Well, a program like MPQ Editor can extract the low quality wav file music from Starcraft.

The official Starcraft soundtrack is also available in the iTunes store, in high quality.

But, finding out that WCII was composed on the SC55 and SC88, and hearing some of the same instruments in both games, makes me believe the Starcraft music was composed and recorded similarly.

Would be cool to listen to the MIDIs on SBLive/Audigy with different soundfonts or XG enhanced.

I know there's at least two terran TRANSCRIPTIONS out there, though the timing is really off on both of them.

Is there any record out there of what synth(s) were used to record them? I'm really skeptical that many of these better, higher-budget (for the 90s) soundtracks were just a MIDI file playing real-time into an SC, into a WAV recorder. That's not even how I did it back then, and I was just a hobbyist.

I would use SoundFonts cobbled together from all kinds of sources, then record each track separately, run them through Cool Edit's effects, and mix down the final. Most of the stuff I wrote, or the remixes of game soundtracks I would do for friends, couldn't be played in real-time from source files. (Now with soft-synths and VST effects, it's a different story.)

The guitars and squares are at least very rolandy...

I could see if there is a midi verison. In the meantime... From Glenn Stafford:

"The first round of SC1 Terran music was done with mostly Roland JV-1080 as well as SC-55/88 and Super Jupiter layered in. A little later for some of the Protoss and Cinematic music, and for the Brood War Expansion: added JV-2080, K-2500 with Roland orch libs, EMU E4X-T with Miroslav and Adv orch libs, Yamaha EX7 – and some live elements were recorded as well – guitars, vocals, etc. Zerg in-game music was done by Derek Duke on a contract basis at the time, using mostly K2500 with a rack of K2500 modules, Eventide H3000, and other synths but I’d have to ask him exactly what else. "

Haha... well, yeah, that's about what I expected. 😀 So there probably wasn't ever a "MIDI version" per se, but probably session files in whatever DAW they were using at the time. It would have to be set up with all the same hardware. I could almost do this... I have SC, JV, and Kurzweil synths, but not the EMU, Yamaha, nor all the modules and libraries -- nor the Eventide, but that's an effects processor that could be converted to a plugin. The live elements would likely exist as PCM tracks. But then, so does the finished project ... and that begs the question, what are we hoping to achieve here if there's a HQ rendering available already?

Not much. I was mistaken that the music was general midi, exported to wav, and encoded with Dolby Surround Sound. Now we know the production was a big step-up from WCII.

SirNickity wrote:

Haha... well, yeah, that's about what I expected. 😀 So there probably wasn't ever a "MIDI version" per se, but probably session files in whatever DAW they were using at the time. It would have to be set up with all the same hardware. I could almost do this... I have SC, JV, and Kurzweil synths, but not the EMU, Yamaha, nor all the modules and libraries -- nor the Eventide, but that's an effects processor that could be converted to a plugin. The live elements would likely exist as PCM tracks. But then, so does the finished project ... and that begs the question, what are we hoping to achieve here if there's a HQ rendering available already?

Glenn Stafford:
"[There were never any midi versions], at least if you mean midi versions that play back correctly on standard/GM midi instruments... WC2 was our last game that used midi, unless you count the map ambience in WC3, which was midi playback of soundfont/DLS samples."

Ah well, would've been fun to tinker with. But not much practical benefit over what's already out there. Interesting commentary from the man behind the curtain, though! 😀