what's wrong with the first Ratchet & Clank's music? 

Mono, stereo... doesn't matter. The R&C1 OST is still badass from a composition standpoint.

One can dream about the stereo version of Gemlik base being somewhere out there ... One can dream

It is very weird that Spyro got stereo sound tracks and that wasn’t carried over for the first ratchet game. It must be one of Nature’s Mysteries! I’ll see myself out

Was about to say that Ratchet 1 ost is splendidly made, but this is about the literal audio quality, not the composition. Almost judged the work by its title, silly me.

R&C 1 has the best soundtrack, I always get goosebumps when playing it. A lot of nostalgia and anyone who's interested in a group who sounds pretty similair to the R&C soundtrack check out Propellerheads.

This channel deserves so many more subs it's quality and the information it gives in a fun way stands above lots of other channels in the same genre

Just showed up but R&C1 music is still my favorite.

I really, really wish we could get a stereo release of the soundtrack. I've tried contacting the composer, David Bergeaud, about if he still has the stereo soundtrack but to no response. Thankfully, there are some tracks in the beta/demo versions and on David's soundcloud that are in full stereo (as you mentioned), but it's far from comprehensive.

I was confused by the beginning of the video bcs I think I misinderstood the title at first lmao I litterally went "what's wrong with it, it's obviously the best ost in the series"

I really enjoy that you go outside to record your vids. It' much more visually engaging than most RU-vidr's just being in some room the entire time. I find it annoying waiting for the wind to calm a bit when I do stuff like that but it's so worth it.

Absolutely love this channel, keep making vids! You're making me want to replay the OG series again (for the hundredth time...)

Huh, this is very interesting. I always thought it's just the storage limitations since they've apparently been filling some game discs (like UYA) to the brim. But something about that always felt iffy knowing how small the gained amount really is.. And honestly that's barely a reason to deny their entire audience glorious stereo versions of the original soundtrack.

I'm glad I found your channel. Criminally underrated.

Just wanted to say that you missed an additional source of (parts of) some extra stereo mixes, the Title Screen FMV clips! I ripped and uploaded them a couple years back, it gives the only glimpses (around 30s) of Ratchet On Orxon, Kalebo III / Gadgetron Site and Aridia / Traversing The Fortress in stereo currently out there: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-NLYhDbL2kjM.html Additionally, your info on which proto mixes are or aren't the same as final seems a bit inaccurate, the only track 1-1 to the final including the implemented loop point is Novalis IIRC. Hoven, Rilgar Sewer Escape (which you missed on your list entirely) and Battalia are complete outside of the final track looping being absent (as the music hadn't been converted into the later format of two/four files for the initial play and subsequent loops, so David just exported the tracks as is and let them cut off and end instead), Umbris is complete outside of the very last sample found at the loop, and all the other tracks are incomplete mixes to varying extents.

bergeaud got so much inspiration from totally different music styles and made something out of that the ost just fits in most of the planets it gives so much personality to the game. love the content you make

Interesting video and while I do wish the stereo audio OST was somehow released I don't expect Insomniac to dig deep for that kind of thing. As for the 20th anniversary I'm only realistically expecting official celebration artwork, more merch and maybe an announcement of the PS2 games coming to PS+ Premium with maybe a remaster of the mainline PS3 games.

For the longest time I noticed a very obvious difference between the re used R&C1 tracks in 3 and never knew the details between mono and stereo, I only noticed the differences in the remixed ones like blackwater or the blatant changes in metropolis. And to this day I still wish I didn't notice because man, it bugs me to no end. Tho I will say sometimes the mono tracks have charm to them, at least for me.

Yet another delightful video! It's great to see how your presentation style has developed in such a short time!

Really interesting video as always ! It's so much quality ! (Thanks for the larger video screen !)

Awesome video! Loved the content that it inspired me to do some research on the topic. If I may take a stab in the dark about this whole topic, there's a RU-vid channel called 'Useless Podcasts' and is run by two devs who worked on the original PS2 trilogy, one as a designer, and one as a programmer (check out their content especially if you want to learn some behind the scenes knowledge about the ratchet games). Anyway, this is relevant because they did a developer commentary series on both RC2 and RC3, and in one of the episodes for RC3, the devs mention briefly about how in the first RC, they experimented with what they called "Audio Transition Zones" where once Ratchet entered a certain area, the music would fade from one track to another which is most noticeable in Metropolis (where once you make your way to captain Quark fitness course, the Metropolis music fades into that jumpy up beat song). They removed this feature in subsequent games as the devs sighted it as being way too difficult to implement correctly; So all of this would explain the reasoning behind the mono mix down, as imagine having to fade two separate stereo audio files at the same time, in engine, and only by using code; So by mixing the music down to mono, it would made this process way easier. Plus, the production team had less then a year to fully develop the first ratchet and clank after pre-production, so I can understand that some compromises and shortcut's were needed. Wowza I went on for way too long so I'll wrap it up. Like I said at the start, I don't know if this is the exact reason behind the mono mix down so take all of this with a grain of salt (as I'm purely basing this off some developer commentaries), but I feel like something in this vein might help explain the mono mix down, especially since they scrapped the system in later games which coincidentally, meant that stereo tracks appeared once again.

Been watching your channel for around a year now and you've come a long way! Great script and production value. Keep it up man :)

S-Tier content. Great effin job! Success will only be a matter of time if the content quality persists to be this excellent.

I thought this video would just be about the differences in the stereo and beta mixes of Ratchet and Clank's music and was really surprised this video took such a technical turn. I am not an audiophile myself so I can't say I can clearly describe how the mono soundtrack compares to the stereo track other than it sounds "richer" and that certain instruments and sounds come in more clearly. That said, the stereo versions of Ratchet and Clank have been my white whale for so long and I'd give an arm and a leg to hear Gemlik Base's music in its original glory. We can only hope we will get a bone tossed at us for the anniversary in November, but I'm not optimistic. Great work on the video and I hope it raises awareness to find the stereo soundtrack files and even helps with research into Playstation audio for other games.

This title and the beginning almost had me thinking this was a whole different sort of vid🤣

hearing the fan remade soundtrack as stereo was a gift from the heavens, but even back then I barely noticed this lack of fidelity, yeah, something was off but the melodies alone were peak for the franchise imo, both sequels had great tunes as well but they had less variety and too much action themes

ANOTHER RAC VIDEO YAAAAY

maybe David Bergeaud still has the files? we should ask him

YT just recommended me this video, great channel im gonna watch more love you

Fantastic video as always! Not an original statement, but it still astonishes me how someone who puts this much work into their videos has a mere 1.5k subs (as of this comment.) Keep it up! :)

When I saw your quality of video i thaught that you are a channel with easly 1 million subs, then I saw your sub count XD Good work, wish you more views.

Great video❤ Hope to see you do something other then ratchet

Its funny that I was about to watch a video from a channel called Aster titled "Why The Ratchet & Clank Soundtrack Is A Perfect Fit" Then I looked and realised that video was released a year ago the same day as this one lmao Been on a nostalgia trip for these games so this was a good watch!

I believe that rac1's music is in mono because the game was initially stored on cds and not dvds, so the storage space that mono would save over stereo actually mattered to fit the game in.

Great vid as usual my dude

It might have had something to do with the PS2 having only 2mb of audio memory, although it seems that most games' solution at the time was to stream the music from disc to a ~100kb buffer rather than cram the whole track into memory at once. Perhaps they hadn't got this working on the PS2 by the point of making R&C1?

Keep up the great work

Thanks for taking us back to school🤓.

apparently, the youtube Channel RingsOfGeonosis, has uploaded tracks of the Original Ratchet & Clank that for some reason don't sound Mono, though, they also sound different compared to the August 02 Beta Music, they sound more clearer, i mean, if you compare some tracks, like the Tobruk Crater track compared to the August 02 Beta Track, you can hear some differences to both tracks.

A channel that makes Half-Life and R&C vidoes, two of my favourite series? Subbed.

A posible exmplanation for the version numbering at 6:02 it could be 2 3 or 6 according to the documentation. A common way to store such information is to use a binary mask 0000 0001 = version 1 _ 0000 0010 = version 2 _ 0010 0000 = version 6 _ the binary 0010 0000 would be 32.

Personally, I played Ratchet & Clank 2, 3 and Deadlocked on PS2 but I didn't have the first, so I especially appreciate the soundtracks of the opuses that follow the first. And even though I played the first one on PS3 with the Trilogy Edition, that hasn't changed, even though the soundtrack is good, I still prefer those from the first games I played.

Glad you uploaded ratched and clank videos again

The music on the august 2002 demo version of Ratchet and Clank is stereo, i still don't know why it is mono on the final build.

no way you said what's wrong its perfect.

I hope they still have it

Lets get that RAC1 compressed mono sibilance ridden soundtrack a vinyl release on blue and orange splatter for $50 USD a pop + shipping and taxes Insomniwhack best bag you ever got 🙏

Music lesgooooo

First, your channel is criminally undersubbed. Second, you can find the entire OST in stereo on RU-vid. The channel is ntdk beats. And surprisingly, I don't find it to be THAT much better. It's better, but the music is just so damn good I happily play it on my ps2 and enjoy just the same. I do have a trained ear for audio quality, and I'm not really sure what you mean by it sounding so bad in mono. Like yeah, of course it could be better, but it's still quite enjoyable. Idk. Anyway thank you for going through all this hard work.

I played R&C Going commando first. DIdnt even know about Rachet and Clank, just got it for Christmas one year. When I played the original some months after beating the 2nd one it was a sharp increase in difficulty. It was still fun but the lack of strafing made stuff...challenging

The first game’s music had a more early 2000s Saturday morning cartoon feel

When I woke up today, the last thing I thought that I was gonna start pondering about the Ratchet and Clank 1 soundtrack

I saw ideos showing the Soundtrack in Stero, I am thinking, is there a Mod for the Emulator to play the Game with Stero Soundtrack?

What about going commando track? Isn’t it great?

I believe Nick Nuwe remade some of these tracks in stereo.

More Rachet and Clank please

So cool I will not be watching but awesome work brother

Why do all PS2 Ratchet game have hidden game files except for Going Commando? Did they forget to hide them?

for a second i thought the title was saying that you thought the first games soundtrack was bad lmaoo, im glad i watched longer. I bet you have already seen it but there is a video by a person called Aster about the music in RaC 1 edit: also holy shit i forgot that this game is 20 years old now and its old and im old

Very based, using the Dreadzone Station's track at the end.

hey it isn't useless kerwan metropolis is a vibe in stereo.

Dude can you put a link where we can download a compiled exe file of the wrench program pls

Bassy mics are generally nice, but I feel your Mic is a bit TOO bassy. Maybe tweak it a bit for the next vid!

Maaan.... what i wouldn't give for proper high quality releases of the original trilogy's soundtracks. It hurts enough that the series has moved away from it's iconic sound to something more generic and orchestrated, but the fact the original OST in a decent quality probably exists, but is out of reach, really twists the knife.

I'll say one thing about the old OSTs, and it's that the songs are always either hit or miss. They're always either extremely forgettable, or the banger of the century. It's all or nothing

Hi ma :D

To think that we could have had those soundtracks remade in better quality in 2016, but instead we got that garbage of a game, based on the movie, based on the game

Dude, as a OG ratchet and clank player I respectfully disagree with you. I know you have your own thoughts about it but I love the OG ratchet and clank soundtrack

I love the first game's ost the most, the others became a bit too actiony and less electronic. 20th anniversary ost even from just the first game would be so dreamy

Bring 6th gen back

I disagree. Ratchet and Clank 1 has a better soundtrack than 3.

The soundtrack in the first ratchet and clank is much better than the 2016 remake which sounds so bland, dog shit, and generic.