[Nix]

I've got a new SB X-fi card that has a new feature called the "crystalizer".  what it does is kinda "perk up" the audio better than just enhancing the width of the audio.  It also doesnt put on any silly gunk like reverb and echo.  I ran a few tracks through it last night and I was actually impressed with what happened.  I'm curious to know if this is OK to do for a VP of sorts, when it comes to copyright, or what is covered under the source code modifications allowed.

[Taristin]

Considerring that all of the model and texture improvements were built on top of the stock maps, and models, I don't see why this would be a problem at all.

Care to post some samples of the "upgraded" tracks?

[Mongoose]

The FS2 battle tracks, at least, already sound great in their .ogg format, but I'd love to see some enhanced versions of the rest of them, especially from FS1.  Give us a few examples.

[Nix]

I'll need to work on them a little bit, just running it through the crystalizer sometimes isnt enough. What I've noticed though in the FS1 Track I've been working on, it really brings up the low end, more bass, but still doesnt really do anything for the high end.  I also cant get rid of the artifacts from compression.  Man, I wish I had originals.  Right now it's sort of an idea, and I only have one rough draft track done.

I've made a sample and put it up here. 

Original from VP file:
http://www.fileh.com/nix1999/m3_bttl1_Orig.ogg

Modified File:
http://www.fileh.com/nix1999/m3_bttl1_70pct.ogg

Questions? Concerns?  I will be refining this over time so keep in mind, it's just a rough draft. 

[Ransom]

The original sounds better to me...

[CaptJosh]

I'm going to have to agree with Ransom here. The "upgraded" version is too heavy on the bass.

[vyper]

Sorry Nix, gotta go with the concensus so far here.

[CP5670]

Sounds much better on my headphones (exactly like Winamp's laptop/headphones equalizer setting) and considerably worse on my speakers. That probably makes a big difference here.

[Nix]

Cool, Like I said, I'm still messing around with it, there's a lot that can be done with this, though I dont know if it'll ever work out.
What I really want to do is smooth the artifacts out.
 

[Nix]

Okay, after a few days getting lost in Sound Forge, I've come up with a different approach.  The cyrstalizer method is out, but I have figured out a way to smooth out the roughness of some of the hi-frequency noises.  FS1 tracks really wont sound different unless you crank the volume high on standard-quality desktop speakers.  Headphones, you might notice a difference, and you SHOULD notice a difference if you've got some Hi-Fi headphones like CP5670 and I do.  I did not modify the bass and treble at all this time, rather used more sophisticated tools in order to clean up this old audio for FS1.  FS2 will be less noticable, but it might just make a difference, as it's tracks are recorded much better than FS1's. 

I'll have tracks posted tomorrow.  Watch this space.

[Flipside]

Problem is with enhancing sound is that it is like enlarging an already existing texture, it gets 'bigger' but it's always based around the original quality of the track. Since the FS2 tracks were back in the day when 22Khz Stereo was typical for games, this could prove a problem.
That said, remaking those tunes would be an absolute nightmare, simply finding all the sounds that Dan Wentz used in the original score would be difficult, the choir voices are one thing, but for example, the second half of the titles uses a filtered sequence, those filters make it very hard to tell what notes are actually being used in the sequence, and without knowing the notes, it's hard to figure out what exact filter is being applied, so it's a catch 22.
The piano stuff isn't too bad, or the orchestral stuff, it's the 'fluff' that kills There are DX filters for Soundforge that are designed for enhancing tape recordigs or vinyl audio, they may help, however, the ideal solution would be for Dan to be nice enough to release copies of his 44K+ templates, since no musician would be content with actually recording in 22K, so I can promise there are high quality versions of the music around.

[Nix]

I agree with you totally, Flipside.  If I had the original source templates, hopefully with minimal "assembly", this would be a lot easier.  I'm using some DX filters in Sound Forge which take away the nasty hissing and crackling that's associated with reducing a track from it's native bitrate down to 22K.  It helps considerably on my audio setup here, I can notice a big difference.  The music just sounds.. "cleaner".  Less of the nasty sounds that "surround" the music.  Also, like Flipside says, it's the fluff that kills, also, there's some very nasty low-frequency rumblings whenever there's a timpani or something played.  Sound Forge's DX plugins have helped reduce that, and make it sound fuller, without distorting as much.  So, it DOES help, but having original templates would be a dream come true.
I've also thought about contacting THQ but I really doubt anything I'd write would actually GET to Dan, unless I had an email address that went to him personally.  Then there's the problem of FS1 not being covered under our license for the source code, whereas I'd expect they might only be willing to hand over the FS2 tracks.  That's still way better than nothing, but I REALLY want to redo the music for FS1.  I'd also like to redo FS2's tracks, even though they sound pretty good, they can sound so much better with our new OGG file handling capabilities.

[Nix]

Okay..  I've got a new sample.  I have others but posting on my 56K connection really sucks. 
This time, no crystalizer method, no EQ tweaking, just some filters to clean up the audio and some re-normalization.
I sometimes have to put it like this.  Listen "around" the music.  A lot of hissing and fizzing, well it's reduced quite a bit in my ears. 
Let me know what you think.

http://www.fileh.com/nix1999/m4_nrml1.wav
http://www.fileh.com/nix1999/m4_nrml1cleaner.ogg

[WMCoolmon]

The second one sounds slightly cleaner to me.

The problem you're running into, though, is that the music files are utter crap. 22.5 khz, with ADPCM compression...yuck. It works fairly well for voice files, but for instruments, you lose so much quality that it's like looking at a picture after running it through one of Photoshop's watercolor filters (Assuming you pretty it up with EQ settings and such).

I've tried this a couple of times, and haven't ever been able to find anything that seemed to please very many people outside of myself.

Best bet at this point would be to MIDI the stuff, and use a soundfont so that it doesn't sound so crappy. It'd make it easier to upgrade in the future. But barring that, yeah, the track you posted sounds a little crisper.