I too was lucky enough to have a listen to the Spring valley theme (paternal horn?) and I did a direct comparison with the new version and I must say my respect for Sega slipped when I relalised how shoddy a job they had done. Their own OST doesnt come close to Ancients version. It is bizzare, anyone who doesnt belive it get the original and a new version side by side in winamp and play them one after the other, the difference is astounding.
Thanks for the positive feedback, guys. 
I should be uploading the tracks to IceMan2k’s FTP soon - and subsequently they’ll soon be up on SegaXtreme.
Well done! Whatever way you like them best.
I felt the same way when I heard the audio for Skies of Arcadia Legends on GameCube. The lack of quality is about the same, and it’s pretty embarassing.
I don’t understand WHY Sega abandoned the Cybersound MIDI wavetable software in favor of some other sound library when Cybersound churns out some great audio (see: Magic Knight Rayearth, Panzer Dragoon Zwei and Saga, NiGHTS, Skies of Arcadia, etc.), but… whatever. A lot of what Sega does, doesn’t make much sense.
Yeah, the CyberSound synthesizer was great. The Panzer Dragoon Saga soundtrack definitely proves that, and, of course, the NiGHTS tracks.
Scott, cool guy that he is, has kindly offered to host these tracks on his webspace.
I deleted my last few posts since they aren’t really relevant now; they were mostly me wondering about hosting. As far as I know, SegaXtreme can’t put them up at the moment due to bandwidth issures. But who knows; they may surface there at some point!
The tracks will be on their way to Scott soon, and I guess he’ll be posting here when they’re up.
Just letting you know!
you really shouldn’t edit/delete your posts like that… it gets confusing (especially for lurkers)
But yeah, i’ll be hosting a few things as long as I have the bandwith, so you should be getting these tracks soon!
[quote=“Scott”]
you really shouldn’t edit/delete your posts like that… it gets confusing (especially for lurkers)[/quote]
Yeah, sorry about that. It makes my post count kinda out as well. I’ll avoid it in the future!
So I hope everyone enjoys the tracks once they’re up!
SegaXtreme’s soundtrack master has the news that I’m sure at least some people have been waiting to hear, although the last bit could be a bit more positive…
[quote=“Flakvin”]All of the soundtracks are back now.
Although there is a slight problem with the download script at this point in time, which is currently not allowing anyone to download anything.[/quote]
On a more comedic note, has anyone ever seen the “cheetoey fingers” message?
Anyhow, I finally got a reply from SX’s admin, IceMan2k:
So there we have it! The tracks are finally going up, on SegaXtreme. I doubt that Scott will be uploading the tracks any more, given this news - I wouldn’t want to use his space and bandwidth unnecessarily.
All done! 
I re-recorded the eight standard tracks (properly this time, I might add) and finished the alternative mood versions too.
First, a summary of all my tracks. Firstly, there is Growing Wings from Twin Seeds. This track has only one version; more importantly, there are the four mood versions (standard, happy, indifferent and angry Nightopians respectively) of each of the following tracks:
Paternal Horn (Spring Valley)
The Amazing Water (Splash Garden)
Gloom of The N.H.C. (Mystic Forest)
Take The Snow Train (Frozen Bell)
Suburban Museum (Soft Museum)
Under Construction (Stick Canyon)
There are also the four versions of the track Jack Frost’s Chime from the winter version of Spring Valley.
Altogether, there are 29 tracks in total - encoded at the highly recommended LAME 3.90.3 –alt-preset standard setting. This totals out at just over 90 megabytes (handily, all 29 tracks comfortably fit on an 80 minute audio CD!).
Since these tracks are the final set, all that is left for me to do now is find a host. I am awaiting a response from SegaXtreme (again), but I will not guarantee anything since I don’t want to make any promises which I can’t keep. I will, however, do my best to get them up so I can share them.
I won’t post on this topic any more until the tracks are up; I’ve kinda been flooding it recently.
cough Anyway… :anjou_embarassed:
[size=200]B U M P[/size]
Update:
The tracks will be encoded using LAME 3.96.1 instead, using the VBR setting -V2 (equivalent to the famous --alt-preset standard). This is basically because this version of LAME is much newer (the current stable version) and seems to offer equivalent, if not better, quality to 3.90.3.
However, regarding the filenames and tagging (especially for titles), I’d appreciate advice! I was thinking along the lines of incorporating both the level name and track title into the song name, along with the Nightopian moods. I just don’t know in what way to do it!
Would a system such as Title (Level) - Mood be okay for this situation? I presume I should just label the moods as Happy, Standard, Indifferent and Angry. Little things like capitalisation and whether to put Nightopians, Version or nothing at all after the mood type are also confusing me.
I’m just going to put the album title as (Christmas where appropriate) NiGHTS Into Dreams Original Soundtrack - Sega Saturn Audio Edition, and the composers in alphabetical order (I still have to check the game credits about that, however). Does that title sound stupid and should I leave off the capitals on Audio and Edition or just use a different title?
Yup, I am on something of a quest for tagging perfection - the state of confusion complicates matters an unnecessary amount! :anjou_embarassed:
Anyone have any preferences or recommendations?
Okay, so I just found that I have been ‘pipped to the post’ with this:
And, sadly for me, downloads can be found here (and possibly elsewhere; I was too sick to look…!):
sonicstrike.net/users/sonicr … Selection/
I’m pretty gutted - I thought I was doing something original here! 
I can’t make any assumptions on any possible differences in quality between the original (uncompressed) recordings from the above links and my own, however I can tell you that the MP3s of my tracks are higher in quality (bitrate-wise) and use a newer encoder. However, whether you download mine after having access to the above is really down to personal preference.
I’ll still put my tracks up on SegaXtreme (any day now - they’re almost finished moving servers), and I hope that they’ll get some interest. There’d be no point in not putting them up now, having recorded them, I guess.
I’ll say again that my tracks came out really well, but I’m not going to try and sway things by slagging off the above set - from what I’ve heard, they sound great, too. It’s a bit of a shame that I didn’t know about the above tracks before putting all that work into my own!
Sorry, guys. You could be really nice, however, and download mine instead of the others…!
agh! unlucky =(
At least you accomplished your goal though =)
maybe you could re rip them to 192kbps, also i noticed the other guys uses joint stereo, whereas your is only stereo (dunno whats good or bad tho)
To be honest, i prefer the orignal ost’s, since they are the only ones that don’t have an annoying repeat and fade at the end!
waaaaa
[quote=“Ancient Weapon”]Okay, so I just found that I have been ‘pipped to the post’ with this:
And, sadly for me, downloads can be found here (and possibly elsewhere; I was too sick to look…!):
[/quote]
I’m sorry to have deflated your bubble on this… Was never my intention when I recorded this three years or so ago… I was just always impressed by the NiGHTS music and badly disappointed myself in the official soundtrack that was released with the game.
What’s up on Sonic Strike is actually a very old extraction from my original CDs–I used 160k Joint Stereo because at the time I thought JS was the way to go. I’ve since posted it at 192k stereo and informed SS, but they decline to update the soundtrack with the better quality version.
To be certain, there are weaknesses in my soundtrack–for one thing, the alternate mood pieces (Cheering, Content, Angry) only run one time–I didn’t have enough room on the CD to loop them and still have room for Christmas NiGHTS. These could be looped for an improvement in your version, but you’re definitely looking at 2.5 CDs then. My version also sports no sound effects, which might be added for completeness. If you wanted to be creative, it would take some work, but you could actually use the Music Box function (which is what I had to use, or this never would have happened for me) to arrange the stage music in continuous 8-minute loops that catch all the moods… Like so:
Record 1-1-1-1-1-1-1
Record 2-1-1-1-1-1-1
Record 2-2-2-2-2-2-2
Use the brigde where the 2-1-1-1-1-1-1 loops to create a “smooth” transition from your 1 mood to your 2 mood, then lather, rinse, repeat for the remainder. You already have the straight moods recorded, so it would only be a matter of recording the loop material that would create a transition. I had the idea, but never got back around to doing it myself.
Lastly, if you’ve recorded this using the highest quality possible, then there’s a chance your sound will simply be superior to mine. I used an Audigy Platinum Ex breakout box 3 years ago, but that’s since been surpassed by the Audigy 2 and possibly other sound peripherals. I also only used the basic A/V cables that came with the Saturn–I didn’t have monster cables or anything really high-quality. If you encode using a VBR that goes above 192k, you can also surpass the bitrate of anything I’ve posted from mine.
Bottom line? You’ve recorded the music, I say go for it. Knowing what a task it can be to record, edit and organize music for an OST, It’d be a shame to see it go to waste.
Wow… you found this topic quick x.x
woohoo, let me check those out
Call it vanity… My site is set up to check and tell me where people come from when they go to it and some of them followed the forum there, so. It also gives me a chance to throw my occasional two cents in on things just like this…
ah, yeah
i did that a lot 
Thanks for posting, Ultrace - quite reassuring!
I’ll get one of my friends with broadband to download your tracks - I’m a bit of a collector!
Anyhow, my tracks are still going up:
[quote=“IceMan2k”]Yes, I definetly still want your rips
We are still working on the new server but hopefully this week I will get your rips up.
If you don’t remember the ftp login/pass just pm me back.
Please read: http://forums.panzerdragoon.net/viewtopic.php?p=35303#35303
:(:(
Do you still want my tracks, regardless? I’d still like to release them, and they should be of a slightly higher quality than those linked above. It’s really up to you and the ‘public’ on this, however - no point releasing them if nobody wants them now!
Please let me know - I’d still like to be able to put them up, after all this time! :)[/quote]
throws party
So soon there will be two sets around! You guys’ll be spoilt for choice. Hope you feel my tracks were worth the wait, even with Ultrace’s around.
[size=9]PS: Scary topic: forums.segaxtreme.net/index.php?showtopic=15766[/size]