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The Banjo Kazooie Series General Discussion about the Banjo Kazooie series from the N64 classics to the handheld sequels & new Xbox games.

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  #1  
Old 23rd February 2012, 11:03 PM
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Remastering Grunty's Revenge's soundtrack using N64 soundbanks


While playing around with SubDrag's N64 MIDI Tool, I realised that it might be fun to recreate bits of Grunty's Revenge's soundtrack using the appropriate instruments from Banjo-Kazooie/Tooie. It's possible to do this pretty successfully using the soundfont pack that was created a while back, but wouldn't it be wonderfully authentic to actually hack the music into the N64 games and record it using an emulator? Yes it would, and not at all pointlessly obsessive! So, er, that's what I set out to do.

I started by poking out a MIDI of the Underwater theme which I sequenced a few years ago. It's a simple piece, so I'd say the sequencing is accurate. I then unceremoniously shoved the MIDI into a ROM of Banjo-Kazooie using SubDrag's tool, and it worked! And by "worked", I mean that it produced a cacophony of bird chirrups, cymbal splashes and timpani hits. Some instrument refinement would definitely be needed. I tried changing the patches associated with each channel of the MIDI, but it had no effect upon the music's instruments and concisely confirmed that I have no idea what I'm doing.

Getting the game to play each of the MIDI's tracks using the correct instruments turned out to be tricky, but I found a way of doing it. I searched Banjo-Kazooie's soundtrack for any bits of music that feature the instrument I desired, extracted a MIDI of the tune, replaced the instrument's track with the Grunty's Revenge one, silenced the remaining tracks, and reimported the MIDI into the game. And, it worked! After a little bit of compositing, here's the end result:

Underwater (N64 Remastering)

Hope you like it! I think it turned out fairly nicely. Though more of a xylophone-like sound is used in GR, I used Banjo-Kazooie's harp sound for the arpeggiated progression, as it's what BK's underwater themes typically use.

I might eventually do the same for the rest of the Grunty's Revenge soundtrack, but that would first involve sequencing or getting permission to use other people's MIDI versions of the game's tracks. I think it would be nice to have a full set, and GR's soundtrack isn't that extensive, so I'll probably get around to it sometime!
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Last edited by Banjo-Fella; 7th April 2012 at 03:18 PM.
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  #2  
Old 23rd February 2012, 11:19 PM
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Holy jeez. That's pretty cool.
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  #3  
Old 23rd February 2012, 11:28 PM
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I concur. Very nice.
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Old 24th February 2012, 01:04 AM
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This. Is. AWESOME!
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Old 24th February 2012, 01:21 AM
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If you did the entire soundtrack, that would be absolutely amazing.
Good work with the Underwater track.
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Old 24th February 2012, 12:53 PM
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A very good idea. I once started a project to convert the whole game with 3D graphics in the same style of Banjo-Kazooie/Tooie, but I abandoned it. Too hard.
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  #7  
Old 24th February 2012, 05:23 PM
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Oh wow, this is so great. Please, continue.
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  #8  
Old 24th February 2012, 05:31 PM
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More please c:
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Old 24th February 2012, 06:15 PM
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Yes, spiller's harbor is one of my favorite tunes from the game
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  #10  
Old 24th February 2012, 07:27 PM
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Woah, that's beyond super-duper-incredibly-directly-impossibly-amazingly-sickeningly-insanely impressive! ^^
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  #11  
Old 24th February 2012, 07:51 PM
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I am also hoping that Skill can integrate midi support into his Mumbo's Wand, I need to talk to him about it next time he's on. Basically wrap C++ with Managed C++ and use the DLL.

Oh and this sounds really impressive, I can't believe it works that well!
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  #12  
Old 24th February 2012, 08:35 PM
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Nice

I did that a while back with Cliff Farm, although it's not a direct translation. I redid it more with Grant Kirkhope in mind, rather than Jamie... to give the song even more of an N64-Banjo feel.


I'd like to see more of this. If there's interest, I might even join with some more.
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  #13  
Old 25th February 2012, 11:45 AM
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Not by me.
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  #14  
Old 26th February 2012, 12:01 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Gold Jinjo View Post
I did that a while back with Cliff Farm, although it's not a direct translation. I redid it more with Grant Kirkhope in mind, rather than Jamie... to give the song even more of an N64-Banjo feel.
Oh wow, that's awesome! I love the bits of creative license you took to make it sound more in line with Grant, you have his N64-era style down perfectly.

I had another go today, and managed to remaster the Jiggywiggy's Temple theme! The original uses a sort of deep, oboe-like tone for its bass chord progression, but I felt it was crying out for the mystical jiggy chanting from Banjo-Tooie... so I used that instead. While making this, I discovered why changing the MIDI patch wasn't affecting the in-game instruments - FLStudio wasn't saving the patch changes, you have to right click on the patch and manually tweak it in the "edit events" automator. Whoops, silly me.

I had difficulty getting Banjo-Tooie to play my MIDI - firstly because the emulation is still a bit troublesome, and also because the tempo was somehow way too fast in-game. Luckily, I noticed that Perfect Dark contains the exact same choral "ahhh!" sound as the one used in Banjo-Tooie (probably owing to Grant having worked on that too), so I managed to record the choral part through that.

Anyway, that's enough prattling from me. Here's what it sounds like:

Jiggywiggy's Temple (N64 Remastering)
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  #15  
Old 26th February 2012, 12:41 AM
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Very very nice. I like the choir replacement- it really works, I think...
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