The Dig soundtrack

[apeman]

Anyone know where to get the soundtrack CD for The Dig for these days? You can get some MP3s off the net, like here for example, but I was looking for higher quality tracks (maybe even lossless) or better still, the original CD!
Can anyone help?

[MusicallyInspired]

I thought that place DID have the original soundtrack CD for download?

EDIT: Never mind. Just clued in that you were looking for high quality soundtracks. Why not ask the guy who uploaded that soundtrack? Maybe he has the CD and can provide higher quality files?

[apeman]

Yeah thanks, I emailed the guy, let's see what he says....

[mace]

I listened to those mp3's and I think that a higher quality codec won't really help.
The files have alot of hiss in them, and as such, I think they were recorded from a line-in.

[Marten]

Perhaps the files at this site will sound better?

http://downloads.khinsider.com/game-soundtracks/album/the-dig-soundtrack

Note:  You can't just right-click and save-as on that page; you must select each file, a new page will come up, and you can download the chosen file from that page... that, or apparently you can "get an account" to enable downloading more easily.

[mace]

For your convenience:

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=SOKMO9H7

This has all the MP3's from Marten's site.

[apeman]

Dank je wel, both of you!!
It's still only 128kb/s, unfortunately. Still, thanks. Marten - do you have access to the original CD?

If anyone's interested, I've been in touch with the mixnmojo guy who said he might upload the tracks in higher quality. In the meantime, I've used one of the ScummVM tools to extract the in-game music from the DIGMUSIC.BUN file, I'm currently trying to find a nice size to compress them to, then I'll make them available to anyone who might be interested!

Cheers,
Mike

[Locutus]

I never really liked the soundtrack of "The Dig" much. The ambient chords and arrangement is certainly worth listening to, but the music doesn't evolve much and all the tracks are not very diverse / don't differ very much from each other.

Of course, I realize that it's also a matter of taste, but I'd like to know: What do you think?

- locutus

[mace]

I never really liked the soundtrack of "The Dig" much. The ambient chords and arrangement is certainly worth listening to, but the music doesn't evolve much and all the tracks are not very diverse / don't differ very much from each other.

Of course, I realize that it's also a matter of taste, but I'd like to know: What do you think?

- locutus

I agree,

I was skipping thru all the tracks the other day to make sure they were complete (you know, listening a second or two and skip 30 seconds ahead, repeat, next song, repeat etc...)
and I could not help but notice that it all sounds the same overall.   

[Marten]

I do have the original Dig soundtrack, along with the demo disc that came with it.

The music is derived from / inspired by "Overtures and Preludes" by Richard Wagner; I have a CD of that as well, this one by Seraphim Records (companion to Angel Records, which released The Dig's soundtrack).

The sameness you'll experience throughout much of the soundtrack is intentional; each piece returns to the same chord again and again.  Any time your character, Boston Low, transitioned to a new scene, the music would transition as soon as it reached the matching chord.  This way, the music flowed from scene to scene instead of ending abruptly and beginning with a new piece of music.

The music on the CD is orchestrated differently from the way the music is experienced in-game, with beginnings and endings added to the different themes.

Ghosts (track 3) and Cathedral of the Lost (at the end of the album) are probably the most unique of the songs, the first with a high flute-y presence, the latter with a lot of choir voice.  The Madness of the Crystals (track 7) is also distinguishable from the rest of the music as it represents the "villain" of the story, so to speak.

[apeman]

I do have the original Dig soundtrack, along with the demo disc that came with it.

Marten.... if you'd be able to rip the tracks off the CD in LAME --preset standard sometime (shouldn't be much bigger than 128k) then I'd love you forever. Any chance?

Thanks, Mike

[apeman]

Of course, I realize that it's also a matter of taste, but I'd like to know: What do you think?

I love it! (which is why I started this thread )
It's ambient music, obviously, so it can be listened to "in the background" - but at the same time it possesses an eerie, haunting quality (just as you'd expect on a deserted alien world, I guess) caused by harmonic tension, among other things.

[Tom]

Does "THE DIG" soundtrack CD contain 11 tracks, beginning with "Mission To The Asteroid" and ending with "Cathedral Of The Lost"?  If so, I think I have a copy of the original soundtrack CD, too; a dupped copy.

[apeman]

Right, here's my part of the deal....

The full in-game soundtrack is now available for your listening pleasure:
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=Q2WRPK6T

Extracted from DIGMUSIC.BUN, joined using foobar2000, renamed to the non-truncated track labels, and finally encoded with LAME.

Have fun!

[MusicallyInspired]

Those from the DIGMUSIC.BUN file are only in 22050 khz, though, aren't they?

[apeman]

Those from the DIGMUSIC.BUN file are only in 22050 khz, though, aren't they?

Yup. As opposed to.....?
Remember the soundtrack CD (which I'd still love someone to post in decent quality - please! ) contains some rather different pieces of music.

[Marten]

You've got a deal if you'll agree not to love me forever, thanks.

Using lame.exe with --preset standard, that generated a soundtrack occupying 59.8 MB.

[MusicallyInspired]

I'm just saying....22050 khz is like half-quality.

[Marten]

You're not going to get better quality for the unique pieces of music in the BUN file other than to pester them out of Michael Land.

Them's the breaks.

[MusicallyInspired]

True.