The EverQuest Soundtrack - As played through the 'King of Instruments'
 

Hi,

Long time lurker...

Do you like the EQ music, but find the MIDIs horribly dated? Would you like to hear the music played through a 'modern' instrument?

For my own amusement I (kind of...) did that. I used the original MIDIs to play the music through the 'virtual' organ of Hereford Cathedral, England, UK.

Took me about a week to do all the required work (see YouTube video description).

It turned out better than I thought, so decided I'd share it.
You might be surprised at how well the organ can imitate the different instruments and how it pulls off the soundtrack.

Hour long video link:

https://youtu.be/rvTeOFDGr7A


Enjoy!



Track list below:

Wizard Spires
EverQuest Theme
'Academy'
Ak'anon
Arena
Character Select
Character Select (Full Organ version)
Felwithe
Freeport Bard Guild
Freeport Docks
Freeport North
Freeport - Temple of Marr
Freeport West
'Haven'
'Home'
'Inn'
Kelethin
Kerra Isle
'Mystery'
Neriak
Neriak - Lodge of the Dead
Neriak - Lodge of the Dead (Full Organ version)
North Karana Bridge
'Plane of Sky'
'Pomp'
Qeynos - Bard Guild
Qeynos - Guard Tower
Qeynos - Temple of Life
Qeynos Theme
Rivervale
Shop 1
Shop 2
Shop 3
Shop 4
Toxxuila Bridge
Training
'Underwater'
Vendor Tune

This is cool.

well played mate

This is pretty fantastic, good job - it's like Castlevania EQ.

Was there a method to the MIDI channels you decided to discard? Or, just selecting what you thought was the most dominant half of the channels?

Thank you!

In response: There wasn't exactly a scientific method. I did a lot of experimenting. There was potentially up to 16 MIDI channels but in most it was a bit less.

I was able to eliminate some that were duplicated, to play on left and right speakers, as there was no need to have both.

If a MIDI file had say 4 different trumpet tracks I generally only kept one or two, to allow for other instruments to play.

I had to basically eliminate all percussion tracks, drums, bells, etc, as there are no suitable stops on the organ to do it, which was a shame, but no way around it. Tracks like Qeynos theme really miss out not having the drums.
There was the odd track I slipped some in though, Arena being one. Without the drum track, this MIDI wouldn't have been worth doing, so I fudged it on the pedal and just about got away with it. For Vendor Tune I managed to use the organ Glockenspiel which was neat.

As it was only really feasible to use 5 'tracks' for the 4 keyboards and set of pedals, (playing more than one track on each organ division didn't sound good, unsurprisingly). I discarded a lot of the shorter tracks to make room for the more valuable ones which were longer.

Then it was a matter of keeping the melody and the more prominent backing tracks that would really make someone remember the original music. There is loss of detail sure, but I think from pretty much each of the tracks one can remember where it originally came from, without looking at the title.

The 'quiet' tracks with the fewest stops turned out the best in my opinion. Haven, Home, Inn and the Shop tracks and so on.
(But I think Neriak - Lodge of the Dead was made for full organ! :D)

Excellent!

Sounds awesome. I've always really enjoyed the sound of this instrument.
Thanks for sharing!!

Yeah, that's cool. That's a lot of recording work there, good quality. I've only done one using my VST from the EQ songs. Kelethin
I used a piano, classic guitar (sounds a bit like harp, I only have celtic and doesn't fit) and a horn I modified a bit. eh..

Super cool. I like the Felwithe song and Freeport Bard guild song.

Bard guild: https://youtu.be/rvTeOFDGr7A?t=11m27s

Felwithe: https://youtu.be/rvTeOFDGr7A?t=10m1s

Should find a way import these into the game ha. This is amazing, should probably just sticky this GM's.