Can you or somebody else explain a little bit more about the nature of the Pinsound project (for those of us who aren't familiar with it)?

This is very intriguing to me.

With a game like Terminator, I can see how you'd be able to use the original callouts over samples from the OST. But for something like White Water, how do you go about re-creating the original music? Do you need players (musicians) or is this done in non-realtime using a computer program and virtual instruments?

Can I do stuff like pull samples from the original roms, add drums and whatnot and then have the new files play during the gameplay?

This is insane man! Good work!!!!

I just sent some extra in. This is a really cool project. I've done my own dabbling in audio production and this type of thing is very work intensive!

If anybody doesn't "get it" listen to the files for Terminator 2 in the headphones!

Since you're re-doing the sounds there should not be any issue with infringment on the recording. What you're doing is like a "cover version" of a song. Much more managable from a legal perspective. Also, since you're in Europe, rules may even be more in your favor.

Dennis is a member here. You could always ask him if he remembers!

Yeah, this is a daunting project to say the least (many instruments, wave sound efx, etc.) I can't wait to hear what it sounds like when you finish.

I was thinking about this project the other day and it dawned on me that the VUK sound effect was probably intended to be a whistle

http://www.pond5.com/sound-effect/8910846/human-whistle-attention.html

On the game it comes out sounding more like this (FFW to the end)

Wow, drums sound great! Synth sounds right. Bass sounds great too. The guitar seems just a tad off to my ears. The notes and timing sound perfect but the overall sound comes off a little less agressive to me than the original. Maybe it needs distortion or overdrive or something (I'm totally talking out of my ass here). I don't know, it "feels" more laid back to me for some reason. I could be tripping. In any event this is awesome!

The multi-millions woman doesn't sound that bad that on my machine. Maybe it's the speakers rounding out the rough edges? Maybe it just sounds horrible in comparison to the crystal clear sounds Endprodukt is getting with nice stereo separation and whatnot. It does sound horrible compared to Endprodukt's mix though!

Why not just take up a collection in the water sounds? If a bunch contribute a little it should work.

I hope it has the sounds you need!

Awesome!

Honestly, even finding that sample pack was a good find! Who would have thought.

I was playing yesterday, listening to the song on the L-6 rom that plays when your game is over and thought, GOOD GOD, Endprodukt has his work cut out for him! For every Raft level it just gets deeper and deeper.

That's great.

Has anybody ever looked into what PPS actually owns? Do they even own the compositions?

Do we know that PPS owns the compositions?

Do we know if Williams owns the compositions then? I would presume so but I wonder what the contracts with the employees who actually composed the music say. A blanket contact that Williams owns any and all IP created by the employee would probably end it but you never really know. It's pretty common these days for people to claim infringment when they don't even own the copyright in the first place.

Fair use is a pretty complex determination. Whether the infringement is for "commercial purposes" is only one of the factors the Court looks at.

If PPS was smart they'd PAY Endprodukt to allow them to sell the files on their website or come up with a profit sharing arrangement. Win win situation. Endprodukt gets paid for his hard work and PPS get's a return on their investment.

Effing PPS.

Doesn't Roger Sharpe control all of the Williams IP? Is there a way to contact him or whoever controls the rights? Certainly a deal can be made here. The end product (tee hee) is so impressive that it would be crazy for this not to be released for all to enjoy.

NAILED THIS by the way.

Also, I imagine the original wasn't really "played", at least in the same way. The original sounds like mostly synths.

No doubt! What I meant was that the fact that it was all done on synths originally probably makes it a bit of a challenge when you're using other instruments at times. Your output has been AMAZING though so I'm sure you'll pull it off. Maybe you could start a thread "Looking for talented musicians". I'm sure there are some bad asses on pinside.

And yeah, nothing like having a new child to take almost all of your freetime and make you so tired that you don't have the energy even if you did have free time!

Sweet! I was just wondering about this the other day.

I also figure it's probably time to make sure you got all the voice work needed! In tournament mode there is some dialogue that never shows up in home-mode. Notably the "Anybody got a light?" etc. for the first Lost Mine award that is not automatically spotted in tournament mode.

Just wanted to say "thanks" again for keeping with this. I only have enough chops in the production area to know that White Water is a MASSIVE undertaking and your work on it thus far has been unrivaled! Cheers to you good sir!

Hey Endprodukt, have you seen this software that will recognize notes and create a midi-template for you? Apparently it does a pretty good job, although you need to go back over once the software has done its work and make some corrections here and there. I wondered if it might help on some of the parts where you can't find musicians to play the parts. If you're interested I can shoot you a link to where I found out about it.

Yep, the building music is great. By the time you're in the upper raft levels and the tempo is picked up it's hard not to get sucked in. I also love how stripped down the music is when you first start a game.

Here's the MIDI groove extraction thing I was talking about (he starts talking about it at 5:29 in the video)

This is the video where he really starts MIDI note extraction to make up for the fact that he couldn't find a keyboard player.

So basically, you could use note extraction on the original soundtrack to extract the notes, and then replace the sounds with your own MIDI instrument so that the notes are the same but the instruments sounds are updated with better quality sounds.

This is one of those projects where it may be hard for somebody who doesn't understand audio engineering to really appreciate the amount of work done and the enormity of the accomplishment. White Water's original sound quality may not be the best but the intricacy of the soundtrack is daunting.

The clips I've heard sound great as far as the quality of the samples (especially compared to the original quality). I mean, who even has access to a studio facility like that for pinball sounds? What you're NOT going to get is an exact 1-to-1 replica of the music and call-outs. I think that if anybody is expecting this project to sound exactly like the original but with hi-fi sound quality, then they are setting themselves up for disappointment. Even with Warren Davis doing the call-outs, there's simply no way that he would say the lines the same way, with the same inflections, after 30 years. I hope that most people understand just how special it is that Endprodukt got Warren Davis at all.

The music is what I'm most excited about though. Maybe the clips are gone but the work in progress posted was pretty amazing. You got Endproduckt playing stuff live that wasn't even recorded live in the first place! And the quality of the sounds far surpasses the type of sounds they used with the original. Objectively speaking, it sounds leagues better.

On a side note, my suspicion is that "Howdy Wet" is a sample on the chip but it's just not utilized in the game program.

Dood, that's fricken' awesome!

I can test as long as you don't need the pinsound installed. I sure would be nice to have wavforms of the original sounds and companion ones with the new sounds so testers could do A/B comparisons in the DAW.

Ughhhh. That's tough.