Shock 2 original multi-track recordings from Robotkid

[Robotkid3000]

Hey gang,

Robotkid here. You may remember me from such games as "Thief: The Dark Project," and "System Shock 2!"

I finally took the time (after some encouragement from Valentin) to post the my original multi-track recordings I created for System Shock 2.
You can find them here, along with some comments about how I made them:

http://www.robotkid.com/systemshock2/

Enjoy!

-Robotkid

[ZylonBane]

Uh... whoa. I didn't see THAT coming.

BTW, I think the background color on that page is supposed to be black?

EDIT: shock2_loops_engineering_90bpm.zip can't be extracted in Windows. Probably due to question marks in some of the filenames.

[Al_B]

Fantastic, many thanks and it's good to see the comments on the music.

[Valet2]

And the news on a Russian Game-OST.ru website is here: http://game-ost.ru/news_comments.php?id=3262



- Valentin

[Myagi]

Wow, this week just keeps on giving ! Thanks!

[Albert]

Haha, yes. I happen to love the credits track, too.

This is some awesome news. I admittedly have never been a big SS2 fan (I prefer to watch it, or play with people nearby), but I really enjoy the work that went into it and the talent involved. So it's great to know that some LG/IG guys' are still alive, kicking and aware of us over here.

[Robotkid3000]

Uh... whoa. I didn't see THAT coming.

BTW, I think the background color on that page is supposed to be black?

EDIT: shock2_loops_engineering_90bpm.zip can't be extracted in Windows. Probably due to question marks in some of the filenames.

This stuff should be fixed now if you reload the page.

Thanks!

[RocketMan]

Just to make sure I understand correctly:

The game's audio is broken up into pieces so that each piece can be triggered in a different location of a given level.

The game shipped with relatively low quality versions of the original music so when "some" of the original scores became available we tried to put the better music in the game except that this music was not broken down into pieces so the game could not use it as it was. In order to break the music up for game use, the music had to be re-sampled, which introduced a slight hiss into the tracks. For fear of degrading the music further, this was left in. This is (until now at least) where we stand with the SHMUP upgrade for ss2

Now, according to this thread, we have the same original high quality music except that we have all of it and it's been broken up into pieces already so we don't need to mess with it and it should sound better than what we currently have???

I noticed 14 tracks in the song.crf archive so please correct me if I'm wrong as I didn't download everything here yet.

[Briareos H]

Thanks man! We live exciting times for sure

[DrK]

Nice ! Sure is one hell of a week.

[Vae]

Thanks for doing that, Josh...

[ArclightBorealis]

Awesome stuff, Josh.

[Valet2]

Just to make sure I understand correctly:

The game's audio is broken up into pieces so that each piece can be triggered in a different location of a given level.

The game shipped with relatively low quality versions of the original music so when "some" of the original scores became available we tried to put the better music in the game except that this music was not broken down into pieces so the game could not use it as it was. In order to break the music up for game use, the music had to be re-sampled, which introduced a slight hiss into the tracks. For fear of degrading the music further, this was left in. This is (until now at least) where we stand with the SHMUP upgrade for ss2

Now, according to this thread, we have the same original high quality music except that we have all of it and it's been broken up into pieces already so we don't need to mess with it and it should sound better than what we currently have???

I noticed 14 tracks in the song.crf archive so please correct me if I'm wrong as I didn't download everything here yet.

Yes and no.

There are two types of music in the game: moody and techno. Moody tracks were written by Ramin, and as far as I remember they were one-piece tracks in the beginning, and it can be clearly heard that some of theme were just cut for making loops to use in the game. Techno tracks were made originally by Josh - he just made some demo tunes and gave them along with naked loops that were used in the tracks to Eric, and he wrote additional beats, created more loops by adding some effects to the original ones, and also added some transitions to these loops (you can listen to both in-game or OST versions and the ones from Josh's archives - you will notice the difference). And speaking of the techno-music it should be changed in order of moving through various locations of the maps, so Eric actually made loops which you can combine in a different way to make your own mix. When we got that cd with the Original SoundTrack it was full of Eric's remixes based on the original loops + additional Eric's loops + mixed and sequenced together to sound like complete songs.

I didn't actually compared the original in-game music files with the ones in SHMUP package. But as far as I know you guys cut these long-played waves from the OST cd into pieces accordingly to the original clips, right? And to force the game to work with 16/44 files you had to put the null-track in 16/44 into each folder, right?

Anyway, now you have more tracks to work with. Including the unreleased ones. So you can make another addon so mod-makers could use more music in their future modifications.

[ZylonBane]

In order to break the music up for game use, the music had to be re-sampled, which introduced a slight hiss into the tracks.

The original music was released as lossless FLACs.

[RocketMan]

Ah.. so they were. I just re-read Shatten's post and it looks like the hiss was already present.

[Kolya]

Awesome music.

So Josh, is it true what Prima's Official Strategy Guide for System Shock 2 reported at the time (on page 127):

Many of the textures in the Body of The Many were derived from the colon of Josh Randall.[...] He had to have an endoscopy performed, and asked the doctor for a copy of the film

Inquiring minds want to know.

[ZylonBane]

Oh dear. We may yet end up with some authentic high-res BotM textures.

[Valet2]

Awesome music.

So Josh, is it true what Prima's Official Strategy Guide for System Shock 2 reported at the time (on page 127):


Inquiring minds want to know.

That's right! I didn't know this information gone public. He actually has the recording (on vhs), and this part where we travel inside the organism after killing the brain (?) of the Worm was based on his endoscopy.

[MidiV]

What a week!
Thank you, Josh!
I'll try to play with loops eventually.

[Robotkid3000]

Awesome music.

So Josh, is it true what Prima's Official Strategy Guide for System Shock 2 reported at the time (on page 127):


Inquiring minds want to know.

Yes that is a true story. The video has been posted on my website since 2005. Can you guess which one?

http://www.robotkid.com/video/video.htm

You might not like what you find...

[Vae]

Yeah, I like the "RNDM & Robotkid - This is Rock & Roll" piece a lot better...

[jtr7]

Oh my god! Thanks Josh!

[Kolya]

Thanks for confirmation Josh, this just sounded so much like a rumour.

Oh dear. We may yet end up with some authentic high-res BotM textures.

You slapped on some huge rubber gloves while you said that, didn't you?

[icemann]

God damn. What a week. Awesome .

[catbarf]

Awesome stuff, I've always been fond of the shuttle bay theme ('Command 2' in the game files, I think?) so it was really cool to hear where it came from. I'm also fond of that unused theme, shame it didn't get used in some fashion.