Restoring The Star Fox 64 OST

I wanted to make a short video explaining a little bit of the process behind the restoration of the SF64 OST. If there's any other questions, feel free to ask here or on Twitter!
SF64 Restored OST: • Star Fox 64 Restored OST
Twitter: / armaggedun_

[@newhampguy]

looking back i just wanted to thank you again for your particular restoration and all your videos that came from it, especially this one! I tried my little heart out with NO knowledge about the vast majority of this stuff, and after (incapably) grueling over it, I was so happy to see it done for real. I remember after the files leaked, trying to look up a restored star fox 64 ost on youtube for what seemed like ages, never finding anything! But you pulled through, and you even showed exactly how you did it! Thanks, Armaggedun_!

[@kyleyentzer6881]

WOW! This is honestly so far beyond my understanding but after watching I wanted to a couple things. First; thank you for taking the time to show us how how you work your magic (that’s what it seems like to my eyes). Second; THANK YOU for this restoration and helping bring this to fans! I was lucky enough to get a copy on wax and I’m so excited to have it.

[@LSpiro]

Good work! A few notes to help you with accuracy. In Super Mario 64, which uses the same MIDI engine, the main-volume response curve is derived from (log10(X)×20), which is the standard dB linear conversion. Synthesizers (including softsynths) use the curve recommended by the MIDI standard, which is (log10(X)×40). Although I ran some tests on Star Fox 64 before, I didn’t yet know the next equation I am about to tell you, so my conclusions back then may not be correct, so I have to recheck this, but basically there is some chance that they modified their engine to be compliant with the standard or they may have left it weird like in Super Mario 64. Basically I think I would lean 60% toward them still using the old linear equation and 40% they updated. So this has to be confirmed (which I will be doing soon), but that might be a source of imbalance between the tracks. The 2nd equation I mentioned above is the velocity mapping. It’s Vel/127. Just linear. That probably maps to a 100% Vol

[@dogman15]

You are legendary for going through all the work this required to restore, especially with Koji's tracks compared to Hajime's tracks.

[@roddydykes7053]

Seeing how you had to decipher each little part, all crammed together into one track, gives me a sense of awe of how much work goes into restoring compressed soundtracks.

[@markkoetsier6475]

I wasn't expecting the process to have been as intricate as this! Especially the parts with those bonkers Koji tracks and recreating the instrument panning by ear (which, unlike what another user implied in Select Screen's comment section, _isn't_ absent. Though I suppose the post-sequence reverb is). Again, thank you for the amount of effort you put in to get this released in such a short amount of time. It's definitely appreciated and the results are pretty much flawless.

[@Aquaticdragon]

The gigaleak made my interest go from casual observation to hyper overdrive, and I am so glad you made videos about the process.

[@deimosmediagroup484]

You did an amazing work! thank a lot to restore this beautiful soundtrack!

[@supahbeebz]

Yeah this video needs WAY more views

[@newhampguy]

Thank you so much for this! I'm so glad someone was able to deal with Kondo's bullshit, hahah! I couldn't even scratch one of his MIDIs!

[@MountSec]

I guess now the songs can be translated to orchestral instruments easier

[@ericbazinga]

Ooh... That sounds fun tbh

[@CincoDeMayonnaise]

This was a very good video to watch! I don't really know a lot of music stuff and I don't play an instrument, but I've always been fascinated by Star Fox 64's soundtrack. It's truly one of my favorite video game soundtracks of all time. Thanks to your video, I'm able to use this information to make tracks in Garageband iOS, and I've had a blast recreating them. Keep up the good work!

[@ivanaviNiebla]

I can't come up with a question right now, so I'll just thank you for all this amazing work. Listening to all the tracks in HQ has been one of the highlights of this year (yeah, this hasn't been a good year, but still). Thank you.

[@maximilianoruocco5241]

Thank you for this 😍

[@wompastompa3692]

Yeah, this is a much bigger pain in the ass than I could've possibly imagined.

[@JonGon005]

If there was some way for you to get a hold of each instrument the samples are based off of and reconstruct each song with those, would you do that and create (possibly) the definitive version of the OST? Or would you rather travel back in time and tell Koji Kondo "please, for the love of God, separate your instruments into different tracks"?

[@Armaggedun_]

oh I'd definitely tell Koji Kondo to separate his instruments into different tracks. He needs to know the good ways, the less insane ways.

[@Vulto166]

Cheers from the star fox64 discord decomp server.

[@user-ko8kp6mz2u]

Between you and me, I can use the N64 Midi Tool to extract a sequence from a production ROM image to extract a properly tracked and panned midi.

[@Armaggedun_]

I didn't know that was a tool that existed! I'll definitely look into using it at some point for other things コメントありがとうがします！

[@MilanTehVillain]

What was the toughest track overall to restore from start to finish & why?

[@Armaggedun_]

Likely the Staff Roll track due to its length. With the Kondo tracks being the way they were, dissecting that entire track took something like 10-12 hours of just figuring out what goes where. There are also samples in that song that aren't used anywhere else in the OST iirc, so figuring out which ones those were took a good amount of time as well.

[@DeevDaRabbit]

Please! I NEED THE SOUND FONT!

[@chrisfratz]

If you can find stuff from the giga leak, I'm sure you can grab the soundfont from there

[@AugustoODashi]

Can you do restored all sound effects too, please?

[@theflowerking3465]

I might be missing something simple but my files are aifc,v and aiff,v and none of my programs will open them, do I need to convert them somehow to make them readable?

[@Armaggedun_]

If you're in the Discord that has a lot of information regarding the leaks, there should be a pinned message that has instructions on fixing that in #gigaleaks-general.

[@evansicaria]

Is it hard to release a flac music folder with the song's? I love them

[@Armaggedun_]

There is a download in the information doc located in the description of every video in the Restored OST.