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About this mod
Sound FX used in Magic Diversity remastered with professional software. SpellCast revamped with a rumbling buildup, synching to the animation, and blending with the Spell into one powerful sound.
- Requirements
- Permissions and credits
This mod requires Magic Diversity by Arkann, the version with sound effects, as it uses his definitions for the filenames of the sound WAVs. Here's the files page.
At first, I almost thought the synthy magic sounds used in Magic Diversity seemed like an unusual choice, but gradually they've grown on me. It turns out, It was mostly the unprocessed quality was making them feel out of place. They're out of date and needed a modern upgrade. But the choices of sounds are all very appropriate.
So appropriate, in fact, that because I haven't played FFIX, I didn't recognize them, so I thought there was someone in the community who made them just for Morrowind. I think maybe the assumption that this was someone's independent work, I didn't want to impose my superior experience level like a back-seat mixing engineer. But knowing that they are unpolished sounds from an old game, they're just begging for a remaster. Kudos to Squaresoft's audio guys, and a big thank you Arkann for putting this together, so that I can put the final shine on it, and perhaps use it as a guide to program my own replacement.
I'm not surprised that about 10% of people didn't want the unprocessed sounds though, and while the PlayStation probably put some reverb on them, that hardly does the same as modern re-mastering effects. In any case, the original sounds are dry, so they feel like a thousand pieces of audio hitting you like a machinegun. These upgraded sounds feel like one continuous "object".
Demo Reel - Old vs New Comparison
Especially now that my revamped SpellCast sound transitions into the individual Spell sound perfectly. It builds up and fires off simultaneously when the Spell is activated, rather than hitting right when you push the button. I worked with the timing in very small amounts until it "felt right", but let me know if it still feels a tad early or late.
In other words, the original SpellCast breaks the fourth wall, and not just how harsh and repetitive it gets. It hits instantly, on almost every spell, just to validate that you, the player, have pushed a button. It doesn't give the feeling that the character you are playing is about to perform a supernatural, ground-shaking feat.
This new version I used various other sounds to make it feel as if the sound emanates from the powerful energy you are building up, and that sound provides an "intro", which then perfectly morphs into every other Spell sound by layering underneath it. And all of them have been processed with good compression, by someone with experience, so they feel as strong and Nirn-shattering as they should.
So now, the synthy quality makes them really feel unreal and ethereal, rather than fake and video-gamey. And it proves just how universal Magic is. I'm certain that unless we were dumb enough to put these in a commercial game, the creators would love to see that fans still love their work. The fact that some of us would choose these old sounds over any possibility, and want them to become an optional part of the digital worlds we live in, that's all they want from it now. Once an artist's work has long since received what compensation it deserved, all the artist wants is for their work to not be forgotten. And now, they will be much happier that someone remastered these sounds instead of straight up copying. But besides all that, these sounds are as old as Morrowind itself.
If anything, the success of Magic Diversity proves that this is a perfect guideline as to what the sounds should be, and they will become part of my blueprint, should I decide to revamp the entire set.
You might not believe me, but those of you who didn't like the originals, you might want to give these a shot, unless you found another style you can't let go of. Personal preference and familiarity are hard to change. But I can actually put these sounds on in the background to "test" them while I'm working, and they no longer jump out as harsh and grating. As soon as the playlist hits the old versions, it steals my attention. But I keep going back to test the new versions, and the difference is night and day.
Of course, maybe one reason the originals worked good enough, is that there is usually such Soule-ful music in the background. The lack of processing isn't as jarring with such an ocean of harmonies to float on.
So while the choices for each Spell were very appropriate, the main problem was not that those sounds were primitive video-gamey synths, it's that they were raw, and as dry as sandpaper. Along with being harsh and in-your-face, being so clean made them feel very outdated for the atmosphere of Morrowind. But the magical quality of the sounds themselves can be brought out, thanks to modern audio FX magic.
Let me put it this way: I could revamp all of these sounds into my own work, like I did with SpellCast, and like I did with another sound I will talk about later. But I'm starting to like these as they are now. I could be convinced to apply my style to all of them though. But somehow, despite having the ability to do that, I'm almost satisfied with just using these new versions. But this might turn into a stepping stone to lead me to taking on that project, depending on feedback. And it's good inspiration as to what direction to take.
Some boring technical details for fellow audio nerds:
The simplest part was adjusting the Attack for each sound individually. They need to fade in very briefly, so they don't just punch you in the ears. But rather than fading out at the end, I used a small amount of short Delay, and a little Hall Reverb. I kept the fade out short, so the sounds are about the same length, and there's less chance they will crowd each other in a big battle.
After that, Propellerhead Reason's Distortion module Scream4 has a "Tape" setting which does Analog Tape Compression. Normally you would never run your final mix through distortion, but this one option is very different. Analog Tape makes all the audio sound like it's in the same room, as opposed to several separate pieces playing at the same time. The Compressor and Maximizer push everything up a bit more, and Stereo Widener spreads the highs out, while condensing the bass to mono, because there's a slight chance you might only have one subwoofer.
After rendering them out of Reason at 96,000 khz 24bit, I ran them through Audition's Multi-Band Compressor. This compresses Bass, Mids, High-Mids, and Treble all separately, bringing out every part of the sound even further. The sounds will all seem and feel as if they are louder and more powerful, without actually hitting a higher volume. One trick is to crank each of the Gains and drop it's Threshhold, and see if it can sound good at that Gain level. If not, lower the Gain, and mess with Threshold again. Multi-band Compression is basically like a 5th dimensional mixing board.
Finally, I ran them through Audition's Batch Process to Normalize them at 22%, just to err on the safe side. They are loud enough for me, but I have music at half volume. Normalizing means that the highest level the sound can reach is 22% of full volume, everything else is scaled based on the loudest point. This also means that I can easily release a second version at another volume, if just a percentage of people request another option. But if everyone wants it changed, I'd rather release one version. If possible, it is best to find the sweet spot and make it universal. But making two versions is pretty effortless thanks to modern Batch Processing and an old-school RENAME.BAT file.
Audition's Diagnostics helped me split the final output from Reason, which was one "song" that triggered each sound in sequence from the NN-XT sampler. Audition's Diagnostics has a preset that can add track marks around each piece of audio, and another function can find all the audio gaps and replace them with the same length of silence. Making a demo reel was pretty effortless too, but I'd rather see a fan demonstrate it in video. Feel free to link videos of gameplay footage, I'm willing to post good examples here.
I am willing to re-imagine the entire set of sounds in the same way, but for now, those of you who love and use Magic Diversity's sounds, and don't plan on changing, you can finally get a huge upgrade of the sounds you already know and love.
It looks like about 10-15% of Magic Diversity users downloaded the Vanilla Sounds version, so a majority of the ~40,000 people might still be using the original Magic Diversity FX. Negative comments are always the loudest, but numbers don't lie. And most fans are too busy playing to come here and talk about how good the sounds are. Besides, if they came from FFIX, we know they're good, of course they're good, and Arkann's mod isn't the place to praise the sounds, just for thanking Arkann for having very good taste.
But like I said, those who thought the originals were harsh and grating, and SpellCast too repetitive, you will find these physically tolerable to your ears. So now it is only a matter of style and preference, rather than audio quality.
And coming very soon, my next display of magical audio wizardry: I have also completely re-vamped and re-imagined the "Level Up" sound effect. And while I could never program electronic music to have as much Soule as a real orchestral composer, the result is my own personal "Triumph". Because I still managed to make it sound more in line with the Soule-ful "Triumph" music that plays when your character does a full Level Up.
After my hearing the new Level Up a couple hundred times in order to work on it, I should be sick of it by now, but I honestly can't wait to hear it again. The only way I could call it complete was if I could listen to it on loop, playing every X seconds. Every time it hits during the game, I get a nice rush of emotion. From the sound itself, and the satisfaction of knowing it's mine. I wasn't even going to layer the original into it, because I managed to get it to feel almost right without it. But putting the original in was the icing on the cake. It will hit you with much more force, because it's based on what you remember hearing hundreds of times.
Basically, everything you imagined that should be harmonizing behind that LevelUp sound, it's there now. Like over 10 layers of samples seamlessly merged into one piece of gourmet audio.
Even though it feels like it's done, it's worthy of making you wait for it. It's worthy of putting more attention into it, which is why I am releasing these remastered ones first. I should wait New Years, but I could be convinced otherwise.
Anyway, also a huge thank you to the Morrowind community for keeping this game alive. My story is probably the strangest, in that my choice of play style made the original game impossible for me. I played for 2 weeks and stopped for 2 decades, but somehow, I've returned to this strange place, and it's bigger than I ever imagined.
Also, Vivec isn't just a city?
At first, I almost thought the synthy magic sounds used in Magic Diversity seemed like an unusual choice, but gradually they've grown on me. It turns out, It was mostly the unprocessed quality was making them feel out of place. They're out of date and needed a modern upgrade. But the choices of sounds are all very appropriate.
So appropriate, in fact, that because I haven't played FFIX, I didn't recognize them, so I thought there was someone in the community who made them just for Morrowind. I think maybe the assumption that this was someone's independent work, I didn't want to impose my superior experience level like a back-seat mixing engineer. But knowing that they are unpolished sounds from an old game, they're just begging for a remaster. Kudos to Squaresoft's audio guys, and a big thank you Arkann for putting this together, so that I can put the final shine on it, and perhaps use it as a guide to program my own replacement.
I'm not surprised that about 10% of people didn't want the unprocessed sounds though, and while the PlayStation probably put some reverb on them, that hardly does the same as modern re-mastering effects. In any case, the original sounds are dry, so they feel like a thousand pieces of audio hitting you like a machinegun. These upgraded sounds feel like one continuous "object".
Demo Reel - Old vs New Comparison
Especially now that my revamped SpellCast sound transitions into the individual Spell sound perfectly. It builds up and fires off simultaneously when the Spell is activated, rather than hitting right when you push the button. I worked with the timing in very small amounts until it "felt right", but let me know if it still feels a tad early or late.
In other words, the original SpellCast breaks the fourth wall, and not just how harsh and repetitive it gets. It hits instantly, on almost every spell, just to validate that you, the player, have pushed a button. It doesn't give the feeling that the character you are playing is about to perform a supernatural, ground-shaking feat.
This new version I used various other sounds to make it feel as if the sound emanates from the powerful energy you are building up, and that sound provides an "intro", which then perfectly morphs into every other Spell sound by layering underneath it. And all of them have been processed with good compression, by someone with experience, so they feel as strong and Nirn-shattering as they should.
So now, the synthy quality makes them really feel unreal and ethereal, rather than fake and video-gamey. And it proves just how universal Magic is. I'm certain that unless we were dumb enough to put these in a commercial game, the creators would love to see that fans still love their work. The fact that some of us would choose these old sounds over any possibility, and want them to become an optional part of the digital worlds we live in, that's all they want from it now. Once an artist's work has long since received what compensation it deserved, all the artist wants is for their work to not be forgotten. And now, they will be much happier that someone remastered these sounds instead of straight up copying. But besides all that, these sounds are as old as Morrowind itself.
If anything, the success of Magic Diversity proves that this is a perfect guideline as to what the sounds should be, and they will become part of my blueprint, should I decide to revamp the entire set.
You might not believe me, but those of you who didn't like the originals, you might want to give these a shot, unless you found another style you can't let go of. Personal preference and familiarity are hard to change. But I can actually put these sounds on in the background to "test" them while I'm working, and they no longer jump out as harsh and grating. As soon as the playlist hits the old versions, it steals my attention. But I keep going back to test the new versions, and the difference is night and day.
Of course, maybe one reason the originals worked good enough, is that there is usually such Soule-ful music in the background. The lack of processing isn't as jarring with such an ocean of harmonies to float on.
So while the choices for each Spell were very appropriate, the main problem was not that those sounds were primitive video-gamey synths, it's that they were raw, and as dry as sandpaper. Along with being harsh and in-your-face, being so clean made them feel very outdated for the atmosphere of Morrowind. But the magical quality of the sounds themselves can be brought out, thanks to modern audio FX magic.
Let me put it this way: I could revamp all of these sounds into my own work, like I did with SpellCast, and like I did with another sound I will talk about later. But I'm starting to like these as they are now. I could be convinced to apply my style to all of them though. But somehow, despite having the ability to do that, I'm almost satisfied with just using these new versions. But this might turn into a stepping stone to lead me to taking on that project, depending on feedback. And it's good inspiration as to what direction to take.
Some boring technical details for fellow audio nerds:
The simplest part was adjusting the Attack for each sound individually. They need to fade in very briefly, so they don't just punch you in the ears. But rather than fading out at the end, I used a small amount of short Delay, and a little Hall Reverb. I kept the fade out short, so the sounds are about the same length, and there's less chance they will crowd each other in a big battle.
After that, Propellerhead Reason's Distortion module Scream4 has a "Tape" setting which does Analog Tape Compression. Normally you would never run your final mix through distortion, but this one option is very different. Analog Tape makes all the audio sound like it's in the same room, as opposed to several separate pieces playing at the same time. The Compressor and Maximizer push everything up a bit more, and Stereo Widener spreads the highs out, while condensing the bass to mono, because there's a slight chance you might only have one subwoofer.
After rendering them out of Reason at 96,000 khz 24bit, I ran them through Audition's Multi-Band Compressor. This compresses Bass, Mids, High-Mids, and Treble all separately, bringing out every part of the sound even further. The sounds will all seem and feel as if they are louder and more powerful, without actually hitting a higher volume. One trick is to crank each of the Gains and drop it's Threshhold, and see if it can sound good at that Gain level. If not, lower the Gain, and mess with Threshold again. Multi-band Compression is basically like a 5th dimensional mixing board.
Finally, I ran them through Audition's Batch Process to Normalize them at 22%, just to err on the safe side. They are loud enough for me, but I have music at half volume. Normalizing means that the highest level the sound can reach is 22% of full volume, everything else is scaled based on the loudest point. This also means that I can easily release a second version at another volume, if just a percentage of people request another option. But if everyone wants it changed, I'd rather release one version. If possible, it is best to find the sweet spot and make it universal. But making two versions is pretty effortless thanks to modern Batch Processing and an old-school RENAME.BAT file.
Audition's Diagnostics helped me split the final output from Reason, which was one "song" that triggered each sound in sequence from the NN-XT sampler. Audition's Diagnostics has a preset that can add track marks around each piece of audio, and another function can find all the audio gaps and replace them with the same length of silence. Making a demo reel was pretty effortless too, but I'd rather see a fan demonstrate it in video. Feel free to link videos of gameplay footage, I'm willing to post good examples here.
I am willing to re-imagine the entire set of sounds in the same way, but for now, those of you who love and use Magic Diversity's sounds, and don't plan on changing, you can finally get a huge upgrade of the sounds you already know and love.
It looks like about 10-15% of Magic Diversity users downloaded the Vanilla Sounds version, so a majority of the ~40,000 people might still be using the original Magic Diversity FX. Negative comments are always the loudest, but numbers don't lie. And most fans are too busy playing to come here and talk about how good the sounds are. Besides, if they came from FFIX, we know they're good, of course they're good, and Arkann's mod isn't the place to praise the sounds, just for thanking Arkann for having very good taste.
But like I said, those who thought the originals were harsh and grating, and SpellCast too repetitive, you will find these physically tolerable to your ears. So now it is only a matter of style and preference, rather than audio quality.
And coming very soon, my next display of magical audio wizardry: I have also completely re-vamped and re-imagined the "Level Up" sound effect. And while I could never program electronic music to have as much Soule as a real orchestral composer, the result is my own personal "Triumph". Because I still managed to make it sound more in line with the Soule-ful "Triumph" music that plays when your character does a full Level Up.
After my hearing the new Level Up a couple hundred times in order to work on it, I should be sick of it by now, but I honestly can't wait to hear it again. The only way I could call it complete was if I could listen to it on loop, playing every X seconds. Every time it hits during the game, I get a nice rush of emotion. From the sound itself, and the satisfaction of knowing it's mine. I wasn't even going to layer the original into it, because I managed to get it to feel almost right without it. But putting the original in was the icing on the cake. It will hit you with much more force, because it's based on what you remember hearing hundreds of times.
Basically, everything you imagined that should be harmonizing behind that LevelUp sound, it's there now. Like over 10 layers of samples seamlessly merged into one piece of gourmet audio.
Even though it feels like it's done, it's worthy of making you wait for it. It's worthy of putting more attention into it, which is why I am releasing these remastered ones first. I should wait New Years, but I could be convinced otherwise.
Anyway, also a huge thank you to the Morrowind community for keeping this game alive. My story is probably the strangest, in that my choice of play style made the original game impossible for me. I played for 2 weeks and stopped for 2 decades, but somehow, I've returned to this strange place, and it's bigger than I ever imagined.
Also, Vivec isn't just a city?