Audio glitch in ToB MB.MUS soundtrack?

MosesHall

I'd like to ask folks on the forum who have good ears to confirm or deny this for me, because I am reproducing this not from gameplay (I will have to do a LOT of playing to bring my current game to a testing phase on this!), but rather from my ACMPlayer software for Mac. Anyway, at around 00:01:22 in MB.MUS (the music for ToB final battle), there seems to be a glitchy transition, like a mini-dropout or phase anomaly. I exported the soundtrack to AIFF and looked closely in Audacity and it looked sorta "funny" but I'm not a real sound guy, tho my ears are not too bad. It's the transition between MB_D3.acm and MB_E1.acm (i.e., "when the bada$$ French horns come in" ;-)

ACMPlayer has had two separate ACM decoders in its history. The first was ABel's C++ code (from acm2wav.exe) I ported to Objective-C, and the current version uses libacm (http://libacm.berlios.de/), and this alleged anomaly has been the same w/ both. But of course, if my code isn't handling the inter-ACM transitions properly, it does not matter how well the decoders work. It just smooshes the tracks together. But, I've listened to a lot of SoA/ToB MUS'es and have not heard anything like this.

I hope readers will forgive me for being a goofball if I'm just writing crappy software out of ignorance, and with a reverse-engineered format. Anyway, on the off chance that I found a real glitch, the forgoing "bug report" or "reproduction request" (heh) is respectfully submitted.

I can't WAIT for this new BG. SoA is the reason my Mac Pro still runs Snow Leopard. I'm not kidding! (And, I'm secretly hoping the music masters will see the light of day and get released in a lossless format... even with a Duet and Grado headphones, those ACM files sound kinda flabby. [But oh maaann that's some good music!])

Thanks to everyone for reading/tolerating/understanding this enormous rant of hot air...

Brian "Moses" Hall, ham radio callsign K8TIY
blugs.com

Ward

There's a piece of software called Near Infinity which lets you rip apart Baldur's Gate and access all the game files for editing. Let me see if I can rip that song from it and I'll get back to you.

I don't know anything about how ACM files work, but I can try and find out if there is a glitch in the track. If there is then I'll let you know and you can file a bug report which @Bhryaen will no doubt jump on soon enough. Only issue is if there's a problem with the track, they probably need the original master to do anything about it, or they may not have the rights to change them (depending on their arrangements).

You might be interested in this: http://www.shsforums.net/topic/50032-1pp-high-quality-music-for-soatob-tututosc-iwd/ It's a mod which replaces the 22.05khz files with 44.01khz from the official soundtrack CDs. Whether or not it makes a big difference is debatable.

EDI: I just compared the BG theme on the soundtrack to the .ACM in Near Infinity, it does make a notable difference. Most people won't notice, but it's a very nice mod if you appreciate high quality audio. I suggest good speakers for optimum pleasure.

Ward

With my limited knowledge I can't access the music through Near Infinity, but you are able to. I suggest you try it out, it could prove useful.

I remember trying to import a .ACM into Audacity as a raw file ages ago but all I got was loud static. If you could tell me how you converted them to .AIFF I'd appreciate it.

Bhryaen

@Ward
I've gotten mildly proficient with NI, but I'm not seeing ACM files with it either. It's worth fixing but will just go on the burner, see if we can get to it... Actually @Cuv could probably get at it.

[EDIT] Just found the ACM files, but just recognized which final battle is being discussed: ToB's... Focusing on BG1EE at the moment. ;-)

Ward

@Bhryaen All the preview buttons in NI for .ACM files are blacked out, so I can't play them. I think you need some third party program to listen to them through NI but I forget what it's called, I should check the website.

If gives you the choice of converting them to mono or stereo, but it just tells you "Error during conversion" so I'm pretty much locked out of doing anything to them without learning more.

Bhryaen

@Ward
It's called acm2wav.exe. I got it from some obscure site:
http://www.resonant.org/games/baldursgate/

If you get it there, download the section called "acm2wav.zip" which gets you everything you need. I just listened to the files mentioned in the OP and didn't hear anything unusual, but it may be in how they're mixed rather than in the files themselves. It's a down-the-road issue, but not too far down it obviously...

Ward

@Bhryaen Great find. I found out about this Fallout converter a long time ago but I couldn't find the link. Thanks for that, now I've got some new music to listen to.

If you can let me know how you link this up to NI I'd appreciate it. Telling me that acm2wav isn't found so I guess you have to put it in the same directory.

EDIT: Yep got to put it in the same folder.
I still want to try your ACM convert @MosesHall, but first my internet needs to work faster, they slowed it.

Cuv

@Ward Yes, just put it in your main BG directory... then NI can find it and convert the sounds in the editor. Sounds like you got it there now:)

MosesHall

@Ward: Thanks for the info on the 44 KHz alternative, with my sound setup that would be sure to make a huge difference! I hope the OST CDs get released with the Extended Edition, that'd be way cool.

Here's a little more info from my experimentation: I exported AIFF files (since I'm on Mac I don't have acm2wav or NI) using ACMPlayer and examined and concatenated them in Audacity. The transition is at a nice zero crossing in both files (another theory bites the dust) but I wonder if the music editors introduced the glitch by fading one or both files too aggressively. It looks almost like there is too much "silence" right at that boundary, I perceive it as a dropout.

Try this just for fun: export both files (MB_D3.acm and MB_E1.acm) to wav and concatenate them in Audacity. Set the playback speed to 20% or lower and listen for the dropout at about 3.98 seconds. At that speed it sticks out like a sore thumb (on my setup, anyway).

Yeah, I know I jumped the gun, this being a ToB thing, but I figgered I'd get it in the loop since I'm kind of relying on 3rd parties to confirm I'm not just having audio hallucinations ;-) 'Twoud be a shame if I procrastinated and something fixable got overlooked!

And I also acknowledge this is an incredibly trivial complaint. Hey, I work at a university library! 'nuff said.

Thanks all!

ajwz

Speaking of audio glitches, has the quick save interrupts the musical sound track issue been fixed?

MosesHall

@ajwz: Hmmm, I will leave that to the big bosses to mull over. Actually, given the choice between hearing blessed silence ("oh, it's safe now" to QS) and cool music (QSing but "rodents?! Aaaahhh!") I guess this time round I like da bugz.

Ward

@MosesHall

What I discovered in Near Infinity is that many of the songs aren't a single track. Lots of them are made up of 'snips' which are meant to play together seamlessly. For some reason you're getting this jump or pause between an interval of these snips, but I don't know why.

I don't have mac so if your ACM converter isn't for PC I will be sad.

Are you hearing this in game man, or is it a visual bump in the audio?

MosesHall

@Ward: sorry man, ACMPlayer is Mac-only (BUT there are lots of other, better wares on Win/Lin side for playing them I'm sure).

So yeah, in all of Soa/ToB music I have looked at, the ACM files are individual snippets and the MUS files are basically text files that map out the way they're all put together and looped, and which ending to play when the fight's over. It's pretty ingenious.

I THINK I have heard this particular glitch in-game, but it has been a long time since I played thru the entirety of ToB. Bear in mind this music is from the endgame battle, and I was, er, a bit preoccupied trying not to get splattered.

I intend, if possible, to try getting my current game high enough level to survive a minute or two (which basically means, planetar available) and then CLUAConsoling myself to the final battle area and seeing if the music gets triggered. ("Hi endgame boss, no I didn't come to fight you, I just want to listen to the jukebox.")

Nathan

ajwz said:

Speaking of audio glitches, has the quick save interrupts the musical sound track issue been fixed?

Yes, as there's no more loading screen to interrupt the audio track.

MosesHall

@Nathan: for reals? I kinda like that loading screen. The music fades and I know I can safely take a quick sip of coffee before having Keldorn's Vhailor sim summon more planetars ;-)

Bhryaen

@MosesHall
Does the word instant mean anything to ya? ;-)

MosesHall

@Bhryaen: I'm currently running BG in Rosetta (PowerPC emulator) on OS X. What is this "instant" you speak of? ;-)

MosesHall

I must confess, having been watching Tord's Lilly Black campaign on YT for the past several days (and enjoying it far more than I expected!) I was like "whoa, that load/save screen sure doesn't waste any time!"

Ward

@MosesHall Instant coffee.

ajwz

I'm so glad about this. I have played through so many times, but nowadays the sound is normally off and I am listening to music or podcasts in the background. With the new music being added, I really want to rediscover the soundtrack.

MosesHall

Makes me wonder if they'll be able to achieve "instant coffee" performance on less powerful hardware, e.g., iPad. That would be some pretty slick programming.

MosesHall

I'm putting this comment in here as a sort of "note to self" and to anyone who might be interested. I started the ACMPlayer project in hopes of not just being able to play arbitrary BG music on the Mac, but to be able to get at some of those great ambient sounds and dialogues. Case in point: Temple of Helm, which atmosphere I always liked. So recently I have been working on getting the software to understand .bif, .tlk, and .key files. The UI is still horrid, so I won't be able to release the software for a while. But I do have the app able to find and play (most of) the ACM files that are crammed into some of the BIFF files on my old SoA/ToB install.

The Temple of Helm music is music/Mx0512.mus and the ambient is in CD3/Data/Area090A.bif, resource ID AM0901, and the spoken bits (some of which I'm not sure are actually used in-game, e.g., "you have to understand, my son, that that is the reason we have this duty to perform") are resources AM0901B1 thru AM0901B8. I saw a posting on GameFAQs from a while back, asking about the Helm music and sounds, but the topic is closed, so I am hoping anyone searching for the info might stumble upon what I have written here.

When I release the software enhancements, I'll write an announcement under a new topic. I think Mac players will enjoy being able to futz around with the sounds and music. There's a lot of WEIRD sound effects buried inside those files, that seem rarely to have seen the light of day!