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Miscellaneous Forums => General Discussion => Topic started by: Goku7 on 2003-05-12 16:23:01

Title: Ack! Best song ever done in the style of The Extreme (FF8)!
Post by: Goku7 on 2003-05-12 16:23:01
Linkage to the thread on the FFOnline Forums here:

http://forums.ffonline.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=19750 (http://forums.ffonline.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=19750)

<edit>
For those of you having problems with the FFOnline forums and can't get to the thread, here's the direct link to the file:

"Throwing a Gauntlet at the Feet of Death" (http://tavaryn.underclocked.com/Death%20Gauntlet.mid)  <---(Title as shown in that thread)

</edit>

Anyway, just like they way The Extreme is, this is rather slow for the first minute, in the same way Uematsu designed The Extreme, so don't be fooled.

And if it sounds this good in MIDI format....I can only imagine how good it would sound if he was to get his hands on using some soundfonts for this....

Freakin' amazing, if you want my opinion....
Title: Ack! Best song ever done in the style of The Extreme (FF8)!
Post by: Galadyn on 2003-05-12 16:59:44
Well crap... for some reason, my address is banned on a site I've never been to before.  I really liked that song the first time around though, any way you could send me this one?
Title: Ack! Best song ever done in the style of The Extreme (FF8)!
Post by: Jedimark on 2003-05-12 18:27:08
I'm not registering....
Title: Ack! Best song ever done in the style of The Extreme (FF8)!
Post by: Goku7 on 2003-05-13 00:34:56
Quote from: Jedimark
I'm not registering....


Whoa, whoa, whoa.....they switched over to a mandatory register-to-view setup?!

My apologies, I had not known they did that.  Anyway, for some reason the entire forums over there are down....but as soon as I get thru, I'll edit my first post and add some direct linking to the song, so "stay tuned", I guess. :P
Title: Ack! Best song ever done in the style of The Extreme (FF8)!
Post by: Galadyn on 2003-05-13 03:00:29
I don't mind registering, but I mind that my address is banned from a site I've never even seen before.
Title: Ack! Best song ever done in the style of The Extreme (FF8)!
Post by: Goku7 on 2003-05-13 03:36:59
Hmmm.....well, the entire site still seems down....so no link yet...

Quote from: Galadyn
I don't mind registering, but I mind that my address is banned from a site I've never even seen before.



Galadyn, I think you got hit indirectly by an IP range ban, meaning if people just "happen" to get an IP addy that falls within the range being banned, then I suppose they are kinda...erm, stuck.

On the other hand, one of those may have been necessary, for all we know, they could've been banning someone with a Dynamic IP address and thus couldn't be stopped unless they banned an entire region of IP address values.
Title: Ack! Best song ever done in the style of The Extreme (FF8)!
Post by: Jedimark on 2003-05-13 19:48:24
Hmm... my address also seems to be banned.
Title: Ack! Best song ever done in the style of The Extreme (FF8)!
Post by: Kendrilian on 2003-05-13 19:54:50
They have banned yahoo, and hotmail, but not aohell.  When I tried aohell, though, it said that the picture didn't match up to the letters I typed in.  I tried over a dozen combinations, it was no use...

Kendrilian
Title: Ack! Best song ever done in the style of The Extreme (FF8)!
Post by: Goku7 on 2003-05-13 21:13:44
Ok, the site appears to be back online, I have found the topic and yanked from the thread the direct link that the file's author (his account name on FFOnline appears to be "Valvados") posted.

Head back to the first post, and you'll now find the direct link on there.

BTW, the file is not being hosted by the FFOnline forums, so that should mean you shouldn't encounter any problems accessing it.... :roll:
Title: Ack! Best song ever done in the style of The Extreme (FF8)!
Post by: Jedimark on 2003-05-13 23:40:22
They have banned ntlworld also.
Title: Ack! Best song ever done in the style of The Extreme (FF8)!
Post by: Elitist1 on 2003-05-14 13:31:14
i want it, hook me up.

but will any video game track ever match the excellence that is the original symphony " One Winged Angel " ? *

* final form sephiroth's music from ff 7 for those not in the know
Title: Ack! Best song ever done in the style of The Extreme (FF8)!
Post by: Galadyn on 2003-05-15 00:51:13
I was most pissed at the PC version of FF7 which plays a MIDI of one-winged angel during that fight... no chanting of SEPHIROTH! at all, just a freaking midi.
Title: Ack! Best song ever done in the style of The Extreme (FF8)!
Post by: Goku7 on 2003-05-15 01:10:43
Quote from: Galadyn
I was most pissed at the PC version of FF7 which plays a MIDI of one-winged angel during that fight... no chanting of SEPHIROTH! at all, just a freaking midi.


Well, it does and it doesn't.  The PSX actually does the same thing, the voices you hear are sampled and played back as an "instrument", which explains why you can't find it as XA audio on the disc.

Have you ever looked inside the lb2.sf2 (default folder is "C:\Program Files\Square Soft, Inc\Final Fantasy VII\data\midi\sf2\") file?  If you look at instrument samples for the drums, you'll find that interspersed in it are the voice samples.

And yes, as other people who are using an SBLive!/Audigy/SBAWE with at least 4MB SF-RAM will tell you, the PC version does indeed use them in the MIDI file.
Title: Ack! Best song ever done in the style of The Extreme (FF8)!
Post by: Rubicant on 2003-05-15 08:59:31
Quote from: Goku7
And yes, as other people who are using an SBLive!/Audigy/SBAWE with at least 4MB SF-RAM will tell you, the PC version does indeed use them in the MIDI file.


And that is absolutely true.

However, I didn't like that song all that much. I guess it was an interesting adaptation from the original, but I find the original one to be more sinister.
Title: Ack! Best song ever done in the style of The Extreme (FF8)!
Post by: Galadyn on 2003-05-15 16:40:03
I have a Fortissimo 7.1 and I didn't hear the voices.
Title: Ack! Best song ever done in the style of The Extreme (FF8)!
Post by: Goku7 on 2003-05-15 21:40:28
Quote from: Galadyn
I have a Fortissimo 7.1 and I didn't hear the voices.


That is completely normal, since it is NOT a SoundBlaster card.  I have the first generation "Maxi Sound Fortissimo" (its the 4.1 speaker version that has an Optical Digital output plus normal analog output jacks, and an XG hardware synth for MIDI, if you're familiar with the Fortissimo line of sound cards), and it doesn't do the voices either, because both yours and my cards are not capable of using the SF2 format in hardware.

DLS format is a different story (because anyone who has DX6.1 or higher installed has support for it), but FF7 is incapable of using it, because its a DX5 game.
Title: Ack! Best song ever done in the style of The Extreme (FF8)!
Post by: Galadyn on 2003-05-15 21:59:41
But actually now that I think about it, I had an SB Live! 5.1 when I played FF7 on PC... no voices.
Title: Ack! Best song ever done in the style of The Extreme (FF8)!
Post by: Galadyn on 2003-05-15 22:01:42
But actually now that I think about it, I had an SB Live! 5.1 when I played FF7 on PC... no voices.
Title: Ack! Best song ever done in the style of The Extreme (FF8)!
Post by: Goku7 on 2003-05-15 22:40:12
At the time, did you have to load the soundfont manually to use it with FF7?

If that's the case, then that's your explaination for the lack of voices.

You see, under ideal driver conditions (which might be now) when you launch FF7, it interfaces with the SoundFont Manager system (without this, you can't load soundfonts AT ALL, so it would have definitely been installed), to auto-load the correct size soundfont for FF7.  This size-checking step only exists because back then, a majority of Sound Blaster cards were of the AWE model, which used onboard "SF-RAM" (a term I made up, naturally, it means "SoundFont RAM") to store Soundfonts instead of using your System RAM, and at max you might have 4 or 8MB of the stuff availible to your card, which is why you see that they have FF7's Soundfont in 512k, 2MB, and 4MB sizes....

...ANYWAY, in addition to the different-sized soundfonts, there was another font that is ONLY auto-loaded by the game into SF-RAM when it is playing the MIDI version of One Winged Angel, and then removed from SF-RAM after the fight is over.

Now, the problem that comes up here, is that since the SBLive! family of cards had a slightly different way of loading up soundfonts, tended to result in FF7 not able to correctly interface with the SF Manager and thus couldn't load the soundfonts by itself.  This may also be the reason why the config program tends to give you a "Failed!" result when you try to test the soundfont loading.

Now, I'm doing all this off the top of my head, I think I have most of the history concerned with this bug correct, but I'm not 100% confident this is how it is exactly.....Rubicant, you have a Live!/Audigy, right?  Mind telling me if any of this is wrong?
Title: Ack! Best song ever done in the style of The Extreme (FF8)!
Post by: Aaron on 2003-05-15 23:00:23
I have a Live!.  I just went through the process.

You need to have Creative AudioHQ (comes with drivers on SBLive! CD, or from Creative's site, but not with the drivers that come with Windows XP).  Run it up, run up the Soundfont applet in it, and load the FF7 soundfonts from the [ff7folder]\data\midi\sf2 folder [ff7.sf2 and lb2.sf2].  Then, in the FF7 Config program, tell it to use your SBLive! MIDI device and Soundfont MIDI (don't hit the "test" button - it'll fail).  Now FF7 should use the soundfonts.
Title: Ack! Best song ever done in the style of The Extreme (FF8)!
Post by: Elitist1 on 2003-05-15 23:06:30
i want to buy a new sound card.

what card will be the easiest to hear the sephiroth chants ?

what sound card has the best quality ?
Title: Ack! Best song ever done in the style of The Extreme (FF8)!
Post by: Contra on 2003-05-15 23:28:45
SoundFonts work fine with any recent Sound Blaster. The best sound quallity is the Audigy 2.
Title: Ack! Best song ever done in the style of The Extreme (FF8)!
Post by: Aaron on 2003-05-15 23:31:52
I'd highly recommend a SoundBlaster Live!.  You should be able to find one for $30-ish, and it has excellent sound quality.  SoundBlaster Audigy and Audigy 2 are also excellent cards, but kind of expensive.
Title: Ack! Best song ever done in the style of The Extreme (FF8)!
Post by: Elitist1 on 2003-05-16 12:36:48
what's the average price for an audigy or audigy 2 ?
Title: Ack! Best song ever done in the style of The Extreme (FF8)!
Post by: Rubicant on 2003-05-16 15:10:09
Don't waste your money on a new sound card just for one game, unless the current one you have sucks bad. You might as well use psf's if you are crying and whining over hearing the voices in the last boss theme.
Title: Ack! Best song ever done in the style of The Extreme (FF8)!
Post by: Aaron on 2003-05-16 19:37:48
Hmm, I think Audigy is about $60 and Audigy 2 is about $75.
Title: Ack! Best song ever done in the style of The Extreme (FF8)!
Post by: Elitist1 on 2003-05-17 14:54:46
its not for one game.

what are psf's ?

what is the average price for soundblaster live and where do i get it ?
Title: Ack! Best song ever done in the style of The Extreme (FF8)!
Post by: Rubicant on 2003-05-17 23:19:23
PSF files are Playstation Sound Files. They are music files directly ripped from playstation games. A set of geniuses managed to make this file format possible, and have even released a winamp plug-in to play them. Using Ficedula's FF7Music program (once you get it to work, it's not too hard) you can use the PSF's from FF7 instead of Midi. Not too long ago, I created a config which works with PSF's. Aaron is now hosting it. The only problems with FF7Music is that the music files won't fade.

But since you really do want a new sound card, then go ahead and buy something new. Since I've stopped using soundfonts all together, the only unique function of my SBLive that I use is surround sound. But you can get that with other sound cards, though.
Title: Ack! Best song ever done in the style of The Extreme (FF8)!
Post by: Elitist1 on 2003-05-18 16:50:44
what is the average price for soundblaster live and where do i get it ?
Title: Ack! Best song ever done in the style of The Extreme (FF8)!
Post by: Contra on 2003-05-18 17:17:17
You know.. I hate to be blunt, and I don't mean this as an insult, but... STFW. Search the F'in' web. I only say this because you'll find your answers a lot quicker than asking people on a message board. Look around at www.pricewatch.com, they have good (IE: Wholesale) prices, and carry just about everything in the way of computer parts.

~Cold Darkness rains on all... it reigns in Contra's soul...~
Title: Ack! Best song ever done in the style of The Extreme (FF8)!
Post by: Elitist1 on 2003-05-18 17:35:32
and if i want a person's opinion ?