Niosai Posted May 2, 2014 Share Posted May 2, 2014 Hey guys! I haven't bee on here in ages! I figured I'd share some stuff that I've recently learned about the PlayStation 1 game "The Legend of Dragoon"s soundtrack! Here goes.PlayStation 1 games, for the most part, traditionally use MIDI to process and output music. Occasionally, those MIDIs also include samples of pre-recorded sounds from outside recorded sources. In the case of Legend of Dragoon, though, there's a difference. Using software called "VGMTrans" that extracts/converts in-game music as MIDI files and samples as WAV files, I discovered that the way Legend of Dragoon handles its music is actually much, much different in that it uses purely samples, even when it could use MIDI. If you listen to the drumline in the video above, you can tell that it is not generated via MIDI, and that it has kind of a muffled grainy noise, making the song sound very stylized. PlayStation 1 CDs did not have much space for music on them. Games used either MIDI, samples, or full length songs, albeit not many of them. Legend of Dragoon's composer, Dennis Martin (and Takeo Miratsu), used a method that is smart, but simple. In the menu theme I linked above, the full basic drumline is included as a single sample. The way it is done, though, is by recording the sample and then condensing it into an incredibly high pitched and fast, nearly unrecognizable sample. The PS1 hardware reads these samples at normal speed though, albeit at a slightly lower quality, explaining the graininess. I know most won't care about this or already knew this, but I just wanted to share what I found as I've been delving into music and music processing lately and found this very intriguing. Thanks for reading! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Antidote Posted May 2, 2014 Share Posted May 2, 2014 Sweet, didn't know that, and I'm a huge fan of LoD Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Niosai Posted May 2, 2014 Author Share Posted May 2, 2014 I was almost about to upload examples of the sped up samples, but I realized that could potentially cross the legal threshold. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mallos31 Posted May 2, 2014 Share Posted May 2, 2014 I just found my copy of this game yesterday!!! I'm going to play it now 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Airikita Posted May 2, 2014 Share Posted May 2, 2014 Drumkit samples are common, but this sample is rather lengthy... unless they used sectioned samples, and swapped them in place proper to the music. It's similar to my MIDI Keyboard, in that there's drumkit samples you can play in the background to your tones. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Niosai Posted May 2, 2014 Author Share Posted May 2, 2014 Well, something interesting that's kind of hard to explain is that... He used a single looped sample. the sample has only a beat and two snares. It's over in roughly three seconds at normal speed. What he did was cut up the samples to make different kicks, etc. Also, as a sidenote, he used samples even in place of MIDIs. If it sounds like it's MIDI, it's STILL sampled. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Airikita Posted May 2, 2014 Share Posted May 2, 2014 Yes... and that's interesting, because the samples are well-placed and cut properly then... to sound so fluid. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Antidote Posted May 2, 2014 Share Posted May 2, 2014 Let's just say it already, the dude was a mad genius. That takes a large amount of skill to pull off. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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