System Shock 1 unique MAC OS OST

[66490b140ee6bKein]

Okay, so I don't even know where to post it, most of the old SS communities I used to visit back then are ded.

I have a question that bothers me. Encountered today this thing:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vfjIpc_Lbjk

It is a SS "reactor" track from MAC OS version. What's weird it completely differs both from original and enhanced (I used GOG OST for EE). And it not just different soundfonts as you may think at first, the arrangement tweaked and adjusted a bit and instruments differ too - that makes the track quite different and it is easily noticeable. Here are few examples:

Reactor:

ChoriumRevA MIDI Soundfont (Coolsoft VirtualMIDISynth used): https://a.pomf.cat/vwnmjp.mp3
Original DOS MIDI sound: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eCl0jBbljDQ&list=PL98D785CC7AB4E049&index=4
MAC OS: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vfjIpc_Lbjk

Security"

ChoriumRevA: https://a.pomf.cat/qnnfdr.mp3
OG MIDI: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iB1dkfUYRJk
MAC OS: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4qBe3qo2uuA

Executive:

ChoriumRevA: https://a.pomf.cat/kufdzm.mp3
OG MIDI: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mzrTAUSueuI
MAC OS: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f3q356rZqQ4


HOWEVER, THERE IS THE THING: googling for SS MAC OS  reveals nothing, Absolutely nothing. I did spent moderate amount of time to no avail. But damn ,I really want the MAC version of these tracks, they sound fantastic.

Anyone has any information about it?

[66490b140f3ccKolya]

HOWEVER, THERE IS THE THING: googling for SS MAC OS  reveals nothing, Absolutely nothing. I did spent moderate amount of time to no avail. But damn ,I really want the MAC version of these tracks, they sound fantastic.

Anyone has any information about it?

Um, well the Mac game is here.

[66490b140f596Shaun]

I bought a copy of the Mac disc (I know there are images, but I thought it'd be cool to have) to try to find the music, but I'm not really seeing much...  If there's a way to extract it, I'm not sure what that would be. 

[66490b140f6feValet2]

The music there is in "some form of" or midi-format. Neither pcm/adpcm, nor redbook audio.
So these cool mixes - I don't know where they came from. Btw, this mechanical sample in the beginning of the Reactor mix is from Thief 2 (in-game sound).

[66490b140f859Shaun]

Yup...I'm unfortunately thinking without someone with serious knowledge of how to take these files apart, it's impossible to rip the music directly.  I know there are YouTube versions and I'd have to guess those were maybe recorded from in-game?  (But I don't know that.)

How could the sounds in the Reactor music be from Thief II tho'?  This game is from 1995 (for the Mac version; DOS was 1994).  Thief II didn't come out until 2000.  Or do you mean Thief II used these sounds in it? 

[66490b140fa2alerenwe]

Wow, just wanted to say, I never used the ChoriumRevA Soundfont, but it sounds REALLY good in System Shock, especially the drums, thanks for putting this up ^^ (Maybe it needs some tweaks on the synth, though, they sound really weak in the Reactor Theme...)

Anyway, I always thought it would be cool to maybe do some kind of custom soundfont made just for System Shock that would go as close as possible to how those MAC OS Mixes sounded...

What I don't understand is where we can find the original files either, because each time I try out the MAC OS version, I still get MIDI versions of the tunes so... Those Youtube videos are still a mystery to me...

[66490b140fb7bKolya]

Most likely the music in the mac version is MIDI as well. And it's just the Mac MIDI interpreter/Mac sounds that makes the tracks sound different. Much like using a soundfont with the windows version.

[66490b140fda4Shaun]

Kolya, the thing that confuses me about that is the reactor level samples you hear on YouTube (ie. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vfjIpc_Lbjk).  The whirring and machine noises are unlike anything I've heard in MIDI.

So either the Mac MIDI was completely awesome back then and made noises for MIDI files I've never heard for PCs.  OR the sound effects are separate sound files (much like enemy noises) and different than those used on the PC version (recorded in-level by the YouTube uploader?).  OR maybe the YouTube video isn't accurate (but there are multiple I think, so I doubt that).

I can say from the SheepShaver Mac instance I tried, the music tends to have speed issues, which does tend to support the MIDI conclusion, but the hospital level music isn't nearly as different on the Mac as reactor level music.

[66490b140ffb9Shaun]

Okay, so my new impression is that the YouTube video linked to above is NOT the original Mac version music as the title led me to believe.  That's gotta be some sort of remix.  That might make the Thief II reference make sense...maybe a remix using some assets from there?

I went ahead and used the SheepShaver version of the game from here (for some reason, SheepShaver doesn't like my disc version even though it's for Mac).  I set everything to very easy so it only took me a few to get to the Reactor level.  No sound effects of whirring or anything like that, and the music doesn't sound at all like it does in that video.  It sounds similar to the standard MIDI version we're all used to (but with some speed issues).  Now, that could be because I'm emulating on a PC, but I highly doubt that - I just can't buy a soundfont making this dramatic a difference, especially the sound effects.  I also note the YouTube track has fadeout at the end...that wouldn't make sense in context of a looping music track for a game.  I suppose it's possible if the disc is present there's alternate Redbook or other method it uses, as it was rumored there was Redbook at one point, but all evidence seems to point to the contrary of that and that any audio on the disc is just leftover from an unrelated audiobook.  Since I don't have an actual Mac to try it on, I can't test that and I'm not sure how to see the Redbook data on PC.  The disc appears blank unless I use HSFViewer, and that allows me to see the file structure,but I'm not seeing anything audio related (though I doubt this utility looks for that specifically).

The mystery deepens...

[66490b1410521sgupta]

Okay, so I stumbled upon some revelations on the Discord for Nightdive that I think are interesting, so I hope nobody minds me resurrecting this older post.  Still really confused tho'.  (BTW, this is Shaun - for whatever reason, I couldn't find my old account...or maybe previously we could post without one?  Either way it wasn't registered under my e-mail.)

So apparently the source for those Mac OST files that confused people is they were bonus tracks on the Mac CD version, but NOT tracks used in the game.  In-game music was still MIDI (though perhaps using some different Mac-exclusive instrument sets).  The Mac bonus tracks can be demonstrated by this image from the Mac version documentation:

https://imgur.com/ZCt7bhe

And I think the actual MP3-quality files are here listed under "Additional Mac CD Soundtrack" and also featured on those YouTube videos originally linked:

http://www.ttlg.com/ss1/music/

They're renamed, but I found another post saying, for example, Edward Diego's Ballad is the medical theme, and given there are three of them, it makes sense that these are them.

I still have the Mac CD, but what's weird is, if that audio is there, I cannot find or play it.  Tried my PC and also an oldschool Walkman-style CD player.  It sees 1 track, but it either plays as garbled junk (PC) or plays as silence (Walkman).  Unfortunately, I have no Mac to try the CD on...but I can see the files and such with certain PC utilities.  If it's CD-style audio, though, it's not going to show with that anyways. 

The only conclusions I can come to is that either:
- There are multiple Mac releases, and the one I have doesn't contain the audio tracks.  (Unfortunately there's no way to see that documentation directly either).
- The players I've tried don't support the mixed-media nature of this CD.
- You need a Mac to play it, though according to that screenshot of Terminal Access, that shouldn't be the case.

Curiouser and curiouser... 

[66490b1410c5clgs]

Executive:

MAC OS: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f3q356r

Working link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f3q356rZqQ4

[66490b1410da5Kolya]

Thanks lgs, I fixed the link in the first post.
The music file used in that video is clearly [Greg Lo Piccolo, Tim Ries] - Shock 1 - Executive (Nightfall Mix).mp3 on the TTLG Jukebox: http://www.ttlg.com/ss1/music/