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SWTOR Music Suite


SilentWave

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http://www.blazingmusic.net/music/audio/lucas_arts/swtor/

 

Dear Fellow SWTOR Fans,

 

As a professional musician, I spent many hours over a period of 3 days compositing a musical arrangement of 42 of my favorite musical selections from the music of SWTOR. First, I obtained .ogg sound files from the game, then I converted them to .wav files, then I organized them by their starting and ending keys and styles by placing each in an appropriately-named folder, then I listened to them all very carefully again and arranged them in color-coded folders using a double-coloring method (Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Purple, Gray, used both for each folder and for each sequential set of these colored folders, so Red Red, Red Orange... Red Gray, then Orange Red, Orange Orange... and so on, until Gray Gray, but if you do the math, I didn't quite get that far). After I determined the best order for each sound file in the suite, I moved each wav file into a numbered folder, sorted 0 to 41. Then, I edited each wav sound using Amadeus Pro (a mac sound editing application), mostly using crossfades to align the sounds similarly to how I had envisioned them during the color-coding organization process. The result? I give you, SilentWave's SWTOR Suite:

 

MP3 version (44.3 MB): http://www.halodemomods.com/sparkys_secret_files/swtor_suite.mp3

WAV version (401 MB): http://www.halodemomods.com/sparkys_secret_files/swtor_suite.wav

 

I already shared this with Customer Support a few weeks ago but did not hear back. If what I did is frowned-upon, I understand deleting this topic. As I mentioned in my message to Customer Support, I hope this suite is useful to BioWare or LucasArts. In particular, I would like to recommend it used as the game-loading music, but it being useful in other ways would be just as nice. And certainly they could do a better job than I could. Since it does involve working with the game's music, if anyone from BioWare is interested in which particular music files I used, here is the list, but these would of course still be in .ogg format rather than in .wav format:

 

66FCAED0_DFC4E173D0A5A224.wav
88216AB2_E1A3F458BD4449F9.wav
895A7BA0_EE4F739BE1569C89.wav
4DFDB2EB_6C29DBDE3B5323C4.wav
C5C88968_8B42C1745FAC72ED.wav
C06FE471_5816ADF161121479.wav
7064A0B0_012BB054C52E4063.wav
7A6F7466_F6D452F521031724.wav
7EF939C0_78B15A4F4BE94C56.wav
5D760F1C_76EBE586650DFC5B.wav
E7DBF01A_5F52293CC2037C85.wav
8C7F1C8E_DF885F70E766101F.wav
0400BDEA_535667E77D7E7F95.wav
0535C379_91A98A3F2A6D9717.wav
42F02648_9140ACAAB8D782F3.wav
AA646423_98D698FF839E24D1.wav
02714B94_F8219B3B596D3C98.wav
A9E33813_46F7CB914094580A.wav
72386A0F_010AF7127DBD1FC2.wav
489460F1_F3978720510738D5.wav
A64A15D6_871C4E522601B821.wav
1F6A91F1_02456C4A21F1B88F.wav
45E495AC_F32439BD55795B81.wav
5F976C99_5F769A7476BEB653.wav
41FC8529_120C92816A675B35.wav
A53F5A09_7C24AD6C16C8CFED.wav
FEF449E2_231DA92E633F7AE8.wav
1CDAFA7B_51D7950F73349B6C.wav
08A6E304_FCE527416B577742.wav
D1340F01_02A535C5CDF1153F.wav
2D36ED72_EFBA479AA1E78F20.wav
BF66406C_3F882D271F5CE6CB.wav
2F5DECC0_719EFE33F61FCB1F.wav
3AA7FC5A_99E69CAD0FD12D04.wav
DD3FC516_7858F3FE2EDA5B90.wav
50E00AC7_81313452BA121C5E.wav
BBB93700_89DE4B7B8D7AA70B.wav
1BF8C830_7DE621888B33D9A4.wav
A7DCA115_49FD89D465AA1007.wav
93EE24B1_7A2F142C7CD4B57D.wav
F254B33A_98B81D181DDDE9E4.wav
13A1357D_00E1C55A86C9C298.wav

 

Since it is probably not obvious to just anyone reading this topic, I will assert that it is generally a bad idea to even go messing with the game data... that list of filenames is only meant for the sound engineers at BioWare, and for the rest of us fans, again, don't go messing with the game files. Even exploring the game files would -- in your mind -- change the game experience in a way that makes it no longer enjoyable, take my word for it. I'm known for modding other games and in other games it can be fun, but not with SWTOR. And besides, you'll notice I didn't mod or hack anything, so even discussions of that sort would be off-topic, so I'm saying just don't go there in replies to this topic. OK, I think I made my point.

 

Anyway, enjoy the suite, and of course all credit goes to those who did the real work here, not myself (even though this does reflect upon my musical expertise and took several days).

Edited by SilentWave
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The music is organized programmatically, as in telling a story. The duration is just under 40 minutes, which means it is suitable for a television episode. This reminds me that a guild member mentioned how they thought LucasArts should do a TV series with animation quality the same as the class introductory movies at the start of SWTOR. Perhaps this suite could be used for one such episode?
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Nice.

 

I'm listening to it as we speak. Very nice arrangement.

 

I actually had planned on converting those files myself, but I had heard from multiple sources that it was illegal, so I didn't wanna take my chances

 

But I downloaded your suite before they had the chance to possibly take it down :p

 

Kudos.

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Thanks!

 

As I understand it, in SWTOR, which uses .ogg files, each music track has a strategically-placed marker in it which lets the game determine when exactly to loop that sound file or queue the next track. That's how the game does its playlists, and that's why I mentioned the list of music file names for the BioWare sound engineers to reference (of course, the filenames are encrypted, but they'll know what I'm talking about). As for me with this suite, the main method of going from one track to the next was by using a crossfade. I had some other adjustments to add along the way, but I kept those to a minimum as I could.

 

Also, about the programmatic theme, I envision it like this: you have the opening few selections which depict the typical starwars introduction with its main starwars theme. After the starwars theme, you have a calm selection which shows the Republic planets like Coruscant at peace. After this is a dramatic transition where a chaotic event occurs, such as explosions or some jedi turning to the dark side or along those lines. The first militaristic selection right after that is the Republic armies preparing for war. The next one, introduced by horns, is the respective Republic Fleets preparing for war. When you get the "washy" selections, those depict space travel, most notably of our protagonist heroes, which go on ahead of the fleet. At about 11 minutes 25 seconds into it, you get a skirmish with the Imperial Fleet, and then at around 13 minutes, the perspective switches to the Imperial fleet, and the storyline continues with epic battles through to the finish, where as usual the Republic side wins and there is the traditional ceremony.

 

My favorite transition is from the Sith empire to the heroic moment at 14:48.

 

You'll notice how the first two selections are the first two selections in the game startup; I tried to align them as similarly to each other as they are in the game.

 

I waited two weeks before posting it here in case Customer Support had anything to say in reply to my sending it to them.

Edited by SilentWave
about the programmatic theme
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So i listened to it all the way through, but only just now have had the time to reply.

 

First off I would just like to thank you for putting this arrangement together and that it was VERY well done.

 

My only "complaint" for lack of a better word..perhaps critique would be a better word?..was that there was none of the romance music in there. And while it might be argued that this arrangement did not call for any such music, I personally would have enjoyed the 6 minutes of romance music that was put together on Youtube awhile ago (that was for some reason taken down). But again, that is my own personal opinion that I would have liked to have heard it somewhere in that arrangement.

 

On that subject..does anyone happen to know the songs that were used in the romance sections of SWTOR? I know all they used were different "romance" songs from the movies..but I only remember two of the songs they used:

 

Yoda and the Younglings

Anakin and Padme

 

are the two that I know of..can anyone post on here the other songs used? I would be most thankful

 

on topic, just to reiterate..phenomenal arrangement, and very well put together, and I can't thank you enough for publicly sharing it. It immediately went on my ipod and I will listen to it often.

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I only chose the particular ones that inspired me to start this project in the first place: especially the trumpet part in the selection heard at 37:28 in this suite, and some of the later operations and flashpoint music. That trumpet part I heard first as the shuttle music for the republic shuttle to The False Emperor flashpoint, where you start inside the Imperial hangar area, and I said to myself, "I've got to record that or get a hold of that transition music!"

 

I'll listen to some of the "romance" music, as it seems to be called, and maybe put together a suite for those selections also. I'm not familiar with any musical compilations on YouTube except that one machinima that was posted recently here.

Edited by SilentWave
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The CD of this was the reason I tried to get the CE of this game, unfortunately where live, the CE was sold out on the first day, and Amazon.com will not ship this product to Canada.

 

The CE on the Amazon.ca is still over 100$ and I won't pay that just for the CD. I wish they put it up on iTunes.

 

EDIT: That said, the music in this game, all the original stuff is really quite beautiful. One of my favourite parts of the game.

Edited by LeonBraun
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Xaldynn -- I don't know what you mean by "romance music", but I'm taking my best guesses and I'm about halfway through auditioning the music presently. Do you consider the Coruscant planetary theme "romance music", or are you looking for more solo instrumental performances of melodies over harp and strings, for example?

 

_biddan_ -- You can simply right-click the links to show the menu that would let you download them to your computer. Choose whichever suits you better, the smaller MP3 file of lesser quality, or the large WAV file of greater quality.

 

LeonBraun -- Over $100 for a CD is crazy. I hope you enjoy the arrangement(s) I edit more than any CD of the music.

 

There is a handful of variety in themes, so I'm considering doing four more arrangements, one for the Star Wars Republic themes, one for the Star Wars Imperial themes, one for the Sith Empire themes, and one for the Old Republic themes. There is some overlap here which allows for smoother transitions for potential story lines. This is rather fun to do, even though it takes many hours, and so if anyone would like to share with me a storyline for their SWTOR machinima, I'd be happy to put together an arrangement.

 

For machinimas, I would need the following information:

 

- The setting of each scene

- The duration of each scene

- Any notable transitions

- The duration of the machinima

- The overall direction in the plot line

 

With that information, I could arrange some suitable background music. Alternatively, send me a link to the entire unaccompanied video recording and I can edit the music to fit the SWTOR machinima.

 

For obvious reasons, we should only be doing this with SWTOR machinima videos, not with other Star Wars videos.

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Alright, so of 95 tracks I consider "emotional" and possibly "romantic", I'm separating them into "definite romance music", "lighthearted" and "emotional". I'll work with the few that I consider strongly romantic or lighthearted, and since no real specifics were given, you might disagree.

 

As broad descriptors:

 

- the "romantic" music is string melodies with harp accompaniment or slow melodies;

- the "emotional" music is slow with resolving dissonance or has a minor melody played among the violins, celli and string basses;

- the "lighthearted" music has flute melodies over harp or violin accompaniment

 

So this will be a lot of string and woodwind music...

 

OK so I've got 43 Romantic, 40 Emotional, and 10 Lighthearted tracks. That's 93 total, because two tracks I reconsidered and didn't categorize for this task.

 

Most of the music, which consists of 1,140 tracks, is ambient. The occasional selection that has a recognizable tempo is a great relief from the rest while reviewing/auditioning the tracks.

 

Anyway, I'll throw together three separate versions, one Romantic Suite, one Emotional Suite and one Lighthearted Suite.

Edited by SilentWave
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Xaldynn -- I don't know what you mean by "romance music", but I'm taking my best guesses and I'm about halfway through auditioning the music presently. Do you consider the Coruscant planetary theme "romance music", or are you looking for more solo instrumental performances of melodies over harp and strings, for example?

 

I apologize for taking so long to reply. I spent most of my day yesterday with my family for Easter, and blanked out on remembering to reply.

 

When I say "romance music" from the game, its the music that always plays during cutscenes with your romanceable companion in game, if that makes sense.

 

There was someone on Youtube a while ago who basically just posted up all the music from SWTOR, but I'm guessing he got in trouble for it, and they took down all the songs that weren't already available for free by Bioware when they gave away the mp3's for some of the tracks before, and right after, the release of the game, so I am unable to find the tracks anymore, and, in my lethargy, I didn't write down the titles of the songs they used for said "romance music"

 

The only thing I remember was comments on that Youtube video saying that all they did was use tracks from the Star Wars movies to make up the romance music played during companion cutscenes you were trying to romance.

 

Hope this helped clarify a bit of what I was looking for, and any further questions directed at me will be answered much quicker, I promise.

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To whoever mentioned whether or not this was allowed, as long as you did not have to break any encryption in the .oog files then it should be OK. That is generally the only bit of the DMCA that they get people for.

 

I am really glad you did this! I love the music from this game. Would be nice to just have all of the music files straight pulled and converted to .mp3... just saying... While I like your arrangements, I would prefer the pure soundtracks in their unedited form. Just me though.

 

Thank you for the work!

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There are 1,140 music files, which means about 10 GB of .wav files, most of which you would not be interested in hearing, anyway, since they are mostly ambient background music pieces.

 

I put together one arrangement of the "lighthearted" selections I mentioned, and here are the two audio file formats again from that one category, as I understood it:

 

SWTOR Lighthearted Suite:

MP3 (7.2 MB): http://www.halodemomods.com/sparkys_secret_files/swtor_lighthearted_suite.mp3

WAV (68.2 MB): http://www.halodemomods.com/sparkys_secret_files/swtor_lighthearted_suite.wav

 

I might rearrange these with the other 93 emotional-romantic selections, but that would be much longer. This particular suite only took about 4-5 hours between the auditioning/selection process to posting this message. I chose the easiest of the three emotional suites to do first :D

 

Of all the suites I would arrange, this is by far the easiest to listen to.

 

I'm thinking of attempting a symphonic arrangement rather than a suite, and I've got a few tracks already that would start the symphony.

 

With this lighthearted suite, you may think some of the transitions are out of tempo or mis-queued, but if you listen closely, you'll hear that they are right where they should be. However, it does end unresolved. That is why I am considering combining it with the other emotional suites.

 

For the BioWare sound engineers, here are the selections in this SWTOR Lighthearted Suite:

7B710488_97E038E844EBB16F.wav
6CCCFA2A_D27815BC69E48C80.wav
99C2F88F_49AC32AF9AF64D1A.wav
0975D77A_6485F072C7707554.wav
7F7C9DB9_0C1A4A7D48E08F9F.wav
54330804_3D74147CDA2104C8.wav
4B040714_487ADF19B1E0DAB1.wav
D79EA371_AC9A8550EDBB27A9.wav
2EDD9DB3_B3C4F5E7ECE3BCE6.wav
21A31947_E95D1D231B8788FD.wav

Edited by SilentWave
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Ooo! The next suite!

 

As I said, I am QUITE fond of the first suite (as a matter of fact I listened to it AGAIN on the drive to work), so I will promptly listen to this suite and tell you what I think. I have high hopes for it :)

 

Reply will follow shortly on my thoughts.

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I thoroughly enjoyed this suite, and it was CLOSE to what I was looking for. I eagerly await your "romance" suite, it surely must be exactly what I'm looking for.

 

And actually

 

The last minute of that Light Hearted Suite (minute 5:45 - minute 6:35) contained EXACTLY the two songs in the romance music I was talking about, which are titled "Yoda and the Younglings" and "Anakin and Padme".

 

Very nice second suite, and I EAGERLY await the romance suite you have planned :)

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In the Lighthearted Suite, my favorite moment is the harp playing the low-six chord (from e minor to C major) at 5:38, so in general, the passage between 5:34 and 5:44.

 

I'll throw that romance suite in the wash, but I think I'd more enjoy the emotional one first.

 

This is the excerpt I like the most: http://www.blazingmusic.net/media/public/swtor_music/excerpt.wav

Edited by SilentWave
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In the Lighthearted Suite, my favorite moment is the harp playing the low-six chord (from e minor to C major) at 5:38, so in general, the passage between 5:34 and 5:44.

 

I'll throw that romance suite in the wash, but I think I'd more enjoy the emotional one first.

 

This is the excerpt I like the most: http://www.blazingmusic.net/media/public/swtor_music/excerpt.wav

 

its funny actually..i like the excerpt right AFTER the one you linked..the flute part that follows lol. That's part of the musical piece "Anakin and Padme" from Ep. 2

 

I look forward to your next suite good sir. whatever the theme may be (emotional, romance, etc) I have enjoyed them immensely thusfar

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I'm working on the Emotional Suite now, and I realized just now from checking with a tuner how most (EDIT: not most, but at least some) of the music in SWTOR is flat by about a quarter-tone from standard intonation, and this is why I have had such problems trying to apply labels for keys -- it's throwing me off, so I keep needing to check with one I've labeled A instead of G#, for example. Edited by SilentWave
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Star Wars has some great music...a lot not even part of the game. Hope they bring more into it. With 3 new movies I'm sure there John William's or prodigy is working on more. Bounty Hunter's pursuit, beginning music from battle over coruscant (start of part 3 I believe with the drums), throne room theme, etc. Not sure if there's some copyright issue or what, but there could be more. Great music adds a lot to the moment / experience.

 

Example below. Much better music selection when the fight gets going than most of the other storylines. Not sure what it's called.

 

 

Hope they keep adding the good stuff!

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I recognized the one or two introductory tracks, followed by what sounded like a standard boss fight playlist or loop. You'll recognize the "militaristic" section where the trumpets have the "old republic army" melody in the low register, because it is also included with the swtor_suite at some point, I think.

 

I'm done naming the 40 Emotional Suite tracks, the stage where I place each track inside a folder and name the folder based upon its starting and ending keys and other details. Now is the color-coding stage, where I determine the order for each track.

Edited by SilentWave
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I'm done naming the 40 Emotional Suite tracks, the stage where I place each track inside a folder and name the folder based upon its starting and ending keys and other details. Now is the color-coding stage, where I determine the order for each track.

 

Can't wait to hear it :)

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OK this is ... freaking amazingly intense all the way through.

 

Here is the storyline, The Legend of Anakin:

A young and impetuous jedi, Anakin, goes to confront a sith lord nemesis of the Jedi Order. With much ado, he leaves his beloved Padme and ventures off into hyperspace. While there, he receives a message saying that his beloved Padme has suddenly died. Beside himself with emotion, he hurries back and sees her funeral. But the Jedi Council is not pleased with his sudden return, and they warn him against returning to his mission. Anakin learns that a bounty hunter spy for the sith lord he was ordered to kill was the one who killed his beloved Padme. His overwhelming sorrow clouds his judgement as he wrestles with the memory of her funeral and his anger towards the sith lord. He secretly sneaks to his ship and speeds off to avenge Padme. By the time his anger has slaughtered thousands, he is left in limbo, finding that he has disastrously turned to the dark side. His future is now woeful, and his sorrow brimfull.

 

...music forthcoming... I actually put this together in reverse order, starting with Gray-Gray and going up to Yellow-Gray, then going in forward order from Red-Red, so I purposefully chose the ending and starting selections.

Edited by SilentWave
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