[RELEASE] High Quality Soundtrack Mod

Share, discover, or contribute to mods for Persona 3 FES on the PS2.
User avatar
ShiningRed
Posts: 3
Joined: Mon Jan 04, 2021 2:23 pm

Metadata
Hyperlink ID: P3FES-HQMusic
Full Mod Title: High Quality Soundtrack Mod
Games: P3FES
Authors: ShiningRed
Version: 1.0
Tags: BGM
High Quality Music replacement mod for Persona 3 FES.
https://i.imgur.com/7nuaDT5.png

Replaces most of BGM in the game with high quality tracks from official OST.

Original P3FES music quality is fine, not nearly as bad as SMT:Nocturne, but you can still notice compression, especially if you play in headphones.

NOTE: All tracks don't have custom loops, so they will just play fully and then start from the beginning. Tracks are in general longer then original versions so you'll rarely listen them fully but it still can be annoying.

CONTENTS:

Around 90% of BGM tracks were replaced. Some tracks were not in the OST so I couldn't replace them, but those are mostly different variations of Tartarus theme.

OPTIONAL FILES:

- Mass Destruction -Lotus Juice Remix- ( Replaces OG Mass Destruction )

- Burn My Dread -Last Battle-(future arrange) ( Replaces Burn My Dread -Last Battle- )

INSTALL:

Install with Mod Compedium.

Mod Page on my Patreon

DOWNLOAD LINK
Spreadsheet Row

Code: Select all

P3FES-HQMusic	High Quality Soundtrack Mod	P3FES	ShiningRed	1.0	01/04/2021	BGM	High Quality Music replacement mod for Persona 3 FES.	 	https://i.imgur.com/7nuaDT5.png	https://mega.nz/file/HT5QgSbS#R9JWCj3-cuzjfYtvNvvjPY25gljnHcnQZmUXo-3g1h8	Mod	folder-open	 	mPt1FCy1Kzs1	 	 	 	 	 	
User avatar
TridentOfTheAbyss
Posts: 4
Joined: Wed Dec 11, 2019 11:17 am

GOOD STUFF! I'm all for improving the playing experience. I'm still experimenting with an HD Texture Pack for FES. BTW, have you considered doing the same thing for Persona 3 Portable? I don't imagine it would be much harder considering how many tracks are shared with FES. Either way, thanks for the mod!
User avatar
ShiningRed
Posts: 3
Joined: Mon Jan 04, 2021 2:23 pm

TridentOfTheAbyss wrote: Sat Jan 09, 2021 12:39 am GOOD STUFF! I'm all for improving the playing experience. I'm still experimenting with an HD Texture Pack for FES. BTW, have you considered doing the same thing for Persona 3 Portable? I don't imagine it would be much harder considering how many tracks are shared with FES. Either way, thanks for the mod!
I can try, but I have no experience modding PSP games. File structure and formats are probably different, but I'll see what I can do. As far as i know P3P BGM is even more compressed because of PSP limitation.
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Phoenix
Posts: 45
Joined: Sat Sep 19, 2020 9:10 am
Has liked: 12 posts
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This mod has some issues, the biggest issue being how large the mod is to how much you're replacing:
  • THEME.ADX is the unused version of Burn My Dread, didn't need to be replaced
  • Most of these tracks are double length, which means they're also double the size they should be (more on that below)
  • The amplitude is, in general, lower than the original soundtrack. Since Persona 3 has zero sound settings for increasing music volume this is a legit issue
  • I wish you would have included a full list of the excluded tracks because there's some heavy hitters being excluded
Before the optional music, the mod is 420 MB (should be 415 after removing THEME.ADX). The original filesize of the tracks you replaced is 111 MB. Your mod shouldn't be nearly four times larger. The Devil Survivor Overclocked high quality music mod was 85 MB in comparison. This mod being over 300 MB makes me immediately question the effort put in.

No custom loop points is a massive turn off, and making the tracks longer to compensate only makes it more bloated instead of improving the final product. The original version of the final boss theme is 4.3 MB and 5 minutes long (but loops), while the HQ version is 17.6 MB, 10 minutes long, and doesn't loop properly. Considering how long that fight is, for the average Persona 3 player playing this for the first time the track is going to loop.

Nearly all the boss fight tracks are going to loop, including Mass Destruction for The Reaper. And considering how many people use SLink guides I imagine someone's gonna wonder why Joy sounds off

I'd implore you to put more effort into this. Putting in proper loop points would greatly improve the mod and cut the filesize in half.

Excluded tracks list:
  • Memories of the School (is actually there, my bad)
  • Tanaka's Amazing Commodities
  • The Path is Closed
  • Mistic
  • Adventured Act
  • Between Doors
  • All the ambiance tracks
  • All the Tartarus tracks (which you mentioned)
  • All the Abyss of Time tracks
Last edited by Phoenix on Sat Jan 09, 2021 11:48 am, edited 1 time in total.
User avatar
ShiningRed
Posts: 3
Joined: Mon Jan 04, 2021 2:23 pm

Phoenix wrote: Sat Jan 09, 2021 8:48 am This mod has some issues, the biggest issue being how large the mod is to how much you're replacing:
  • THEME.ADX is the unused version of Burn My Dread, didn't need to be replaced
  • Most of these tracks are double length, which means they're also double the size they should be (more on that below)
  • The amplitude is, in general, lower than the original soundtrack. Since Persona 3 has zero sound settings for increasing music volume this is a legit issue
  • I wish you would have included a full list of the excluded tracks because there's some heavy hitters being excluded
Before the optional music, the mod is 420 MB (should be 415 after removing THEME.ADX). The original filesize of the tracks you replaced is 111 MB. Your mod shouldn't be nearly four times larger. The Devil Survivor Overclocked high quality music mod was 85 MB in comparison. This mod being over 300 MB makes me immediately question the effort put in.

No custom loop points is a massive turn off, and making the tracks longer to compensate only makes it more bloated instead of improving the final product. The original version of the final boss theme is 4.3 MB and 5 minutes long (but loops), while the HQ version is 17.6 MB, 10 minutes long, and doesn't loop properly. Considering how long that fight is, for the average Persona 3 player playing this for the first time the track is going to loop.

Nearly all the boss fight tracks are going to loop, including Mass Destruction for The Reaper. And considering how many people use SLink guides I imagine someone's gonna wonder why Joy sounds off

I'd implore you to put more effort into this. Putting in proper loop points would greatly improve the mod and cut the filesize in half.

Excluded tracks list:
  • Memories of the School
  • Tanaka's Amazing Commodities
  • The Path is Closed
  • Mistic
  • Adventured Act
  • Between Doors
  • All the ambiance tracks
  • All the Tartarus tracks (which you mentioned)
  • All the Abyss of Time tracks
Thanks for feedback. I agree that lack of custom loops is a huge issue, looping everything it just too much work for me though but I'll probaly do something with tracks that really need them. Plus Atlus can drop P3 Steam release any day so not sure if it's all worth it.
Also Memories of the School is included, it's 88.adx . Tracks like Tanaka's theme sound different in the game and in the OST so I didn't replace them.
And love your mods btw.
User avatar
Phoenix
Posts: 45
Joined: Sat Sep 19, 2020 9:10 am
Has liked: 12 posts
Been liked: 26 posts

ShiningRed wrote: Sat Jan 09, 2021 11:41 am
Phoenix wrote: Sat Jan 09, 2021 8:48 am This mod has some issues, the biggest issue being how large the mod is to how much you're replacing:
  • THEME.ADX is the unused version of Burn My Dread, didn't need to be replaced
  • Most of these tracks are double length, which means they're also double the size they should be (more on that below)
  • The amplitude is, in general, lower than the original soundtrack. Since Persona 3 has zero sound settings for increasing music volume this is a legit issue
  • I wish you would have included a full list of the excluded tracks because there's some heavy hitters being excluded
Before the optional music, the mod is 420 MB (should be 415 after removing THEME.ADX). The original filesize of the tracks you replaced is 111 MB. Your mod shouldn't be nearly four times larger. The Devil Survivor Overclocked high quality music mod was 85 MB in comparison. This mod being over 300 MB makes me immediately question the effort put in.

No custom loop points is a massive turn off, and making the tracks longer to compensate only makes it more bloated instead of improving the final product. The original version of the final boss theme is 4.3 MB and 5 minutes long (but loops), while the HQ version is 17.6 MB, 10 minutes long, and doesn't loop properly. Considering how long that fight is, for the average Persona 3 player playing this for the first time the track is going to loop.

Nearly all the boss fight tracks are going to loop, including Mass Destruction for The Reaper. And considering how many people use SLink guides I imagine someone's gonna wonder why Joy sounds off

I'd implore you to put more effort into this. Putting in proper loop points would greatly improve the mod and cut the filesize in half.

Excluded tracks list:
  • Memories of the School
  • Tanaka's Amazing Commodities
  • The Path is Closed
  • Mistic
  • Adventured Act
  • Between Doors
  • All the ambiance tracks
  • All the Tartarus tracks (which you mentioned)
  • All the Abyss of Time tracks
Thanks for feedback. I agree that lack of custom loops is a huge issue, looping everything it just too much work for me though but I'll probaly do something with tracks that really need them. Plus Atlus can drop P3 Steam release any day so not sure if it's all worth it.
Also Memories of the School is included, it's 88.adx . Tracks like Tanaka's theme sound different in the game and in the OST so I didn't replace them.
And love your mods btw.
You're correct about Memories of the School, I appreciate the response.
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KalasZX
Posts: 1
Joined: Tue Jan 12, 2021 8:53 am

Question - Is there a way to replace the crappy ADX format with lossless WAVs? The idea that the PS2 wouldn't be able to play WAV audio is ridiculous, and a couple gigs of extra space are irrelevant in a world where 10TB hard drives are less 200 bucks.

I'm planning on starting lossless mods with the original and Dancing songs for P3FES and P3P as soon as I have a way to put lossless audio into the game. Everything I find with Google tells you to transcode WAVs to ADX, which loses considerable sound quality even on the highest possible setting.

I previously "hacked" the Final Fantasy VIII Roses and Wine mod to use lossless WAVs instead of OGG, so I'm aware of how much tedious work goes into making a mod like this. GJ to ShiningRed for sticking with it to the end.
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Alan3D
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Joined: Tue Oct 08, 2019 5:57 am
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KalasZX wrote: Tue Jan 12, 2021 11:06 am Question - Is there a way to replace the crappy ADX format with lossless WAVs? The idea that the PS2 wouldn't be able to play WAV audio is ridiculous, and a couple gigs of extra space are irrelevant in a world where 10TB hard drives are less 200 bucks.

I'm planning on starting lossless mods with the original and Dancing songs for P3FES and P3P as soon as I have a way to put lossless audio into the game. Everything I find with Google tells you to transcode WAVs to ADX, which loses considerable sound quality even on the highest possible setting.

I previously "hacked" the Final Fantasy VIII Roses and Wine mod to use lossless WAVs instead of OGG, so I'm aware of how much tedious work goes into making a mod like this. GJ to ShiningRed for sticking with it to the end.
The reason you see everyone saying to convert from WAV to ADX is that its not posible, if that was a thing Id be done already. For one it is not about disk space (pretty sure the disk has padding on it) but about memory limits, even textures get screwy and models crash the game if you push too far, not to mention that in order to make the game load WAV instead of ADX (which is obviously hardcoded to expect said files) you'd have to reprogram the whole sound library to even acomodate for reading WAV or something along those lines. I *think* you can go up to P5's music quality, 44100 Hz. Try giving it a shot. I'm not even sure if you can actually tell the diference between a raw audio and that quality during normal gameplay without comparing side by side but I can apreciate the want to have the game at the highest quality posible.
Weebster
Posts: 4
Joined: Fri Jul 31, 2020 11:50 pm
Been liked: 2 posts

Phoenix wrote: Sat Jan 09, 2021 8:48 am Before the optional music, the mod is 420 MB (should be 415 after removing THEME.ADX). The original filesize of the tracks you replaced is 111 MB. Your mod shouldn't be nearly four times larger. The Devil Survivor Overclocked high quality music mod was 85 MB in comparison. This mod being over 3
Surprised to see my mod being mentioned on this forum of all places, but it's a little more complex than that. First of all, the first version didn't even have every song, so it was smaller, but also, Overclocked is mono. Without reverse-engineering that can't be changed, so for a fair comparison you should at least double the size. The audio is also 32728hz and there are only 30 songs replaced including optional ones, although the actual songs tend to be somewhat longer and I left the optional title theme uncompressed out of laziness so that's 11MB right there (the game handles uncompressed BCWAVs fine, they just take longer to load and are 4x heftier so it makes the mod too large and causes stutters when loading + the quality difference between DSPADPCM and WAV is marginal at best).

All that said, I can revise the P3 mod if you give me permission. I know nothing about PS2 hacking so I'd still need you to take care of that, but the music is my specialty and I already have a few tracks I can source from my ill-fated Catherine Classic mod (editing the CPK breaks Rapunzel and the jukebox for some reason)
User avatar
Phoenix
Posts: 45
Joined: Sat Sep 19, 2020 9:10 am
Has liked: 12 posts
Been liked: 26 posts

Weebster wrote: Mon Feb 08, 2021 3:21 pm
Phoenix wrote: Sat Jan 09, 2021 8:48 am Before the optional music, the mod is 420 MB (should be 415 after removing THEME.ADX). The original filesize of the tracks you replaced is 111 MB. Your mod shouldn't be nearly four times larger. The Devil Survivor Overclocked high quality music mod was 85 MB in comparison. This mod being over 3
Surprised to see my mod being mentioned on this forum of all places, but it's a little more complex than that. First of all, the first version didn't even have every song, so it was smaller, but also, Overclocked is mono. Without reverse-engineering that can't be changed, so for a fair comparison you should at least double the size. The audio is also 32728hz and there are only 30 songs replaced including optional ones, although the actual songs tend to be somewhat longer and I left the optional title theme uncompressed out of laziness so that's 11MB right there (the game handles uncompressed BCWAVs fine, they just take longer to load and are 4x heftier so it makes the mod too large and causes stutters when loading + the quality difference between DSPADPCM and WAV is marginal at best).

All that said, I can revise the P3 mod if you give me permission. I know nothing about PS2 hacking so I'd still need you to take care of that, but the music is my specialty and I already have a few tracks I can source from my ill-fated Catherine Classic mod (editing the CPK breaks Rapunzel and the jukebox for some reason)
Hey, loved your mod! My first playthrough of Overclocked was a banger thanks to that. Tupelov made another HQ sound mod here, so it may not be necessary https://gamebanana.com/wips/53188

I know the PQ games have pretty poor sound quality if you're interested in that.
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