Freelancer soundtrack remaster.
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I wasn’t quite satisfied with the sound, so here is my take on it: Link
I used my hearing to correct the bass, mid-tones and trebles for each file individually. My goal was to get a rather clean sound. I realize this is a matter of opinion
Also I only have a Sennheiser PC161 headset, but I used my X-FI Titanium HD in audio creation mode with bit-matched playback and ASIO driver for listening to get as close to the original sound as I could.
This is a rather slow process but if you guys like it I can do more. Maybe it at least inspires you
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I made some comparison and your’s is more accurate in the high mids from 1k to 6k, as for mine, that was before I made a refined process, that wasv one of my first files, so it isn’t the case for all the files of the comparison pack. I put a screenshot of the spectrum of vanilla, schmack one and my one.
We are both right. But I want to make it! Schmack, you’ve already done a lot for this community, so could you let me do that? please? It makes me happy and allow me to work in one of my beloved domain. If I struggle with this task I will surely ask for some help but for now it seems that I prefer to do this myself. Do not believe it’s against you, I really like you, it’s just to force me to do a project and you’ve a lot of work to do with your OpenGL wrapper, it’s a long and tough task to do, concentrate you on this, you’ve no time to lose in this, you’re not Atlas!
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Schmackbolzen wrote:
I wasn’t quite satisfied with the sound, so here is my take on it: LinkI used my hearing to correct the bass, mid-tones and trebles for each file individually. My goal was to get a rather clean sound. I realize this is a matter of opinion
Also I only have a Sennheiser PC161 headset, but I used my X-FI Titanium HD in audio creation mode with bit-matched playback and ASIO driver for listening to get as close to the original sound as I could.
This is a rather slow process but if you guys like it I can do more. Maybe it at least inspires you
Nice and crisp dude.
Maybe do some remixes with new samples?
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@Freestalker: Don’t worry, I won’t take it personal and as I already stated I appreciate your enthusiasm
Also having my own projects I understand how you feel about this.
I just wanted to give some constructive criticism and thought the best way to do that is to let you listen to how I think it should sound. Also I have never done this before, so it was quite fun and a nice diversion But don’t be surprised: Audio processing is very similar to image processing, so I have all the theoretical background which is needed, plus my minor is analog and digital electronics, that also helps a lot 
@Bolte: Glad you like them! Here is another one, but I don’t think I will do more as it is rather tedious (also this one has really strange original mixing, which made it more difficult): Link . Maybe if I get specific requests and if I also like the track I will give it another try.
In general I listen to a track the next day before I decide whether it is good enough, since I found, like with most of your own stuff, it helps to get some distance to it and evaluate it with a fresh mindset. This is how I usually get the best results.
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Freestalker, you are doing good, don’t stop because someone else stepped in and did something too. This is how progression is done, one person doing something, then another pushing the limits, inspiring someone else to make more improvements.
We would have no technology such as we have today without this train of progression, keep at it
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Thank you! Bolt and Schmack.
Schmack, your master in the lows is nice and reflect totally what it should be. But in the highs the sound lacks of punch and remind me too much the low quality master of the CD soundtrack, you have to remind that the CD OST is here to give the data, if the treble line is not like the vanilla OST, it cannot make the spatialisation correct and make the sound compressed.
Kusari is normally cold and spacious, it allows you to breath like when you are under the see, the sound design tends to remind you of documentaries music. It’s something between calmness (zen mood) and brightness (sparkling blue everywhere so higher trebles).
I concede that the background noise is changing and the sound become noisy. There is a VST called Voxengo Redunoise that can learn the noise via the spectrum for that, it’s incredible!
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I know that the trebles are not that powerful, because I did not like the sound of it when I increased them too much. So there is only minimal gain in all the tracks I processed. Maybe it is a matter of taste or you find a way to make it not sound so bad
I am curious with what solution you’ll come up with and how it will sound in the end, that is for sure! -
I’ve found the way, I just equalize before 10kHz and after it’s flat. For example I boost 10 kHz for about 6 dB then higher frequency have the same boost. I’m doing a sort of shelving filter with a corner frequency of 10k and not a peaking filter with a center frequency at 20k. We have no clue of what it should be after 10k, so I let them with the same slope but I have boosted them and the sound is not too harsh to hear, the result is nice, despite it’s not as fantastic as my first days on this remaster, no more thrills now.
PS : Omicron musics get severely hurt by the mastering, and now, it’s really clear after my remaster.
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When you guys come up with a finished touched up remaster, that is complete. I will put them into a patch. That is if you want.
Since I’m putting together one complete patch to fix the common problems folk have running the game to bring the source up to date, instead of bits scattered around the web.
It’ll have a complete launcher with auto-update capability for the main source data files and for mods.
It’ll be put into a git source on a repo for everyone to have a go at forking. Every pull request to update the source will go through voting process until there is a majority, only then will it be accepted into the source.
So basically everyone will get their chance to put their mark into Freelancer.
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But personally, I like Schmackbolzens versions. The ones from #24 really highlight some underscores I hadn’t really noticed before because of the quality I’ve heard them at.
For instance in the Kusari one there’s some sounds I hadn’t realised were there because they were very clean and the sounds were highlighted more if that makes sense.
That’s what I want to see (or rather hear) from this.
Not that I’m saying what you are doing is bad my friend.
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I’m creating a 2nd redo, here it’s better because I take in count every aspect of the spectrum, I check everything. I will post some samples tomorrow but first, I have to check if the CD soundtrack is better than the current material. I think you will prefer this remaster than the last one I did, it give me the impression that I’m in front of an orchestra without any speakers, it’s very spacious and real.
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I put another file.
It’s between Schmack remaster and mine. Mine was quite weird to hear because that didn’t fit to the global ambiance of the track but here it fits more to the general ambiance without sacrificing some punch and clarity.
@ Schmack : Many thanks to you for your criticism that allowed me to push this remaster so high. Now I’m satisfied because you showed me a way to recreate the ambiance and also avoid background noise. I just combined our 2 works to give something better. I would like to know what you think about that.
