Basiscape – Elminage ~The Dark Sorceress and the Ring of Gods~ FLAC/MP3 + Looped

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!

Thanks for posting this.

I’ve not heard of this soundtrack before, but anything by Sakimoto I must hear!

Thanks for the upload! This is indeed a rare find.

Thanks for this. I have the original but a looped version is always awesome 🙂

You can hear quite well the early stage of the team. Althought it really isn’t something awe-inspiring, this process of work was
nonetheless important to make them familiar with the matter, otherwise we wouldn’t have results of today wounderful soundtracks
like, "Odin Sphere", "opoona", "Grand Knights History Original", etc.
I think it has historic value. ^^

As of the loops, I think they were handled nicely. Through casual listening, I wasn’t able to spot any abrupt transitions or inbalance of
tracks (but I didn’t compare them with the none loop tracks). Clean transitions can be a pain and involves usually quite much fiddling.
I’m sure people will appreciate the effort you put into improving the soundtrack, something editing work of a not-owned propriety
should be worth to mention in my regard (but that really means nothing).

Thanks! ^^

I greatly enjoyed the main theme from Elminage composed by Sakimoto. It’s quite a serene and uplifting melody to begin with, then, in the typical Sakimoto style of grandiose embellishment, the melody is accompanied by strings, then punctuated by drums and percussion. It’s quite wonderful.

@Scha
Thanks for your compliments! I hope through intense listening you won’t be able to spot any bad edits either! I agree, it’s not really amazing stuff, and I wish there were individual track credits so I know for sure who to attribute what to so I can add that to what I already know about them and compare. But it’s worth hearing to those interested in Basiscape. And now people who are don’t have to listen to the rip of Elminage DS Remix, which has the same music but in awful, awful quality. Elminage II uses the same music, so this covers that game as well. Seems the third game has new music though, but no bonus soundtrack like this. Too bad, it sounds like it has better music (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AmtlYktSxJQ).

@Avanze
The theme is indeed quite wonderful, sounds like he decided to try a little Celtic sound, and because of Sakimoto’s enormous talent, it’s just beautiful. After I posted this I was curious what the game was like so I checked it out on YouTube. Turns out that beautiful main theme plays over a mostly white background with text and little else. He wrote a theme way above and beyond the material he was given. The rest of the game is just like the Wizardry games, meaning old-school dungeon crawling RPG where you move one screen at a time and encounter monsters that you fight on a still screen through menus. Doesn’t seem to me like inspiring material.

Thank You!!!

The theme is indeed quite wonderful, sounds like he decided to try a little Celtic sound, and because of Sakimoto’s enormous talent, it’s just beautiful…

I agree with you. The instruments of choice for that piece sounds remarkably like a harpsichord and tambourine; what a combination. I believe Sakimoto is possibly one of the great composers of our age. I know this is said of the majoraty of classical composers, but his selected area of composition; videogame music, even anime too, should not detract any from his incredibly diverse talent, and prolific orchestration.

thank you, nts, I am curious of what they did then

Thanks v. much, love the Basiscape releases.

Is it possible a reup of the flac of looped and original vers.?

Completely redone and uploaded.

thx

Any chance of an MP3 re-upload?

Despite MediaFire claiming the MP3 archive was removed for violating terms of service, I got no such notice as they would normally give and the file was still there. I just updated the link to the new one it gave me. So click it now. 😀

It’s weird, that link is still directing me to that "removed for violation of TOS" screen. I’m not sure what to make of it.

Just checked:

File Blocked for Violation.
The file you requested has been blocked for a violation of our Terms of Service.
Still have questions, or think we’ve made a mistake? Please contact support for further assistance.

The reason why you can still access the file, nothingtosay, is probably because you’re the uploader. Among others, MediaFire is a service for backups. Legally, there is nothing wrong with buying, ripping and uploading a CD for personal backup. However, sharing it is and goes against their TOS.

Log out of your account and try to access the file again. You should get the same "file blocked" message like the rest of us.

(Of course, it’s also possible that something went wrong while you tried to replace the old links. ;P)

Please help check, the link is dead

Bumped !

New links. Sorry for the delay, my visiting of this site is very inconsistent.

Thanks alot, i searched for this some time!