Lossless OPL3 soundtrack ripped from a digital source

[Jezulkim]

I've done new rips of the music in Transport Tycoon. You might have listened to the rips I've done before. These new rips are a lot better than the older rips. This time I recorded from a digital source (AWE32, model number CT3910). This soundcard is quite interesting, it's one of the few AWE32 models that have a digital output (SPDIF) and a genuine OPL3 synthesizer, not a clone like CQM (Creative's OPL3 clone) or ESS AudioDrive FM chip (proof: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M7y5z4BBq3w). The advantages of using a digital source are: no analog hiss and no analog clipping. Especially the clipping was a problem with the old rip.

Note:

1. If you take a closer look on the rips you'll notice that there is in fact noise! This is because the OPL3 chip design is flawed and it will leak sound after it has been activated.

2. Also you might be wondering why the volume is so low. The volume is low because I decided not to tamper with the audio any more than I had to, the synthesizer volume was set to maximum. If you're using ReplayGain (http://wiki.hydrogenaudio.org/index.php ... Replaygain) you shouldn't notice the low volume as the files are tagged with ReplayGain information.

3. The title theme from Transport Tycoon original is missing on the FM set! Indeed it is, and it will be missing as long as there's no way of extracting MIDI from ADLIB.CAT.

4. If you hear lots of "pumping" hissing on the OPL2 rip, get a new sound card. This happens because there are lots of quiet parts on the tracks. Some cheap soundcards hiss when quiet samples are played.

There are three different OPL3 versions of this music
-OPL2 (OPL3 can be set to OPL2 mode)
-OPL3 FM set (found in the fm folder of Windows version, mono)
-OPL3 GM set (found in the gm folder of Windows version, stereo)

Here's the list of hardware and software I used to create these rips.

Hardware:

-Two computers, one running Windows 98 and one XP
-Sound Blaster AWE32 Value IDE (CT3910)
-inland 58019 ThunderSound with C-Media CMI8738 chip (Cheap soundcard with SPDIF in)
-Internal 2-pin cable to connect the SPDIF pins

Software:

-decat (for finding out the track title for the title screen music)
-gmext (extracting the original Transport Tycoon title screen music)
-Open Source WDM Drivers for C-Media 8738/8768 (http://code.google.com/p/cmediadrivers/) (I used this driver because the official driver didn't support SPDIF recording)
-Transport Tycoon Original and Transport Tycoon Deluxe DOS and Windows (I used the in game player for a reason. External players cut off some tracks few milliseconds too early. This happens with the in game player too, but it's not as obvious)
-Audacity 1.3
-foobar2000 (tagging)

Download (Owen's Transport Tycoon Station)
Download (Mediafire)

[Smegma]

Thanks a bunch.

[orudge]

Very interesting, and I see there is quite a difference in quality there. Thanks for the effort in doing this!

[Ailure]

Sadly I didn't manage to grab this while it was up. Any plans for a reupload?

[Jezulkim]

Reuploading now. Check back in six hours for links.

Edit: new download is up

[orudge]

Ugh, MediaFire. I hope you don't mind if I download these and reupload them to the forums server, so that people can download them a bit more easily?

[Jezulkim]

Sure, that would be great! I don't want these to get lost because of expiring links.

[orudge]

I've completely written my music page and added all your recordings to that page. I've also included download links for both FLAC and MP3 versions of your tracks.

If you'd like me to edit any of the descriptions of your recordings, just let me know what you'd like written there!

[Jezulkim]

Very nice! Thanks. I've edited the first post to point to those files as well.

The descriptions of the recordings are fine, but it only says MP3 on the front page even though there are FLAC download links as well.

[orudge]

Yes, that's automatically generated based upon which formats are supplied for streaming. FLAC isn't offered for streaming, so isn't listed there. I may be able to bodge something so that it shows that FLACs are available for download, I suppose.