Ambrosia Software Web Board: Cythera's Music - Ambrosia Software Web Board

Update: Cythera's music has now been made available for download in its entirety. Just go to the Cythera Add-ons page and you will find a three-part download containing the music. Many thanks to whoever put it on the add-ons page so promptly!

Again, I'd like to say that I believe the music should be available to everyone freely, and I hope that it is not taken down. However, if Glenn Andreas or Ambrosia SW say that we have to take it down, then we will do so. I don't want to cause anyone any trouble.

I was just reading through some older topics that discuss Cythera's music, and it looks as though several users would like to be able to download Cythera's music.

My one concern is that uploading the music may be legally questionable, but I'm wondering if it really would be. No one is making any money off of it because it's not being sold anywhere. And several other games, such as Harry the Handsome Executive and Ares, have made excellent use of their Add-ons section by uploading the music. Ambrosia even released a music package once that made much of the music from several of their games freely available via download. That means that nearly all of the music from every Ambrosia game can be obtained easily and freely, except for Cythera.

I personally believe that Cythera's music should be freely available as well. It wouldn't be too hard to record the music from the game and re-encode it into such formats as MP3 or AAC.

So, unless Glenn Andreas or Ambrosia Software have some sort of problem with doing this, I'm wondering if anybody wants to see the Cythera music recorded and uploaded to our Add-ons page.

This post has been edited by The Wizard: 24 August 2008 - 11:03 PM

If its up in mp4(are we up to mp4? I remember hearing something about it) or mp3 format. I would love to get some of the music... mainly the
music from when you start up the game and is playing in the main menu

Yes, the main menu music is one of my favorite tracks from Cythera as well. I occasionally find myself humming it, which is why I think it'd be nice if we could all download it and enjoy it in our iTunes libraries.

Regarding format, I'm open to any format that people want. MP3 is still more commonly used than other formats, but AAC, which is the audio codec of MPEG-4 I think, is far more superior and is my preference.

AAC is an implementation of the MPEG-4 standard. You may have seen the extension '.m4a' as iTunes stores it in an MPEG-4 Audio container. I think that sufficiently recent versions of iTunes are in wide enough use that you would be fairly safe to distribute AAC audio in preference over MP3 (it's better compressed).

Your other option would be FLAC, which would allow users to re-encode it to whichever format they wished without loss of quality. You would probably still want to distribute AAC or MP3 versions, as FLAC is really only suitable for such chronic audiophiles.

This post has been edited by Pallas Athene: 01 April 2008 - 10:00 PM

I've recently been modding some mp3's into Ferazel Format useing sound sampler and ResEdit. I'd be happy to do the same with the cythera files it's just... how?

Also, it's fine to post up the music.

Two Jacks, on Apr 1 2008, 10:31 PM, said:

If you mean you're wondering how we can get the Cythera music in the first place, that's not a problem at all. WireTap can be used to record the audio as it plays in the game.

The one problem is that I see no way to get the original files. The format Cythera uses for it's music is MIDI, I believe, but I know of no way to extract it directly from the data. Oh well, a re-recording is just as good, considering that MIDIs are usually just a bunch of bleeps and bloops, the quality shouldn't take too much of a hit.

Usually I don't double post, but I just found something really interesting that I have never run across before. While I was doing a google search on Randy Pringle, the composer of Cythera's music, I ran across a little easter egg for everyone:
http://www.gamedevelopment.com/features/so...97/ambrosia.htm

That is an article that Randy Pringle wrote back in 1997 telling about his experiences as he composed music for Cythera. Apparently, Cythera's music was his first real composing job and his first step into the game music genre. It also features a nice layout of all the music in the game that should help in any project to record the music, as well as featuring a couple of MIDIs from the game to whet your appetite. The Underground theme he linked to is heard often in the game, but that "City of Mystery" theme I don't believe I've ever heard in the game. Perhaps it should be included in a package of Cythera music as a bonus track? Interesting things to discuss. . .

Very nice find Wizard! The songs at the end of the article sound almost remixed, but they might just be the higher quality versions he was talking about. Mystery City was never in the game, I know it. (Maybe at the Tree of Life though..)

An e-mail to him might actually be benificial. He might dig up the high quallity versions of all the songs in the game that were never heard do to issues with the game. Who knows, maybe more. (Bonus tracks like Mystery City?)

If an e-mail gets no response then diving into the game for extraction is probally are best bet, though maybe Selax would know how to extract the musical data?

Personally, I'd like to have the Cythera music in MIDI format.

I'm a chronic audiophile, and I want the music up there. I miss the themes.

Primarily, I'm waiting on this project because I was waiting to get an OK from either Ambrosia SW or Glenn Andreas. I want to be sure not to infringe on any person's or companies' legal ownership.

About an email to Randy Pringle, it's certainly an idea worth considering. I'd be curious just to see if he still remembers his work on Cythera's music.

If it's going, I'd like it a lot. I have the music to all my favourite games except Cythera, so it would be nice to add it to my collection. *hinthint*

Hm. CrazyChick, I'm interested to hear what games you have the music from.

Myst, Exile and Pillars of Garendall. Not Riven, though, sadly, but I'm hoping to get that rectified soon.

Not bad, I'll share mine:

Rock Raiders (best game soundtrack ever)
Pro Pinball Fantastic Journey
Final Fantasy 7
Final Fantasy 8
Final Fantasy 10
Final Fantasy Tactics (you'll see alot of this in my level set)
Myst
Myst 4
Myst 5
I'm OK
Cythera (not complete sadly)
Gooball (also not complete)
DDR Extreme
Cave Story
Tetris
Kingdom Hearts
Chrono Cross
Super Mario Land
Super Mario Land 2: Six Golden Coins
Pokemon (some)
Ikaruga
Sketch Fighter
Gate 88 (Pretty good for a freeware mac game)
Halo
Nanosaur 2
Ares (FULL! Do-do song rules!)
Spyro the Dragon

Yup that's it.

Myst 5?? Why have I not heard of this?
Oh, and I've also got some of the Kingdom Hearts music, but not very much at all, sadly.

This post has been edited by CrazyChick: 19 April 2008 - 01:35 AM

It's probably silly for me to post this, but we've had one track up on the add-ons page for a while:
http://www.ambrosiasw.com/cgi-bin/vftp/dl-...tairWay.sit.hqx

As I recall it was difficult to find some way to get to the music. Great find, though.

Quote

Ah! Game soundtrack collectors after my own heart. . .

Firebird, on Apr 19 2008, 09:17 AM, said:

I do have Stairway on my computer, but having only one track from about a total of eleven just leaves me longing for more .

The difficulty in getting Cythera's music is that the data is encrypted, so we can't extract it out of the data. It can only be recorded directly from the game.

I've only just realised... I have more posts than Wizard... Took me a while to notice...
I have all the POG soundtracks.

CrazyChick, on Apr 20 2008, 01:54 AM, said:

I'm a little bit behind for someone who joined four years ago. . .

Upon request, I'll list my collection of game music:
Aki
Ares
Bubble Trouble
Mars Rising
Deimos Rising
Escape Velocity
Escape Velocity: Override
Escape Velocity: Nova
Ferazel's Wand
Harry the Handsome Executive
Pop-pop
Sithereens
Descent
Descent II
Descent 3
Diablo
Diablo: Hellfire (It's an unofficial expansion, but it completed my collection, so I had to get it;) )
Diablo 2
Diablo 2: Lord of Destruction
Nanosaur
Nanosaur 2
Star Control
Star Control II (Original)
Star Control II (3DO version)
Star Control II (Precursor Remixes for Ur-Quan Masters)
SuperTux: Milestone 1
SuperTux: Milestone 2
Warcraft: Orcs and Humans
Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness
Warcraft II: Beyond the Dark Portal
Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos
Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne
World of Warcraft
Battle for Wesnoth
Clue (Computer Game)
Master of Orion II
Power Pete
Starcraft
Starcraft: Brood War
And, of course, soon to be Cythera. Pending approval.

I see that my list lacks the variety of some others. Most of my music is strictly limited to computer games. Generally, I hear just one or two tracks that I really like, but decide to gather all of the game music in order to have a complete collection of that game and it's sequels. On average, though, I usually spend more time listening to movie soundtracks than game soundtracks, even though some games have fantastic soundtracks! In fact, I still need to get the music from Freespace. . .

But enough about other game music, I don't want to derail this topic completely.
I'm still very anxious to do this project and provide everyone with free Cythera music, but I'm waiting for approval from Ambrosia.

This post has been edited by The Wizard: 20 April 2008 - 04:43 PM

Methinks I already recorded a few…I'll go check the library—yeah okay, Menu, Cademia, Cythera (outside), and Kosha (and of course StairWay, but that was downloaded—duh).

Wasn't the menu music on the add-ons page (along with StairWay) a looooong time ago? Just if anyone downloaded it…

I could count the games I have music from but personally I think that would be a waste of time…something I don't have a whole lot of right now.

Still no word on this project from Ambrosia. . .

Bah, I don't think any of them even view the Cythera forum.

Did you PM Magnus? Try PMing again.

Selax had sent a PM to Magnus a long time ago, but after he didn't seem to notice that, I decided to email him. His last reply to me was about a month ago, at which time he said he was waiting for word from "the powers that be." I assume he's referring to Andrew.

However, I've been considering sending him a reminder email, but I'm waiting a little longer to avoid being a nuisance.