Monkey Island 2 - Special Edition

[LogicDeLuxe]

2) Use the Microsoft's XACT tool (the tool that was originally used to build and compile the wavebanks) to make a new one. This might be a simpler approach. XACT comes with the free XNA Game Studio. Note that it only accepts wav/aif/aiff music/sounds so any re-recording shouldnt be encoded in a lossy format as you'd have to convert it back to wav again anyway.

Are you sure it doesn't accept compressed WAV files? I didn't try. How does the game use lossy codecs for most of the sounds then? It does use ADPCM for many samples, right?

 

And I wonder, what do they use Libogg, Libvorbis and Libjpeg for? Their licenses are included in the SE credits, so I assume they are compiled in for some reason.

 

I'm currently using it to try and rebuild a wavebank though, to see if I can get one that - while not identical - the game will accept.

The bone song sure is worth a try. Mixing the voice acting in, and silence the voice files. That should solve sync problems here for sure.

If you managed to get it working, a patch would be great.

 

The MT-32 business is a lot more work, of course.

[Benny]

I meant it doesn't accept them as input. It'll output to a wavebank as ADPCM/xWMA/XMA.

 

I can only imagine that ogg/vorbis is used in the PS3 version - where wavebanks/soundbanks probably aren't used.

[Benny]

I got the musicnew wavebank recompiled and after a bit of fiddling (you have to make sure the version and headerversion dwords match) got it to work ingame.

 

Unfortunately, although internally the names were the same, the order in the wavebank must be important because the wrong tracks played at the wrong times and imuse got very confused.

 

With a bit more tweaking though I should be able to give you all a working project workflow for replacing the music

[TheJoe]

I've potentially found a FLAC rip of MI2 MT-32 tracks. The catch is, it's a torrent.

 

Are we OK with packing torrented music, or should we continue to seek a real MT-32 and rip it manually?

[LogicDeLuxe]

I've potentially found a FLAC rip of MI2 MT-32 tracks. The catch is, it's a torrent.

Is it my remixed version by any chance?

 

Unfortunately, all available soundtracks are useless because of iMuse. If we want to replace the MT-32 tracks, we have to record the pieces of the original MIDIs separately, so the engine can mix it in real time. This is a big and important difference to the soundtracks meant for listening without the game.

[TheJoe]

Is it my remixed version by any chance?

 

Unfortunately, all available soundtracks are useless because of iMuse. If we want to replace the MT-32 tracks, we have to record the pieces of the original MIDIs separately, so the engine can mix it in real time. This is a big and important difference to the soundtracks meant for listening without the game.

 

What do you know. It is yours! Just how remixed is it?

 

Also, iMUSE doesn't work the same way in the SE as it does in SCUMM. All the tracks are wav, as you may already know. They're already in the xwb as full wav tracks.

[SKA-T]

I got the musicnew wavebank recompiled and after a bit of fiddling (you have to make sure the version and headerversion dwords match) got it to work ingame.

 

Unfortunately, although internally the names were the same, the order in the wavebank must be important because the wrong tracks played at the wrong times and imuse got very confused.

 

With a bit more tweaking though I should be able to give you all a working project workflow for replacing the music

 

 

Also I'm pretty sure that the matching cue file is what the game engine points to in order to play any sounds. If I'm understanding it correctly. The cue's point to sounds in the wave bank, and after comparing the order in which the speech files were ripped out and then the order of the file name list in the SpeechCues file they are not sequential. Haven't quite figured out yet how to get from the sound bank file (the cue file) to the wave bank file to match everything up. Without doing it by listening to every single file.

[Tzar Sectus]

I don't think those are related to the patch. Is there even a difference at Stan's?

In the woodshop, were someone talking by any chance? I noticed, the engine waits for voice playback to be finished before loading the next room, which is generally a good idea, but can be irritating at times.

Maybe it's just general bugs but I only experienced them during the easy mode playthrough. With the woodshop I clicked on the doorway and Guybrush walked halfway out the doorway and just froze (no dialogue was playing either). At first I thought it had glitched since there wasn't any visible animation on screen. But if I clicked on the doorway another time, it instantly switched to Woodtick hub. That happened every time I visited the woodshop too. I think I experienced a similar bug when going to Woodtick via the Scabb map.

 

With Stan I got a rather major bug. I think it was during the scene he gave me the handkerchief while I was closing the lid of the coffin. And suddenly he was standing for a few seconds without animating and with no face. But that was fixed after 1-2 seconds.

 

So well, I dunno how easy mode works. Does it have its own script files compared to hard mode, or only small changes (ie, "if this is easy mode, remove this item")? If it's the latter, I guess I just stumbled on general bugs.

 

I've talked with silverwolfpet at Telltale about an MT-32. Unfortunately, he doesn't have one. But he tells me he'll get in contact with someone who might do.

 

So now we just need to know how to repack and .xwb and we may have MT-32 music on the way.

I've got a Roland LAPC1 card in a computer stashed away somewhere. I haven't used it in a few years but it should work fine. Maybe I could help somehow.

[Benny]

Also I'm pretty sure that the matching cue file is what the game engine points to in order to play any sounds. If I'm understanding it correctly. The cue's point to sounds in the wave bank, and after comparing the order in which the speech files were ripped out and then the order of the file name list in the SpeechCues file they are not sequential. Haven't quite figured out yet how to get from the sound bank file (the cue file) to the wave bank file to match everything up. Without doing it by listening to every single file.

 

Looking at it now, XACT doesn't let you change the order of files in an wavebank or soundbank - its just alphabetical. So I agree, its as you say, its the soundbank cue's that are the problem. In the one that's shipped with the game the cue's are named "track100" etc and then the cue's are mapped to the names in the wavebank. We could fix this by just replacing the soundbank too, but its that mapping we need to get right first.

[Benny]

Thinking about it, Unxwb can use XSB files to name the tracks (the -b switch). If we dump the tracks using that, it may dump the tracks with their correct soundbank name. If this works can we can easily work out the mapping between the names based on filesize or track length.

[Benny]

Sorted it. Attached is a spreadsheet with the mappings.

MI2SE Wave-Sound Mappings.zip

[Kenko]

Will that work for the speech-files as well?

[Benny]

Yes, I'll do it for the speech files later

[LogicDeLuxe]

But if I clicked on the doorway another time, it instantly switched to Woodtick hub.

In case you used savegames between easy and hard mode, keep in mind that the original game displays a warning to remind you about the mode switch. This can be seen in classic mode, but is invisible in enhanced mode. If the game hangs, try switching to classic mode and check, if there is such a message box.

So well, I dunno how easy mode works. Does it have its own script files compared to hard mode, or only small changes (ie, "if this is easy mode, remove this item")?

The latter. A lot of items and hotspots are just removed and a few are added. Some actions have a mode queries too.

[Benny]

Attached is the mappings for the speech files.

 

Later on I'll amend the music extractor so that it gives the speech files the correct names.

MI2SE Speech Mappings.zip

[TheJoe]

Logic, judging by the description of your soundtrack rip, the tracks have been modified somewhat. Other than the change in drums, to what extent are they modified? Would they be suitable for inclusion into the game?

[Benny]

I've got it all working now. It turns out that the order of files in wavebanks can be different - but you cant re-order them in the editor. They are listed and stored in the order that they are imported.

 

I've now got an XACT project that references the music in the correct order and compiles a wavebank that works in-game just as the original does

[TheJoe]

Great news! Now, to get ripping.

[LogicDeLuxe]

Logic, judging by the description of your soundtrack rip, the tracks have been modified somewhat. Other than the change in drums, to what extent are they modified?

The sound of it is not altered any further. A few obvious problems were fixed. It should be all there in the description.

Would they be suitable for inclusion into the game?

As I said, they aren't. And any other soundtrack recording you can find over the internet isn't either.

Extract the classic tracks from the SE and take a listen to all those files. See how they are separated in bits and pieces? Any rerecording has to be done in the exact same way.

[TheJoe]

The sound of it is not altered any further. A few obvious problems were fixed. It should be all there in the description.As I said, they aren't. And any other soundtrack recording you can find over the internet isn't either.

Extract the classic tracks from the SE and take a listen to all those files. See how they are separated in bits and pieces? Any rerecording has to be done in the exact same way.

 

That shouldn't be too difficult for a musically inclined person, I guess. Do you still have the MT-32 and tools that you used to rip that? And if so, would you be willing to re-rip the soundtrack at all? It seems that you know what you're doing.

[Benny]

Attached is the XACT project file for MusicNew. It contains the correct compression preset and has the music in the correct order. When you go to compile the project it'll ask you where to find the wav's and you can then point it to the correct location on your computer.

 

You only need to replace the wavebank (.xwb) - leave the soundbank alone - it contains additional settings and cues that arent in the one generated by my project file. If it doesn't work, you may need to hex edit MusicNew.xwb and change the version information in the file so that it matches the xact version expected by the game. To do this, change the dword at offset 4 to 46 and the dword at offset 8 to 44.

 

Now:

I could produce a similar project file for MusicOriginal.wxb to let people replace the music from the old version but right now I'm not going to. While this does work and would let people edit the music there are problems:

1. Doing this could potentially lead to a loss of fidelity in the music. For this process to work you have to use my tool to decode the music from the original wavebank. This converts it from MS-ADPCM back to a normal PCM wave. When you then put this in XACT and it compiles the wavebank it then converts it back to MS-ADPCM. As far as I know ADPCM is a lossy format so there's potentially some loss of quality. Personally I cant tell the difference between the two but I'm sure someone somewhere will claim they can.
    
   
2. Its not practical (and a bit dubious) to distribute an entire wavebank. MusicNew is 365mb and because the audio has been re-encoded the contents of the file are mostly different to the original wavebank. This means that distributing a patch file is pointless - it'd be nearly as big as the wavebank itself.
   

 

The best solution then would be for someone to make a tool that would just patch the wavebank - keeping all the data intact, but replacing the data in one track and adjusting the offsets to match. This would mean that the quality of the source music would remain unchanged and a patch to legally inject the new music would be a much more practical possibility. If people are genuinely interested in editing the music then we can discuss this in this thread and I'll help come up with a solution. I've been burned before though with projects like this and creating tools that no-one uses.

MI2-SE MusicNew.zip

[TheJoe]

Releasing the music patch as a tool was always on my agenda. I didn't think it would be right to distribute a hack like that.

 

I've found someone at GOG forums that may be interested in ripping the tracks. He's already done a complete (but somewhat rushed) rip of MI1. He's asked me about the new iMUSE, but I'm not really sure about this:

Do the new soundtrack layer tracks on top of each other or fade between tracks?

Anyone got any ideas on that? I'm really unsure how music fading works in the SE.

[SKA-T]

Attached is the XACT project file for MusicNew. It contains the correct compression preset and has the music in the correct order. When you go to compile the project it'll ask you where to find the wav's and you can then point it to the correct location on your computer.

 

 

Did you change something? Or was this just proof of concept?

[Tzar Sectus]

Anyone got any ideas on that? I'm really unsure how music fading works in the SE.

I'm been working with the music files in the remake in order to piece together a soundtrack, and I'm fairly certain there's no fading going on. The imuse seems to be working in different ways. Some examples...

 

-In Woodtick each area has about 18 different outros which leads to the main Woodtick theme. I'll wait until it's in place for one of those outros, then switch to that and start playing the Woodtick main theme about halfway through it. Oddly enough, I don't see the Woodtick main theme having any more than 2 transitions, which are super short. I'm certain other areas in the game do similar transitions, although no area is as complex as Woodtick when it comes to amount of transitions.

 

-Scene where you argue with Elaine has one main theme, with a ton of short snippets of music (about 1-3 seconds each) which will play depending on whether you choose wrong or right lines.

 

-Cemetary music has 2 themes (main theme and the theme in crypt), they're completely in sync and it'll simply switch instantly to the other as you move between the areas. I think some other areas do the same thing, like the music in the booty town.

 

-Music for the Voodoo Lady is split up into different parts. Depending on where you are, it'll either play one or two of those parts, or all at the same time. It also has short snippets of music it can play.

 

I'm guessing the original music in MI2 has a very similar system so if we can record the midi files within the data files, that should hopefully be easy to line up. Woodtick would probably be the biggest challenge though.

[LogicDeLuxe]

I'm been working with the music files in the remake in order to piece together a soundtrack, and I'm fairly certain there's no fading going on.

There should, though. For instance, entering and leaving Largo's room changes to a different main melody while continuing the background. The original game fades them over. The SE could just do the same, but they cut to the other version instantly for some reason. So they do in any other places which are supposed to have fades. iMuse digital, while in fact different and slightly limited, is no excuse here, as we have wonderful examples of working fades in CMI and EMI.

-Cemetary music has 2 themes (main theme and the theme in crypt)

There are more then two: Main area, tombstones, the crypt and Rapp's coffin, which are supposed to fade over. There are additional cues for Rapp's transformations. And a transition when digging out the bone.

-Music for the Voodoo Lady is split up into different parts. Depending on where you are, it'll either play one or two of those parts, or all at the same time.

I wonder, why they decided to mix them in real time instead of fade to each other. It increases the load with no gain. In fact, it even seems bugged, as I got them playing out of sync at least two times.

It also has short snippets of music it can play.

While those are all there, this part seems bugged too. I never got them actually playing in the game when they should.