Enhanced Soundtrack in IHNMAIMS: How-To

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Alpheon
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Enhanced Soundtrack in IHNMAIMS: How-To

Post by Alpheon »

The GOG and Steam releases of I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream included an enhanced version of the soundtrack. I emailed Night Dive Studios, the publisher for this rerelease, and Stephen Kick there had this to say about the soundtrack:
The story behind the bonus OST is really interesting, when we started the development of the re-release of IHNMAIMS we learned from Harlan Ellison that the guy who created the soundtrack is none other than John Ottman who became an award winning composer for Hollywood movies including the most recent XMen movie. We were able to contact his agent and ask him about the soundtrack. Luckily he still had the original Data tapes from his sessions in a storage locker. He paid to have them found and digitized and then finally sent to us so that we could include them with the game. Pretty freaking amazing if you ask me. Not only are they of much higher quality but they also included the 21 additional tracks which never made it into the game. We decided to include them because we thought they would provide some really fascinating content for fans of the game who would appreciate the lengths we went through to offer the re-release and bonus content. They are named "bonus tracks" because they have no other official name!
So, with help from the ScummVM devs, I've now identified what MP3 from the official, enhanced soundtrack corresponds to which CD track number in-game.

To get it working, the tracks need a bit of editing:

First, download something like WavePad--some tool that can split a single audio track according to silences within it. This will be used for track 29 from the soundtrack, "34 Stingers."

A "stinger" or "sting" is a very short musical phrase, usually used to signify something terrifically dramatic. The track "34 Stingers" is a collection of stings from the game, though only a handful are used, and the track is titled erroneously; there are in fact 35 stings within the file.

Use WavePad to split the file upon finding 3000ms (3 seconds) of silence, and save all the files, using the naming scheme "Stingers 1," "Stingers 2," so on. Make sure they are saved as, or converted to, MP3 (or OGG). WAV will not function in ScummVM.

If you're using WavePad like I did, the original file you started with will be modified, cut down to only the first sting. Rename it "Stingers 0."

Next, use your sound editor of choice (Audacity or Sound Forge or maybe even WavePad?) to cut a couple seconds of silence off the track "30 Introduction."

Now, copy the file "23 Starting a Track" five times, so you have a total of six copies of the file, including the original. This is needed because this track plays six times in the game, and is called up according to a different number each time.

Then copy "24 Neutral on a Track" twice, so you have three total copies. This is done for the same reason.

Use this key to rename the files; ID3 tags can stay:
  • track01 = Credits
    track02 = Introduction
    track03 = Gorrister's Exploration
    track04 = Gorrister's Redemption I
    track05 = Gorrister's Redemption II
    track06 = Neutral on a Track
    track07 = Stingers 27
    track08 = Starting a Track
    track09 = Benny's Exploration
    track10 = Benny's Redemption
    track11 = Benny's Fatal Flaw
    track12 = Neutral on a Track
    track13 = Stingers 6
    track14 = Starting a Track
    track15 = Ellen's Exploration
    track16 = Ellen's Redemption II
    track17 = Ellen's Redemption I
    track18 = Stingers 0
    track19 = Stingers 13
    track20 = Starting a Track
    track21 = Nimdok's Exploration
    track22 = Nimdok's Redemption
    track23 = Nimdok's Fatal Flaw
    track24 = Stingers 16
    track25 = Stingers 28
    track26 = Starting a Track
    track27 = Ted's Exploration
    track28 = Ted's Redemption V
    track29 = Ted's Fatal Flaw
    track30 = Stingers 9
    track31 = Stingers 22
    track32 = Starting a Track
    track33 = Campfire Menu [NOTE: Cut some silence from beginning]
    track34 = Blob
    track35 = Win
    track36 = Torture Area
    track37 = Starting a Track
    track38 = Losing a Track
    track39 = Winning a Track II
    track40 = Neutral on a Track
Finally, copy the files (track01.mp3 through track40.mp3) to your IHNMAIMS root folder, and start the game.

NOTES: "Introduction" seems to have odd timing at the title card cutscene, but the MIDI does too. Nothing to be done.

I haven't even played the entire game. I used the play_music command and my ears to recognize and match the tracks, and it's possible there's a mistake somewhere here in identifying the music. Please post in this thread if you notice something amiss.

Enjoy hearing the game the way the composer intended it! It's a totally transformed soundscape.
Last edited by Alpheon on Thu Mar 26, 2015 4:10 am, edited 6 times in total.
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Alpheon
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Post by Alpheon »

I made a demo video depicting the difference the soundtrack makes. It's quite dramatic.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j5oBzOShHhE
fischkopf
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Post by fischkopf »

Is there a way to upgrade the soundtrack on my original disk version as well???
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Alpheon
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Post by Alpheon »

fischkopf wrote:Is there a way to upgrade the soundtrack on my original disk version as well???
Not yet, because the enhanced soundtrack is part of the GOG/Steam purchase. You'd need to buy it from one of those retailers, then you could use the enhanced soundtrack with your disk version.

I'd like to talk with Night Dive about distributing this freely, though.
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NoiZje
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Post by NoiZje »

Amazing find / work! Thanks
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NoiZje
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Post by NoiZje »

Hey Alpheon, I got it to work. Two things:

One issue. With the added tracks I get a loud, but short white noise sound before every new music track starts. Any way to solve this?
(OSX, Intel, daily build, mar 31).

Secondly, I've found a program that detects pauses and can cut mp3's without reencoding. So no quality loss. It's called "mp3DirectCut".
These are my settings to make it work with the "34 Stingers" track.
Image
Image
Last edited by NoiZje on Wed Apr 01, 2015 7:15 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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aculotarpa
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Post by aculotarpa »

One issue. With the added tracks I get a loud, but short white noise sound before every new music track starts. Any way to solve this?
Same problem here, both on Windows and Mac ports
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Alpheon
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Post by Alpheon »

aculotarpa wrote:
One issue. With the added tracks I get a loud, but short white noise sound before every new music track starts. Any way to solve this?
Same problem here, both on Windows and Mac ports
Boy. That's weird. I'll see if I can find a solution to this in the coming week.

Is it only before new music tracks, and not loops?
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NoiZje
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Post by NoiZje »

Yes on every loop.
KingLir
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no short white noise if converted to .ogg

Post by KingLir »

Great Work!
I am having also the short white noise - but not if converted to .ogg, so I guess it's some bug on ScummVM engine with .mp3 soundtracks (maybe just for SAGA titles since it's the same with ITE music enhancement ).
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eriktorbjorn
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Post by eriktorbjorn »

NoiZje wrote: One issue. With the added tracks I get a loud, but short white noise sound before every new music track starts. Any way to solve this?
Maybe ScummVM doesn't skip the MP3 metadata (title, artist, etc.) when it's at the beginning of the file? I've heard that it used to be placed at the end of the file originally.
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NoiZje
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Post by NoiZje »

Yes that's it! Stripped all metadata and the noise is gone, thanks!
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aculotarpa
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Post by aculotarpa »

I can confirm, it works!
Thank you very much :D !
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eriktorbjorn
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Post by eriktorbjorn »

NoiZje wrote:Yes that's it! Stripped all metadata and the noise is gone, thanks!
Good. I filed a bug report about it earlier.
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criezy
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Post by criezy »

I just added a fix to skip ID3v2 metadata at the start of mp3 files in our decoder (it will be included in the next daily build). It seems to work with the IHNMAIMS mp3 files from GOG but I didn't test extensively.
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