Ive emailed you what I think you need

Ah, thanks but those are the ones I already have, the MUSIC1 etc files.

I think the older copies of the game come with music tracks... New ones such as gold editions (like the one I have) come with MIDIs, which really turn into crap after you alt-tab out of the game and back. It also plays weird on different systems.

The game music plays differently with the cd in and out, so maybe if you looked upon the AoE cd as if it were a music CD you could rip the original tracks from it?

My guess is, that doesn't work with newer discs. I've tried it on my AoE Gold CD, but it doesn't work. There just isn't any track to rip. All the tracks being used in-game are from the MIDI files.

Quote:

lol, I'm pretty sure that bug is system-specific (i.e works this way only on your computer and maybe on a few similar PC-s).

This was discussed in some other thread. The regular separate AoE and RoR contain audio tracks, with track1 containing all the game data, and all other tracks being regular audio tracks (funny thing is, if you insert the disk into a regular audio-CD-only player, like a walkman or sth, it tries to interpret track 1 as a regular audio track, which results in HORRIBLE noise).

The separate versions also contain music in MIDI format (which takes up VERY little space), I believe it's for playing multiplayer with only one CD as 1 CD supports a total of 4 (?) players in MP; then the one with the CD in his CD-ROM drive gets the audio and others have to put up with MIDI.

However, Gold edition is on only one CD, and does not contain any audio whatsoever. The music simply wouldn't fit on one CD in audio format as audio format eats up quite a lot of disk space. Therefore only the music in MIDI format remains (those are the files you found). The bad thing is, MIDI music inevitably sounds pretty poor.

I can't imagine why they stuffed Gold version on only 1 CD. That decision basically sent all the music down the drain.

[This message has been edited by Vantek (edited 08-21-2006 @ 04:49 AM).]

So, there's no big change I can get the original music back? No one can send it or something..?

I'm not sure you can. Perhaps you could try playing without the music? *shrug*

That's what I've been doing for years because I used to find it boring and repetitive.

If you have a media player, you can listen to your own music over the top of the game while you play. That might be a better option.

Heh yeah I was hoping to do what with the original music. I used to do that with SimCity 3000, lol. But unlike SC3, you can't download the music off the website

Ah well.

Ironically I like AoE2 music MUCH better in MIDI format (IIRC, they only had MIDI in the demo).

About AoE and RoR I guess I will never know

EDIT: Damn, I just downloaded the demo to check them out, but it seems on this computer they play much worse than on the one I listened to them originally

But still audio format isn't much better.

[This message has been edited by Vantek (edited 09-03-2006 @ 07:34 AM).]

I think there is a tab in the Audio Options on most computers where you can change the thingy that reads midi files. Perhaps theres a difference in how they sound if read through different interpretting hard/software?

Its 12:34 am here and im busy studying for some exams so I don't exactly have enough time to test for myself.

Yes, I know of that option. With the wrong one they are absolutely unbearable. But they're not too good with the right one either.

I remember there was a plugin in Winamp, where there was one more option - I think that sounded the best. But now I can't find that plugin

EDIT: just as a note, the option which is "wrong" for AoE and AoE2 midis (I think it's type is "SoftSynth") is "right" for some of the older games' music, such as XCOM (and sounds pretty good there, actually).

[This message has been edited by Vantek (edited 09-04-2006 @ 01:03 PM).]

What option are you all talking about?...

I've got mine set to "Microsoft GS Wavetable SW Synth" which at least on mine sounds closest to the CD audio versions of the music.

Oh, I found it in Control Panel... Changed it and now the AoE MIDIs sound 'normal' like they did on my old PC.

*edit* Oh great, now all of my old MIDIs sound great too! This is really good stuff...

[This message has been edited by Duan Xuan (edited 09-05-2006 @ 05:36 AM).]

Hi guys. I have the original AoE music, not the MIDI crap. If anyone wants it, please email me.

As far as making the original music play during the Gold Edition game, my guess is that you would have to rename the WAV files with the same names that the MIDI has? Just a guess.

You can't. The game reads the files as MIDI files, and you can't just rename a .wav file into a .mid file.

Duan Xuan's right.

I figure the only way would be to write an Audio CD with the music, and after running the game program replace the game CD with the Audio CD (IIRC, with AoE/RoR you can remove the game CD after running the game program, you can't do this with some games).

By the way, if I'm correct about this working, you can make the game play music from any Audio CD. This way you can listen to your favourite tracks during play, whatever they might be.

Notice that, IIRC, the game always skips Track 1 (as on the game CD Track 1 contains all the data, which would result in horrible noise if it was interpreted as Audio).