How To Make Your Own CD

HOW TO MAKE YOUR OWN SUPER-ULTIMATE PHANTOM MENACE CD

Now that SONY and Lucas have decided to release the ULTIMATE EDITION of John Williams’ score to THE PHANTOM MENACE, there is not as much reason to make your own SE cd, except if you are an obsessive-compulsive completist like me. Fortunately, home computers provide the necessary tools to feed my addiction.

You will need:
-Windows* Computer (recommend at least 1GB available hard drive space)
(*I’m sure you can also do this with a MAC, I just haven’t tried it, so I cannot offer a tutorial)
-Editing Software (I used Cool Edit, available for download from www.syntrillium.com)
**I strongly recommend Sonic Foundry Vegas Audio if you want to get serious about music editing. Find it at www.sonicfoundry.com. Or get ProToolsFree, available at www.digidesign.com.**
-SCUMM revisited (available for download from http://www.mixnmojo.com/scumm/scummrev/)
-Audio ripper software
-CD recorder
-CD recording software

STEP 1:
The program SCUMM Revisited allows you to convert the *.imc files on the TPM CD-ROM into *.wav files, at 16bit, 22khz. Once they are in *.wav format, they will need to be “bumped up” to 44.1khz to be edited in with the material from the SONY CD if you are using Cool Edit. So, I suggest first converting and “bumping up” the needed files from TPM CD-ROM. If you are using Vegas, you can skip this "bump up".

To use SCUMM, first download and install the program. Then, select “browse” and choose the file you wish to open from your hard drive. The PHANTOM MENACE files should be in “Program Files/LucasArts/The Phantom Menace/Music”. When you select the file, there will be a warning that SCUMM does not recognize the file. Ignore this warning and press okay, then click on “iMUS” in the SCUMM window. This opens up the “play/decompress to .WAV” buttons. If you do not see these buttons, click/drag on a corner of the SCUMM window to reveal the “play/decompress” buttons. Click on “play” to hear the file, or “decompress” to create the *.wav file.

STEP 1b:
I could not find a program to convert the audio from the Episode 1 Insider’s Guide, so I plugged a DAT player into my sound card and recorded the audio I needed to a DAT, then in a separate operation, recorded the sound from the DAT back into my PC. Not so elegant as the TPM CD-ROM files. The only file you will need from the Episode 1 Insider's Guide is "Hit The Nose!".

STEP 1c:
The music files on the RACER game are already in *.wav format at 16-bit 22hz, so all you need to do is "bump" them up to 44.1. You can find them on the CD in the "gnome/data/wavs/music" directory.

STEP 1d:
To get the files off of JEDI POWER BATTLES, you will need a utility to convert the audio files to *.wav format. I used a program called PSMPLAY, which is currently available at http://segu.psxemu.com/index.html. These files are in better sound quality than the files on TPM CD-ROM and RACER.

STEP 2:
Audio “rippers” are programs that enable you to copy a track from an audio CD to your computer’s hard drive as a *.wav file or *.mp3 file or any variety of formats. My CD-recording software (Adaptec EZ-CD Creator v3.5) comes with a “ripping” utility built-in. Now we must transfer all the CD files we need to hard drive. If you are dealing with limited hard drive space, you might want to work on one track at a time.

STEP 3:
Download and install “Cool Edit”. You can also use Cakewalk Pro Audio, Sound Forge, Sonic Foundry Vegas Audio, or of course, Pro Tools, which is now available in a free version from www.digidesign.com. I recommend “Cool Edit” only because it is affordable shareware and you don’t have to be a sound engineer to get around in it. However, I do most of my editing in Vegas, which I think is a really great program. ProTools is really great too, although I find it has a bit too much latency for my taste on the free version.

(STEP 4:)
(Time to “bump up” the files from TPM CD-ROM. Open the file in Cool Edit, then select “EDIT/convert sample type”, and change to file to be 16bit/44.1khz and set the quality as high you can. If you use Vegas, you can omit this step.)

STEP 5:
Here’s the fun part, or the hard part, depending on your inclination.
Begin editing the tracks, using fade-ins and fade-outs, and the most helpful tool in Cool Edit, the mix paste function, with the settings configured for “overlap”. If you are using Vegas, it will make crossfades automatically or you can do multitrack editing and control the corssfades yourself.
For my own CD, I took tracks in this order of preference:
    UE (best sound quality),
    OST,
    JPB,
    RACER,
    E1 INSIDER'S GUIDE, and
    TPM CDROM (worst sound quality).
Experiment with different methods and I think you’ll find that you can cut together files pretty nicely. It can be tricky segueing from one file to another, but you’ll get the hang of it.

As I said, if you use Vegas, you will have the ability to do multitrack edits, which makes the whole crossfading process much easier. Once you have a cue sounding the way you like, you must save your work as a *.wav file to facilitate burning to CD.

STEP 6:
Once you’ve edited together the different files to create your own “compiled” files, it’s time to burn them to CD. Hey, you’ve got your own “Super-Ultimate Edition” PHANTOM MENACE CD.