DKC Atlas Forum

[BlueTronic]

That's not supposed to sound like that actually. The original sample is a little piece [single cycle waveform] of a viola sample that I've yet to locate. I used a synth to enhance the sample from the game [fill in the missing frequencies with that of a synth] but something went wrong and the whole thing was just playing a synth and that's why it sounds like a horn. I fixed it and re-exported the mix

[OrangeC]

Sounds much better!! I hope you end up finish flight of the zinger which is one of my fav tracks.

[BlueTronic]

Okay guys, I made some progress. I found the standard DKC2 snare or at least one that sounds like it. It was in the Roland R-8. These sounds can be very difficult to match because of how compressed they are, and it's especially hard with drums because they involve a lot of noise.

Anyway, I was able to nearly complete Stickerbrush Symphony. The only thing missing is the guitar halfway through the loop. I'm currently using the sample from the game, and you can tell it sounds really compressed, but now all I have to do when I find it is drop it in. Let me know if the mixing sounds good. I still need to give it a few passes before I call it good, so I may update it here and there.

Next up is Flight of The Zinger

[OrangeC]

Do you have to manipulate the MIDI data first before dropping any samples in, considering most of the data comes out inaccurate from being converted from SPCs?

[BlueTronic]

Most of it comes out accurate actually. Pitch bends come out a mess and almost always need to be redone. In DKC2 some notes are wrong. Not sure why that is. Never had a problem with DKC1. Most of the work comes from setting up the volume envelopes and vibrato, and mixing/mastering. Maybe I'll make a video about it. It's pretty fun stuff

[OrangeC]

That neat!! please do.

[BlueTronic]

Now presenting the first fully restored DKC2 track: Flight of the Zinger! https://www.dropbox.com/s/u5qzu1r30wsum ... r.mp3?dl=0

[OrangeC]

Perfect!!

Thanks!!

Also the muted guitars are from the wavestation? and the first square wave note's pitch bend goes too low a bit too soon. but other than that i love it!!

[BlueTronic]

Fixed. Thanks for that. And yes both are from the Wavestation. The muted guitars are used in a patch in the Wavestation called "midnight run" and the sequence they play is very similar to what they play in Flight of the Zinger so there's your inspiration

[OrangeC]

Sweet!! Thanks!!

Which one are you going to do next, Either mining melancholy or hot head Bop would be a pleasure, but its up to you.

[BlueTronic]

F ck, Mining Melancholy may never be done. I can't find those pots and pans anywhere
They might be in the Ensoniq CDR library. Supposedly that one has a lot of novelties
I don't have the bass or the crystal for Hot Head Bop

[OrangeC]

Tried to find the pick ax noises but to no avail either.

hmm maybe sort the rest of the dk1 tracks out since they are prob easier to find the samples than dk2. like maybe life in the mines?

[BlueTronic]

Pickax noises? I don't recall.
Life in the Mines uses a lot of percussion I still haven't found

[OrangeC]

Yeah those sounds at the beginning. Not evern sure what those are called. >__>>

[BlueTronic]

Oh yeah those are metal clangs. The same sound used for the steel keg

Simian Segue (Title Theme) fully restored!*

*Does not include the monkey beatbox sounds, which were recorded by Rareware and have no source. The original samples are used

If anyone is musically inclined, the FL Studio project files are included the dropbox hub. You can download the FLStudio demo and see the restoration in action

[OrangeC]

Sweet!

Will check those out! by the way did you ev er manage to find the viola for fear factory? saw you have updated it but couldn't tell the difference between the previous version.

Also i thought simian seague was the map theme. then again jungle groove sometimes was called simian seague so i guess the titles don't really matter.

EDIT: by the way projects cannot be succesfully opened if i don't have the proper directory structure.

[BlueTronic]

No I used the original waveform with the missing frequencies filled in

It's listed as Simian Segue on the soundtrack but I may change it

IDK if you gotta have it in the same directory but the samples are all there

[BlueTronic]

K.Rool Returns fully restored!

[OrangeC]

Thanks!! Keep em coming!

[reversalmushroom]

Okay, that Simian Segue link isn't Simian Segue; it's the intro.

And the original links for Aquatic Ambience and Stickerbrush Symphony are dead. For the ones that were originally uploaded incomplete, it seems like you uploaded better versions in later posts, but the original post still links to the first drafts.

[BlueTronic]

Fixed. Also fixed the names

It's called Simian Segue in the OST supplied with the game. The map is called DK Island Swing and Jungle Hijinx is called Jungle Groove.
According to Youtube, people recognize the intro as "Theme," the map as Simian Segue, and Jungle Hijinx interchangeably as DK Island Swing or Jungle Groove.... wtf y'all?

[reversalmushroom]

David Wise does have a Twitter, so you could probably ask him what the sources were that you don't know about.

[BlueTronic]

David Wise does have a Twitter, so you could probably ask him what the sources were that you don't know about.

I tried emailing him. He never emails back. But twitter is a good idea. Maybe he's just not reading emails

Speaking of sources! The French Horn sample (from Welcome to Crocodile Isle and Lockjaw's Saga) has been spotted! http://www.synthmania.com/E-mu%20Proteu ... rn%202.mp3
It's from the E-mu Proteus 2, a sampler module from 1990. I'll put this on the list of sources. I'll have to buy the digital version to get ahold of it

EDIT: Holy hell, it's only $20. Money well spent

EDIT: Doesn't quite sound right. I think now would be a good time for a tall glass of wine

[witapepsi]

I'm unable to access the Dropbox hub, when I click the link it just takes me to my personal file collection.
Also, can't wait for Forest Interlude, Candy's Love Song, Jungle Groove, Treetop Rock, Disco Train, Funky the Main Monkey, Lockjaw's Saga, and hopefully some DKC3 songs down the line.

[OrangeC]

You can access it via his soundcloud which is under his avatar, and he has jungle groove up already and a couple other ones from dk2.

Hot head bop Mining Melancholy are the ones i want most but they are pretty difficult to finding the actual original samples for it.

[BlueTronic]

Some were from spc snes sample set, most were custom samples - which you might find on a snes emulator

So apparently there was set of default samples with the SNES came with and he used some of those. I have never heard of this. This'll take some research to dig up

[OrangeC]

Thats quite interesting.

by the way fear factory is 39 seconds in your update.

[BlueTronic]

Yeah I know my computer sucks

I was trying to really beef up Aquatic Ambience cause I'm gonna send it to the Wise Man to try and get him interested in the project enough to help me out. I figured out I can make instruments really fill up the room using stereo phase offset (slight delay between the right and left channels) so I went crazy on it with Aquatic Ambience and put some on Fear Factory too since those are supposed to be really ambient and wide open. Now if you listen to those tracks they have a sort of faux surround sound thing going

[OrangeC]

Ahh yeh i can notice the difference in fear factory. Also not sure if you have noticed In fear factory the low bassy type of harp or string sound is kind of quiet. its part of the main track rhtythm. Also in flight of the zinger the vibraphone is a bit quiet as wel. although not sure if its meant to be that way.

[BlueTronic]

Yeah those aren't supposed to be like that. The original tracks are mixed very bass-heavy, so getting the bass instruments to the right levels can be difficult and sometimes I forget to make the bass loud enough. Fixed both of those

Also found two new sources: Alesis HR16, a drum machine which contains several DKC2 drums, and E-Mu Virtuoso, which contains the spiccato (short) string sample used in many orchestral DKC2 tracks

Included in the new export of Flight of the Zinger is a better fitting sample for the drum

[OrangeC]

Wow flight of the zinger now sounds much more improved, espacially the synth pads at the start.

Great that you found another source with dkc samples.

[OrangeC]

Oh yah, got the project files to load in FL studio 12. just had to drop the folder with the samples into fl studio itself. With flight of the zinger i had to isntall the 12.5 beta, but the then i had to drop the samples one by one into the channel tracks, although the pitching and the muted guitar seems to not be working right. ah well, i atleast got to have a sneak peak at mine cart madness.

[OneOf99]

Dang, these are some good remasterings. I especially like Fear Factory and Flight of the Zinger.

[BlueTronic]

Krook's March fully restored!

I also updated Stickerbrush Symphony and K.Rool Returns with a better snare sample

Updated the mixing on just about all the tracks. I'm still learning proper mixing skills so bear with me here, but I think they're all shaping up to be just about perfect

[OrangeC]

W00t!!

Thanks!!


Although, the bassy sounding strings are really low in 1:10 onwards.

great job!! by the way

[BlueTronic]

Disco Train fully restored!

Fortunately it's mostly synths, so I didn't have to worry about many samples, but I had to recreate the synths manually so make sure those don't sound off

[reversalmushroom]

The 1st 8 or so seconds of Krook's March are too quiet, and the song is noticeably louder after that. When the song loops, and that part plays again, it's significantly louder, as loud as the rest of the song. I'm playing it in Foobar with a 5db boost, and as a whole, it's still not quite as loud as I'd prefer. Would you mind boosting it by 10 db or at least 5?

Also, the hub has a restored version of Jib Jig, but there was no post in this forum saying you restored Jib Jig.

When you say you updated all the tracks, is that just in the hub, or did you go back and edit the 1st post and update the links?

[BlueTronic]

All the tracks have that fade-in. They are also in the game, however subtle. I'll do an analysis to make sure I'm applying the correct amount

I didn't make a post about Jib Jig because I'm not convinced the fiddle sample is the correct one

All the links point to exactly what you find in the hub. All I do is overwrite the old files

[reversalmushroom]

Oh, I haven't actually played the games in years and have been regularly listening to SPCs in Foobar/Super Jukebox, and SPC players don't do that with most of the songs. Which means the developers made the music do that after the composer got done with it for purposes of gameplay, and since the restored soundtrack is for listening purposes only, then I think it would be best to not do that unless even the SPCs do it, because then it's part of the song itself as the composer intended and not the console manipulating the music for gameplay purposes.

[BlueTronic]

the SPCs do that. I'm reading off the SPCs. There is a master volume knob that starts at 50% and climbs to 80%. I'm going to make sure I'm matching that. Maybe I went a little heavy on it.

[witapepsi]

I'm loving Disco Train, I do think the bass guitar sound and kick drum need to be a tad bit louder, it'll add a lot of balance. Also, the scream samples; they have a pitch bend that goes starts going high and ends going lower than the initial pitch. Overall, don't be afraid to bring out the lows in these songs, the SNES sound chip was very smooth and bassy.

[reversalmushroom]

1. Really? Because I just listened to Krook's March in Super Jukebox and am listening to it right now in Foobar, and it's not doing that.

2. I just had a thought. DKC3 on GBA had a completely different soundtrack. I didn't like it that much partly because of the GBA's poor sound quality, so what if someone did what you're doing but with that soundtrack? That'd be awesome.

[BlueTronic]

I remember finding the DKC GBA raw samples online somewhere so I'm sure DKC3 is around somewhere too. There is a program that converts GBA to MIDI. Never tried it though so I can't say it works. Then you would just need to figure out where the samples came from. It'd probably be easier to track down because that game is much more modern. If anyone wants to undertake that as a project, the path looks clear enough. I'm sticking to SNES for now

[OrangeC]

hmm yeah Krooks march i think needs some work. The brass sample at 1:22 sounds off and the low strings at 1:11 are too low unlike the original spc.

[BlueTronic]

You were right. I replaced the string and horn samples.

The MIDI had a lot of wrong notes in the harmony. I guess RareSPC isn't so good at exporting DKC2 tracks and Krook's March has a lot because it's a complicated track. I fixed most of them in the first pass but I just found more which are now fixed. So Krook's March is a lot better now

[BlueTronic]

Mine Cart Madness fully restored! https://www.dropbox.com/s/08aj2rwnqx43o ... s.mp3?dl=0

[OrangeC]

Wow great job as always.

by the way relistining to flight of the zinger some elements are either too quiet or too loud. The muted guitars are a bit on the quiet side while the synth pads and the strings are too loud. I tried to change the volumes myself but I couldn't even open the project because the project path is not compatible.

[Super Luigi!]

I'm listening to your Krook's March restoration on the brink of tears, dear BlueTronic. There's just something about it that soothes my soul. Thank you very much for (re)creating such masterpieces. If a DKC Trilogy remaster ever happens, your enhanced work should be there and credited alongside the original composers.

[Jungle]

This is actually astonishing work. I have some experience with creating music so I'll be sure to experiment a bit and let you know what I end up with!

[OrangeC]

Great job on the updates once again!.

Hmm Krooks march is missing the little harp notes.