Unreal: Original Soundtrack - Complete & Extended

Composed by Alexander Brandon and Michiel van den Bos, the soundtrack to Unreal is arguably one of the greatest game soundtracks ever; as uplifting as it is exciting, it helped to bring the magical world of Na Pali alive as much as the then fledgling Unreal engine did. Composed entirely on a tracker program, the sometimes crunchy lo-fi samples are all part of the charm. This is the complete soundtrack, edited and extended by myself. Hope you enjoy it.
The complete soundtrack for the expansion pack, Return to Na Pali, can be found here: -
• Unreal Return to Na Pa...
The sort-of-vaguely-legalish-bit: I do not own the copyright in these compositions. It is presented as a non-profit ‘fan edit’ of the original recording for the enjoyment of fans of the game, and as a demonstration of how I think a soundtrack album should be edited together. If you don’t own the game, I urge you to go and buy it, it’s still worth a play even after all these years. If you are the copyright owner and would like this taken down, please contact me and I will do so. Thanks.
Track list: -
1-1 Intro - Flightcastle 0:00
1-2 Vortex Rikers 0:51
1-3 Dusk Horizon 3:10
1-4 Encounter 5:42
1-5 Dig 7:39
1-6 Chizra 13:54
1-7 Ceremonial Chambers 17:53
1-8 Dark Arena 21:46
1-9 Harobed Village 26:01
1-10 Confrontation 29:51
1-11 Terraniux 31:13
1-12 Noork’s Elbow 35:30
1-13 Ruins 42:01
1-14 The Trench 48:16
1-15 ISV-KRAN 55:19
1-16 Sunspire 1:05:48
2-1 Surfacing 1:14:27
2-2 Skytown 1:19:55
2-3 Ambush 1:24:49
2-4 Isotoxin 1:26:31
2-5 Guardian 1:30:42
2-6 Bluff Eversmoking 1:32:28
2-7 Cellars of Dasa 1:40:14
2-8 Wargate 1:46:28
2-9 Warlord 1:53:27
2-10 Crater 1:55:56
2-11 Erosion 2:02:05
2-12 The Source 2:09:21
2-13 Queen of Death 2:12:10
2-14 Ending 2:18:12
Bonus Tracks
2-15 ALF 2:22:57
2-16 Unreal 2:25:17

[@j7ndominica051]

I like the idea of using _long fades_. In the last decade people and professionals seem to have developed an aversion to silence and make one song step onto another or do a shortish fade just to not have a glitch. But occasionally they seem a tad too long for the _continuity_. Some _subsongs_ aren't sequenced like they are in the game: "Bluff Eversmoking" has a glitchy end where the underground section should begin, which fades out before it has finished. "Terraniux" has some slow segment in the middle between main part and 'hardcore' (last waste section). The formats are at times difficult to read, and at song boundaries sometimes the wrong _speed_ or panning sticks. I had some difficulty converting "Foundry", which most(!) people have uploaded very slowed down, and not seen there is a problem. And the connecting segment has some voices with an echo that is panned to far right - and left it there after the channels get repurposed... And then we may get kick drum panned hard. I will put up my version of the sound track in the following days. I would not make a song that gradually develops into pumping uptempo climax loop back to its beginning, but fade it while it is "high" and make it lead into the following segment with a somewhat shorter fade (example, Harobed over to Terraniux). The _reverb_ seems overdone to me. It is all the same on every track. I suspect that almost nobody will "recognize" these versions, because they differ quite a bit from the dry sound in game, and maybe why you don't get likes. KZbin's lossy compression has muddied the mix further. Use 720p next time.

[@ripace554]

Hi, first of all thanks for taking the time to make such a long comment with some constructive remarks. To answer your points: - Reverb - yes, I think I agree with you on this one. I did the rip and editing of this soundtrack about 14 years ago (hard to believe it was so long ago!) and I added the reverb a couple of years ago as an experiment to see how the soundtrack sounded with a bit more ‘wetness’. I was never quite sure about it and I think you’ve confirmed my doubts. I still have the original version of my edits without the reverb and I think I’ll maybe upload those and take the reverb ones down. I think it’s more lack of views that’s my problem than lack of likes though - I think most of the views on this were me listening to it while I was working :-) Sound quality - again I agree. I uploaded this before I’d got properly to grips with KZbin and video formats. Again, if I re-upload I’ll go for the HD formats. Long fades - I agree with you that the long fade has died a death somewhat these days, no doubt going the same way as dynamic range as music producers cater to the perceived needs of the iPod generation, who apparently want to deafen themselves with brickwalled remasters with the volume cranked up to 12. Personally (though I love a good segue when it’s used appropriately) I love a long fade (as you can tell) and think they can be very dramatic when used well, especially on soundtracks. As to the length of the fades, I guess that’s down to personal taste. Personally I think they’re okay on this. It seems daft after a ten minute epic like ISV-KRAN to fade out in five seconds. ISV-KRAN has by far the longest fade, but this was a deliberate choice, reflecting the epic battle through the spaceship, wondering if you’ll ever actually get out of there… I actually think the long fades help the continuity, giving the impression of leaving one area and entering another. I try to place fades on something interesting wherever possible, so even as it’s fading out you’re wanting to listen to what’s there… like the end to Bluff Eversmoking. Which I think works very well. And which leads me onto… Sub-songs out of order - yes, some of them are, and deliberately so. I placed them in the order that I felt made best musical sense rather than slavishly following the game, though I did follow the level order overall. I wanted to create a stand-alone listening experience that was faithful to the game but also worked by itself, even to listeners who have never played the game. To this end I wanted to a) include as much of the music from the game as possible (including hidden tracks that I’m not sure were even used in the game - like the long middle bit on ‘Foundry’) and b) I wanted to combine different sub-songs into one representative composition wherever possible. I’m not the first person to take this approach with a game soundtrack - there’s many a soundtrack I’ve listened to where tracks are completely out of narrative order because the composer/editor wanted to present them in a way that they felt made the most musical impact rather than just following the game. I think this is a perfectly valid approach. Many game soundtracks are too slavish to the original I think. I love game music, but sometimes in a soundtrack CD/MP3 format, even the best game soundtrack can fall a little flat - for example, just taking the ‘play the loop twice then fade out’ approach, or alternatively being made up of dozens of really short tracks which are hard to get your teeth into. Personally, I prefer to mix things up a little, while being as faithful as possible to the original. My approach will change depending on the nature of the game and the soundtrack though. I think it should be remembered that listening to the music in-game and listening to it by itself are two very different things. I am aware though that the approach I’ve taken here may offend some purists who just want to listen to the music exactly as it is in the game. The slowed segment in the middle of Terraniux - yes, again a completely deliberate artistic choice. I needed something to smoothly glue the two disparate sections of the Terraniux music together into one piece, and stumbled across this bit hidden in the .mod file. It was short and not particularly interesting, and as I kept playing it back, sometimes for some unknown reason it would come out at half speed. So I ripped it at the slower speed and tried splicing it in with a slight fade towards the end, and it worked perfectly. I thought it sounded great 14 years ago and I still think it sounds great now. Sometimes when you’re doing creative things you have to be open to serendipity. Fading tracks when they’re ‘high’ - many of the tracks I have done this, some I haven’t. I like to keep variety to keep it interesting. Many of the tracks start with the ‘atmospheric bit’ and then cut into the ‘action bit’, and I simply fade them away at the end, leaving as much of the original composition as possible. Sometimes fading on the 'high' bit feels like leaving a scene half-way through. Terraniux is a very high energy track, so I think it works that the Harobed Confrontation music lulls slightly before going into it. The contrast creates dramatic impetus and pacing, and echoes what happens in the game. As to the other things you mention, problems with converting the sound, panning etc I’m not really sure what’s going on there. See if the same problems persist when I upload the version without the reverb. It sounds fine to me, as do the original .wav files I have. Anyway, thanks again for your comments, I’m always open to having a constructive discussion. I have quite a few game soundtracks that I’ve edited to upload when I have the time, so watch this space. Let me know when you upload your version of the Unreal soundtrack, as I’d be interested to have a listen. Cheers.