EverQuest's soundtrack

Discussion in 'The Veterans' Lounge' started by K.T.B., Sep 5, 2018.

  1. K.T.B. New Member

    Hey, really sorry if this is the wrong forum, but I wasn't sure where exactly this could fit.

    Anyway, I'm uploading the incredible music of this game to YouTube, since aside from scattered uploads from various people/disorganized playlists, there aren't really any very good comprehensive music databases for the amazing soundtrack. The (currently unfinished) playlist is here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLXTaOt5VQwvIk6IOQE4BADox**rXvzq-D
    Note: for some reason this forum isn't actually letting me paste the full URL as-is, just copy/paste the above link but replace the ** toward the end with: m Q (without the space in between them, case sensitive).

    Opening this thread for a number of reasons:

    1. I haven't actually played EverQuest in a while, and I'm not an expert on the game's history per se, so I'm opening this thread for if anyone wants to correct any incorrect Expansion Pack labels I may add as uploading progress (trying to put up at least one per day by the way), or even to suggest images to use as the background, since I don't have many good ones to use for the battle/shop themes. Also, I'd like for people to let me know where precisely certain tracks play so I may add them in the descriptions.

    2. I'm posting tracks in release order (going off of the .mp3 file dates), but if anyone wants to request a certain one to be uploaded sooner, or one that isn't anywhere on YouTube already, please do so here.

    3. Of course, just open up discussion about the soundtrack in general. What are your favourite tracks from the game? Which ones fill you with the most nostalgia? Any particularly amazing memories you'd like to share that wouldn't have occurred if it wasn't for this game?
  2. Jumbur Improved Familiar

    This is why its a stupid idea to autofilter "m"q" from everything...:rolleyes:

    Everquest does indeed have a great soundtrack...:)
    moogs, K.T.B., Nniki and 1 other person like this.
  3. Fcseven XIII Journeyman

    I believe I tried something similar in the past. The trouble I ran into was copyright violations in some of the expansions starting at OOW or Gates of Discord I believe. The oldschool midi files seem to be ok for now but there was a fairly popular musician that composed some music for later expansions. There is a possibility of a strike happening on your channel for each song. One of my favorite songs was the from Vxed I believe. Good luck on your uploading I hope you have more luck then I did.
  4. Jumbur Improved Familiar

    Well, people who are desperate to listen to the soundtrack can get it for free through completely legal means:

    Make an f2p account and start patching, and just listen to all the mp3s in the everquest directory.

    Under those circumstances, closing a youtube-channel is just an empty and symbolic gesture, rather than actively protection of copyright violations.

    Im not familiar with copyright laws though, so perhaps common sense does not apply...:p

    Maybe the difference is; that you have to accept an "eula", to download them? :confused:
    Drogba likes this.
  5. K.T.B. New Member

    Fcseven XIII: Actually, I did consider that the copyright thing may be an issue, considering how scattered existing uploads of these songs are. I don't however think I'm yet at the stage where I'll need to worry about that though - I've actually contacted Paul Romero (composer for most of the early expansions) and he seemed gracious if anything about all the uploads of his work to Youtube. Same seems to be the case with Jay Barbeau, though I haven't actually really tried to reach out to him myself. Any idea which specific tracks gave you that issue or who the composer actually was?

    Yeah, I know about the mp3s in the directory, but it's pretty inconvenient in practical purposes for obvious reasons.

    Also, here's the Qeynos Theme. This is a true classic right here honestly.
    Nniki likes this.
  6. Nennius Curmudgeon

    Not sure I can help in a meaningful way with this but I do thank you for the effort and I hope it works out well. Sadly, with little kids (foster parents here) in the house I have to keep the volume off or at least low so as to encourage the munchkins to actually sleep. It would be fun then to have a collection to listen to as I drive or on those occasions when I can turn the volume up.
  7. Sagarmatha Augur

    Uh, headphones?
  8. Nennius Curmudgeon

    Hearing the kids if they have problems. Huh?
    jeskola likes this.
  9. K.T.B. New Member

    Nennius: Once I get to the Plane of Power expansion and all the higher-quality mp3 tracks beyond, a lot of those more calming/ambient pieces might actually help them sleep if anything. A lot of my favourite songs from this game game from those.

    Anyway, quick update: I'm out of town camping for the weekend. I have a couple of videos scheduled to be uploaded each day so they'll still come out, but until I get back on Sunday night I'm not going to be able to make any major tweaks to the videos I have up (unless it's like a title/description change or something).

    Oh and also, why are the letters m Q blocked here? I'll see if I can get the playlist link changed, but I find it kind of odd now if that's really the issue.
  10. Nniki Augur

    It's an initialism for a 3rd party software that allows for automated gameplay.
  11. Act of Valor The Newest Member

    Thing is, there is a difference between the mp3 versions of the old music (vanilla, kunark, velious, luclin) than the original midi files. I wonder if P99 uses the midi version.

    I'll fondly remember the original Everquest music track until I'm a pile of ash in an urn. It's so good on so many levels.
  12. Drogba Augur

    I have all of Jay Barbeau's old EQ midi's saved in a folder, I guess I could upload them.

    I contacted Paul Romero a few years ago and he sent me some unreleased/beta music for upcoming games. I'd have to do some digging to find them.
    Gyurika Godofwar and Nniki like this.
  13. Jumbur Improved Familiar

    The difference(I guess) is that the sound of midi depends largely on what kind of midi-sound-font/midi-bank(a library of samples from music instruments) you have installed(in the very old days they were stored in audio-card rom, now they come with the drivers or with windows itself, custom-made sound fonts can also be installed nowadays).
    AFAIK there isn't a standard for how exactly midi-sound-fonts should sound like, the standard only describe which instruments should correspond to which midi-data. It is very likely that those mp3's you heard, were encoded with a different sound-font than the one you remember...

    To get the original sound, you will need the original sound-font(or midi-bank), and sound-fonts differed wildly from soundcard to soundcard.
    You will probably never experience the exact same sound, as the one the original musicians were hearing...:(
  14. K.T.B. New Member

    Yeah, the whole MIDI soundfont discrepancy was something that I considered a few times. Someone sent me a pack of MP3's that he said came from an old CD or something, and while I couldn't find any information on such a CD or even any proof that he isn't mistaken entirely, the tracks he had were in higher quality than any other playlists on Youtube I could find, and use (in my opinion anyway) the best samples.

    Back from vacation by the way, so here's the Toxxulia Forest / West Karana theme, which might actually be my favourite vanilla piece from the game. I also put a link in the description to a really beautiful/nostalgic piano rendition by seidn125 I found, so I suggest giving that a listen as well.

    After this, I only have one more track to upload before I'm done with Classic and moving on to the expansions, so I'll probably start limiting myself to only one or two tracks per day so I don't get too carried away.
  15. K.T.B. New Member

    All righty, I just finished organizing all the files from the MIDI pack and worked out which tracks are from which pack, which means that for the time being I'll be able to get back on track with my schedule of at least one EQ track per day.

    I do have a question though. I noticed that (most of) the Luclin tracks actually ARE included in .mp3 format in the EQ directory, and all of them are in pretty good quality compared to the MIDIs. Oddly though, all the dates on them are from 2016. Was there some kind of expansion or re-release or something then that updated the Luclin music? Why wasn't there any such thing for the Vanilla and Velious pieces? And did Jay Barbeau himself create those arrangements?

    Most importantly, when I get to the Shadows of Luclin expansion should I bother uploading the MIDI versions at all (aside from the ones that weren't re-arranged) or just only put up the remastered versions? The MIDI versions from what I can tell don't seem to be anywhere else on Youtube so I'm not sure if anyone wants them.


    E: Crystal Caverns
  16. BadPallyGuildLeader Augur

    Less well known factoid: If you have I-tunes match and previously had the EQ soundtrack in any acceptable file format on a previous computer, I-tunes will summon copies of a several of those tracks from their store and provide them in your artist\track listing forever.
  17. Jumbur Improved Familiar


    They "found" the original Luclin music somewhere in the archives, it was supposed to be included for the luclin expansion, but for some reason they "lost" the music-files back then.

    My media-player(VLC) list Jay Barbeau as the composer btw. :)

    Scarlet Desert sure sounds relaxing! :cool:
    Prathun likes this.
  18. K.T.B. New Member

    Wow, you're right, The Scarlet Desert IS a beautiful piece. I've finally gotten to uploading the Luclin music so I decided to make that one the first track I uploaded from that expansion.

    I'm a tad confused though, are you saying that the original Luclin from 2001 didn't have any new music at all due to them being lost? Or were the MIDIs still there, but just not the higher-quality MP3 versions?
  19. Fanra https://everquest.fanra.info

    I asked Daybreak once about getting permission to stream EQ music on my fan site wiki. Much like each page has random box art in the upper left corner which changes, I wanted to have a random music file play on each page. This is to give it some atmosphere.

    Of course, even if I had permission, I'm leery about autoplaying anything on a web page, so I guess I would need to have it default to off with the option to turn it on.

    In any case, I never got permission. I actually play EQ with music off, so I have missed all the music.
  20. Jumbur Improved Familiar


    I remember it as Luclin completely lacking music.
    I have no clue if Luclin music were supposed to be midi-based or if they were transitioning to mp3-based music already at that expansion? PoP were using mp3's from the beginning.