem to alternate left and right this time?) and again I miss their original feeling. Again I like the original better because of this.

snow3.mid, Snow 3 "First snow", msys24.ogg
Again some basses have less of an impact but they don't seem to be too important here. I like it.

snow4.mid, Snow 4 "Frozen to death", msys25.ogg
I'm kinda indifferent here - I don't really like either version.

sunrise.mid, Sunrise, msys26.ogg
Oh this sounds awesome. It makes me want to replay Tatarigoroshi.

mds1_ps.mid, Tell a thing (piano solo version), msys27.ogg
Yep, this is how it's supposed to be. Very good.

lie.mid, Lie lies-lies lie, msys28.ogg
No thanks. This is one of the best tracks in the original soundtrack. Your remake is honestly not even close.

med1.mid, Meditation 1, msys30.ogg
Personally I'd choose the original here too. I don't like the part from 0:23 in your version. Btw. why is your 9 seconds longer?

child3.mid, Days of children 3, msys31.ogg
Another track where I don't think a remake is necessary. To be honest I can't decide which one I like better. Your version has too low volume but that's a minor thing. I'll probably stick to the original in case of a tie like this.

dancers5.mid, Dancers 5, msys32.ogg
I don't think I'll ever really like this song but yeah your version is an improvement.

[ItaloKnox]

I will explain some stuff, so here are some answers:

gear.mid, Gear, msys17.ogg
The noise is actually from the piano. I thought people wouldn't easily like it so I made a bet. I can tone down the noise so it's really, really low. This is actually one I plan on reworking since I'm not exactly happy with the mastering.

dawn.mid, Dawn, msys18.ogg
The strings in the music aren't actually made for bass but I share some of your criticism. As I noted before, I'm not 100% happy with it either so next time I'll try to boost the low-end in mastering to see if it helps.

fascism.mid, Fascism, msys20.ogg
This was really the worst of them, I absolutely hate it. I dug my copy of the Native Instrument Symphony that has "better" strings but for some reason, I couldn't make it sound how I wanted. At least your impression is way better than I expected.

dancers1.mid, Dancers 1, msys22.ogg / dancers7.mid, Dancers 7, msys23.ogg
Music with synths is particularly hard for me because I'm more used to acoustic instruments. I had a hard time with these two and most likely missed a few aspects because one of the synths might not have "read" some of the notes. This first happened with the left and right alternation but I managed to find out before release so I went and fixed that. I need a lot more practice with synths to make it worthy, maybe @IdealPersona could do something a lot better since we're in different ends of the musical spectrum.

snow4.mid, Snow 4 "Frozen to death", msys25.ogg
This one barely makes sense in the original so yeah, I understand.

lie.mid, Lie lies-lies lie, msys28.ogg
There is one change I did that didn't turn out to be good, but I went along with it anyway. I plan on remaking this one since I'm not exactly happy with it either.

med1.mid, Meditation 1, msys30.ogg
Synths again so that was expected. I think the nine seconds build from the starting silence and the ending. Or maybe something went wrong and I made a mistake with the tempos.

child3.mid, Days of children 3, msys31.ogg
I was afraid the volume could be an issue so I'll just go ahead and boost it in mastering. Honestly, there's not much to do with this one.

[ItaloKnox]

Some updates to the music:

• gear.mid, Gear, msys17.ogg / child3.mid, Days of children 3, msys31.ogg
  • volume boosted in mastering, should be better now
• lie.mid, Lie lies-lies lie, msys28.ogg
  • remade the music from scratch. I got it all wrong from the midi, it should be closer to the original now.

Just download the music from the same link again and you should get the updated version.

[orian34]

DISCLAIMER : Keep in mind I have no context what so ever about these musics as it's the first time I'm hearing them.
I've listened and simply wrote what I felt with my simple mind using simple words.
I don't think I've any claim about music at all, and I'm even doubting I hear normally after trying to express my feedback.
Anyway, I'll be direct, so take it lightly.

• msys 17
  I don't know the context of this music, but I find the sharp sound from the original version to fit slightly better. Makes it more hard hitting and reaching. Yours feel too muffled.

• msys 18
  The original one actually made my ears bleed at some points. it's true the tone is slightly changed, but overall, yours is way better. Although, at 2:32, it feels like my hearing goes deaf for a note, I don't know how to describe it.

• msys19
  It's strange, it's almost like I miss the sharpness of the piano. Maybe I won't take that into account since it seems too much like a personal preference. Overall, it's nice, there's just the final bit, with the echoing notes that feel less subtle in your version since they're above the piano volume, opposed to the original's version.

• msys20

This one... yeah. It feels like all the strung up tension is removed. By lowering the bass notes and having them 'continue,' it goes away. Also, the main strength of the original is how they are abrupt and 'cut up' to stop the listener to have a 'comfortable' feeling of continuity, which increases the tension since it forbids relaxation. It's completely out in your version, I think.

• msys21
  Yours is an improved version, nothing more to say.
• msys22 and 23
  Enumag said everything. Original is just better.
• msys24
  How come... I don't understand. Have you reduced the piano? All the musics I have heard had the piano less impactful. I prefer the original(both are pretty similar), simply because yours sounds like a muffled version.
• msys25
  Both are just weird. Also, I quite dislike the stingy notes, they hurt a bit. But again, the piano strikes, and I'd choose the original.
• msys26
  Well, I prefer yours because the piano is less sharp and it fits better. This one's a no comment.
• msys27
  Again, yours feel like a muffled version.
• msys28
  The original is great. It feels like a lot is lost in your version.
• msys30
  I'd say it's the same than for msys28. Especially the loss of the percussions.
• msys31
  I prefer the instruments of the original.
• msys32
  Same. Also, the fact that the cymbal is put at the first front disturbs the flow for me.

[ItaloKnox]

I get most of your criticism, though half of them are expected (synths in a nutshell) and the other half boils down to my music style. I'm glad I only offered it as an alternative instead of a substitute, 'cause it's almost impossible for me to fix those.

Some of the stuff you said I have taken note of, maybe something went wrong in how the midi was read by the DAW or I went too heavy in the mastering. I'll fix them sometime in the future.