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lakerhunter2 Jun 21, 2011 (edited Jun 21, 2011)

Hey guys!

Yes, everybody is going to hate me for releasing this for a 4th time, but I have only been working on this soundtrack for a year. Anyway, our studio finally bought all new equipment, and I HAD to play around with it last week. So, here it is again, but this time, I am releasing in FLAC and MP3 because so many people wanted both, but somehow, i lost the FLACs. So, here's the breakdown.

How I did it

1. First, I took the rips I did, which were .wav 16/44.1
2. Ran then through a program called Audirvana, which up-converts and up-samples to 32/96
3. Ran the output to a Empirical Labs EL-Q Lil FrEQ Equalizer
4. Ran that through a Aphex 2020-MKIII Broadcast Audio Processor and used it as a aural exciter with a equal distribution on all frequencies.
5. Then ran that through a Tube-Tech MMC 1a Multi-band Compressor
6. Ran that to the Audition and used iZotope Ozone 4 for stereo widening and panning
7. Back to the effects and used Lexicon PCM96SUR-A Multi-Channel Reverb with it tweaked for actual recording booth acoustics
8. Maxed out the volume with Focusrite Red 3 - Dual-Channel Limiter
9. Ran all that to Audacity, recording at 32-float/96khz
10. Dithered and down-sampled with iZotope Ozone to Redbook
11. Listened and tweaked settings while listening with a Musical Fidelity M1HPA Headphone Amp to Senheiser HD-800 that were burned in using white noise for 30~ hours.

I won't reveal the settings I used on this remaster, but, as you can tell, it was a top-of-the-line remaster. I actually compared real-life acoustics and tone to the recordings, so it was completely done on a professional scale and setup. Since Metroid's soundtrack was never mastered, this let me work my magic with some amazing equipment and 3 Macs. The noise level is around -105 so, you have amazing dynamic range for a recording like this. Absolutely brilliant.

Yes, it has limiting, but for volume purposes. When comparing music, volume is usually what makes the decision of quality for a listener. Unless you have a trained ear, volume will always sound better, no matter how much equalizing you do, which is why many people use compression.
I simply found a great balance between volume and clarity. Nothing was overdone. This took me a week to get the settings just right, the volume and limiter perfect without losing detail and dynamics, and the compressor was basically used for multi-band gain. I did however use it to slightly roll off the sub frequencies that fell under ~-48 db so subs won't have insane rumble through the quiet parts in the music. The audio is completely flat, so all instruments are audible, the sound space is so realistic. The reverb was tweaked by playing the non-reverberated music through extremely flat studio speakers in the sound booth. I then tweaked the reverb settings to replicate that space, and it worked beautifully, and in my opinion, replicated the space better than i have ever heard a reverb do. I didn't replicate the tone, I just replicated the "space" so the audio come alive more.

The output has so much sonics and clearity, you will wonder why the original never sounded this good.

Anyway, enough rambling...

LINKS

FLAC: Part 1: http://www.mediafire.com/?2y422b445kkb440
         Part 2: http://www.mediafire.com/?j2dnu5susth0hw5
         Part 3: http://www.mediafire.com/?t7gh8tj6sztjg3r
         Part 4: http://www.mediafire.com/?i4u8850h1s56tey
         Part 5: http://www.mediafire.com/?jg0qtn19ojkwk1m
         Part 6: http://www.mediafire.com/?v4q71o969y79i77

MP3: Metroid Prime Soundtrack MP3.zip

Note: The MP3 was compressed with Max, which uses LAME 3.98. The settings used are:
Encoding Engine Quality: High
Stereo Mode: Joint Stereo
Quality: 100
Variable Bitrate Mode: Fast (I wasn't sure if it's the variable speed, or the process speed)

lakerhunter2 Jun 21, 2011 (edited Jun 21, 2011)

If you want me to remaster a soundtrack you know that has not been mastered and put to CD, ie. Metroid Prime, Just ask me.
I decided that maybe if I did something completely professional it will stop all the hatin...
Anyway, listen and tell me what you think...
Also, just added the links to the FLAC files.

GoldfishX Jun 21, 2011

Hmm, okay, here's a request...BlazBlue. Nice music, but by far, some of the worst production in any VGM release I've ever heard and I consider the CD release pretty unlistenable (miserable low end support, guitars sit too high in the mix, is tiring to listen to instead of exciting). It's different from the ones you've posted (hard rock/metal compared to the general ambiance of Metroid Prime and Elder Scrolls), so not sure if that would be easier/harder to fix.

vert1 Jun 21, 2011 (edited Jun 21, 2011)

I think lakerhunter has a Mushi track to master first.

lakerhunter2 Jun 21, 2011

vert1 wrote:

I think lakerhunter has a Mushi track to master first.

Ahh, holy crap! Totally forgot about that! I'll get that to ya in a few hours! Sorry...

Carl Jun 21, 2011

A burger flipper at McDonald's is "Professional" because he earns his living doing it.

Audio work remains "Amateur" until it becomes your source of income and you are credited as doing work.

lakerhunter2 Jun 21, 2011

GoldfishX wrote:

Hmm, okay, here's a request...BlazBlue. Nice music, but by far, some of the worst production in any VGM release I've ever heard and I consider the CD release pretty unlistenable (miserable low end support, guitars sit too high in the mix, is tiring to listen to instead of exciting). It's different from the ones you've posted (hard rock/metal compared to the general ambiance of Metroid Prime and Elder Scrolls), so not sure if that would be easier/harder to fix.

Hmm, send me a personal message with a link to the soundtrack in lossless... big_smile

lakerhunter2 Jun 21, 2011 (edited Jun 21, 2011)

Carl wrote:

A burger flipper at McDonald's is "Professional" because he earns his living doing it.

Audio work remains "Amateur" until it becomes your source of income and you are credited as doing work.

What if I said I am a professional and did this out of the goodness of my heart? Would that be considered amateur? ;D

Carl Jun 22, 2011 (edited Jun 22, 2011)

Goodness/intentions doesn't make someone a professional.
Neither does having some gear to make a home studio to practice with.

"Participating for gain or livelihood in an activity or field of endeavor often engaged in by amateurs b : having a particular profession as a permanent career c : engaged in by persons receiving financial return"

The question is this:
Which clients have hired you to work on their tracks, and credit you as being a Sound Engineer, Mixing Engineer, or Mastering Engineer?

lakerhunter2 Jun 22, 2011

Carl wrote:

Goodness/intentions doesn't make someone a professional.
Neither does having some gear to make a home studio to practice with.

"Participating for gain or livelihood in an activity or field of endeavor often engaged in by amateurs b : having a particular profession as a permanent career c : engaged in by persons receiving financial return"

The question is this:
Which clients have hired you to work on their tracks, and credit you as being a Sound Engineer, Mixing Engineer, or Mastering Engineer?

Look, all I wanted to do was upload this for people to enjoy, and no matter what I give or do to this forum, somebody is always bashing my work. If nobody can at least appreciate this, then i'll just get rid of it.
I don't care if it was a professional work or not, it sounds professional and was done in a professional environment.

FuryofFrog Jun 22, 2011

While I appreciate the sentiment (REPLIFORCE!!) you have to understand why people are skeptical of your good nature. Your first posts here are trying to share remastered Metroid music. When you first popped up many people including myself thought you were very specific spam. I downloaded and it turned out that you weren't. When all of your other posts were just sharing other soundtracks it became even stranger. You didn't really participate in the forums at all. Nobody really got to know you and that resulted in some guy who comes on every so often and shares mass quantities of allegedly remastered music. To make matters worse when you posted with your means of mastering and your "source" tapes people got even more skeptical. You have to realize when signing up that these people know a thing or two about audio quality and how things are done so its a little bit easier to call you out here.

My suggestion, participate more, come through on your remastering requests, and throughly explain yourself when you have high quality music on tapes that are the "source". Its just logic really. I'm more than willing to give you a shot and I'm sure given a little bit of time others will too. Please understand I'm not trying to bust on you.

And honestly if you have a remaster of Metroid and wanted it to reach a larger audience I'm surprised you haven't shared it with the Metroid Database.

lakerhunter2 Jun 22, 2011

FuryofFrog wrote:

While I appreciate the sentiment (REPLIFORCE!!) you have to understand why people are skeptical of your good nature. Your first posts here are trying to share remastered Metroid music. When you first popped up many people including myself thought you were very specific spam. I downloaded and it turned out that you weren't. When all of your other posts were just sharing other soundtracks it became even stranger. You didn't really participate in the forums at all. Nobody really got to know you and that resulted in some guy who comes on every so often and shares mass quantities of allegedly remastered music. To make matters worse when you posted with your means of mastering and your "source" tapes people got even more skeptical. You have to realize when signing up that these people know a thing or two about audio quality and how things are done so its a little bit easier to call you out here.

My suggestion, participate more, come through on your remastering requests, and throughly explain yourself when you have high quality music on tapes that are the "source". Its just logic really. I'm more than willing to give you a shot and I'm sure given a little bit of time others will too. Please understand I'm not trying to bust on you.

And honestly if you have a remaster of Metroid and wanted it to reach a larger audience I'm surprised you haven't shared it with the Metroid Database.

Yah, I see what you are saying. smile
I don't have time to spend all day on the computer, but I do try.. >.<
I also have tried on the metroid prime database and they rejected it...

FuryofFrog Jun 22, 2011

I'm not telling you to spend all day on the computer. I'm just saying take 35 seconds to reply to a Zelda topic or something once in a while.

Also if you remaster Blaz and succeed you will impress many, I promise.

If you have time at some point I would love a to see work on a CastleVania Circle of the Moon....


I'm surprised the MDB turned you down. They scrounge for news all the time. Maybe try a different approach. Especially if you came off to them the way you came off here initially.

Cedille Jun 22, 2011

BlazeBlue is a nice choice. Not that I have an issue with it, but simply I know and like the music moderately well (even as somebody who doesn't care about Guilty Gear). If you try a broader range of works than just sticking to Metroid and the one I even don't remember the name, and the  remastering is good, fewer will bash you smile

A professional is after all someone who can please others so can earn money.

Carl Jun 22, 2011 (edited Jun 22, 2011)

lakerhunter2 wrote:

Look, all I wanted to do was upload this for people to enjoy...
I don't care if it was a professional work or not..

1. Desperately needing acceptance isn't a great selling point.
2. You're more interested in promoting your ego rather than the sound.
Solution: Drop all the "I'm so brilliant!" masturbation.

Razakin Jun 22, 2011

Pretty sure this post will be ignored as usual, but what ever.

One thing that bugs me with you lakehunter2 is the fact that you don't give any credentials/information anything, when I and some other people have asked about what works you've mastered professionally.

Another thing that is funny was your claims of Morrowind master tapes and spreading your 'remastered' stuff around, especially when Jeremy Soule is against piracy (where your 'remastered' stuff falls into, especially when you're spreading them). So, his brother giving the master tapes to your friend is just plain bullshit.

And lastly, it's your bloody attitude, instantly people say something negative or stuff you don't like, you see them as grave insults and start throwing insults back.

Also, audiophile giving mp3 stuff is funny.

TerraEpon Jun 22, 2011

As I said on one of the earlier ones (I think it was Ocarina of Time) I compared a couple of tracks and detected no difference, at all. Waveforms looked exactly the same too. I don't like MP so I can't have an opinion on this one.....but if you could do, say, F-Zero X or on the recent side, The Last Ranker....then you'd be getting somewhere.

Amazingu Jun 22, 2011

FuryofFrog wrote:

While I appreciate the sentiment (REPLIFORCE!!)

Wasn't that: "I, too, share the general's sentiments"?
Or are you talking about something else?

Amazingu Jun 22, 2011

TerraEpon wrote:

but if you could do, say, F-Zero X or on the recent side, The Last Ranker....then you'd be getting somewhere.

The Last Ranker is perfectly fine as it is, thank you very much.

FuryofFrog Jun 23, 2011

Amazingu wrote:
FuryofFrog wrote:

While I appreciate the sentiment (REPLIFORCE!!)

Wasn't that: "I, too, share the general's sentiments"?
Or are you talking about something else?

Yeah it was. I kinda took liberty with the statement because I wasn't agreeing with anyone.

so then, anyone check out these remastered guys yet?? I'm kind of curious but I don't really have a good audio rig to really listen to it well.

Adam Corn Jun 23, 2011

If you are going to keep posting these things I think you should at least put them in a single thread.  Posting new threads again and again - particularly when they're for the same soundtrack - is indeed very spam-like behavior.  I've gone through and deleted a few of the redundant threads but would rather not have to do so again.

This is aside from the issue of boastful claims and possible copyright issues which I'll leave for you and the other forum members to sort out.

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