Dune 2 music tracks vs Dune2k ones

[MrFlibble]

Well, you may have noticed that some of the Dune2k tracks are almost identical to the Dune 2 ones, and some others seem to be created on the base of Dune 2's. I've made out direct reference between certain Dune 2 and Dune2k music tracks (Rise of Harkonnen, Ambush, Harkonnen Battle, Atreides Gain), but I still can't recognize some :( Is there any place where I can find further info on this topic? Tried at www.frankklepacki.com, but  can't access the site for some obscure reason >:(

[tag]

Frank Klepacki says that the pieces from Dune 2000 were what he would have liked in Dune II had he the equipment and technology in 1992 as he had in 1998.  For this reason he's pretty adamant about not releasing digitised versions of the Dune II score in favour of that from Dune 2000.  I don't necessarily agree with his assessment for two reasons.  First I feel that his style changed in the mid-90s from the more classic game scores of the time towards more genre oriented "funk" and "techno" themes, introduced primarily in Command & Conquer.  Second, there are direct and intentional corelations between the Dune 2000 score and Toto's score to David Lynch's 1984 film, Dune, which I do not believe were an objective when Frank scored Dune II.  Atreides Gain and Rise of Harkonnen are two of the most obvious examples of this, reminiscent of Paul Kills Feyd and The Floating Fat Man respectively.

It is safe to say, though, that all of the main Dune 2000 pieces have at least one theme shared with the Dune II score, though some may be more subtle than others.  The Atreides music in the Emperor: Battle for Dune score also have quite a few of the original themes, though these are even more subtly hidden.  It's difficult to actually name the themes, though, because the original files from Dune II were given only generic names such as "Battle 1" or "Map 2" etc.

www.frankklepacki.com, incidentally, was down a few days due to server difficulties but is now up and running again.

--Bashar

[nemafakei]

I've done a lot of work with this. There are, to my knowledge, about 34 different pieces in Dune 2, though a good many of them are only a few seconds long, and deal with things like the main menu, the theme when you win/lose, cutscenes etc.

http://www.mirsoft.info/wogm_download.php?data=YToyOntpOjA7czo0OiIxNjQ0IjtpOjE7aToxMDk1MzY1MTk5O30=

Find them in a relatively standard order here. There are also sets of 9 midis from the game that have made their way to various places on the net, as well as various others (I'm guilty of producing a few red herrings).

The Emperor music is another interesting question.

What really annoyed me is that tune 12 (I think it later became HARK_BAT, but I'd have to check) was in the Emperor promotion video, but not in the game.

I certainly agree about D2k and the Lynch movie: the Feyd music and the Fighting Mek music were influential. All three of those tracks annoy me. Floating Fat Man... have to listen to that one again.

Ah, I wish midi cards were more reliable. My new sound card is awful - it keeps ignoring bits of the score, and the wavetable isn't up to much.

[Major_Gilbear]

The Emperor music is another interesting question.

What really annoyed me is that tune 12 (I think it later became HARK_BAT, but I'd have to check) was in the Emperor promotion video, but not in the game.

With games, I think the music is written after they are pretty much complete (as with Films). Thus, to release a short video for an early promo, they made use of one of the older tracks.

This is done a lot in Films too; the first trailer I saw for "Gladiator" had music from "Conan the Barbarian" to accompany it!

As for the music, the *complete* score (plus original files) can be found here:

http://mirsoft.info/gmb/music_info.php?id_ele=MTY0NA==&PHPSESSID=50a3a042964175f2bcce9792c3217392#dl_info

This site also has the music to the Dune 2 game variants (eg, Dune: The Battle for Arrakis) and for other Dune-based games ;)