The Elder Scrolls III - Morrowind Original Soundtrack Remastered v3.0

So, after many attempts at remastering the soundtrack of Morrowind, I think I got it. I did this remaster taking a completely professional approach to the whole thing. I did not take any shortcuts or cut any corners when working with this release. I played it on over 40 different sound systems and devices when I was finished, and made changes as I went along. My goal was to make it sound like it was recorded yesterday, rather than almost 10 years ago, and make it sound completely awesome on any system that it gets played on when being compared to other classical songs. I added a small tiny bit of limiting, because not everybody has a epic sound system to play all the dynamics the recording has to offer on.

Before I remastered it, the original minus well had been playing on a radio. There was no bass, the highs were dead, and the mids were dominating but extremely muddy. Now, everything is equal. The dynamics are not squished, there is no muddy sound which plagues most classical recordings, the noise is not bad at all, there are no random pops and clicks which also plagued the original recordings. the sound stage is completely changed, you will be able to tell, it will be like you are sitting 10 feet from the performance.

I ran the same process when remastering this one. I used the pre-master tapes, which were on cassette tapes, and up-sampled them to 24-bit 96 khz before processing and dithered down to Redbook after all was complete. I realize that this might be copyright, so I am only releasing these audio files for people who own a copy of the game and/or soundtrack from directsong.com. This is for personal use only. Downloading this, selling, and receiving revenue is a federal crime.

This was remastered with all digital programs except for the last process, which was analog. I edited the 24-bit 96khz files all the way to the end, then dithering and converting after it was complete.

When remastering this album, I used many examples of audio. Classical music, for the ambience, soundstage, and stereo placement, rock, for the equal amount of bass, and many jazz recordings for the sonic fidelity. I have made this album indistinguishable from most classical recordings, because there are always those crap recordings... :facepalm:


Download Link:
Morrowind Original Soundtrack.zip (http://www.mediafire.com/?jl6u82u9jshi7md)

Enjoy everybody, tell me what you think! Post comments and e-mail if you want to say anything personal. [email protected]

Encoding Notes: I uploaded this in mp3 because I have limited bandwidth now.... The mp3 is a special custom setting I made on the encoder so 320kbps is higher quality that AAC 320. You can be sure the is absolutely no quality loss. If you compare my encoder setting at 128kbps with a 128kbps AAC and the LAME 3.98 MP3 128, mine will sound almost 4 times the quality. Mine has the quality of a 256kbps mp3 at 128kbps

Here's how it works for people that wonder how: I take the LAME 3.98 encoder, set it to 300kbps, then compare the output to the original. Then I remove what the encoder kept from the original, synthesize it with NERO HE-AAC and compress it into a FLAC file that usually is around 10-15kbps.

Then I take the original file, remove what the encoder left, then add the synthesized data in, then compress it in 320kbps. I did VBR just to see and it never got to 320. The max it went was about 308-318 kbps, so at constant bit-rate, you have technically lossless, in mp3 format. Crazy eh?

My Genius is showing ;D

I got the idea from looking deep into the new AAC-HE v2 which, kind-of does what I did, but on a much smaller scale....

(By the way, you don't get any artifacts from going from lossy to lossy, as you might think, because I added the missing data back into the file which was bit by bit perfect, but synthesized, which made it lossless again. Then ran the LAME 3.98 mp3 compressor again, but because it was synthesized audio that i put in to make the file lossless, instead of taking up 300+ kbps and the encoder deleting that audio, it took up about 10-15 kbps so the encoder never actually did delete any audio, making it lossless mp3. It's very simple if you follow me.)

(http://img140.imageshack.us/i/morrowindspecialedition.png/)

The download includes new album art that is posted below. Notice how much better quality it is than the 600x600 one you find under google images...
I added a "Plastic" feel to it to make it somewhat more original... Personally, I hated the original...

I put it as a lossless PNG for those who want to compress it themselves or just plain hate jpeg compression.

All the songs are tagged and ready for iTunes or what ever you play the music with.

Here is proof that I have the master tapes, and some of the hardware I used... The rest you don't see is because I worked on this remaster mostly with digital programs that I hand coded, but the hardware included is a exciter, a equalizer, and stereo panner. The bottom one in the picture with the set of 3 is the hi-fi CD player/cassette player.

(http://img33.imageshack.us/i/img0281g.jpg/)

(http://img541.imageshack.us/i/img0282ty.jpg/)

(http://img845.imageshack.us/i/img0283g.jpg/)

(http://img845.imageshack.us/i/img0284u.jpg/)

(http://img716.imageshack.us/i/img0286ix.jpg/)


As much as I would like to, I am not going to release the master tapes....
Releasing them makes me feel like I am insulting the composer of this amazing soundtrack...
If you all can live with Oblivions OST from directsong.com which is at 320, then you can live with my remaster at 320, which btw, the quality of my remaster is actually better than oblivion's.
You can get Oblivion's and the original Morrowind OST that both were purchased from directsong.com here:

Original Morrowind: Morrowind Original Soundtrack.zip (http://www.mediafire.com/?z5b4le6c6b8hzof)

Original Oblivion: Oblivion Original Soundtrack.zip (http://www.mediafire.com/?r4jkj94mu6ddy1w)

Use these to compare my remaster to. I am sure you can tell that it is amazing and worth the download....

I listen to Morrowind's remaster and Oblivion's directsong.com release on my iPod on shuffle, and you cannot tell a difference between the albums, it is like they are from the same album...
The fidelity is equal, the stereo panning is equal, the volume is equal, the sound floor is equal, everything about both albums sounds completely professional, plus the album art included in my remaster is pretty awesome in my opinion...

This wouldn't be possible without Bethesda Softwork,ZeniMax, Steam, Ubisoft, and of course, Jeremy Soule for his brilliant compositions. I do not own Bethesda Softworks/ZeniMax, Ubisoft, Steam, Elder Scrolls III - Morrowind franchise, or any part of it. I am just releasing these files to show my work and skill and what my experience has brought me. I do own the game for Xbox and PC along with the directsong releases. Only download this if you own a copy of the game or the soundtrack as the audio included in this release is from both the game and the soundtrack as it was created from the pre-master tapes.

downloading now. will be sure to let you know. THANKS for the update!!!


--Okay. First and foremost WOW. It's obvious you have a keen ear for mixing.
While I did love the high ends (treble) of the last mix, (especially Peaceful Waters) this updated mix is waaaay more balanced.
and having that correct balance in there allows the music to flow so much better. This quality is pristine.

Thank you again for your time and effort into this project.




Now, off to remake my Morrowind/Oblivion CD!!!

shite, i still need to finish my epic Guild Wars mix as well...

Probably not going to have a chance to check this one out... but just wanted to express how i am blown away by such an enthusiastic and professional approach to the project. You're tha man, dood! :D

Thanks!!! :)

downloading and can't wait to give it a listen. Thanks for all the effort mate!

Haha, thanks so much guys!!! I am so happy you guys love it! It took me a while! Haha, I am very dedicated to giving everybody what they deserve, especially those Morrowind fans ;)

As always, remastering is process that keeps getting better and better. It doesn't happen perfect the first time overnight. I have learned alot. But I think I have finally reached the end, and I hope all of you are happy with this final release. (Crossed fingers)

This sounds fantastic! Thank you assett1!

Quite interesting, we finally got a really nice version of that nostalgic thing :-)

So a guy sends a kid the (Directsong) Morrowind music recorded to a tape and the kid thinks these were based on the 'master tapes'. (hint - the reprise was written later, so these cannot be the original master tapes)
The kid, who has probably never attended a professional orchestral concert in his life thinks he can do a better job than Soule's team which included a professional recording engineer.

These were not the 'master tapes' and taking these tapes and merely pushing them through EQ (or other artifical processing) and an convoluted transcoding process does not make the music sound more realistic. At least to those who are familiar with classical music recordings.
If you don't believe me, feel free to ask at Directsong.

The kid who clearly doesn't understand the concept of perceptual encoding.

Firstly, the resulting MP3 is obviously not lossless, because it is an MP3. The perceptual audio coding process assigns less bits to the content most likely to be perceptually masked, so that the content that is likely to be perceived by a person is encoded with higher accuracy. But by previously adding stuff that was removed back in, he is in fact further degrading the quality (adding noise to the sound) than if it was encoded in one shot MP3 directly using the standard settings at 320kbit/s. Whether he (or I) could actually hear the difference on a ABX test is a different question and would require further verification.
If you are interested in the perceptual encoding process and want to learn more, head over to Hydrogenaudio Forums (Powered by Invision Power Board) (http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?act=idx)

edit - I had a listen and I'd have to say, the result is rather tinny sounding and less pleasing to the ear than the Directsong version.

Hey shiznit7zt, go fuck yourself.


:)

So a guy sends a kid the (Directsong) Morrowind music recorded to a tape and the kid thinks these were based on the 'master tapes'. (hint - the reprise was written later, so these cannot be the original master tapes)
The kid, who has probably never attended a professional orchestral concert in his life thinks he can do a better job than Soule's team which included a professional recording engineer.

These were not the 'master tapes' and taking these tapes and merely pushing them through EQ (or other artifical processing) and an convoluted transcoding process does not make the music sound more realistic. At least to those who are familiar with classical music recordings.
If you don't believe me, feel free to ask at Directsong.

The kid who clearly doesn't understand the concept of perceptual encoding.

Firstly, the resulting MP3 is obviously not lossless, because it is an MP3. The perceptual audio coding process assigns less bits to the content most likely to be perceptually masked, so that the content that is likely to be perceived by a person is encoded with higher accuracy. But by previously adding stuff that was removed back in, he is in fact further degrading the quality (adding noise to the sound) than if it was encoded in one shot MP3 directly using the standard settings at 320kbit/s. Whether he (or I) could actually hear the difference on a ABX test is a different question and would require further verification.
If you are interested in the perceptual encoding process and want to learn more, head over to Hydrogenaudio Forums (Powered by Invision Power Board) (http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?act=idx)

edit - I had a listen and I'd have to say, the result is rather tinny sounding and less pleasing to the ear than the Directsong version.

Oh joy! Another one of these 15 year olds! Ahem...

1. I play actually in professional 3 symphonies in which I get paid, and I have attended 3 music festivals since my freshman year in high school, along with making state in viola 3 times. I would like to see you do that at the age of 17. Yes, I am 17.

2. Just because you couldn't get your hands on the pre-masters, doesn't mean you have to act like the world is better than you to keep yourself pumped up. These are PRE-MASTERS you fucking idiot. These were before they were sent to the engineers, which was Soule, who, by the way did a shitty job at mastering.

3. Actually I didn't even use the equalizer on the latest release. I used a exciter, stereo imaging, a 4-band compressor, Dither, DC Offset remover, and limiter. I also help run a studio, and I am pretty sure we have for than a EQ. Bahahaha! also, how can a EQ be artificial processing? A EQ adds volume to the specified frequency band.

4. Soule's team was himself you idiot, he did the mastering and everything for the Morrowind CD.The directsong release was the pre-masters, sent to the engineers who did Oblivion. I have the same files as they used to remaster. When he wrote the music for Oblivion, he sent it to the engineers. How was the reprise written if it was ON the PRE-MASTERS??? There was no place to put it in the game, so they never released it on the CD. If you notice, some of the song from directsong.com are not in the game, but in the videos and the death and triumph songs? The reprise was a special add-on to the soundtrack as a bonus. It was written with the others, but never released because it was not in the game.

5. Also, if you can read, the process I went through for the mp3 encoding actually did add quality, maybe you should learn to read before blurting things out and looking like a idiot. Wait, what? Awwww, I'm sorry, was my easy-to-follow description of how I made the mp3s too comfussing fur yoor wittle bwane? Also, it doesn't assign less bits, it removes them. I didn't add the audio that was removed, back in, I synthesized it and shrunk the lost data to a 15kbps file, then added it into the file, so when it encoded it, I was lossless. It is a very easy process to follow, and was the best I could explain for most people to understand.

6. Voting that the morrowind and oblivion ost sound better than my remaster, which obviously sounds better, was very immature, and a fail attempt to get my attention. If you want to be smart, I wouldn't create a account on this forum so you could put me down because you don't have the pre-master tapes. God forbid, some guy on the internet might have something you don't have.

7. If I didn't understand the encoding process, how was I able to edit and change the encoder, and do all the other crap. If I didn't understand how it worked, I would say:
"Here is Morrowind soundtrack, I compressed it to 56kbps, but you can just convert it to 320kbps and have the original files!"

Hahahahaha... Silly child... Show some smarts on the internet to cover up what's not really there.

Hehe, have a nice day =)

oh asssett, don't mind him. you were clear in what you did and i feel your anger, but: don't waste so much time on these guys: though piddles was a little blunt, that guy's really best ignored. sorry for nobody standing up for you (me? I was out of country), so: just thank you again for it.

Gigantic thanks man, this must have been an intense project for you. Do you mean to say the directsong.com Oblivion release is on par with your Morrowind remaster and therefore shouldn't need the same treatment?

Thanks dude, yah, I had posted this release on another forum who also had many fans of morrowind, not because I hate this forum, but because I want the word to get out haha. And some guy, was about as bad as this guy, and got like 3 other people to say the same, finally I was like, removed ^^.
Plus, when people say things like that, I get less people interested. Which is very bad haha... =S
But thanks dude. =) Appreciate the effort =)

---------- Post added at 12:19 AM ---------- Previous post was at 12:09 AM ----------

Actually, yes. =)
You see, when Soule decided to release digital copies of the soundtrack online to start out his company. (directsong.com) He sent the pre-master tapes (the ones before he mastered them and put them on CD) to the engineers who he hired to do Oblivion's soundtrack so a professional sould do it.
I got copies of those pre-master tapes he sent, before he, or anybody else mastered them. They are the same recordings that were used as directsong.com, the game, and the original CD release.
Although the soundtracks were created with a extremely high quality midi synthesizer, the instruments were not individually mastered like most midi programs are today.
The soundtrack needed special mastering before being released, like what you would do with a rock band recording. Soule, I guess, wanted the soundtrack to sound dim, and out of the way, unlike Oblivion, and the engineers that did Oblivion had to agree with him because their job depended on it. But I disagree completely with Soule. I think they should sound identical in sonic quality. And, I mastered it on the way it should sound, and Oblivion being a extremely good example on how a classical piece should sound sonically. Unlike the Oblivion soundtrack, Morowind's instruments were not equalized. They were simply recorded, and put to a master. Mastering those kinds of recordings is difficult because instruments sometimes fight over others because they were not equalized. In a live performance of a orchestra, these frequency battles happen at extremely high frequencies. But when you are listening to a recording at Redbook quality, those frequencies are now audible from the dithering and because you have removed the inaudible frequencies, and the lower audible frequency clashes come out. This is why you equalize each instrument to only take up a certain part of the frequency spectrum. If you listen closely, the cellos have a bit of a rumble, along with the contrabass, and in oblivion, the bass handle the rumble while the cello does not. Remastering Oblivion would be difficult because the equalizing on the instruments already have been done along with the other processes. Remastering what has already been processed will just turn out to be a jumbled mess of frequency clashes and other artifacts which will make it sound worse.

I will not do Oblivion's soundtrack for three reasons:
1. I cannot find a lossless version to remaster.
2. The sonic quality was much improved, and I think, in my opinion, sounds great and does not need a huge improvement like Morrowind did.
3. The instrument equalization.

---------- Post added at 12:35 AM ---------- Previous post was at 12:19 AM ----------

Hey piddles, is that you on your profile picture? You do voice acting? =O


Oh, by the way guys, sorry, I forgot to fix a little typing problem in the ID3 tag, the album name is Mororwind Original Soundtrack.... XP

---------- Post added at 12:46 AM ---------- Previous post was at 12:35 AM ----------


Probably not going to have a chance to check this one out... but just wanted to express how i am blown away by such an enthusiastic and professional approach to the project. You're tha man, dood! :D

You better check it out! This took me a while!!!! ;)

---------- Post added at 12:59 AM ---------- Previous post was at 12:46 AM ----------

I have also realized that when google-ing:
Morroiwnd ost
Elder Scrolls Morrowind ost
Morrowind OSt remaster
Morrowind remaster

This thread or the same release on a different music forum is always the first or second output that google gives. This is getting out very fast! I am so excited!

Also, as an update, my latest v3 remaster, has reached over 1000 downloads on mediafire =)
I am ecstatic to say the least! I would like to thank everybody who has download this and listened to it! I hope this entertains the morrowind fans till they die!

Wow man this is amazing! I've already listend to it a couple times through. The time and effort you put into this really shows off :) Thanks again for all your hard work! =D

Hey piddles, is that you on your profile picture? You do voice acting? =O




Haha, that's Alex Jones. He's a filmmaker of political documentaries (Fall of the Republic, End Game: Blueprint for global enslavement..etc..) and also a radio host.

Infowars.com is his website. Mind-blowing stuff!


-by the way, I've listened to your remix just about every other day for the past 2 weeks!!! That and my Guild Wars mix do not leave my side.
Great to hear about the Google hits!

Hahaha aweshum!
=D
Glad to hear you guys are enjoying it =D

yeah, this audio cassette master bothers me as well. And how the hell u were even able to acquire it?

gonna dl it anyway!


PS. directsong osts are badly tagged - should be only jeremy as an artist

yeah, this audio cassette master bothers me as well. And how the hell u were even able to acquire it?

gonna dl it anyway!


PS. directsong osts are badly tagged - should be only jeremy as an artist


Yah, the fact that I asked for a copy and I get this made me kinda mad, but hey, listen to it and you'll see how good it really sounds!
Plus, analog tape ripped on a excellent system sounds so much better than any other source. I has that amazing warmth to it that makes classical sound phenomenal.

That songs are badly tagged, I know, I was typing quickly and messed up a few things... oh well, nothing you can't fix.. =)

i'll get back here as soon as I give your version a listen : )

but from the time being - bad tags annoys me greatly. Yours arent so bad, as some people just tag "Various Artists" or "xxx SOundtrack", put numbers or album names in title tags and so on. Guess I need to buy mp3s moar often ;D

Hahaha! I took this topic as a joke but you guys are so serious about it. I can't believe that so many folks believe that poor quality cassette can be a real master tape of Morrowind (master record is in 99% digital). Tell me who was using cassettes in 2002? Even vinyl sound quality is much better than the cassette...
I'm not denying that you had some fun in digitalising analogue tape and that you tried to make it sound better but it was pointless.

Loseless mp3 - another joke. Thanks for making me laugh :D.

First of all, let me say: Welcome to the Forums! I'm glad you joined this forum to bash something you wish you could achieve. I know, its okay, some people just get jealous and start to rant about things to make them feel better. It's alright, you can't have everything in the world. I thought you should have realized this by the time you were 12 years of age. Let me show you my argument now since you started one.

Every once and a while a douche who decides to rant about my releases, so I have gotten pretty good at straightening their b.s. up.
Lets breakdown and study this little rant of yours and see exactly what you are trying to say.

Rant 1. Cassettes being of poor quality...
Answer: Okay, first of all, a CD is poorer quality that a cassette. Why? Well, a CD through a CD player has a hi-frequency roll-off of 16k. A normal cassette has a roll-off of 18k even through the cheapest of players. Not only that, but cassette is analog, so you can acquire the analog tone with a simple rip through a boombox. Plus no D/A converter is needed, so no dampening of the dynamic range. CDs might use 1s and 0s, but when listening to them, the character of the medium is not there, you simply get frequency cut-off, the D/A signal noise, the CD noise if you have a cheap player, and the reduced dynamic range because of these factors. If you are an idiot, you could say that make the character, but it seem like destruction of the original source. Granted, cassette does have it's problems as well, like a dirty tape (I clean mine), a dirty player (I clean it too), tape noise (Only get from a cheap player and a dirty tape), and the freq cut-off (Which is still higher than a CD).

Rant 2. Who uses cassettes in 2002?
Answer: I know many people use tape to get the warm tone in studio recordings. Wait, not many, most. To get that professional tone, you can run your mics through a tape to get the analog sound, plus, no D/A converter needed. So yes, if you had any idea about this product, you should know many people use it today. Maybe not for mobile use, but tape is still used today in almost all professional studios who have analog equipment.

Rant 3. Even vinyl quality is much better than cassette...
Answer: Well duh it is! Vinyl isn't limited in frequency range. But I'm pretty sure they didn't sent me vinyl recordings of the soundtrack. Tape can sound just as good or even better than vinyl because tape has no artifacts and requires much less money to get a better sound than vinyl. Plus, if you add in the fact you can't hear anything over 18k, I don't see why you arguing about this.

Rant 4. (Well, not even considered a rant, just trying to state a fact only a uneducated person would state) Lossless mp3.
Answer: Well, you see, if you could read correctly, and is smart enough to follow what I was saying, you would see that this compressed recording is not lossless, but simply put, absolutely no artifacts. I meant lossless because you can't tell a difference between the originals and the way I encoded this mp3. No matter your argument, you cannot hear the difference because all the audio that was removed was synthesized back into the file. Even if the encoder removed some data, it still is still closer to the original because of the synthesized data added in.

So hopefully by now, you and other people who want to follow in your footsteps realize there is no way to dis my release in any way, or even pull a few b.s. arguments in here to try and make this look unprofessional. This was a professional work, and will stay at that level. Have a nice day, and don't try and argue back, I don't want to have to waste another 30 minutes of my Sunday replying to a idiot.

Oh, and also, do me a favor and download this release and enjoy it. If you don't like it, then delete it. It's very easy. If you don't have the brains to do this, go here: http://grownupgeek.com/recycle

Have a nice day! =)

Uggg, double posting makes me mad...

damn I would sooooo like to have your kind of knowledge... ;)

damn I would sooooo like to have your kind of knowledge... ;)

Hahahaha XD
Lets just say, it take a rant of equal or better quality to settle another... ;)
Or you could just report it and settle it that way. I did both hahahaha

---------- Post added at 01:01 PM ---------- Previous post was at 12:51 PM ----------


Wow man this is amazing! I've already listend to it a couple times through. The time and effort you put into this really shows off :) Thanks again for all your hard work! =D

Thanks for the thanks! Haha, I'm glad you enjoy it. =)

---------- Post added at 01:20 PM ---------- Previous post was at 01:01 PM ----------


i'll get back here as soon as I give your version a listen : )

but from the time being - bad tags annoys me greatly. Yours arent so bad, as some people just tag "Various Artists" or "xxx SOundtrack", put numbers or album names in title tags and so on. Guess I need to buy mp3s moar often ;D

Also, the composers were Jeremy and his brother, but his brother never got any attention till now. The only error I have seen was that the title of the album is spelled wrong >.<

well it is tagged everywhere as simply "Jeremy Soule". The covers says it too.

well it is tagged everywhere as simply "Jeremy Soule". The covers says it too.

"In February 2000, Jeremy and his brother, Julian, formed Soule Media as an independent music production company; its name has since been changed to Artistry Entertainment.[11] Julian works as a sound engineer and composer for the company, and has assisted Jeremy in several projects throughout his career, both credited and uncredited"

-http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeremy_Soule

Firstly I must say that I downloaded your remaster - I prefer original mix but yours is not bad :).

Lets go back to cassettes :P.
Maybe most of common CD players cut-off at 16k but PC isn't affected by this problem, don't you think so? CDs have bigger dynamic range, no noise etc. although you are right saying that 16bit digital audio is not perfect. Human ear can't hear the difference between digital and analogue above 24bit.
We are comparing cassettes and CDs which are targeted to end customers, not to mixing studios...

This is example how real master tape look like: Master Reel - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master_tape)

I'm quite sure you would achieve better effect if they had sent you this "master tape" in digital 24/192 format.


I know many people use tape to get the warm tone in studio recordings. Wait, not many, most. To get that professional tone, you can run your mics through a tape to get the analog sound, plus, no D/A converter needed. So yes, if you had any idea about this product, you should know many people use it today. Maybe not for mobile use, but tape is still used today in almost all professional studios who have analog equipment.
TAPE does not mean poor cassette...


if you add in the fact you can't hear anything over 18k, I don't see why you arguing about this.
I can hear 18k and recognize mp3 320kbps in ABX tests (maybe your compression method would defeat my ears ;) ) but it's meaningless in this case.


Have a nice day, and don't try and argue back, I don't want to have to waste another 30 minutes of my Sunday replying to a idiot.
English is not my native language so it's not any reason to call me idiot. I am not trying to understate your work. This release sounds more like CD than a cassette. I can only imagine what you could have done with the real master record of this great soundtrack. Maybe you can ask your friend to send you a better copy?

Anyway, aside from all that, the point I was trying to make is that the Cd and cassette in the right hands and environment, can have equal quality. If I had the master tapes, I would have had a better outcome, but for a cassette, or even if I had a CD of the files, this is about as good as it can get.

I will try and get a better and more reliable source for this, if I do, I will keep the thread updated.

=)

thx a lot

The first remaster you made sounded wonderful compared to the original, so to think you've improved it even further...I must listen to this. Thanks a bunch for continuing these remastering projects- I'll try to send you some feedback once I give them a proper listen (: (not that I have any technical knowledge, mind you :b)

*jaw drop* Hell of an effort here!

Brilliant work.
A stunning remaster.
Having listened to both versions of the Morrowind soundtrack the improvements that you have made are very clear.
A very very impressive job.
Well done!!! :)

*jaw drop* Hell of an effort here!

Thanks! Took me hours. Just saying. ;)

---------- Post added at 05:22 AM ---------- Previous post was at 05:22 AM ----------


Brilliant work.
A stunning remaster.
Having listened to both versions of the Morrowind soundtrack the improvements that you have made are very clear.
A very very impressive job.
Well done!!! :)

I'm glad you enjoy it a lot. =)

---------- Post added at 05:23 AM ---------- Previous post was at 05:22 AM ----------


The first remaster you made sounded wonderful compared to the original, so to think you've improved it even further...I must listen to this. Thanks a bunch for continuing these remastering projects- I'll try to send you some feedback once I give them a proper listen (: (not that I have any technical knowledge, mind you :b)

Haha, well, the first one was me just starting my audio obsession haha. I have come such a long way from then. More feedback is always great! Hope you have good thoughts!

I've been comparing both and though I like the original, the remastered version is amazing. It's actually the first remasterization of *anything fan made* that I find almost as great as the original piece. Thank you very much!

This is fantastic! Thank you for putting in all the effort and for uploading! Wonderful stuff. :)

I've been comparing both and though I like the original, the remastered version is amazing. It's actually the first remasterization of *anything fan made* that I find almost as great as the original piece. Thank you very much!

Glad somebody took the time out compare and give me a decent opinion. ;) always a pleasure.

---------- Post added at 12:18 PM ---------- Previous post was at 12:17 PM ----------


This is fantastic! Thank you for putting in all the effort and for uploading! Wonderful stuff. :)

Glad you enjoy it! ^___^

I'm not entirely sure what you did, but the tracks all sound damn good. Thank you sir.

I'm not entirely sure what you did, but the tracks all sound damn good. Thank you sir.

My pleasure dear sir :-)

when a lossless version?

when a lossless version?

I released as mp3 because not only of bandwidth limitations, but now I can't find the lossless source so that's all I can give...

thank you :D

assett1, please write detailed manual of your mp3 converting metod. I wanna try your metod, maybe it will better than lame --insane preset.

assett1, please write detailed manual of your mp3 converting metod. I wanna try your metod, maybe it will better than lame --insane preset.

It's not really a manual as much as hard coding. I reversed engineered the LAME mp3 encoder. Basically to see exactly how it "hears" what to remove. I then took the level of volume that the threshold that the encoder "hears" is found out. Then I re-synthesized the track, and put the new data at the exact threshold the encoder "hears" it at, but not enough to remove it or increase the bit-rate. I then compared the original compressed mp3 to the new one with almost 30% more data synthesized. The mp3 not only was a VBR at maximum speed settings (So if fluctuates extremely fast), but the bit-rate only changed 2kbps for each frame with almost 30% more data in the file.

Even at 128kbps, you can't hear the compression at all. And trust me, I can hear a ton of compression when I used LAME's mp3 128 without my synthesized audio injected in the file. :)

For the conversion process, I used MAX on my Macbook Pro with the settings as follows:

Encoding Engine: High
Stereo Mode: Joint Stereo
Quality: 100
Variable bit-rate mode: Fast

It uses LAME 3.98.

thx

I really like your remaster! It sounds great.

There is a version floating on rutracker that is supposed to be ripped from the collector's edition cd. EAC is there. Not sure if Soule put 320 mp3's on cd's, but it sounds better than the directsong version special edition.

Your version has more background noise, but brain filters that out anyway. On other hand, instruments are clearer in your version, so I like it very much. Thanks.

EDIT.

Oh, and Oblivion collector's edition cd is nowhere to be found on the internet (those lacking an EAC text are pobably transcoded). If anyone has that, upload it please!

This is great, although I felt that the dynamics were somewhat lost

I really like your remaster! It sounds great.

There is a version floating on rutracker that is supposed to be ripped from the collector's edition cd. EAC is there. Not sure if Soule put 320 mp3's on cd's, but it sounds better than the directsong version special edition.

Your version has more background noise, but brain filters that out anyway. On other hand, instruments are clearer in your version, so I like it very much. Thanks.

EDIT.

Oh, and Oblivion collector's edition cd is nowhere to be found on the internet (those lacking an EAC text are pobably transcoded). If anyone has that, upload it please!

The version was loss-less and does exist, but it is missing some of the tracks, and the first track (title theme) was trans-coded from 128 to 320, then back to .wav for the CD. (Confusing, I know, but I took a hard look at the file, and I saw evidence of extreme trans-coded which resulted in the previous statement)

The background noise was from the tape source, but I lowered the level of that tremendously. The instruments are clearer due to the hardware I used when mastering. I have been thinking of remastering it again with a higher quality rip.

And the oblivion CD does not exist and many people have claimed. Three of my friends have the collector's edition and there was no CD attached.

---------- Post added at 09:51 PM ---------- Previous post was at 09:49 PM ----------


This is great, although I felt that the dynamics were somewhat lost

The dynamics were reduced due to the tape compression, and the fact that 85% of people don't have hi-fi speakers and those speakers are not capable of producing 100% of those dynamics without distortion.

I have been thinking of remastering it again with a higher quality rip.

That will be an amazing thing. Also, thanks for explaining that to me.

That will be an amazing thing. Also, thanks for explaining that to me.

Sure thing :)

I think I know what you mean about the cd version main theme of Morrowind's soundtrack. Its clearer in some parts relative the 2002 directsong version, but there are obvious inconsistencies in other parts, which are very significant and audible. I suspect they applied some kind of filter. Noise removal or equalization of some sort might also cause inconsistency of that sort as opposed to several transcodings, depending on what they did with it. Or worse, they transcoded to 320, "cleaned" the 320 mp3, then to wav (why?!)...

What bothers me with all the 2000-2010 mp3 and even many lossless releases from then sound inferior by far to mp3's made from old recordings by, for instance, French orchestra's back from the 1960 - 80's. I mean, anime and film music from late 1970 - 90's are better recorded than just about anything released for games or films or anime in 2000-2010, with several exceptions...


Your version is very much better in the clarity of instrument, by far. Background noise doesn't bother me. Much like any good classical recording, which is the best thing for music.

Ultimately, I for instance keep 24 bit 192 rate flac samples of different kind of noise from all kinds of vinyl and tape sources so removing background noise is always possible, if one sample matches it closely and is higher quality. But improving instrument sound is much harder. Thanks for your work!

I think I know what you mean about the cd version main theme of Morrowind's soundtrack. Its clearer in some parts relative the 2002 directsong version, but there are obvious inconsistencies in other parts, which are very significant and audible. I suspect they applied some kind of filter. Noise removal or equalization of some sort might also cause inconsistency of that sort as opposed to several transcodings, depending on what they did with it. Or worse, they transcoded to 320, "cleaned" the 320 mp3, then to wav (why?!)...

What bothers me with all the 2000-2010 mp3 and even many lossless releases from then sound inferior by far to mp3's made from old recordings by, for instance, French orchestra's back from the 1960 - 80's. I mean, anime and film music from late 1970 - 90's are better recorded than just about anything released for games or films or anime in 2000-2010, with several exceptions...


Your version is very much better in the clarity of instrument, by far. Background noise doesn't bother me. Much like any good classical recording, which is the best thing for music.

Ultimately, I for instance keep 24 bit 192 rate flac samples of different kind of noise from all kinds of vinyl and tape sources so removing background noise is always possible, if one sample matches it closely and is higher quality. But improving instrument sound is much harder. Thanks for your work!

I agree! My current project was to revive the Metroid Prime Trilogy, and it was more work than I ever thought I could push through. If every composer, musician, producer, and engineer for video game music treated the audio like a professional CD release, things would be so much different. (In a good way ofcourse)

I have no idea why they transcoded, but I found the original cut-off req. at 16k (usually a 128kb mp3) and also many artifacts from compressing to a 320kb (like the hf 21khz cutoff on the noise and the artifacts in the high frequencies).

This of course was converted to a .wav for distribution. There's no telling how many people are listening to that rip as a mp3! That title theme must be transcoded 3-4 times on some people's mp3 players! Horrible. I shake my head in disgust. Where is quality control on such things? If you're going to make money on something like that at least make it right. (Rant over) :)

Wow, man, amazing work. I just got done comparing the original to your remaster, and the difference is astounding.
Do you happen to have a flac version? I'd like to burn a backup disc.

Wow, so much work went into this! Very much appreciated, thanks!

I really don't see much point in thanking him, since it doesn't seem like he's ever coming back.

Unless I'm the only one who thinks that just disappearing from the forums and not having been here since May 25th, without any clue as to where he is, or when he's coming back, or why he hasn't been here for 4 weeks, is suspicious.

Hello all,
Assett1 has simply left the entire forum and website because he felt he had committed so much that he was simply unable to work up to his expectations he had created.
I, his mentor in audio has retired in the studio environment and Kris asked me to drop by, give the news to the forums and ask if I could finish his huge project for him. Kris is now working full time in the studio with a band a week. Not only that but he is pursuing a double major in school and has found that he has little to no time to work on side projects. He said, with a small tear in his eye, that he misses you all and would like me to take his place.
I agreed that I would slowly but surly finish up his project with the Metroid Prime Trilogy and his list of other projects.
I hope you all forgive him and start looking forward again to these releases: Majora's Mask, some Pokemon Games (Fire Red, Leaf Green, and Emerald), as well as Final Fantasy VII, VIII and IX.
The releases will be slow but will be done.
Thanks!
-Mr.Assett2

thanks to Mr.Assett2 !
Nice to have some news ... I'm happy for Assett1 : keep the faith in your new job !

And as usual : enjoy every minutes of your life time... it's too precious !

Hello all,
Assett1 has simply left the entire forum and website because he felt he had committed so much that he was simply unable to work up to his expectations he had created.
I, his mentor in audio has retired in the studio environment and Kris asked me to drop by, give the news to the forums and ask if I could finish his huge project for him. Kris is now working full time in the studio with a band a week. Not only that but he is pursuing a double major in school and has found that he has little to no time to work on side projects. He said, with a small tear in his eye, that he misses you all and would like me to take his place.
I agreed that I would slowly but surly finish up his project with the Metroid Prime Trilogy and his list of other projects.
I hope you all forgive him and start looking forward again to these releases: Majora's Mask, some Pokemon Games (Fire Red, Leaf Green, and Emerald), as well as Final Fantasy VII, VIII and IX.
The releases will be slow but will be done.
Thanks!
-Mr.Assett2
Final Fantasy and Zelda! Yes please!

Thanks again for making this remastered version. I find it to be superior in sound quality over all other versions. Every instrument is crystal clear and I am hearing parts that I had not heard before in the original recording. Thank you for your hard work!

Amazing job man. You obviously put in a lot of effort to get it to this standard.

Thank you very much Assett1 ;)
This is just awesome

thks a lot, seems great!

Thanks for the effort! Love it....

Thank you!

Outstanding....

Simply Outstanding work!

I was looking around for the iTunes release of Morrowind & Oblivion, but then I stumbled across this. So much better!

Thank you assett1!

Great work Bud.

I realise this is resurrecting an old thread but I felt I needed to comment anyway. I'm not even going to pretend I know what all the processes mean, I don't have that knowledge. My knowledge of converting music begins and ends with changing file formats between FLAC and MP3. With that said, I found the description of the process very interesting, and it sounds like it was a lot of work for you, for that i'm grateful.

Upon listening to the downloaded files, I have to say, the sound quality is breathtaking. As I said I don't understand how these 320 MP3s can sound better than any FLAC I have on my computer, but it does, and by a long way. I can't even quite explain how, but I suppose the easy way is to point to the warmth and the clarity in the layers that make the difference.

Thank you very much for your efforts, overlooking the trolls in this thread, it seems plenty of people also see this for what it is; a work of art.

I realise this is resurrecting an old thread but I felt I needed to comment anyway. I'm not even going to pretend I know what all the processes mean, I don't have that knowledge. My knowledge of converting music begins and ends with changing file formats between FLAC and MP3. With that said, I found the description of the process very interesting, and it sounds like it was a lot of work for you, for that i'm grateful.

Upon listening to the downloaded files, I have to say, the sound quality is breathtaking. As I said I don't understand how these 320 MP3s can sound better than any FLAC I have on my computer, but it does, and by a long way. I can't even quite explain how, but I suppose the easy way is to point to the warmth and the clarity in the layers that make the difference.

Thank you very much for your efforts, overlooking the trolls in this thread, it seems plenty of people also see this for what it is; a work of art.

^ This, so much.

Thanks a lot for this release, assett1, absolutely love it.

I recently compared your version to different sources (those Web DLs, FLAC,..) and they all lack the depth of your version. :)

Thank you so much, the quality is beautiful :)

An exemplar remaster! you have my respect for taking on such a challenge and for doing a selfless act for those who love this game and you have my thanks for breathing air into the dying embers of a great soundtrack

great work and a thank you for putting this up

It's kinda sad that people prefer the "remastered" tracks even if they're harsher and more thin sounding...
Even worse, they totally lack the warmth of the original tracks.

The "re-mastered" title says it all. It's like comparing a remastered CD by Deep Purple compared to a good old 70s vinyl...

I'm actually surprised you didn't try to use a compressor to totally destroy the dynamic range too.

"my remaster, which obviously sounds better".... Wow.. just wow...
Anyway with such a mindset, you're not going anywhere in this business.

Sorry for ressing this post but I thought that I'd add my personal thanks for this amazing work. I just got back into Morrowind and this is helping me get through those times that I'm not playing (that irritating thing called "work" keeps getting in the way). I'm no expert but keep up work like this and you'll go far. And ignore all the "nay-sayers", when/if they ever release a musical work of art, you can just remaster that and post it here too.

Thanks!

Really wish you would consider releasing this in either 24-bit 44.1KHz, or 16-bit 96KHz. Have a Soule :)

Thank you very much! :-)

"This person has no idea how audio works.

Just look at the spectrals - original music from the game's download on the left, this "remaster" on the right.

A little explanation - what this guy did is called a "lossy-to-lossy" transcode - the 128 kbps mp3 files provided with the game itself were simply "upscaled" - that is - ran through Lame so that they would say that it was 320 kbps, but as you can see, is clearly about the same quality as the 128 kbps mp3s. This is just blatantly lying to make it seem like he magically improved the audio quality of the music.

You can read more about transcodes here and how to analyze spectrals to detect transcodes here.

So no, this wasn't done with the original masters, and I'd reckon that if Soule himself is selling this on his site, the masters are probably lost"...

https://www.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/20r7du/someone_remastered_morrowinds_soundtrack_and_it/