A discussion on restoring EQ's music once and for all

[grazulis]

A long time ago (1999, roughly), I got my copy of EQ, a couple of days after everyone else. To this day, some of my most vivid memories of that day revolve around the game's music. The uplifting tune when encountering the Gfay wizard spires. The mellow, nostalgic merchant music. The simple but appropriate desert music of Nro - which can now only be heard on Project 1999, incidentally.

I had the good fortune and luck to have a SB Awe32 in my pc at the time. Not only was the built-in soundbank quite a good one (for being so small), but the card also provided all-important reverb, without which ANY midi tune sounds hollow and dull.

As has been briefly touched upon in at least one other thread, you can hear EQ's old midi music, but you'll still have to have one of those old, discontinued soundcards available (in addition, it seems, to an older OS) if you want acceptable playback quality.

The reason for this is simple. Windows Vista / 7 both make use of a tiny (~3MB) GM wavetable synth soundbank when playing midi files. The poor quality of the soundbank is one of the culprits, but by far the biggest problem is the total absence of reverb.

As it happens, considerable hunting around has produced a solution to one of the problems. It is possible to replace the default soundbank with another. Easy in XP, not so much in Vista / 7. You have to find "gm.dls" in your windows directory structure (I know of two copies of said file in Windows 7) and replace them with an alternative DLS file.

Two problems. First, the DLS soundbank format is essentially unsupported, meaning you won't be finding good soundbanks on the net. At least I didn't. A solution is to acquire Awave Studio and use it to convert any of the plethora of SF2 soundbanks into the DLS level 1 format. Second problem is that in Vista / 7, the original gm.dls file is protected, and normally it is extremely tricky to make the file modifiable without somehow messing up your OS. Fortunately, research led me to a handy registry script which adds a file takeover option to your right-click menu (Google "take ownership"). Works like a charm.

Unfortunately, no matter how good a given soundbank is, without reverb, there's just something missing - something critical. Take EQ's gypsy music (can be heard in the grassy area of Nro). It's got a percussive element which sounds great with reverb, but otherwise sounds rather like somebody tapping two wooden pegs together.

Sadly, this is where my information hits a dead end, for now. As far as I have been able to determine, there is no way to force Windows' midi playback process to implement effects like reverb. However, there may be some means of rerouting midi playback through a yoke and into a standalone midi player which does the job properly (or, obviously, some kind of external midi device, if one wishes to go there). A big part of the point behind this post is to see if anyone's toyed around with this and perhaps already developed a solution.

Time is of the essence. To the best of my memory, in the entire classic/Kunark/SoV run, only classic exhibited a wide variety of music for various locations and situations. I think Kunark was 100% devoid of music, and SoV had maybe a tune at the ferrets or something. Soon enough, Project 1999 will be as musically bankrupt as EQ became. I hope to find a solution in time to enjoy the game more fully like I remember, and there are probably others who feel the same.

Side note: Classic EQ had three (midi) battle tunes, and picked one randomly when entering combat. Project 1999 plays the same tune every time. Does anyone know a fix for this?

[eqdruid76]

Honestly, the sound card in my computer back in 1999 was a complete POS, and the game music sputtered, skipped and froze on notes to the point I turned it off an kept if off. I'm thankful just to be able to hear the tunes at all now. :P

[Akame]

Yea I'd gotten sick of the attack music by the 3rd day and turned the sound off, only turned it back on a few times years later when someone said this zone music was cool. I'm afraid I have no clue how to help you.

[rioisk]

I thought the music was amazing back then too. You're right...EQ didn't do enough with music in kunark and velious. =(

[Flicka]

The music that does play in some areas is just frightening. Like the Rivervale tune? I used to LOVE just sitting in RV (usually fishing) and chatting and mellowing out. Now it's some jiggy demon spawned beat that is kinda scary after a few minutes, LOL. I don't know how or why it's different, but it is!

[binibren]

There may be an easier solution. If you can find someone with old hardware and an AWE32 -- I just tossed mine about 6 months ago :( -- you can run all of the midis through winamp and output them to mp3 files. You can then replace the sound files in Titanium. It's been a while since I've messed around with the Titanium client but I *think* it supports both mp3 and midi.

For those who were not so lucky as to have played EQ with an AWE32 here is what Kelethin sounded like with that magical sound card:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=atHxsHPt7Fc

Here is Kelethin with "normal" sound card:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZO4_8A9Uiwg

[PearlJammzz]

That awe32 version rocks! Someone needs to go through, and convert all the midi's to mp3's that sound like that. Muhc more...vibrant, and alive. Not as dull as the music now.

titanium only supports mp3's I thought?

[Dawgrin]

Wow I never knew what I was missing...I would LOVE to hear all the EQ music in this format...does anyone happen to have all the other music files likewise converted to MP3s?

[PearlJammzz]

My understanding is you need that special midi card (or at least supported-style card?) to be able to read the midi files like that. If you have one of those you can then convert the songs into mp3's w/ use of a program (record the output maybe is a worse-case scenario?). From there we can just download MP3 pack, and then be able to swap out the mp3 files that are currently in our directory.

[grazulis]

I've been plugging away at this problem and here's an update.

This thread:
http://forums.station.sony.com/eq/posts/list.m?topic_id=115730

reveals that someone had contact with the composer of EQ's music. At the bottom of the thread, somebody has reposted an MP3 archive which was presumably acquired straight from the composer. Inside the archive are renditions of the music which are about as good as I have ever heard.

It has been suggested that one can replace EQ's .XMI (midi) files with like-named MP3s. I'm not so certain of this. The other thing revealed in the above thread - which I determined for myself prior to stumbling upon that discussion - is that many (most?) of EQ's music is literally hidden away. For example, GL.XMI is EQ's battle music. If you play this file with Winamp, you'll hear the very battle music which Project 1999 plays whenever one enters combat. However, if you skip ahead 1/3rd into the tune (and again at 2/3rds), you will also hear the other two battle themes which Project 1999 does not play. These used to play randomly when entering combat. And there are a lot of examples of this... many tunes stored in a single .XMI file. Even the opening EQ theme itself is hidden halfway into FREPORTN.XMI.

For anyone who ever wanted the entire soundtrack in a reasonably accessible format, the above thread also includes a .MID pack which was created by isolating each of the parts hidden in the .XMI files and creating separate .MID files out of them. All one then needs is a midi player which does a better job than the built-in soundbank utilized by Windows.

But back to the issue of getting this great music to actually play in EQ.

This thread:
http://forums.station.sony.com/eq/posts/list.m?start=-7&topic_id=146016

makes apparent something which I never personally found out, as I quit EQ for good shortly after Luclin's introduction. Evidently, when the Planes of Power got released, EQ's music was changed for good. Many MP3s were introduced, and we have clear-cut file names like EQTHEME.MP3 and FREEPORT.MP3. I happen to have discovered the complete filelist of mp3s and looked it over. As it happens, there are far fewer individual tunes than what was made available via the .XMI system with its multiple tunes per file, and this may help explain anomalies such as the no-longer-random battle music. Would Everquest Titanium play these MP3s if they were present? Who knows.

I may someday decide to scratch an itch and get my old Velious installed so I can shanghai the eqgame.exe and use it to replace Titanium's eqgame.exe. Sure, there are plenty of reasons to expect this not to work, but just imagine if it would. No more "ebon crystals" in your inventory. Battle music would be properly random. Missing tunes would be back (just listen to those MP3s in the first linked thread)!

[km2783]

I think me and Ableton Live have a new project.

At a minimum I plan to run the new, dead MP3s through a nice reverb plugin. If anyone wants to send me classic songs from a not as good sound card as an MP3 I'll see what I can do.

Long term, I have much bigger plans that involve those precious MIDI files and some nice samples. I'll probably even start with the Kelethin theme.

What I'm really curious about is can we somehow hybridize this? All the music of the XMI files while using MP3s? Not that any of this will be all that classic :P

I'm looking into this right now >.>

I also recall back in the day I had to eventually buy a SB16 Live or some nonsense as the built-in sound on my HP would crash the client at odd times. It was always a bitch when it happened when Slate hit my Bard lol. This was during... Velious, maybe. I don't recall exactly when it happened. But it's when i discovered the modem was part of the sound card module o.O

**edit** Sadly, that MP3 archive link was no longer good, so I don't have any reference material to work with =/

**edit again** I'm going to make a new thread about "new" music and leave this one alone so it doesn't get too derailed. however, I'm still open to working with MP3s to get them to sound closer to that AWE32 card if anyone is interested.

**edit part 3** I actually found a plugin that emulates the AWE32 card. But it costs $100 =( Found other GM plugins. $100+ lol.

**edit farce** Some of those MIDI tracks are a single track with several parts, others are broken up into several. =/

[Crover_CT99]

I've been plugging away at this problem and here's an update.

This thread:
http://forums.station.sony.com/eq/posts/list.m?topic_id=115730

reveals that someone had contact with the composer of EQ's music. At the bottom of the thread, somebody has reposted an MP3 archive which was presumably acquired straight from the composer. Inside the archive are renditions of the music which are about as good as I have ever heard.

It has been suggested that one can replace EQ's .XMI (midi) files with like-named MP3s. I'm not so certain of this. The other thing revealed in the above thread - which I determined for myself prior to stumbling upon that discussion - is that many (most?) of EQ's music is literally hidden away. For example, GL.XMI is EQ's battle music. If you play this file with Winamp, you'll hear the very battle music which Project 1999 plays whenever one enters combat. However, if you skip ahead 1/3rd into the tune (and again at 2/3rds), you will also hear the other two battle themes which Project 1999 does not play. These used to play randomly when entering combat. And there are a lot of examples of this... many tunes stored in a single .XMI file. Even the opening EQ theme itself is hidden halfway into FREPORTN.XMI.

For anyone who ever wanted the entire soundtrack in a reasonably accessible format, the above thread also includes a .MID pack which was created by isolating each of the parts hidden in the .XMI files and creating separate .MID files out of them. All one then needs is a midi player which does a better job than the built-in soundbank utilized by Windows.

But back to the issue of getting this great music to actually play in EQ.

This thread:
http://forums.station.sony.com/eq/posts/list.m?start=-7&topic_id=146016

makes apparent something which I never personally found out, as I quit EQ for good shortly after Luclin's introduction. Evidently, when the Planes of Power got released, EQ's music was changed for good. Many MP3s were introduced, and we have clear-cut file names like EQTHEME.MP3 and FREEPORT.MP3. I happen to have discovered the complete filelist of mp3s and looked it over. As it happens, there are far fewer individual tunes than what was made available via the .XMI system with its multiple tunes per file, and this may help explain anomalies such as the no-longer-random battle music. Would Everquest Titanium play these MP3s if they were present? Who knows.

I may someday decide to scratch an itch and get my old Velious installed so I can shanghai the eqgame.exe and use it to replace Titanium's eqgame.exe. Sure, there are plenty of reasons to expect this not to work, but just imagine if it would. No more "ebon crystals" in your inventory. Battle music would be properly random. Missing tunes would be back (just listen to those MP3s in the first linked thread)!

I'm glad you posted this link. I had found it a year or so ago and rejoiced at having a decent set of the original tunes.

I posted about this on the bug section awhile back, but it garnered no interest from the developers.

Anyway, to the OP, if you read the entirety of that post you linked, I believe someone posts a "remake" of either the Qeynos or FP bard guild music which is worth a listen.

[km2783]

I'm glad you posted this link. I had found it a year or so ago and rejoiced at having a decent set of the original tunes.

I posted about this on the bug section awhile back, but it garnered no interest from the developers.

Anyway, to the OP, if you read the entirety of that post you linked, I believe someone posts a "remake" of either the Qeynos or FP bard guild music which is worth a listen.

"And as a hommage to Jay: here is a sweet, reworked version of the old Qeynos Bardguild midi, done by Leif Chapelle aka Cobalt Katze on the VG forums: http://www.xs4all.nl/~treesong/bardguild.mp3 "

[YendorLootmonkey]

I replaced my combattheme1.mp3 with the "Princes of the Universe" song from Highlander. Sword battles are 10x cooler. I also replaced the death theme with the chorus from "Live and Let Die". That's as much playing around with the music as I have done. :)

[mgellan]

If you go to http://www.xs4all.nl/~treesong by itself you can see all the files he has, including EQmp3.zip ...

Regards,
Mg

[PearlJammzz]

Wow, these tunes are so much more...alive I guess you could say than what we normally hear. Any way to make these play like this with our current client? Perhaps w/ the secrets of faydwer client?

Would be awesome to be able to play mp3's for each zone/area. I imagine these are handled via the client though, and have nothing to do with server code?

[Gamkek]

I wish there were some way I could help with this! I want the original music so badly. Windows 7 does a poor, poor job of dealing with the MIDI files currently. The music often stutters or goes completely out of key. Other times there's just high-pitched squealing for 10-15 seconds and then it goes back to normal. Ugh, what a mess!

And none of it sounds nearly as good as it did on my old P2. Oh, the irony.

Anyway, if there's anything I can do to help, please let me know. Maybe we can all pitch in for the AWE32 so we can do this??

[Gamkek]

If you go to http://www.xs4all.nl/~treesong by itself you can see all the files he has, including EQmp3.zip ...

Regards,
Mg


Some of these .mp3s sound pretty spot on. I don't know how we can get the Titanium client to recognize these though. It's a shame the quality and quantity of music dropped after Kunark. The original EQ music was so immersive.

[PearlJammzz]

Some, like lavastorm, the game uses a .mp3 format file anyways. We could just swap this out, and it'd play these versions of the music :).

[km2783]

Some of these .mp3s sound pretty spot on. I don't know how we can get the Titanium client to recognize these though. It's a shame the quality and quantity of music dropped after Kunark. The original EQ music was so immersive.

just rename them and replace the MP3 files in your EverQuest directory.

[grazulis]

**edit** Sadly, that MP3 archive link was no longer good, so I don't have any reference material to work with =/
Look further down in the thread. Somebody is kind enough to repost the full archive. The new link does work. The individual MP3s are also available directly from http://www.xs4all.nl/~treesong as was pointed out earlier, although do note that the EQmp3.zip at that link does not contain all of the MP3s found in the true archive (missing things like Ak'Anon, Mistmoore, etc.) Also worth noting that while these MP3s represent idealized renditions of EQ's music, they do not cover the entire soundtrack. The midi files archive is more thorough, providing, for example, the several varieties of "eerie" music.

My next attempts at this problem will involve hijacking Windows' midi mapper. Clearly, EQ tells Windows to treat the XMI music as midi. That's the key. Back in the day, this resulted in an Awe32 using its built-in soundbank and reverb. These days it results in Windows using its built-in soundbank (which is bad) and no reverb (which is worse). To reiterate, the process of hijacking this process is reportedly easy in XP, difficult in Vista, and perhaps impossible in 7, as Microsoft removed more and more associated freedoms (probably also forcing more and more musicians onto Macs). But we'll see how it goes. After hijacking the process, all that remains is to forward the midi information to a standalone player with a good soundfont and things like reverb / chorus. I already had success replacing Windows' soundfont, but that turns out not to be the full solution.

[grazulis]

**edit part 3** I actually found a plugin that emulates the AWE32 card. But it costs $100 =( Found other GM plugins. $100+ lol.
Prompted by this revelation, and somewhat to my amazement, I poked around and managed to find the actual Awe32 GM soundbank in soundfont format. That will be interesting to use as reference if/when I manage to reroute EQ's midi information to a standalone player. I did not, however, find the Awe32 emulator you mention, which would probably, by definition, include the all-important reverb (and whatever else the card did to make that small soundbank sound so good). Have a link?

[FatMagic]

There may be an easier solution. If you can find someone with old hardware and an AWE32 -- I just tossed mine about 6 months ago :( -- you can run all of the midis through winamp and output them to mp3 files. You can then replace the sound files in Titanium. It's been a while since I've messed around with the Titanium client but I *think* it supports both mp3 and midi.

For those who were not so lucky as to have played EQ with an AWE32 here is what Kelethin sounded like with that magical sound card:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=atHxsHPt7Fc

Here is Kelethin with "normal" sound card:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZO4_8A9Uiwg

Holy. Crap. What a difference! I want those tunes! How nice sounding!

And grazulis - keep us up to date on your work. Can't wait to see what you can create. I wish I could help but I have zero skill in working with sound!

[km2783]

Prompted by this revelation, and somewhat to my amazement, I poked around and managed to find the actual Awe32 GM soundbank in soundfont format. That will be interesting to use as reference if/when I manage to reroute EQ's midi information to a standalone player. I did not, however, find the Awe32 emulator you mention, which would probably, by definition, include the all-important reverb (and whatever else the card did to make that small soundbank sound so good). Have a link?

I may have jumped the gun. It came up when I searched KVR's plugin database for AWE32.

http://www.kvraudio.com/get/2699.html

Apparently here's why:
*Do quality conversion between the instruments formats most common PC synthesizer sound cards. Some examples: SB AWE32, SB Live!, all Vortex II-based cards, TB Pinnacle, TB Maui, AVM Apex, Gravis UltraSound, UltraSound PnP.

It actually does a LOT more, but I don't think it's going to have that reverb. and ew, AWE32 was actually an ISA card hehe. It turns out it used technology from Emu in it's MIDI playback, ie sample-based.

Interesting read:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sound_Blaster_AWE32

So, if you find the AWE32's SoundFont you're most of the way there. There are a LOT of great reverb plugins out there.

Also have you tried MIDI Yoke to shuffle the MIDI around?

[mgellan]

FWIW I have an AWE64 Gold card in my toy box that probably still works, and a P200 box (first box I played EQ on I think!) to run it in if need be...

Regards,
Mg

[km2783]

FWIW I have an AWE64 Gold card in my toy box that probably still works, and a P200 box (first box I played EQ on I think!) to run it in if need be...

Regards,
Mg

Well, now. That rather handily solves a lot of problems right there. Surely even a 200MHz machine can handle the task of playing MIDI files and recording them to disk. The 64 was suposed to be quieter, too. Only issue is if it dips into voices 33-64 of polyphony, it no longer uses the emu8011 but the host CPU and sounds inferior than the soundbank.

but I don't think that issue will arise. :D

[grazulis]

I may have jumped the gun. It came up when I searched KVR's plugin database for AWE32.

http://www.kvraudio.com/get/2699.html
That's Awave Studio - the program I referenced earlier as being one means of converting any of the common SF2 soundbanks into the esoteric DLS Level 1 format which Windows utilizes for midi playback. It doesn't appear easy to determine whether one could use it to play midi from a yoke, but certainly I wouldn't expect it to provide processing like reverb.

So, if you find the AWE32's SoundFont you're most of the way there. There are a LOT of great reverb plugins out there.

Also have you tried MIDI Yoke to shuffle the MIDI around?
I installed MIDI-OX and either this installed MIDI Yoke along with it, or Windows 7 has its own MIDI Yoke built-in (no real way for me to tell, at this point). As it happens, somebody did cleverly produce a tiny hack to enable one to bypass Microsoft's GM wavetable synth and forward the midi information to a yoke. I've fiddled with it and it works (I can monitor the midi data with MIDI-OX). Now what I desperately need to complete the picture is some kind of app that will take this midi information and correctly play it. Once I have everything in place, I will outline the steps I took.

For the time being, the closest I have come is with a free app called Terry West's Take1. It can load big soundfonts, and it includes a reverb of reasonable quality. The only problem is that it is interpreting all the midi notes as piano (or, more probably, failing to interpret them at all, and defaulting to piano, the first patch in any general midi soundbank). I've emailed the author in an effort to determine what can be done. It was only recently that I confirmed to my satisfaction that the midi mapping hack was not responsible for this anomaly (by way of observing the data flow in MIDI-OX). I have not found any other standalone midi players which 1) can load soundfonts, 2) accept midi input from a user-selectable source, and 3) provide crucial effects such as reverb. No doubt multipurpose programs such as FL Studio could be set up to do all this, but that wouldn't be much use to readers here, and the practicality of this exercise would be greatly diminished.

[km2783]

A thought occurred to me. Does anyone know if classic EQ loaded it's own soundfont into the AWE32? Games like Final Fantasy 7 supported this feature of the card.

And I stumbled across a Sound On Sound article from 1994 about the AWE32:
http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/1994_articles/jun94/soundblasterawe.html

Where'd you find the AWE32 SoundFont? I'd like to play around with it in Live :D

I've also run across a thread from 2009 with people trying to get the AWE32 sound of Doom working, and weren't having much luck with any SoundFonts :( They speculated, and from what I've read on the AWE32 they are correct, that the physical card itself has a onboard sounds to pull from, too.

We might have to rely on Mg and his AWE64 for the most accurate results.

**edit** I did find this: http://my.opera.com/Silverspring/homes/files/Silverspring%20Gaming%201.5.zip

Supposedly a SoundFont made by someone for playing old games. downloading it now just to see. And it is not the file you are looking for =/

**edit 2** but this might be. Experimenting with Live+Kontakt now. http://my.opera.com/Silverspring/blog/2006/11/20/awe-rom-gm-set

ugh it keeps crashing Live. Fail.

**edit tree** I just had an "oh shit" moment. I just played the Kelethin MIDI file and it sounded very, very good. Admittedly not exactly like the AWE32 clip posted on page 1 (the string pads aren't as lush or prominent, imo), but DAMNED better than the "other soundcard" clip. details to come.

**edit four** ugh DropBox is taking FOREVER to upload this little MP3. fastest it was moving was 12.8KBps but it's been hovering around 1-3KBps... my internet is NOT this slow =/ Patience...

**Final edit of this post I swear**

Here it is:

Kelethin - Dry, no added reverb from me anyway (http://dl.dropbox.com/u/5272203/KelethinOSXMIDI.mp3)

Apparently OS X has a nice MIDI soundset. I routed audio from it's preview player and into Ableton Live, recorded it and then exported and converted to a 192kbps MP3. The AWE32 pizzicato is more plucky and sharp, the strings are more prominent and lively, the bass is a little weak, so this isn't quite there yet, but I guess a decent step.

**edit 6** I lied, another edit. One thing I noticed while doing this, is that the AWE32 Kelethin posted on page one is the Kelethin.MID while the "craptacular soundcard" version uses the KelethinFull.MID which has some REALLY cheesy sounding solo lines in it, I guess a MIDI clarinet or oboe or something.

**edit 7** post is getting long... but here's the EQ Theme (http://dl.dropbox.com/u/5272203/EQThemeOSXMIDI.mp3) as performed by the OS X MIDI soundset. I'm listening to Ak'Anon right now :D

What troubles me, though, is those cursed xmi files and the seemingly random number of mp3 files as well. It's like some are going to play MIDI, some songs are mp3 and it's somewhat annoying.

[doacleric]

Its funny, because after looking at the mp3's posted on http://www.xs4all.nl/~treesong/ , i found that they sounded vaguely familiar. Oh yeah, thats because they were recorded by me :)

All those mp3's were created by uploading the EQ soundfont into my Sound Blaster Audigy and playing the original xmi files. I added a bit of reverb to it too. Note that you MUST play the original XMI files, and not use an XMI -> MID converter, which tends to change the pitch and speed of the music. They should sound reasonably close to the way EQ played them back in the day, though I remember them sounding a TAD bit better. The only true way to see how it sounded back in the day would be to get a 1999-2001 version of the client (before Luclin, and before sound blaster support was dropped), and load up the game on an ancient version of the emulator on a computer with a SB AWE card.

I also spoke with the composer of the EQ soundtrack a couple of years ago. He told me that he actually had a master sound font file that was MUCH larger than 512k one EQ shipped with that had the potential to make the MIDI's sound amazing. If any of you remember the music that would play on EQ's homepage back in late 1998 before its official release, then you know what i'm talking about.

[km2783]

All those mp3's were created by uploading the EQ soundfont into my Sound Blaster Audigy and playing the original xmi files.

Small world hehe. So EQ did come with it's own SoundFont for use in compatible sound cards like the AWE32 and others. So the OP probably needs THAT SoundFont and not the default AWE32 one?

[ribaldron]

IMO UO and EQ had FANTASTIC music - I mean, it doesn't have shit on what we could have today with our fancy MP3's and whatnot - but they did the best they could with what technology they and their customers had, and it sounds *terrible* today.

I remember these being totally awe-inspiring back in the day - UO was the same story - I could not play UO with the terrible new MP3's and had to replace them all, heheh. At least with EQ we have poor-sounding high quality music. :)


Would be awesome if someone finds a solution to this. :D

[doacleric]

Small world hehe. So EQ did come with it's own SoundFont for use in compatible sound cards like the AWE32 and others. So the OP probably needs THAT SoundFont and not the default AWE32 one?

Its tricky, and i'm not 100% sure how the internal workings were handled. The soundblaster came with its own soundfont, yes. EQ also came with its own 512k soundfont file, which was uploaded into the soundcard upon loading the game. What i'm NOT sure about is if EQ used its own soundfont instruments exclusively, or a mixture of the two.

[km2783]

Can the card use a mixture of the two? I'm not sure I've read either way on that one.

I did find that they used the Miles Sound System and that Miles only somewhat recently removed the free player for their xmi files =/ it was called MilesT32.exe and I have yet to find it.

[mgellan]

We might have to rely on Mg and his AWE64 for the most accurate results.

Almost done loading Win98 on it, LOL, man a P166 is sloooooooooooow.

Regards,
Mg

[km2783]

LOL go, man, go!

[rikustrength]

I would LOVE to see this come to fruition. At first I read it and I thought "no way do I want my eq tunes sounding different at ALL", but just a few seconds of that kelethin music got me going :eek: I would LOVE to hear that in my game. Y_Y

[FatMagic]

@km2783 - that Kelethin track sounds excellent! Get all the tracks out like that :)

@mg - hahaha can't wait to hear what you can do with that "beast" !

@ribaldron - I found an archive of UO's music done with the best MIDI synthesizer available when UO released. So this is the best it would have sounded in 1997, and they all sound fantastic! Listen to "Creation" & "Stones" for two of the most reminiscent tunes. http://www.dor-lomin.com/archive/ultima/musicarchive/uo/

[Gamkek]

Almost done loading Win98 on it, LOL, man a P166 is sloooooooooooow.

Regards,
Mg

Man, this is exciting! Carry on, brother.

Makes me kick myself for all the times I tossed out or gave away old hardware thinking, "There's no way I'll ever use this again..." :o

[doacleric]

Just FYI, there is going to be no way to get that HQ sounding SB AWE music playing in place of the current music ingame. That functionality is no longer there in the EQ client. The best we can do is record MP3's of an old client playing the music on an old computer with an AWE installed. Note that you will need to somehow get a VERY old version of the emu working with the old client to even get into the world. Doable, but tricky.

[rikustrength]

Just FYI, there is going to be no way to get that HQ sounding SB AWE music playing in place of the current music ingame. That functionality is no longer there in the EQ client. The best we can do is record MP3's of an old client playing the music on an old computer with an AWE installed. Note that you will need to somehow get a VERY old version of the emu working with the old client to even get into the world. Doable, but tricky.

Well, we already have a lot of the HQ sounding music in mp3 format, isn't it also a problem of getting the p99 client to read mp3s since currently most of those songs are in .xmi format? We can't just swap out the xmi files for the mp3s since they have different extensions and won't be recognized unless the client is told to look for files with a different extension.

I do NOT know in the slightest how all this works, I'm not a programmer and I barely follow what you guys are going on about, but it was my understanding that as much as getting EQ to play the xmi properly in the first place is a problem, so is just telling it to play something other than xmi. Correct me if I'm wrong? :/ I really would love to have this music in my game instead of the regular.

[Adramelk]

There may be an easier solution. If you can find someone with old hardware and an AWE32 -- I just tossed mine about 6 months ago :( -- you can run all of the midis through winamp and output them to mp3 files. You can then replace the sound files in Titanium. It's been a while since I've messed around with the Titanium client but I *think* it supports both mp3 and midi.

For those who were not so lucky as to have played EQ with an AWE32 here is what Kelethin sounded like with that magical sound card:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=atHxsHPt7Fc

Here is Kelethin with "normal" sound card:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZO4_8A9Uiwg

It's worth noting that while I agree with everything in this thread and would LOVE to hear the old epic EQ music the way it was originally intended, that I'm unsure these are actually the same midi file -- if you'll notice, at the very least they are in different keys (listen carefully!).

(If they are, and the different midi interpretation also changes the key, my apologies. Still, GOD does the first one ever sound wonderful.)

[Simplistik]

I'm not too keen on what your looking for but I have an old P2 system that has an old Sound blaster in it ,model ct4170 isa slot system still works too!
Could this be used to convert over the old midi's into mp3's?

[km2783]

It's worth noting that while I agree with everything in this thread and would LOVE to hear the old epic EQ music the way it was originally intended, that I'm unsure these are actually the same midi file -- if you'll notice, at the very least they are in different keys (listen carefully!).

(If they are, and the different midi interpretation also changes the key, my apologies. Still, GOD does the first one ever sound wonderful.)

I stated earlier that they are actually kelethin.mid and kelethinfull.mid respectively. So yes, two different songs. They're indeed in different keys, though ;)

Also, a little OT but a little on-topic, too:

http://midisheetmusic.sourceforge.net/

You can open MIDI files with it to look at the sheet music for the sheet musically inclined :)

[Ceridain]

Just read through this whole thread and really excited! Would love to have the old midis singing through my headphones again, so good luck on the conversion. They were part of what made EQ so magical back in the day. Tons of fantastic whimsical tunes, no doubt.

Anyone remember the ducking/Qeynos catacombs music? My fav ;)

[hyzon]

This thread has me super excited. I'm just hoping it happens instead of reaches an un crossable roadblock.

[ShadowWulf]

SB16, AWE32, gravis something or others (3 of them, ISA cards!) all sitting in my box of doom. Im pretty sure they all work, or at least they DDI when i scrapped them as mementos. Might be fun to try and get a SB16 to work on a modern PC eh? I play alot of other classic games that might benefit (Ultima series being tops, and Magic Carpet/Dungeon Keeper)

[hyzon]

I think this translates to "Get to work ShadowWulf!". <3

[doacleric]

If the EQ client doesn't detect a soundblaster AWE or Live! Card, it will default to the software driven directx DLS soundfont, which sounds no where as good. Trying to do this with anything but one of those two cards would be pointless.

[ShadowWulf]

http://www.google.com/products?hl=en&rlz=1G1ACAWCENUS345&q=soundblaster+live!&um=1&ie=UTF-8&ei=fDUUTNmqIpyWMYOJvd4I&sa=X&oi=product_result_group&ct=title&resnum=3&ved=0CDEQrQQwAg

You can pickup SB Live! now for around $5 if you look a bit.

[rikustrength]

Again, I would like some clarity on the situation (and in game if that's possible, but we'll talk about that later).

Is the current goal to find a way to accurately play the old midis in their HQ version, and record it as new easily playable mp3's? And if that is the goal, how then will our current client read them if the current files in place are all .xmi? Won't it not read a like-named file if it's extension is different?

On that note, would the SB Live! previously mentioned do the trick? Or is that something that's most likely going to only work on older computers... Just looking for an answer, I wouldn't mind shelling out a few dollars for those rad tunes.

[mgellan]

Man, this is exciting! Carry on, brother.

Makes me kick myself for all the times I tossed out or gave away old hardware thinking, "There's no way I'll ever use this again..." :o

Yeah, I've done that a few times and regretted it so now I'm a packrat - lucky old boards don't take too much room :)

Win98 is loaded and running, just bought a dual RCA - phono cable (damned AWE64 has R/L phono plugs) at lunch to hook it up. I'll run the phono into my netbook for recording, probably easier than trying to get the P166 to play and record reliably! I should just be loading the MID files from the site and playing them right?

Regards,
Mg

[doacleric]

Again, I would like some clarity on the situation (and in game if that's possible, but we'll talk about that later).

Is the current goal to find a way to accurately play the old midis in their HQ version, and record it as new easily playable mp3's? And if that is the goal, how then will our current client read them if the current files in place are all .xmi? Won't it not read a like-named file if it's extension is different?

On that note, would the SB Live! previously mentioned do the trick? Or is that something that's most likely going to only work on older computers... Just looking for an answer, I wouldn't mind shelling out a few dollars for those rad tunes.

The current goal is to try to get an old EQ client to playback the original music so that it can be recorded and enjoyed. There is NO way that the current Titanium client will be able to playback the original music correctly, even if an AWE/Live soundcard is installed in the computer. That functionality has been long since removed by the original developers.

In addition, there is no way (to my knowledge) to make the current client playback mp3's the way it plays back the xmi files. Each xmi file doesn't store just one midi tune, but stores several tunes that are to be played back in each zone. For example, Gfaydark.xmi has several songs - one that plays in front of Felwithe, one that plays in front of Crushbone, one that plays around the Kelethin area, and another that plays by the wizard spires (to name a few).

Yes, you can create a file named gfaydark.mp3, but my guess is that it will simply play that file every time you enter that zone, throughout the entire zone. Thus, you will be limited to one song per zone, and it will play no matter where you are in the zone. I don't believe this is the effect that most people want.

In addition, there is no way to get back the "situational" songs that play, such as the boat theme that plays when you board a ship. Combat music should work fine though.

[doacleric]

Yeah, I've done that a few times and regretted it so now I'm a packrat - lucky old boards don't take too much room :)

Win98 is loaded and running, just bought a dual RCA - phono cable (damned AWE64 has R/L phono plugs) at lunch to hook it up. I'll run the phono into my netbook for recording, probably easier than trying to get the P166 to play and record reliably! I should just be loading the MID files from the site and playing them right?

Regards,
Mg

First of all, you don't want to be playing back any MID files, period. Those MID files could only have been obtained using an XMI -> MID converter, which changes the tempo and pitch of the music. Not something we want. You would need an app that can playback the original XMI files directly, without any conversion.

Next, you would need to upload the EQ soundfont file into the AWE's soundbank, and then playback the XMI music. The thing is, i've already done this exact thing, and the recorded MP3's in the previous links that you guys have been listening to are the result of that effort. There is no reason to do that again...

What we REALLY need to do, is to get an old EQ client (1999-2000 era) to playback the music directly, instead of using an outside program. This way any modifications/enhancements (if any) that the EQ client makes to the music can be heard and recorded. The client has its own way of loading the soundfont files, so you won't need to do that.

The trick here is to actually get into the game on an old client to listen to the music. You would need to find an old version of eqemu, or possibly eternalquest to run to log into the old client. Thus, you would have to run your own server and probably use a minilogin to get in. However, once in, recording the music should be a trivial task.

[apio]

maybe someone remembers this:

there used to be a way to "hack" the tutorial portion of the game to load any zone u wanted. I remember using it to take a peek into Plane of Fear back in the day. The zone would load, ofcourse devoid of mobs, and you were able to run around. I am pretty sure that the music worked fine when you loaded it that way.

This might be a way to actually get the files to play without "logging" in to the game, and it would work with the old client, without using an Emulator.

So if you actually find a way to playback the correct files on P1999, above solution would provide with a way to actually enter the zones and playback the midi files to record them.

I did a small google search on it and i couldnt find it yet, but ill keep looking

edit: it was called EQ Zone Viewer
edit2: here a reference to it on the eqemu forums, unfortunately the Download Link is broken but maybe you can contact the guy who started the topic, he seems to have a copy of the executable.

http://www.eqemulator.org/forums/showthread.php?p=131603

[Dac321]

There may be an easier solution. If you can find someone with old hardware and an AWE32 -- I just tossed mine about 6 months ago :( -- you can run all of the midis through winamp and output them to mp3 files. You can then replace the sound files in Titanium. It's been a while since I've messed around with the Titanium client but I *think* it supports both mp3 and midi.

For those who were not so lucky as to have played EQ with an AWE32 here is what Kelethin sounded like with that magical sound card:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=atHxsHPt7Fc

Here is Kelethin with "normal" sound card:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZO4_8A9Uiwg

I honestly didn't even know it was suppose to sound that good back in '99.. I figured it was suppose to sound like it was from a 1984 Casio keyboard..

The AWE32 really brought that music to life.

[mgellan]

The trick here is to actually get into the game on an old client to listen to the music. You would need to find an old version of eqemu, or possibly eternalquest to run to log into the old client. Thus, you would have to run your own server and probably use a minilogin to get in. However, once in, recording the music should be a trivial task.

Does anyone have an original CD that can they can iso? I can't find my original Kunark disk, still looking tho. What client did the original eqemu use, any idea? Pretty sure it was Trilogy?

Regards,
Mg

[doacleric]

maybe someone remembers this:

there used to be a way to "hack" the tutorial portion of the game to load any zone u wanted. I remember using it to take a peek into Plane of Fear back in the day. The zone would load, ofcourse devoid of mobs, and you were able to run around. I am pretty sure that the music worked fine when you loaded it that way.

This might be a way to actually get the files to play without "logging" in to the game, and it would work with the old client, without using an Emulator.

So if you actually find a way to playback the correct files on P1999, above solution would provide with a way to actually enter the zones and playback the midi files to record them.

I did a small google search on it and i couldnt find it yet, but ill keep looking

edit: it was called EQ Zone Viewer
edit2: here a reference to it on the eqemu forums, unfortunately the Download Link is broken but maybe you can contact the guy who started the topic, he seems to have a copy of the executable.

http://www.eqemulator.org/forums/showthread.php?p=131603

I don't believe this will work. Music support was not added into the game until after EQ was launched. The tutorial exe is dated Feb 1999, which more than likely does not have music playback ability. And in general, the tutorial client is very very stripped down anyway.

[doacleric]

Does anyone have an original CD that can they can iso? I can't find my original Kunark disk, still looking tho. What client did the original eqemu use, any idea? Pretty sure it was Trilogy?

Regards,
Mg

I certainly do have an original CD, as well as original Kunark and original Velious. But more than needing these CD's, you need to find a version of an emu that is able to log into a 1999-2000 era client. Finding the emu, database, and then a copy of the correct dated client files will be a difficult task indeed.

[Dac321]

If you notice from the original MIDI to the recreations of what current sound cards make the trumpets (or must horn instruments) and violin are sampled or replaced with a synthesized version. I don't know how to reverse it though. =/

[FatMagic]

I have the Beta 4 CD, Original EQ, Kunark & Velious CD's if anyone needs ISO's of them for this project. That's about all I can contribute :D

[Dac321]

I have good news. I was able to restore/find original music. I would say the quality is 99.9%-100% spot on. You can actually hear the real instruments. For example, in North Ro, that really weird synethized song is actually a real Pan Flute. In the character screen, you can hear the real trumpet and the piano's high keys.

I'd say I have about 30 songs that have been restored. Most of which are all in mp4 format. Once I get home I will figure out a way to give them all to you guys.

I stayed up until 2AM trying to figure out how I would be able to restore the common music. Although it is MP4, it can be converted back to mp3 and be replaced with what currently is in the EverQuest file.

[Qaedain]

You rule!

[mgellan]

Found info about EQ Zone Viewer:

http://web.archive.org/web/20031228075902/www.rpgexpert.com/85.html

You can still download EQ Zone Viewer from archive.org.

Ain't the old rpgexpert great? Been downloading most of the P99 relevent articles, I'll try to post them somewhere so you don't have to deal with the vagaries of archive.org...

However, it's not the solution, doesn't seem to be running any Verant code so it won't do the sound the way we want to. At the end of the day I think we're still stuck with trying to load the original client against an emu, but not sure if this would be possible with a client old enough to have the original music. Anyone know what the NEWEST client we can try is?

Regards,
Mg

[Droop]

Do the newer clients use the MP3's for zone music like the Titanium client uses it for zones like Lavastorm?

If there was some way to get the 3 different combat songs to play randomly, and the better music to be played in the game that'd be amazing. I still don't see how that could happen with the current client though?

[Dac321]

Do the newer clients use the MP3's for zone music like the Titanium client uses it for zones like Lavastorm?

If there was some way to get the 3 different combat songs to play randomly, and the better music to be played in the game that'd be amazing. I still don't see how that could happen with the current client though?

As far as I understand, the current zones all use mp3 format. The restored music that was recovered, is mainly mp4, (some 3) that was rerecorded. The part that is beyond me is having the music play at the proper times. I have all 3 battle songs, as far as having them play random, I'm clueless.

[scecie]

This thread has affirmed for me that I'm not the only nerd who's emotional bond to this blasted game is tied to the music nearly as much as the game-play and friendships that were made.

In fact, I was working in my office when I got the itch to listen to the music. I promptly pulled up the MP3's on my Blackberry and the nostalgia took hold. That inspired me to log into EQemu again, which I had not done in months and my wife came down stairs, heard the login music and said "oh no!".

Additionally, you could just turn off the in-game music and cycle through the MP3 playlist at random...that works almost as good for me!

Thank goodness I'm a responsible gamer now and the wife and kids won't lose daddy to evercrack...much :cool:

[Droop]

Maybe putting the songs on random is a good idea. The mp3 player is in this client yes? Would be another option lol.

If all the zones are mp3 music...how do we/which files do we add/remove to play them? I imagine the music will always play like it does in LS if we do this instead of be situational how it's supposed to be?

[Dac321]

I've got the music, however I am having issues of submitting it to the web. So if you want the files send me a message on AIM: Dac321eq

[FatMagic]

I've got the music, however I am having issues of submitting it to the web. So if you want the files send me a message on AIM: Dac321eq

Try uploading them to MediaFire.com and sharing them here

[Korthal]

Has anyone had any success with restoring the original music? This thread seems to have died without any resolution.

[Damaja]

Honestly, the sound card in my computer back in 1999 was a complete POS, and the game music sputtered, skipped and froze on notes to the point I turned it off an kept if off. I'm thankful just to be able to hear the tunes at all now. :P

I turned my music off, yea SOME of the music in certain zones was memorable, but the attack music and that DAMNED Rivervale music drove my F'ing crazy. I do not regret turning the music off lol

[Insedeel]

Has anyone had any success with restoring the original music? This thread seems to have died without any resolution.

I have the entire list of eq midis through velious.. Not sure how to get these posted on the web tho for download. They're in the original midi format though so someone would need to go through and rerecord them into mp3 format for use in the titanium client.

[Korthal]

I have the entire list of eq midis through velious.. Not sure how to get these posted on the web tho for download. They're in the original midi format though so someone would need to go through and rerecord them into mp3 format for use in the titanium client.

Yeah I have all the original midis as well - I was more curious if anyone successfully remastered them into mp3s to make them sound more like they did back in 99.

There were some posts from a few people that were going to try using old hardware to reproduce the music - did anything come from that?

[Insedeel]

I'll mess around with some midi to mp3 converters when I have some time over the weekend here, and see if I can get a decent conversion done.

[mgellan]

There were some posts from a few people that were going to try using old hardware to reproduce the music - did anything come from that?

I actually installed the Classic CD on a P166 with Win98 and an AWE64 yesterday (being on holiday) ... and ran out of disk space. Damn, ain't that Classic. I'll drop a bigger IDE disk into the machine tonight as a secondary and install on that. I seem to have a LOT of IDE disks lying around since the world went SATA LOL.

I tried running Classic as a WINE app on LINUX but the client doesn't recognize WINE's DirectX9.0c driver as DirectX so it won't get past the EULA screen. Not that I expect to connect to anything but I wanted to see if the movie worked :)

I did notice that when I installed on LINUX the MIDI (whatever) files are accompanied with SoundFont files, so I'll see if I can load them using the SoundBlaster utils that come with the cards to play the music, since actually being able to zone in to P99 with a Classic client is highly improbable!

Regards,
Mg

[mgellan]

Almost success - I have it all running and have been able to test the XMI files with a player kindly provided to me by Windcatcher from the eqemu forums - I'm planning on trying WinAMP as well. The music is HUGELY different played with the SYNTHUSR.SF2 soundfont loaded into the AWE64 versus using the Windows MIDI section. Right now I'm just trying to get the noise level down, for some reason it's very extreme with lots of hiss (which I can remove) and some thumping thats random (so I can't remove) - once thats done I'll post the files in a lossless format...

Regards,
Mg

[Fryhole]

Almost success - I have it all running and have been able to test the XMI files with a player kindly provided to me by Windcatcher from the eqemu forums - I'm planning on trying WinAMP as well. The music is HUGELY different played with the SYNTHUSR.SF2 soundfont loaded into the AWE64 versus using the Windows MIDI section. Right now I'm just trying to get the noise level down, for some reason it's very extreme with lots of hiss (which I can remove) and some thumping thats random (so I can't remove) - once thats done I'll post the files in a lossless format...

Regards,
Mg

After that, us random Joes can just copy the music into the EQ folder and we'll have the awesome music? Sounds good - thank you for your efforts.

[Yrahcaz]

I turned off my music very soon after starting the game and used to listen to some radio shows. After hearing the 'good' music, I'm a little bummed that I didn't stick it out to hear some of the zones outside good old Stemfont and Ak'Anon.

[loobusk]

If someone can make it so that we can get this uber sounding original wavetable music on project 1999, that person really deserves a medal man. Damn, someone pleaseeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

[girth]

Or a title.

Mgellan, God of Sound

[stormlord]

I've always had the music at 25 and the sound at 60 or higher. I would turn up the music when I liked it.

[stormlord]

I've always had the music at 25 and the sound at 60 or higher. I would turn up the music when I liked it.

I think the music is part of the content though (like a movie). That's why I keep it low and don't turn it off. The only time I ever used the music player was in 2007... I grinded the hole with some electronica.

EDIT: BS, sorry about this. I accidently clickedp review, and somehow posted twice.

[stormlord]

Is it true that the bard music in freeport only played at night?

If true, that's a nice touch. I hate it when it's the same thing over and over. Not original.

[doacleric]

Is it true that the bard music in freeport only played at night?

If true, that's a nice touch. I hate it when it's the same thing over and over. Not original.

I am not aware of any music in game playing only at certain times of the day

[doacleric]

Yeah I have all the original midis as well - I was more curious if anyone successfully remastered them into mp3s to make them sound more like they did back in 99.

There were some posts from a few people that were going to try using old hardware to reproduce the music - did anything come from that?

http://www.xs4all.nl/~treesong/EQmp3.zip

These are about as close as we are going to get without someone running a classic client on a PC from the 1999-2000 era.
Btw, I made those mp3's about 6 years ago =)

[Tork]

Has anyone worked this to completion with original everything?

It continues to impress me how this community is able to forensically restore EQ to its glory days - it makes me want to sway a lighter in the air and sing-along with a Cinderella song.

[Overcast]

http://www.xs4all.nl/~treesong/EQmp3.zip

These are about as close as we are going to get without someone running a classic client on a PC from the 1999-2000 era.
Btw, I made those mp3's about 6 years ago =)

I still have the *original* EQ CD at home - if I install it - couldn't I get all the original MIDI files?

I'll do that for giggles, but I'm not sure offhand which files or file contains the music.

[Tork]

There's so much info in this thread (which I recommend reading from the beginning), but in a nutshell it's unfortunately not that easy; it's the means by which the midi files + sample sounds + period hardware all came together to rendered EQ's music circa 1999-2000 which we're seeking.

[mgellan]

I still have the *original* EQ CD at home - if I install it - couldn't I get all the original MIDI files?

I think you can hear the original MIDI just by deleting the new MP3 files so the game plays the XMI (extended MIDI) files by default, but modern MIDI support provides very poor rendition compared to original Soundblaster AWE32 with the included Soundbank file. Thats what I'm trying to recreate!

FWIW I'm still struggling with noise on my AWE64 and reluctantly attributing it to the card itself. I may end up spending the $10 to buy an actual AWE32...

Regards,
Mg

[Melias]

I think you can hear the original MIDI just by deleting the new MP3 files so the game plays the XMI (extended MIDI) files by default, but modern MIDI support provides very poor rendition compared to original Soundblaster AWE32 with the included Soundbank file. Thats what I'm trying to recreate!

I believe this is correct as Cobalt Scar has no MP3 file, but it has the XMI and I still get that damn song playing when around the little bugger otters.

Incidentally, the Mayong Mistmoore fight in Demiplane of Blood has a different music for when fighting him contrary to the rest of the zone and that file is an MP3. However, it's in all likelyhood just the entire raid instance changing the regular MP3 to that one.

[Simplistik]

After 2 days of frustration trying to find all the different drivers I now have an old box Pentium 2 , with an Soundblaster 16 (isa) Windows 98SE installed on it anyone have any direction on what to do now to convert the MP3's over to midi?

[Swishahouse]

i seem to remember hack in the day there were soft drivers you could run that would support any soundfont plus the reverb fx, etc and just select it as your midi device and be off. Is there anything like that anymore?


EDIT: just read DOACleric's remarks on the client changes no longer utilizing the soundfonts in that manner. what a pity =( all those original tunes really made such a different. i felt like something had changed while running around like something was missing but i couldnt put my finger on it now i realize.

[fwaits]

http://www.xs4all.nl/~treesong/EQmp3.zip (http://www.xs4all.nl/%7Etreesong/EQmp3.zip)

These are about as close as we are going to get without someone running a classic client on a PC from the 1999-2000 era.
Btw, I made those mp3's about 6 years ago =)

Is it possible to utilize these mp3s in the current client or are they just for standalone play for nostalgia purposes?

[doacleric]

Is it possible to utilize these mp3s in the current client or are they just for standalone play for nostalgia purposes?

Just for standalone unfortunately. The client wouldn't know when and where to play the mp3's. However, they are made using the original XMI files, so their sound is almost authentic.

And a SB16 won't help - it must be an AWE32 or AWE64 with at least 512k of memory onboard. An SB16 doesn't even have wavetable support, only FM synthesis.

[Uthgaard]

Oh wow, thanks for posting that set of MP3s. I wonder if the three unknowns ever made it into game... I don't recall ever hearing them anywhere, but they're some of the best stuff in the file. Especially the first one.

[doacleric]

I have never personally heard the unknowns played within EQ itself. However, the songs were buried inside the XMI files, so I didn't just pull them out of thin air. Either Verant had other plans for those files and never got around to using them, or they simply forgot about their existence.

Actually, one of those unknowns did make a brief appearance - but not in EQ itself. Instead, it played on EQ's homepage back around the 1998/1999 area, embedded inside the webpage. That version of the song however, is much more complete and sounds far better. I emailed the actual composer of the EQ music in the hopes that he could provide me with the complete midi file for that unknown, but he apparently lost it. What a shame.

[LizardNecro]

Regarding the idea of getting random battle music, what if we just had the three battle themes named bat1.mp3, bat2.mp3, and bat3.mp3, and then had a script that randomly copies one of them to battle.mp3 (or whatever it's called). This script would just run in the background.

Would this work?

[Daakkon]

any updates?

[Droop]

Regarding the idea of getting random battle music, what if we just had the three battle themes named bat1.mp3, bat2.mp3, and bat3.mp3, and then had a script that randomly copies one of them to battle.mp3 (or whatever it's called). This script would just run in the background.

Would this work?

It should, but it sounds like a PITA to do...always run a script. I guess you could make your EQ link be the script, and have the script open up the eqgame.exe?

You'd have to have it constantly changing the name for it act random (vs have one play for 5 min, then another, etc.). I assume the constant naming/renaming of the files would eventually lead to corrupt files.

[synchrite]

I've been messing with this a lot today, and while I can load EQ's soundfonts with my x-fi sound bank manager and use them with Winamp to hear the EQ music almost exactly how it used to be... I can't for the life of me force the client to use the x-fi's other midi device instead of general midi. Arg!

Also, for probably the most noticeable differences between how it sounds now and how it's SUPPOSED to sound, go near the monk guild in freeport, or near the mail carrier bard in Kaladim... or open the midi listed as "halas 5" .. whichever XMI that is I dunno.. the background instruments sound totally ruined.

Anyone know if there's a client setting to force which midi device is used by EQ? If the client is using some sort of built in general midi driver, maybe we can just swap it out somehow....

[Engraverwilliam]

Im on the other side of the fence. How do i use the latest mp3 music? i know its something about making another folder and such for music but I don't know the process. I have a folder of eq music that I love. I hated the midi music. Can i add that back to my client and replace the midi tunes?

[Ploppy]

I have never played EQ with sound on since about the first week I played it. Get a tv in your game room folks.

[Xevin]

Sorry to necro this thread, but I have some music to share with everyone:
http://www.4shared.com/playlist/NMVgIEVN/EverQuest_Original_Soundtrack.html

All songs are MP3 320Kbps 48,000KHz 24bit. They were direct converted from the original XMI to MP3 using a mixture of 4 different ridiculously high quality soundfonts. All the original effects and post processing are applied except chorus. (not supported/needed)

Compare to this: http://www.xs4all.nl/~treesong/EQmp3.zip

Now we just need to find a way to get the MP3s to play instead of the XMIs...

BTW I think I found the thing that made the AWE32 so special. It had a ROM chip that stored a soundfont on it that the synthusr.sf2 would work in tandem with. That soundfont was made by E-MU and licensed by Creative (Sound Blaster). It's called SYNTHGMS.SF2. (see this link: http://www.un4seen.com/forum/?topic=8801.msg61394#msg61394) I rendered the music with those two (i.e. completely classic) and compared it to the version using the mix of super high quality soundfonts I used. The high quality soundfonts are worlds better in both quality and style. Of course I've been told my ear for music isn't so good...

[Muergan]

Great job they sound really good to me I hope you can find a way to implement them would make the game that much better.

[Nedala]

Nice, would be awesome to have those ingame!

[Xevin]

ok second necro, but I've made some progress.

I took all the soundfonts that I used to make the rendered MP3 (I think), but combined them into a single working .SF2 then converted that to a .DLS version 1. Then I renamed it gm.dls and replaced the C:\Windows/System32/drivers/gm.dls with mine. I had to take ownership and set permissions to gain access to the gm.dls file first though and then restart the computer. EQ will now play the .XMIs with the good soundfonts, but there is still no echo/reverb. I think that at some time SOE removed that functionality, or it was only ever supposed to work with the SB AWE 32 cards.

Anyway, for those that want it, here is my SoundFont that I used to make the rendered MP3 a few posts up:

Megaupload:
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=KNJIQHK6

MediaFire:
http://www.mediafire.com/?3r6t4bjpafdaq5q

I think this is as close as we can get to better sounding music in game.

Also I made some of the rendered MP3 files to replace the newer music MP3s. For those that want the classic music of EQ with the echo/reverb, but with an easier/less invasive install procedure, just put the files from this zip into your EQ directory:

Megaupload:
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=OTZ61X9L

HotFile:
http://hotfile.com/dl/106841690/ef97165/EQ_Classic_Music.zip.html

MediaFire:
http://www.mediafire.com/file/pyhrxpx912r94xf/EQ%20Classic%20Music.zip

[JohAE86]

I approve of this thread. The most recent posting of the OST by Xevin is simply amazing.

[t0lkien]

I normally play with the music off, but dear God I miss the feeling of old EQ these tunes evoke. It was my first MMO, and still the best game experience of my life. It may never be recaptured (revisiting is cool, but as someone once said, you can never really go back).

P.S. the reverb is a must

[Rykk]

BUMP** EQ music was awesome

[Kazzok]

Fantastic! Thanks Xevin!

[Icaro]

Great, Thanks!

Only thing is I remember musics to be not sophisticated, so I guess my soundcard at that time was not among the best ones...

[Nedala]

So does the ingame music work for you guys right now?

Since last patch its completely gone for me, does the process posted by xevin fix it?

[Dac321]

So does the ingame music work for you guys right now?

Since last patch its completely gone for me, does the process posted by xevin fix it?

I haven't had an issue. My music still functions properly.

[Nedala]

I haven't had an issue. My music still functions properly.

Did you test that at specific locations where music is playing lately? Im not talking about combat music.

[Icaro]

My in game music does not work properly (large areas with no music where it is supposed to be, music that interrupt all of a sudden), but works. I never patched though.

[mrgoochio]

ok second necro, but I've made some progress.

I took all the soundfonts that I used to make the rendered MP3 (I think), but combined them into a single working .SF2 then converted that to a .DLS version 1. Then I renamed it gm.dls and replaced the C:\Windows/System32/drivers/gm.dls with mine. I had to take ownership and set permissions to gain access to the gm.dls file first though and then restart the computer. EQ will now play the .XMIs with the good soundfonts, but there is still no echo/reverb. I think that at some time SOE removed that functionality, or it was only ever supposed to work with the SB AWE 32 cards.

Anyway, for those that want it, here is my SoundFont that I used to make the rendered MP3 a few posts up:

Megaupload:
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=Y039J5WE

I think this is as close as we can get to better sounding music in game.

Also I made some of the rendered MP3 files to replace the newer music MP3s. For those that want the classic music of EQ with the echo/reverb, but with an easier/less invasive install procedure, just put the files from this zip into your EQ directory:

Megaupload:
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=OTZ61X9L

HotFile:
http://hotfile.com/dl/106841690/ef97165/EQ_Classic_Music.zip.html

MediaFire:
http://www.mediafire.com/file/pyhrxpx912r94xf/EQ%20Classic%20Music.zip

how did you gain access to overwrite the gm.dls? I tried running windows explorer as administrator to no avail. i then tried giving myself special access to the drivers directory with full control but it was telling me access denied. so i then tried changing the permissions specifically for gm.dls but it also denied me access to change the permission. (this is all from the administrator account on windows 7 ultimate 64bit). my last attempt at this was to change the windows registry path for the gm.dls but alas, it doesn't seem to make a difference and is still using the default windows gm.dls file. Any help?

[Lazortag]

Sorry to necro this thread, but I have some music to share with everyone:
http://www.4shared.com/playlist/NMVgIEVN/EverQuest_Original_Soundtrack.html


When did the songs Bard - Flute, Drum, Lute, Horn play back in classic? Would they play while a Bard was using these instruments?? Or did they play in some other location?

[Xevin]

So does the ingame music work for you guys right now?

Since last patch its completely gone for me, does the process posted by xevin fix it?

You need "Environmental Sounds" turned on right now for the in game music to work... I'm not entirely certain why though.

how did you gain access to overwrite the gm.dls? I tried running windows explorer as administrator to no avail. i then tried giving myself special access to the drivers directory with full control but it was telling me access denied. so i then tried changing the permissions specifically for gm.dls but it also denied me access to change the permission. (this is all from the administrator account on windows 7 ultimate 64bit). my last attempt at this was to change the windows registry path for the gm.dls but alas, it doesn't seem to make a difference and is still using the default windows gm.dls file. Any help?

In Windows 7 x64:

Right click C:\Windows\System32\drivers/gm.dls
Properties
Security
Advanced
Owner
Edit...
[Choose your User Name]
Apply
OK

Permissions
Change Permissions...
[Find you User Name]
Edit...
[Check "Full Control"]
[Check "Apply these permissions to objects..."]
OK
[Check "Include inheritable..."]
Apply
OK

OK

Edit...
[Choose your User Name]
[Check "Full Control"]
Apply
OK

OK

[Rename gm.dls to gm.dlsold]
[Copy in my custom Sound Font Library]
[Make sure it is named "gm.dls"]

Everything should work now.

When did the songs Bard - Flute, Drum, Lute, Horn play back in classic? Would they play while a Bard was using these instruments?? Or did they play in some other location?

Not sure if they were ever used in game at all. I seem to remember the lute playing, but I could be wrong. Two of them would not play at all with the standard gm.dls or with the original SB AWE 32 sound card sound fonts. I was able to get them to play using my customized sound font file, and thought to myself "Wow... I'm might be the first to ever hear these..." so I thought I'd put them up for everyone to hear.

There are quite a few songs that had drums, but you couldn't hear them because they were trying to use a missing drum channel. Obviously a lot of the songs sound very different and more complete once I got them working.

If anyone wants any other specific songs added, I'd love to put them up too! Just let me know what zone they played in.

So far my favorite songs I'd never heard back in the day are "Freeport - North" and "Toxxulia Bridge". I love them all though!

[hateshadow]

I have been trying to replace the "gm.dls" file with the new one downloaded from Xevin's link, but everytime I delete / overwrite my old "gm.dls", the computer generates a new one.
This makes it impossible for me to put in the new "gm.dls" that Xevin provided.

Anyone know how to prevent this from happening?
I am using windows XP and am on the administrator account

[mrgoochio]

You need "Environmental Sounds" turned on right now for the in game music to work... I'm not entirely certain why though.



In Windows 7 x64:

Right click C:\Windows\System32\drivers/gm.dls
Properties
Security
Advanced
Owner
Edit...
[Choose your User Name]
Apply
OK

Permissions
Change Permissions...
[Find you User Name]
Edit...
[Check "Full Control"]
[Check "Apply these permissions to objects..."]
OK
[Check "Include inheritable..."]
Apply
OK

OK

Edit...
[Choose your User Name]
[Check "Full Control"]
Apply
OK

OK

[Rename gm.dls to gm.dlsold]
[Copy in my custom Sound Font Library]
[Make sure it is named "gm.dls"]

Everything should work now.



Not sure if they were ever used in game at all. I seem to remember the lute playing, but I could be wrong. Two of them would not play at all with the standard gm.dls or with the original SB AWE 32 sound card sound fonts. I was able to get them to play using my customized sound font file, and thought to myself "Wow... I'm might be the first to ever hear these..." so I thought I'd put them up for everyone to hear.

There are quite a few songs that had drums, but you couldn't hear them because they were trying to use a missing drum channel. Obviously a lot of the songs sound very different and more complete once I got them working.

If anyone wants any other specific songs added, I'd love to put them up too! Just let me know what zone they played in.

So far my favorite songs I'd never heard back in the day are "Freeport - North" and "Toxxulia Bridge". I love them all though!

I have your soundfont in my drivers folder but EQ sounds exactly the same as before. Any ideas?

[Droop]

Works for me! Kelethin sounds AMAZING! <3

[Knuckle]

Fun Fact- The little ditty(not the zone theme, this one kicks in near the tunnel entrance/wiz spire area) they play in north ro is alot like the beat to a classic rap song. By one Nelly on the Country Grammar album: Greed, Hate, Envy.

Nelly: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mEqT7iuDkxc
Everquest: can't find the sound file =/
EQ Pop Culture Trivia for you and yours.

[Vynn]

In Windows 7 x64:

Right click C:\Windows\System32\drivers/gm.dls
Properties
Security
Advanced
Owner
Edit...
....
....


Anybody know how to properly do this in WinXP without having to butcher registry keys to remove WFP?

[Damaja]

I turn my music off :(

[Xevin]

I have your soundfont in my drivers folder but EQ sounds exactly the same as before. Any ideas?

Hmm. Well it should have worked for you too. Remember, there is no reverb anymore, so you still don't get that. Only the instruments change.

[Xevin]

I just updated my custom sound font to fix a few issues with certain songs that were using drum channel 56 for SFX instead of a drum.

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=KNJIQHK6

[Anuril]

I have been trying to replace the "gm.dls" file with the new one downloaded from Xevin's link, but everytime I delete / overwrite my old "gm.dls", the computer generates a new one.
This makes it impossible for me to put in the new "gm.dls" that Xevin provided.

Anyone know how to prevent this from happening?
I am using windows XP and am on the administrator account

I am having the same problem. Any ideas on how to get this to work with XP?

[Droop]

I am having the same problem. Any ideas on how to get this to work with XP?

Upgrade to a newer OS? :-p.

I don't have any XP machines to test....works on both Vista and 7 though I have tested.

[Striiker]

Xevin,
Do you have a download link available which has all of the re-rendered MP3's in a single file? Clicking through each song to dload them off of 4shared will take a while! :-) Thanks!

[Xevin]

Xevin,
Do you have a download link available which has all of the re-rendered MP3's in a single file? Clicking through each song to dload them off of 4shared will take a while! :-) Thanks!

I'm actually in the process of checking through every song there is in EverQuest and removing duplicates, making sure the sound font played them correctly and labeling alternate versions of songs. Eventually I'm going to put up a download link with the complete EverQuest Soundtrack. The ID3 tags will contain information like where a certain song played or what it was used for.

Sorry it's taking a while, but there is A LOT of music in EverQuest. I put up the 4shared link so people could listen to it easily and sooner.

Once I'm done, I'll ZIP is all up put the ZIP up for download and have a bunch of mirrors for it too.

[Chrushev]

I just updated my custom sound font to fix a few issues with certain songs that were using drum channel 56 for SFX instead of a drum.

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=KNJIQHK6


megaupload has been down a bunch, I cant download the file. Can you throw it up on mediafire or rapidshare or something?

[Pico]

I am having the same problem. Any ideas on how to get this to work with XP?

I did it on XP and it came up with a message that said a windows file was deleted and to insert the CD-ROM so it may restore the file, I simply clicked cancel. Not sure how it's automatically restoring it for you.

[Xevin]

megaupload has been down a bunch, I cant download the file. Can you throw it up on mediafire or rapidshare or something?

Ask and ye shall receive:

http://www.mediafire.com/?3r6t4bjpafdaq5q

[Droop]

I know Lavastorm and Nektulos both just playthe MP3's in the directory. Do any other zones?

[Chrushev]

Ask and ye shall receive:

http://www.mediafire.com/?3r6t4bjpafdaq5q


thanks :)

as far as that soundfont glitch in Freeport/kaladim that i posted in the other thread (Link (http://www.project1999.org/forums/showthread.php?t=28451)) what about editing sound fonts in actual EQ as opposed to global windows one? There is a soundfont file (1KB to 2KB in size) for every zone.

If those could be used to fix that bug then i could easily include that in my All in One installer (in my sig) since the files would be under 100KB. compressed probably a couple KB.

[Xevin]

thanks :)

as far as that soundfont glitch in Freeport/kaladim that i posted in the other thread (Link (http://www.project1999.org/forums/showthread.php?t=28451)) what about editing sound fonts in actual EQ as opposed to global windows one? There is a soundfont file (1KB to 2KB in size) for every zone.

If those could be used to fix that bug then i could easily include that in my All in One installer (in my sig) since the files would be under 100KB. compressed probably a couple KB.

The sound font is a file containing instruments that synthesized music (midi and xmi files) will use to play their songs. The XMI files inside the EQ directory are just the notes that should be played in the song. They don't contain any audible tones in the files, only an instruction sheet on how to play the song and what instruments it should use.

Also as far as I know there is no way to edit XMI files. So I can't fix those files that way either.

There are a few sound fonts (SF2 and DLS) in the EQ directory also but these are no longer used as far as I can tell. The classic client used to load them into a Sound Blaster AWE 32 card and play the music with reverb using these files though.

BTW the installer thing you made is awesome. I'm gonna make a few suggestions for it in that thread.

[KilyenaMage]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lP0SNzUvflg

That's a great one. Freeport Bard's guild tune -- it only played at night time I believe.

[doacleric]

For those curious, I am one step closer to making this a reality. All I need now is a retro gaming box (Pentium 2/3 with ISA slots, windows 98, voodoo card, etc) to make this work. Anyone have old crap laying around? =)

[jarshale]

I wish I did. I'd ship it over to make this happen

[TheBlackSheep]

For those curious, I am one step closer to making this a reality. All I need now is a retro gaming box (Pentium 2/3 with ISA slots, windows 98, voodoo card, etc) to make this work. Anyone have old crap laying around? =)

If you can recreate having to look at the ground while fighting in Unrest, you win. Having to look at skeleton feet for hours on end and then trying to run to the zone, bouncing back and forth off the walls when someone pulled a hag is responsible for my current alcoholism.

Azorath

[Zuranthium]

The music that does play in some areas is just frightening. Like the Rivervale tune? I used to LOVE just sitting in RV (usually fishing) and chatting and mellowing out. Now it's some jiggy demon spawned beat that is kinda scary after a few minutes, LOL. I don't know how or why it's different, but it is!

In Rivervale I think the problem is that both of the city themes play at the same time and so it becomes an awkward mash-up. I used to love the music there as well.

[Chuggun]

I'm glad I found this thread! I didn't have an AWE32 card back in the day and didn't realize what I was missing. I'm one of those that can hear 1 sec of EQ music and tell you exactly where it kicked in :) I'd love to hear the music in all its glory again!

[Knuckle]

If you can recreate having to look at the ground while fighting in Unrest, you win. Having to look at skeleton feet for hours on end and then trying to run to the zone, bouncing back and forth off the walls when someone pulled a hag is responsible for my current alcoholism.

Azorath

what?

[TheBlackSheep]

what?

Around the last beta/retail release, I was playing on an clone PC I had built for Baldur's Gate. A PII with a VooDoo Rush card on a 15" CRT. I also was cursed with an incredibly crappy phone line. In heavily congested areas, as Unrest was prone to be, I had to look at the ground or it was like watching a slide show and I'd end up going LD. So I spent many an hours staring at skeleton's feet while fighting and when someone pulled a hag, I'd have to make it to the zone while looking at the ground, bouncing back and forth off the walls down the tunnel to the zone. It was probably the most frustrating experience I've ever had in a video game, though I laugh about it now.

Az

[jarshale]

ohh. I remember having to do that in the bazaar. I hated that place so much

[doacleric]

Around the last beta/retail release, I was playing on an clone PC I had built for Baldur's Gate. A PII with a VooDoo Rush card on a 15" CRT. I also was cursed with an incredibly crappy phone line. In heavily congested areas, as Unrest was prone to be, I had to look at the ground or it was like watching a slide show and I'd end up going LD. So I spent many an hours staring at skeleton's feet while fighting and when someone pulled a hag, I'd have to make it to the zone while looking at the ground, bouncing back and forth off the walls down the tunnel to the zone. It was probably the most frustrating experience I've ever had in a video game, though I laugh about it now.

Az

Great story, but I don't see how it pertains to EQ's music.

[loobusk]

keep us updated on your progress please

[TheBlackSheep]

Great story, but I don't see how it pertains to EQ's music.

I guess you forgot what you posted, um... yesterday?

For those curious, I am one step closer to making this a reality. All I need now is a retro gaming box (Pentium 2/3 with ISA slots, windows 98, voodoo card, etc) to make this work. Anyone have old crap laying around? =)

My initial response was in reference to this, and Knuckle's inquiry led to my expanded explanation.

Az

[Striiker]

Hah! I remember running with my character looking down at the ground in Bazaar. When I would look up.. L A G.. heh! the good old days.

[doacleric]

I could use the help of some internet savvy people. I believe I have an old PC laying around thats not TOO new to try what I want to do. Only thing is, it does not have ISA port, only PCI. That would limit me to a Sound Blaster Live! card. I want to know if its worth the trouble to put together something older that has ISA slots.

What I need to know is, does classic EQ perform better with a AWE64, or a SB Live! card? My memory seems to be telling me that both SHOULD allow for EQ's soundfont to work correctly, but I can't say for certain. I also don't know which one could potentially sound better. I scoured the internet for hours the other day trying to find old posts/patch notes/dev comments from 1999-2001 that might shed some light, but I was unsuccessful. Can anyone help?

[TheBlackSheep]

I could use the help of some internet savvy people. I believe I have an old PC laying around thats not TOO new to try what I want to do. Only thing is, it does not have ISA port, only PCI. That would limit me to a Sound Blaster Live! card. I want to know if its worth the trouble to put together something older that has ISA slots.

What I need to know is, does classic EQ perform better with a AWE64, or a SB Live! card? My memory seems to be telling me that both SHOULD allow for EQ's soundfont to work correctly, but I can't say for certain. I also don't know which one could potentially sound better. I scoured the internet for hours the other day trying to find old posts/patch notes/dev comments from 1999-2001 that might shed some light, but I was unsuccessful. Can anyone help?

I had a SB PCI128 card. I don't recall ever having a sound problem.

Az

[doacleric]

I had a SB PCI128 card. I don't recall ever having a sound problem.

Az

Thanks but that doesn't help. EQ back in the day did 1 of 2 things when playing music.

1.) If you have an AWE64 and I think a Live!, it would activate the special soundfont files, upload it into the soundfont bank RAM on the soundcard, and use that for music play back, along with any special effects such as reverb and what not. This is what we are trying to recreate

2.) If you had ANY other soundcard besides those 2, it would instead load a software based DLS soundbank, and use that to playback the music. This would bypass the MPU-401 native playback abilities of the soundcard, and use a 100% software solution to play the music. This soundbank sounded significanty inferior, in addition to using up a lot of CPU time, causing the music to skip for a lot of people on slower systems. This is what most people ended up hearing back in the day.

Back around the release of Luclin and the DX8 upgrade, both of these systems were dropped, and MIDI playback was simply deferred to whatever wavetable synthesis was available to your soundcard. This can sound decent depending on the wavetable quality of your soundcard, but still sounds inferior to what the music sounded like on a real Soundblaster AWE64 back in the day.

[TheBlackSheep]

Ah! I did not know that.

Azorath

[doacleric]

Well, another huge step forward. Almost there!


http://img814.imageshack.us/img814/445/75548845.jpg




http://img834.imageshack.us/img834/7663/96121457.jpg (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/834/96121457.jpg/)




http://img819.imageshack.us/img819/9011/53537833.jpg (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/819/53537833.jpg/)





http://img812.imageshack.us/img812/4841/39626883.jpg (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/812/39626883.jpg/)




http://img37.imageshack.us/img37/552/89232764.jpg (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/37/89232764.jpg/)


Music DOES seem to currently work. As i'm only using onboard sound, it has defaulted to the crappy software based DLS package, which was expected. After I hunt down and install a Sound Blaster Live! card, EQ should detect it and switch over to soundfont playback of the music. I will then proceed to make recordings of all the music I can get my hands on!

So does anyone have an old SB Live! (CT4760) that they'd like to share? :D

[Deadmantis]

I thought I had one in an old Dell box a friend had given me for parts but it is the SBLive! *value* card which is not worthy of the SBLive! name :(

If you can't find any donors, here is a link to one I found on Pricewatch
http://www.txmicro.com/Creative-Labs-Sound-Blaster-Live-PCI-CT4780-p-3580.html

Good luck!

[doacleric]

I thought I had one in an old Dell box a friend had given me for parts but it is the SBLive! *value* card which is not worthy of the SBLive! name :(

If you can't find any donors, here is a link to one I found on Pricewatch
http://www.txmicro.com/Creative-Labs-Sound-Blaster-Live-PCI-CT4780-p-3580.html

Good luck!

If its an original Value (CT4670) it should be perfect. According to wikipedia:

The Live! Value (also known as Live! 1024) is identical to the full Live! with the exception that it has color coded plastic connectors instead of gold and does not include the extended digital I/O card. The original Sound Blaster Live! had a proprietary 9-pin mini-DIN connector for digital output that Creative referred to as the "Mini Din." This connector allowed the use of a microphone and digital speakers at the same time. This cannot be done with the value and base models of all subsequent Creative sound cards, as they share a single port for S/PDIF digital in/output and microphone connectivity. The Mini-DIN connection was not included in any subsequent Sound Blaster product, however owners of speaker systems that use this as the only digital input may buy an adapter from Creative.

However, if its the "Dell branded" version of the Live!, then I don't think I would bother trying:

This card, marketed as a Sound Blaster Live!, did not have the full capabilities of the retail versions of Live! It used a different audio chip, not EMU10K1 but EMU10K1X, that is noticeably smaller with fewer pins. The chip does not accelerate DirectSound in hardware, nor EAX. The sale of this board by Dell created some controversy because it was not obviously marketed as an inferior or cheaper product. The card can be identified by its part number (SB0200/0203).

[Deadmantis]

Sorry for the delay. I pulled the SBLive! card from the old Dell box. It is identified as CT4870 and it does have the EMU10K1 chip. Unfortunately I don't have the install disc for it :( I think you can find old drivers for it Win98 online.

I put the card into my Win XP machine to check to see if it even works, and XP installed drivers for it automatically without an install disc. EQ music sounds GREAT on this card!

It's yours if you want it, just send me a PM here :)

[FatMagic]

Awesome! Well done doacleric - looking forward to the final results :)

[loobusk]

just a sound little bump

[Xxtayce]

When the real music gets converted, I think someone should link a DL in the getting started thread. I want the old music!!!

[Aesop]

wow, old kelethin music made me tear up

[doacleric]

Unfortunately, this project has come to its natural end.

Dead mantis was kind enough to ship me an original SB Live! card to use in the system. While it took a LOT of work to track down some drivers with full support for the card, it did happen. The problem is this. After running the EQ client with the card installed, the music sounded no different than the mp3 recordings I made over 6 years ago by simply uploading the eq soundfont into my Audigy. In other words, that seems to be how the music really did sound a decade ago. No extra instruments, no fancy reverb, nothing. I guess age has colored my memory of how the music used to sound. Though I was hoping it would sound more like those ancient recordings from the EQ website back in 1998.

I will reupload the mp3 collection when I can find a place to host it. Until then, its basically the same mp3 files found here: http://www.xs4all.nl/~treesong/

If anyone has any music related questions, or wants me to test something running on a 2000 era client before I dismantle my contraption, please ask.

[loobusk]

u have to use soundblaster awe32, not live. check out the youtube versions, they sound much different and better imo

[doacleric]

u have to use soundblaster awe32, not live. check out the youtube versions, they sound much different and better imo

The game supports the AWE32, AWE64, and Live!, I found the info on EQ's own website using archive.org. There won't be any difference in sound between those 3, as they are going to use the same 512k soundfont that is sitting in the eq folder.

[loobusk]

ii dont know man... ive heard differences like that from the midis played on awe32s and lives on, and the awe 32s definitely sounded more better.. i think the "good" sounding youtube ones all are through the 32s

plus back then i had a sb live and eq music was how it sounded now on this server, unfortunately never actually had a 32

[andvarion]

I tried swapping the soundfont Xevin posted, but it made no difference in EQ.

In fact, to test, I deleted the gm.dls file from my system32 folder entirely. Still no difference in EQ.

Did the gm.dls file serve any purpose at all? I downloaded some sweet Legend of Zelda midis from the internet and played them in Media Player. They didn't play at all, so apparently the gm.dls file DOES serve a purpose. I put the Windows default one back in there, and the Zelda midi played. I then swapped it out for Xevin's soundfont and the Zelda midi played differently.

So in conclusion, Xevin's soundfont DOES change the way Windows renders a midi file, but EQ is doing something fishy...

(And yes I tested in Kelethin, some place that didn't pull from an mp3 like Lavastorm would)

[insertname]

sof is playing eqtheme.mp3 .... wich is a renamed mp3 from the zip.

[Tobius]

So um, what's the latest/last bit of progress.

I don't really follow whats going on,

To be more classicy then default install, is there anything I should download at this point, or did all your respective works fail?

EDIT: I appreciate all your efforts so far either way.

[darklight]

Does anyone else remember the character select music using different instruments depending on which race you had selected at the time? That was pretty cool.

[raptorak]

I had the music off permanently and love the ambient sounds in this game. I can't stand having music enabled, I find it even more jarring than the Luclin troll models - when that battle music started it pissed me right off. But it is out of habit for me so if you guys used to have the music, I can imagine how annoying it must feel not to be able to hear it as well as you used to!

I myself seem to have some sound issues - there is a lot of popping and cracking which is off-putting. I have an asus xonar dg so I imagine my motherboards Realtek audio would have been better for this game, but don't want to mess around with drivers for a single game =/

[jballe3]

i was curious as well, regarding the music...... was there a way to get those songs sounding as they did back in the day? and darklight, i remember a different character select music as well......... i can't find it anywhere!

[Resil]

Hey guys, was to ask if we solve the little problem of the same Combat Theme to be heard the other 2.

I've been reading what I allowed my knowledge of English and I've seen you working to improve the gaming experience, improving sound quality. I saw the post about changing some files from WIN32. But I'm somewhat afraid to do it for spoiling something important and not really to improve by listening to the melodies.

Anyway, this post has helped me save a few of the classic tunes in MP3.
I'll be waiting if someday be integrated into any patch EQproject1999 improvements mp3 classical music (the problem of W7 and MIDI support as you say) and enjoy 100% of what was the EQ which both enjoyment that time ^ ^.

Good job:)

[cowjosh]

After a great deal of searching, I have found what seems to be a solution to the classic music problem. EQ shipped, as most of you know, with a pair of soundfonts to be used with older soundfont capable MIDI synths in older cards (AWE32/64, etc). Someone has taken these two soundfonts and combined them (they are not "complete" as they are, some instruments do not work) with a generic soundfont to produce one that sounds pretty similar to how it did in 99 (making your own soundfont using the two that shipped with EQ and, say, the base sondfont from a SB AWE64 might be a better solution). Anyway to get it to work with Windows (which is not natively compatible with soundfonts) you need a soundfont capable MIDI device. The software synth "BASSMIDI" can accomplish this.

Go here: http://bassmididrv.mudlord.info/#bassmididriverdownloads
Click "Download BASSMIDI driver"
Install it.
It will put a program in your start menu called "Configure Software Synth" under "BASSMIDI Synth"
Download this soundfont (or make one): http://www.megaupload.com/?d=G8WFWXUA
In the "Configure Software Synth" tool click "Add" then navigate to the soundfont and select it
Make sure that "BASSMIDI Driver" is selected under the "Advanced" tab (i.e., not "Microsoft GS Wavetable Synth"

You should be set. I forgot if it required a reboot, but run EQ and see how it sounds.

[Droop]

A little bump...any progress towards a solution ever made on this?

[Eshaton]

After a great deal of searching, I have found what seems to be a solution to the classic music problem. EQ shipped, as most of you know, with a pair of soundfonts to be used with older soundfont capable MIDI synths in older cards (AWE32/64, etc). Someone has taken these two soundfonts and combined them (they are not "complete" as they are, some instruments do not work) with a generic soundfont to produce one that sounds pretty similar to how it did in 99 (making your own soundfont using the two that shipped with EQ and, say, the base sondfont from a SB AWE64 might be a better solution). Anyway to get it to work with Windows (which is not natively compatible with soundfonts) you need a soundfont capable MIDI device. The software synth "BASSMIDI" can accomplish this.

Go here: http://bassmididrv.mudlord.info/#bassmididriverdownloads
Click "Download BASSMIDI driver"
Install it.
It will put a program in your start menu called "Configure Software Synth" under "BASSMIDI Synth"
Download this soundfont (or make one): http://www.megaupload.com/?d=G8WFWXUA
In the "Configure Software Synth" tool click "Add" then navigate to the soundfont and select it
Make sure that "BASSMIDI Driver" is selected under the "Advanced" tab (i.e., not "Microsoft GS Wavetable Synth"

You should be set. I forgot if it required a reboot, but run EQ and see how it sounds.

This advanced tab is located where? (windows 7) So trying to make this sound better =) Thanks for all the nastalgia =)

[atomk]

Hey guys. I was sick of hearing the crap music Windows 7 spits out. After reading this thread I dug out an old Audigy card and after a bunch of tinkering I got it to work again. I installed XP on an empty partition and got the Audigy drivers and software working and downloaded a couple soundfonts. I posted a video on youtube (http://youtu.be/B2UDX7NLodc) with the results.

Let me know what ya think.

[Burrito]

Hey guys. I was sick of hearing the crap music Windows 7 spits out. After reading this thread I dug out an old Audigy card and after a bunch of tinkering I got it to work again. I installed XP on an empty partition and got the Audigy drivers and software working and downloaded a couple soundfonts. I posted a video on youtube (http://youtu.be/B2UDX7NLodc) with the results.

Let me know what ya think.

My god what a differance. I don't think my sound is as bad as the final windows 7 clip. I'm hoping cowjosh's solution works. Going to try it the second I get home.

Edit: Seems like just using one of the AWE64 soundfonts has everything working. Hurray!

[atomk]

My god what a differance. I don't think my sound is as bad as the final windows 7 clip. I'm hoping cowjosh's solution works. Going to try it the second I get home.

Edit: Seems like just using one of the AWE64 soundfonts has everything working. Hurray!

I got as far in this thread to where they were talking about hexediting files to get 7 to use a different soundfont. I messed a lot with MIDI in highschool (my god over 12 years ago) :eek: and knew how much easier/better it was pre-Vista. I've bought soundcards just to get better MIDI from DOS games. Some posts I read in other forums from professional musicians I read when 7 was released regarding MIDI support made it sound like even a solution like cowjosh's wasn't possible. Its excellent Microsoft allows us to use a different software solution. :D

I just don't understand why Microsoft has regressed audio in Windows in such a way. Even Apple's Garageband is a MIDI sequencer as much as it is a recording audio tracker. I'm going to through my Soundblaster 16 in next and see what happens. Even though I know the music is going to be flat (the Audigy did indeed do chorus and reverb like someone else was talking about above about the AWE cards) I wouldn't be surprised if its better than Microsoft's wavetable.

[Zliz]

http://www.project1999.org/forums/showthread.php?t=81207

This solution works for me. Enjoying kickass music in EQ (Live, but should make no difference) right now at the Qeynos docks.