Thank you Template! Great option to have on 7H catalog.
Quick one: How do you compare this soundtrack to Deet's XG Music mod (Yamaha S-YXG50 SoftSynthesizer)? What are the main differences?
Hey thanks Kuraudo,
Generally, the MU80 mod should be "cleaner". As I understand it, the MU80 hardware synth uses 16-bit uncompressed samples and the S-YXG50 uses 8-bit compressed. It's rather amazing how well the software synth emulates the MU series of hardware synthesizers from this era, which all use the same, much higher-quality wave ROM. People have tried to rework the S-YXG50 dlls to fit the uncompressed samples in, but I am not sure if anyone has been successful because Yamaha really went out of their way to keep the S-YXG50 gimped.
Both MU80 and Deet's mods were originally recorded too hot, so there is clipping and distortion, though it's not terribly noticeable, and I'd done some initial work to clean this up on the MU80 mod. I'd point to the differences when A/Bing OB.ogg--the S-YXG50 is essentially emulating the MU80, so, the differences are subtle, but you have this drop in tone quality, some instruments more than others. E.g., on ob.ogg there is this ear-piercing whistle sound about 14 seconds in which is really clipping pretty hard on the S-YXG50 version and you won't get that kind of hiss from the MU80 soundtrack, the instruments are just processed differently. The most noticeable way this comes through is the deep bass end--MU80 has more digital information in the sub bass region. A few instruments are noticeably different but most are very. very similar and most tracks would be pretty difficult to tell the difference without headphones and/or a good ear.
I've normalized the tracks slightly in the current release of MU80, but it needs clipfix to really restore the peaks in loudness, so I'm working through all the tracks with Audacity again and making some smarter compromises.
I'm also still working on the opening and this is one area where the 2 mods differ pretty noticeably--the transition from opening_va to ob.ogg. The MU80 current release sacrifices the audio sync when the FF7 title pops up in the opening movie in order to get a very solid sync when Avalanche start exiting the train. I am trying to work out how to adjust the tempo in order to sync both sections of the opening perfectly.
P.S. One more very early example--the deep "bloop" sound effects and the reverb quality on makoro.ogg are much more pronounced and complex sounding from the MU80. Much harder to hear these effects with the S-YXG50 cut--they just don't come off nearly as ominous sounding.
