nothingtosay
12-07-2011, 12:33 AM
Shortly after I spent a lot of effort looping the official soundtrack CD, I acquired the rip of the game, thanks to hcs (hcs64.com). It turned out that, rather than lossy compressed formats as most games with streaming music use, Elminage used 48 kHz SS2, which is uncompressed like WAV, and the tracks are given generous length before fading (guess they had plenty of room since the game was so basic). It is genuine lossless too, passes a spectogram check and everything. So I simply cut them down to two loops, faded, and added spaces. The CD also had some weird volume issues, like soft tracks being louder than much more lively ones, but that problem does not exist here. In fact everything is a bit quieter and has no brickwall limiting. In sum, if you want to listen to this soundtrack, this is the best way to do it.
FLAC (https://mega.co.nz/#!sskQnQpZ!GhJ-sUG3xQSkcIRQGMkg4BqGQHMxWMuPqGs9f1l4y38)
MP3 (LAME 3.99.5 V2 ~192 kbps) (https://mega.co.nz/#!g4FllRxD!XtHkpzu5dvohLN3Wp1BIkwYJsJkv9aHlYzvAla5 inWk)
A handful of things were missing from the rip, so I patched in those tracks from the CD, looped and with slight volume adjustments to make them fit in better. One track ("A New Hope") is sequenced in the game, but luckily there was a bonus CD enclosed with Elminage II DS Remix that included it without the big volume boost/limiting that was done to the original CD. I looped it but it seemed a little quiet so I used ReplayGain to see what the volume difference was between it and the next track on the original CD and then boosted it so it would be proportional to the same track on the rip. Coincidentally, that called for increasing the volume 1.11dB, which is almost exactly how far you can push it before it would clip so I didn't even have to limit. I used Elminage II to fill in a couple missing fanfares, and I've also included as a bonus the two new pieces that were written for it. Sorry they're not as high quality, but it's the only way to get them.
Hitoshi Sakimoto is specifically credited for the main theme and the rest of the music is by Masaharu Iwata, Mitsuhiro Kaneda, Kimihiro Abe, Noriyuki Kamikura, in the order they're listed on Basiscape's own discography page, which may or may not indicate how much work each did. The orders of crediting on their list pages change from game to game so it's not just standard and presumably isn't random. For example, GrimGrimoire has Kaneda first, Iwata second and that soundtrack sounds like Kaneda was the main composer (can't say this one strikes me as so Iwata-heavy, though it could be). Likewise, the Elminage II tracks have the names in the order credited on the site. Don't ask me why they're so re-arranged for just two new tracks.
Tell me if a link is dead. Hope you enjoy!
FLAC (https://mega.co.nz/#!sskQnQpZ!GhJ-sUG3xQSkcIRQGMkg4BqGQHMxWMuPqGs9f1l4y38)
MP3 (LAME 3.99.5 V2 ~192 kbps) (https://mega.co.nz/#!g4FllRxD!XtHkpzu5dvohLN3Wp1BIkwYJsJkv9aHlYzvAla5 inWk)
A handful of things were missing from the rip, so I patched in those tracks from the CD, looped and with slight volume adjustments to make them fit in better. One track ("A New Hope") is sequenced in the game, but luckily there was a bonus CD enclosed with Elminage II DS Remix that included it without the big volume boost/limiting that was done to the original CD. I looped it but it seemed a little quiet so I used ReplayGain to see what the volume difference was between it and the next track on the original CD and then boosted it so it would be proportional to the same track on the rip. Coincidentally, that called for increasing the volume 1.11dB, which is almost exactly how far you can push it before it would clip so I didn't even have to limit. I used Elminage II to fill in a couple missing fanfares, and I've also included as a bonus the two new pieces that were written for it. Sorry they're not as high quality, but it's the only way to get them.
Hitoshi Sakimoto is specifically credited for the main theme and the rest of the music is by Masaharu Iwata, Mitsuhiro Kaneda, Kimihiro Abe, Noriyuki Kamikura, in the order they're listed on Basiscape's own discography page, which may or may not indicate how much work each did. The orders of crediting on their list pages change from game to game so it's not just standard and presumably isn't random. For example, GrimGrimoire has Kaneda first, Iwata second and that soundtrack sounds like Kaneda was the main composer (can't say this one strikes me as so Iwata-heavy, though it could be). Likewise, the Elminage II tracks have the names in the order credited on the site. Don't ask me why they're so re-arranged for just two new tracks.
Tell me if a link is dead. Hope you enjoy!