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  #31  
Old Apr 13, 2018, 12:53 AM
preta preta is offline
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It's worth noting that the original release actually did have an official English tracklist, courtesy of the Square Enix online store. It's a little different from this one - I posted it in the original version's thread.
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  #32  
Old Apr 28, 2018, 07:09 PM
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We have a very big issue with the track times on this release. All 3 sources (BD, mp3s on the BD, digital) have completely different track times. Given that physical media trumps digital, I will be changing the track times to the BD physical release with some notations. The previous edit by Cellfish I believe has a number of tracks that are incorrect. No matter what source we use, we are going to break freedb queries for the other 2 but seeing how physical trumps digital and I'm not sure why someone would completely retag digital files that already have decent tags, I don't think this is a huge issue. Technically one shouldn't really be able to query freedb for a Bluray disc but since it's the physical medium in this case, and since our freedb queries are loose and based on track times anyway, it becomes a positive side-effect. I haven't seen this issue on any of the other BD releases I've bought, ripped, and updated.

The BD is split into 101 chapters for the 49 audio tracks, which means there are 2 chapters for each track and 4 left over (note this, it will be important later).

The chapter order follows the same order as the tracklist (thankfully) and starting with Chapter 1 each track is broken down into odd+even=full track. So Chapter 1+ 2 = M1; Chapter 3+4 = M2; Chapter 5+6 = M3; ..., etc. This sequence is consistent until Chapter 91, which is just 3 seconds of silence. It then repeats the sequence until the end of the disc, (Chapter 92+93 = M46; Chapter 94+95 = M47; ...) except the final two Chapters are complete silence (Chapter 100, Chapter 101).

So essentially Chapter 91 is a silence separator between the regular tracks and the Revival Versions. The last two chapters might just be a pause between the end and possibly looping, but I don't think BDA loops automatically. Given these numbers, we have 3 tracks of silence that we can omit, which still leaves one missing track (101-4=98; 98/2=49). Track 1 just happens to also be full silence, and probably serves as an opening bridge or something, so that is likely the missing one.

That solves the Chapter issue, and as I started to go through merging (n)+(n+1) tracks together into the actual tracks. For all of the (n) tracks in (n)+(n+1) are 2 seconds long and every single one of them has parts of the (n+1) song usually starting around 1.00s into the chapter. I started going through Audacity and merging files into one file and another important issue cropped up... for some strange reason, Chapter 57 (part 1 of M29) and Chapter 87 (part 1 of M44) have audio artifacts in the first .25s of the track. These are not present on the mp3s from the discs.

Also, here are the major track time issues:

M1 is 5:00 on the BD (and that is *with* excluding the 2 seconds of silence from Chapter 1). it is 4:52 on the digital release.
M2~M44 are for the most part identical, only differing by +/- 0~2 seconds which can probably be attributed to just clipping out the lead silence.
M45 is 6:31 on the BD and 6:22 on the digital release. The BD has a long lead-out silence that is part of Chapter 90 for some reason, I'm assuming they clipped it out on the mp3s.

Also, the mastering quality on all of these audio tracks is terrible. If you want a blantantly obvious example, listen to the last 10-15 seconds of M2 (Stars of Tears) and listen to how bad the scratching is. I am not an audiophile but I think that means they either recorded it and didn't have enough headroom or they compressed it too much. It sounds awful.
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  #33  
Old Apr 30, 2018, 02:09 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by dancey View Post
Also, the mastering quality on all of these audio tracks is terrible. If you want a blantantly obvious example, listen to the last 10-15 seconds of M2 (Stars of Tears) and listen to how bad the scratching is. I am not an audiophile but I think that means they either recorded it and didn't have enough headroom or they compressed it too much. It sounds awful.
I'm not entirely sure what you mean here. If the scratching is what I think you're talking about, it's present in the original release too - it's just more pronounced in this release since the quality of the mastering is much higher.

Also, the scans of the booklet hasn't included the page that has the lyrics for We, the Wounded Shall Advance Into the Light, (comes just before Memories Left Behind) so I'll add that myself at some stage. I've just edited the page numbers on the current scans for now.
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  #34  
Old May 2, 2018, 12:57 AM
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That is one bizarrely authored BD... thanks Dancey for the analysis.

My two pence on the remastering is that the EQ boosts and huge level of dynamic compression make this release an obvious loudness war victim, which is a real shame as always. That said, whether the content will result in audible clipping/distortion depends very much on your equipment and will vary from system to system - I haven't heard anything nasty other than the obvious loudness. The rasping at the end of M2 is, to my ears, a feature of Spillane's low whistle playing (the instrument needed a clean!) and is more noticeable here because of the high-end EQ boost.

More positively, the extra layer of reverb that seemed to be used when mastering the original release is now gone and overall there is more separation between the different instruments in each piece. What I assume are the PSX's on-board effects like delay come through much more clearly on tracks like M6 and M43. And then there's the fact that in some cases the actual sound source is different, for better or worse, as with M31 (Shevat) as I mentioned before, and I swear there's something off about M34 too.

Any thoughts on Icy Chin as an official English track name?
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  #35  
Old May 2, 2018, 01:47 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by student41269 View Post
And then there's the fact that in some cases the actual sound source is different, for better or worse, as with M31 (Shevat) as I mentioned before, and I swear there's something off about M34 too.
Shevat's percussion is a lot softer in this release. Personally I thought the percussion was one of the most enticing bits of the piece, though in general it sounds fine when listening through headphones. I guess it gives me incentive to get the original release of the OST (well, the 2005 reprint) at some stage, though I don't see that happening for a while since I definitely want to get CREID and Myth before that.

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Any thoughts on Icy Chin as an official English track name?
Very silly but I like it because of that.
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  #36  
Old Jul 15, 2018, 02:19 AM
LiquidAcid LiquidAcid is offline
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I did the usual dynamic range and spectral analysis of this release.

Dynamic range (EBU R128):
Code:
01 Dark Dawn: replaygain_track_range=12.72 dB
02 Stars of Tears (Out take): replaygain_track_range=3.95 dB
03 Bond of Sea and Flame: replaygain_track_range=6.94 dB
04 Village Pride: replaygain_track_range=4.62 dB
05 Wind from the Valley: replaygain_track_range=7.04 dB
06 A Distant Promise: replaygain_track_range=5.04 dB
07 Premonition: replaygain_track_range=19.45 dB
08 Steel Giants: replaygain_track_range=5.38 dB
09 The Blackmoon Forest: replaygain_track_range=11.17 dB
10 Where Dreams Hatch: replaygain_track_range=8.01 dB
11 Doze (Short Version): replaygain_track_range=17.96 dB
12 Desert City Dazil: replaygain_track_range=3.36 dB
13 Adoration: replaygain_track_range=2.84 dB
14 Grahf -Ruler of Darkness-: replaygain_track_range=9.86 dB
15 Fuse: replaygain_track_range=6.75 dB
16 Dreams of the Brave: replaygain_track_range=6.73 dB
17 Intangible Treasure: replaygain_track_range=8.23 dB
18 Ancient Dance of Aveh: replaygain_track_range=4.73 dB
19 Infiltration: replaygain_track_range=7.24 dB
20 Deadly Dance: replaygain_track_range=4.68 dB
21 Dark Slumber: replaygain_track_range=8.75 dB
22 Windy Song: replaygain_track_range=3.94 dB
23 We Wounded Follow the Light: replaygain_track_range=4.21 dB
24 Lost... -Screeching Shards-: replaygain_track_range=8.12 dB
25 The Thames -Men of the Sea-: replaygain_track_range=3.83 dB
26 Blue Traveler  replaygain_track_range=5.14 dB
27 Cage of Remorse and Relief: replaygain_track_range=5.19 dB
28 Icy Chin: replaygain_track_range=11.54 dB
29 Blazing Knights: replaygain_track_range=6.46 dB
30 October Mermaid: replaygain_track_range=7.77 dB
31 Shevat -The Wind Calls-: replaygain_track_range=9.88 dB
32 With the Sky, the Clouds, and You: replaygain_track_range=5.53 dB
33 Gather Up the Night Stars: replaygain_track_range=6.82 dB
34 Earthly Tears, Mortal Thoughts: replaygain_track_range=5.01 dB
35 Soaring: replaygain_track_range=2.84 dB
36 Wings: replaygain_track_range=1.88 dB
37 Solaris -Supernal Paradise-: replaygain_track_range=6.61 dB
38 Doze (Long Version): replaygain_track_range=17.34 dB
39 Torn: replaygain_track_range=3.97 dB
40 Prayers -The Joy of Hope-: replaygain_track_range=3.34 dB
41 Foreboding: replaygain_track_range=7.58 dB
42 Awakening: replaygain_track_range=5.87 dB
43 Fangs Bared at God: replaygain_track_range=8.00 dB
44 The Beginning and the End: replaygain_track_range=11.10 dB
45 Small Two of Pieces -Screeching Shards-: replaygain_track_range=7.82 dB
46 We, the Wounded Shall Advance into the Light (Revival Version): replaygain_track_range=9.64 dB
47 Memories Left Behind (Revival Version): replaygain_track_range=9.13 dB
48 The End of Childhood (Revival Version): replaygain_track_range=9.00 dB
49 The Beginning and the End (Revival Version): replaygain_track_range=9.40 dB
I've skipped the short, jingle-like tracks (Premotion and Doze), to focus on the ones with normal lengths.

Best score goes to Dark Dawn (M-01) with 12.72 dB. Worst score goes to Wings (M-36) with 1.88 dB. As it was mentioned before, this release is another obvious victim of the loudness war. Also it doesn't even scratch the DR limits of Redbook.

Spectral analysis:
Link

Looks like a very messy upsampling job when it comes to the tracks from the original soundtrack. Clear indication that the source material that was worked with had a sampling rate of 44.1 kHz.
The four new tracks work better in that department, but even there we can see some artifacts at 30 and a bit below 40 kHz. Maybe some line interference of some sort.

So this is another poor example of a BD release. Except for the revival tracks nothing comes near Redbook limits, and in turn is lightyears away from the auditory limits of the BD.
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  #37  
Old Jul 15, 2018, 04:35 AM
LiquidAcid LiquidAcid is offline
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And for comparison, DR of remaster vs. original:
Link
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  #38  
Old Oct 19, 2019, 04:35 AM
ssri ssri is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by LiquidAcid View Post
Looks like a very messy upsampling job when it comes to the tracks from the original soundtrack. Clear indication that the source material that was worked with had a sampling rate of 44.1 kHz.
The four new tracks work better in that department, but even there we can see some artifacts at 30 and a bit below 40 kHz. Maybe some line interference of some sort.

So this is another poor example of a BD release. Except for the revival tracks nothing comes near Redbook limits, and in turn is lightyears away from the auditory limits of the BD.
No, it was not upsampling because the revival disc does not show a 22.05kHz shelf that would be indicative of such a thing. For example, please compare the track Shevat that I upsampled from the original CD release to the one on the revival disc (see imgur link below) [CLI: sox -G -S "205. Shevat- The Wind Is Calling.flac" -b 24 "./205. Shevat- The Wind Is Calling_UPSAMPLED.flac" rate -v -L 96000 dither].

https://imgur.com/a/2CNl0St

Last edited by ssri; Oct 19, 2019 at 04:48 AM.
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  #39  
Old Nov 6, 2019, 11:23 AM
LiquidAcid LiquidAcid is offline
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Not sure what you're trying to prove here. Obviously, if I use a proper resampler then, using input material with f_max < 22.05kHz, I'm not going to see any energy above f_max in the resulting output.

What's why I wrote "messy upsampling job". Infinite Wave has a nice overview of what just the choice of resampler can introduce to your spectrum. And that's just the "unwanted" part. You can just as well easily introduce fake higher frequencies by extending lower frequency components. That's e.g. already obvious on the first track. Why do I have this diffuse energy component extending up to 21 something kHz, and from then on, it's gone? And this phenomena is present in almost all of the tracks.

My opinion: Someone took the original files, resampled them to 96kHz and then applied whatever fancy filters to get us some >22kHz frequency components. Because, hey, who's going to notice anyway? But guess what, I do. In particular because I see none of this hard transitions in the last fours tracks. Coincidence? No, I don't think so...
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