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SoMI soundtrack in the style of CoMI for your ScummVM 21 Mar, 2018 / 25 comments

Back in the day, we received enough fan-content for there to be multiple hosted sites dedicated to it. It was great -- this site wrote itself.

Fast-forward to the present, and things have pretty much entirely dried up. Until now. You know Andrea Boscarino from the comments as AndywinXp -- presumably he still stands behind Microsoft's seminal operating system -- and he has re-recorded The Secret of Monkey Island soundtrack in the style of Curse of Monkey Island. For real! Even better, you can use the tracks in ScummVM to get the real experience. Or just listen to the soundtrack by itself. Downloads:

The latter can be dunked into the "Monkey1\audio" folder -- typically located somewhere under "Program Files (x86)". And that's about it. I haven't tried it with the game yet, but I'm sure it's awesome. The music sounds great at least. And let us not forget credits:

The Secret of Monkey Island: Cursed!

  • Tracks rearranged and performed by Andrea Boscarino.
  • Special thanks to Alberto "Albo Abourt" Abate for his precious arrangement advices for track 8. Check out his YouTube channel.
  • Soundbank file by Benzo.
  • And, of course, original music composed by Michael Z. Land, with Barney Jones, Andy Newell and Patrick Mundy.

Got any creations you want us to know about? Email webmonkey@mixnmojo.com and you might achieve fame and fortune!

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25 Comments

  • Avatar
    Peppe_WH on 24 Mar, 2018, 16:53…
    The audio folder is different in mac version any idea how to use it?
  • Avatar
    ThunderPeel2001 on 24 Mar, 2018, 02:16…
    Well this is just absolutely 100% delightful. It seems to have combined the best elements of the Amiga soundtrack (which I'm particularly partial to) and the Curse of Monkey Island sounds track (which is also great).
  • Avatar
    AndywinXp on 22 Mar, 2018, 16:38…

    Remi

    Re: CMI soundtrack. Something might be brewing there. ;-*

    Whoa, whoa, what!
  • Avatar
    Laserschwert on 22 Mar, 2018, 16:21…

    Remi

    Re: CMI soundtrack. Something might be brewing there. ;-*


    Where is there?
  • Avatar
    Remi on 22 Mar, 2018, 16:09…
    Re: CMI soundtrack. Something might be brewing there. ;-*
  • Avatar
    Laserschwert on 22 Mar, 2018, 15:22…

    AndywinXp

    CoMI has just been released on GOG!


    As has MM! Holy crap, I'd call that timing :D
  • Avatar
    AndywinXp on 22 Mar, 2018, 15:18…
    CoMI has just been released on GOG!
  • Avatar
    Laserschwert on 22 Mar, 2018, 14:41…
    Woah, holy crap... I just noticed you mentioning Andrew Langley's YouTube channel, and I didn't know he had the voice-less cutscene tracks! That's a pretty strong lead though...
  • Avatar
    AndywinXp on 22 Mar, 2018, 14:35…

    Laserschwert


    Regarding CoMI, the only thing I know exists are basically the final tracks from inside the game (including ambient sounds), but at full 44 kHz, 16-bit CD quality. Sure, the full masters without ambience would be the best thing in the world :D


    Man those files alone would make the only CoMI needs for a special edition upgrade!
  • Avatar
    Laserschwert on 22 Mar, 2018, 14:21…
    Thanks for the thorough answer! My LucasArtsSoundtracks-days are long over, so I haven't spent much time with MI's music lately. The last things I've done are my TIE Fighter Soundtrack and my work on the XWVM project.

    Regarding CoMI, the only thing I know exists are basically the final tracks from inside the game (including ambient sounds), but at full 44 kHz, 16-bit CD quality. Sure, the full masters without ambience would be the best thing in the world :D
  • Avatar
    AndywinXp on 22 Mar, 2018, 13:32…
    I forgot: All those E-MU sounds were ripped by someone on the internet into a Emulator II\III CD format and then I converted them into nki Kontakt Instrument format.

    I wish I had the real thing, at least for the Proteus 2, but it's kind of not-so-cheap these days on the italian online market :P
  • Avatar
    AndywinXp on 22 Mar, 2018, 13:00…

    Laserschwert

    ...


    I'm really glad you guys are enjoying it, I can't thank you enough!
    Let's start from the bottom, which caught my interest: are they in circulation?! I've only head the cutscene tracks on YouTube, on Andrew Langley's channel (which I actually downloaded in order to study the orchestral tracks), but still, that's still compressed by YouTube algorithm. Please let me know when and if they leak :P
    Actually I'd PAY for the multitracks of the intro\main theme.

    Thanks for the MIDIs, that's an interesting project I might think about in the future... Y'know, I really HATED the fact they had to cut down the music in order to ship the game to the WiiWare shop, after CMI and EFMI I felt it was a massive downgrade, expecially when Sam&Max had fully featured live musicians all over the game. So, thanks for that. I'll seriously think about it. Oh, yeah, I literally stole the "Cursed!" name from him, sorry :P

    Now, to the technical part:
    - I've done some freelance recording & mixing jobs with local bands with low budget, and I tried to use that knowledge to get the tracks and the single instruments to sound as close as possible to what I was imitating.
    There was a real fiddle in the Ghost Ship Shuffle, but at the last minute the player asked to have his contribute removed and now it sounds really bad. Really really bad.
    - Drums were provided by Addictive Drums 2.
    - Bass, electric guitar were played by me and run through Guitar Rig 5 or Amplitube 4, depending on the circumstances. I also played some acoustic guitar and ukulele in the Scumm Bar.
    - Marimba (Grand Marimba from Soniccouture) and Steelpans (Barbados K5 1.0 from Sturmsounds) are commercial libraries. Finding sampled Steelpans is a pain in the ass, really. That was the only one which was cheap but with decent samples. Still a pain in the ass to EQ since it had a lot of unwanted resonances. I also had Western Banjo from iCe Samples in a couple of tracks.
    - Flutes were from the Kontakt 4 factory library, they were pretty decent.
    - Percussion were provided by Latin Percussion (EzDrummer 2), except for the Cannibal Village tracks which had the same samples (for E-MU Proteus 3) used in the Cannibal Village in CMI.
    - Everything else consists of highly recognisable samples (from CMI) taken from E-MU CDs and ROMplers racks. I had to ask Peter McConnell about it years ago, since I couldn't figure out their source.

    So! Let's make a list:
    > Hammond organ: B3 mello-lo-fast from Proteus Vintage Keys (Land also used the patch B3 lo-dist-fast occasionally, which is the same organ but more percussive and slightly overdriven)
    > Literally everything in E-MU Proteus 2 for the orchestra: honorable mentions are the Timpani, which required an extreme low pass filter to sound like the ones in CMI, and the ZagrbHarpsichord which I used only on the Melee Island track, but I love the sound of that thing.
    > Percussions in E-MU Proteus 3 for the Cannibal Village (Bata Drums)
    > An unspecified CD sampler for E-MU Emulator II or III for the rest of the samples (not much really, maybe just the Brazil Whistle patch, which is the sound of the main melody in CMI's Voodoo Lady before Elaine's capture)

    I hope I didn't forget anything!
    I can upload the E-MU sounds by request, if anybody needs them!
  • Avatar
    Laserschwert on 22 Mar, 2018, 11:30…
    Listening to this again, I can't get over how good this sounds! Being a huge fan of CoMI's "Blood Island" music, the Melee Island map music is an absolute revelation to me :)

    Now I am wondering, how exactly did you do it? I've got the feeling that you did really have access to the exact same samples Michael Land used on CoMI (the timpani and steel drums especially sounds dead on), but you also added the right amount of live instruments (at least the guitar does sound live). Any insight on all of this?

    Also, I remember the user "wdrpgwd" creating "Cursed!" versions of a few "Tales of Monkey Island"-tracks (here and here), but they sounded nowwhere near as close to CoMI as yours. So if you might me interest in "cursing" a few ToMI-tracks as well, you can find all the MIDI files to the episodes HERE.

    Thanks again for bringing something new to the Monkey Island music world after so many years!

    EDIT: On a side-note, I can't believe, that after all these years there STILL hasn't been a leak of the uncompressed CoMI soundtrack. I know for a fact it's been in circulation, but nothing has ever been leaked outside of people close to LucasArts (and possibly Telltale).
  • Avatar
    Daf on 22 Mar, 2018, 00:43…
    I subbed to Albo Abourt +7 years ago back when he posted his rock covers on the Telltale forums, he was the first YT channel I subbed to i'm fairly sure, cool to see his name around again haha

    And like everyone else said, the restyling is brilliant!
  • Avatar
    AndywinXp on 21 Mar, 2018, 23:59…

    OzzieMonkey

    Wow! This might be better than the soundtrack we got with the special editions! It's a shame we can't play the second game with this, but I'd love to hear his rendition of that as a stand alone soundtrack anyway

    Thanks! I decided against doing the same thing with Monkey 2, because there is so much more material to cover, against the 30 minutes of Monkey 1, and because I really liked what they did in the special edition (it kinda had its own vibe). That being said I might do a small "cursed" selection of tracks from the second game, when I'm not busy with some other project :D
  • Avatar
    AndywinXp on 21 Mar, 2018, 23:55…

    Call me Squinky

    I especially enjoyed the Melee Island Map one - kind of a mix with Blood Island! Good stuff!

    Thanks! That's exactly what I wanted to achieve!
  • Avatar
    Laserschwert on 21 Mar, 2018, 23:16…
    Wow, this is absolutely brilliant!
  • Avatar
    OzzieMonkey on 21 Mar, 2018, 22:52…
    Wow! This might be better than the soundtrack we got with the special editions! It's a shame we can't play the second game with this, but I'd love to hear his rendition of that as a stand alone soundtrack anyway
  • Avatar
    Call me Squinky on 21 Mar, 2018, 20:52…
    I especially enjoyed the Melee Island Map one - kind of a mix with Blood Island! Good stuff!
  • Avatar
    AndywinXp on 21 Mar, 2018, 19:49…

    bgbennyboy

    If anyone else needs to rebuild the wavebank in the future the project files are here http://quickandeasysoftware.net/files/Rebuild MI1SE Music.zip

    The compression presets for the banks are:
    MusicOriginal:
    Ttracks 22 down to 19 - compression preset xwma
    Tracks 20 down to silence - compression preset pcm

    MusicNew:
    All tracks - compression preset xwma

    Just an addendum to the fantastic work he did: you might have to set the MusicNew bank to Streaming, tick Friendly Names and untick Sync In-Game Data to get the remastered soundbank to work
  • Avatar
    bgbennyboy on 21 Mar, 2018, 19:28…
    If anyone else needs to rebuild the wavebank in the future the project files are here http://quickandeasysoftware.net/files/Rebuild MI1SE Music.zip

    The compression presets for the banks are:
    MusicOriginal:
    Ttracks 22 down to 19 - compression preset xwma
    Tracks 20 down to silence - compression preset pcm

    MusicNew:
    All tracks - compression preset xwma
  • Avatar
    Rum_Rogers on 21 Mar, 2018, 18:01…

    AndywinXp

    Thanks guys for this article! Please do not hesitate to contact me at andywinxp<at>gmail(dot)com if yoi find any bugs/errors!
    I forgot to tell you that the new soundbank file updates the remastered mode instead of the classic one! This of course adds an alternate mix of the main theme in the menu


    Do you mind if I upload this on Stan's Previously Owned Soundtracks? This stuff really deserves to be listened to by everybody.
  • Avatar
    Rum_Rogers on 21 Mar, 2018, 17:57…
    Ha, brilliant!
  • Avatar
    AlfredJ on 21 Mar, 2018, 17:10…
    This is really cool! Impressive work!
  • Avatar
    AndywinXp on 21 Mar, 2018, 16:47…
    Thanks guys for this article! Please do not hesitate to contact me at andywinxp<at>gmail(dot)com if yoi find any bugs/errors!
    I forgot to tell you that the new soundbank file updates the remastered mode instead of the classic one! This of course adds an alternate mix of the main theme in the menu

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