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It’s worth getting the Quake shareware disc for the NIN soundtrack. Official track names are now available following the vinyl release a few years ago. This is

It’s worth getting the Quake shareware disc for the NIN soundtrack. Official track names are now available following the vinyl release a few years ago. This is the only CD release of the soundtrack. Just don’t forget to skip track 1.

chungy 2mo ago
Mind that every Quake release includes the same soundtrack, it's not just the shareware version ;) There's millions of such CDs in the wild, both shareware and fully purchased copies.
- jonhohle 2mo ago
  Oops, I can see how that reads like only the shareware version is this way. It’s often cheaper if you’re just going for the music.
doubled112 2mo ago
The data track never sounds very good. A little too industrial for my tastes.
- 986aignan 2mo ago
  Now I'm curious if it's possible to make a data track that has at least some resemblance to actual music. That could be an interesting challenge if it can't obviously be ruled out.
  - jonhohle 2mo ago
    In each sector 2048 of the data bits are just bits, but each data sector also includes 12 bytes of sync, 4 bytes of metadata and 288 bytes of ECC that are not really controllable (if you want the disc to be readable). Then there’s the ISO 9660 on top that will impact the first few sectors. If you have a single file (say a zip/tarball/rar, image) you could limit that. Assuming you could mask the noise from the ECC at 75hz it might be possible.
  - BLKNSLVR 2mo ago
    Sounds like the sort of thing Aphex Twin would do.
    - prmoustache 2mo ago
      That's how I tentatively "imitated" Aphex Twin and Autechre when I was a teenager using impulse tracker. Selecting random files as samples until I would find a section that sounded the way I wanted.
    - eythian 2mo ago
      I think it's the sort of thing Master Boot Record should do
  - breezybottom 2mo ago
    Well all digital music is data, so yes.
- samplatt 2mo ago
  Honestly that'd probably appeal to Reznor's aesthetic.
hadlock 2mo ago
NIN and iD (re-?)released a vinyl record set for the 30th anniversary a couple weeks ago.
Lammy 2mo ago
> Just don’t forget to skip track 1. There is very slightly more to it than just the mixed-mode sessions: the audio tracks on the Quake CD were mastered with pre-emphasis, so your ripper or player needs to apply corresponding de-emphasis EQ in order for them to sound correct. 1996 was actually a strangely late year to find any CD mastered with pre-emph; it was mostly an '80s thing: https://www.studio-nibble.com/cd/index.php?title=Pre-emphasis_(release_list) https://www.studio-nibble.com/cd/index.php?title=Pre-emphasi... On top of being a technique that had fallen out of common use by that time, Quake has the pre-emphasis metadata flagged in the subcodes but not flagged in the TOC, so some software players/rippers like (annoyingly) Exact Audio Copy won't heed it: https://wiki.hydrogenaudio.org/index.php?title=Comparison_of_CD_rippers#Pre-emphasis_detection https://wiki.hydrogenaudio.org/index.php?title=Comparison_of... Here's a side-by-side comparison — my EAC rip of my MacSoft version of Quake (left) alongside the output of `sox_ng deemph` for the same file (right): https://i.ibb.co/9m18CSsk/Emi-2026-08-17-18-52-48.png https://i.ibb.co/9m18CSsk/Emi-2026-08-17-18-52-48.png And if you're curious, here's the pre-emphasis subcode channel Q flag and pre-emphasis frequency response as described in the Red Book standard, and sox_ng's code for undoing it: ― https://audio-union.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/Red-Book-Audio-Recording-Compact-Disc-Digital-Audio-System-IEC-60908-Second-Edition-1999-02-ISBN-2-8318-4638-2.pdf#page=39 https://audio-union.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/Red-Book-... ― https://audio-union.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/Red-Book-Audio-Recording-Compact-Disc-Digital-Audio-System-IEC-60908-Second-Edition-1999-02-ISBN-2-8318-4638-2.pdf#page=133 https://audio-union.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/Red-Book-... ― https://codeberg.org/sox_ng/sox_ng/src/branch/main/src/deemph.plt https://codeberg.org/sox_ng/sox_ng/src/branch/main/src/deemp... Although if someone has been unknowingly listening to the pre-emphasized tracks for thirty years, maybe the ‘incorrect’ one is what sounds right to them? :)
- protimewaster 2mo ago
  IIRC, it's actually debatable if the pre-emphasis flag is supposed to be set. I don't remember the exact details anymore, but I think it was discovered that there multiple releases with bit-identical audio tracks, but some of them have the flag set while others don't. They can't both be correct, because the audio data should've changed if the emphasis was removed.
jillesvangurp 2mo ago
I remember I had the CD but rarely used it because having to pop in the CD just to play the game was annoying. So, I mostly played it without the sound track. Also, I never was that much into nine inch nails. Just not my genre. But my memory of the game is that it was fine without music.

chungy 2mo ago

Mind that every Quake release includes the same soundtrack, it's not just the shareware version ;) There's millions of such CDs in the wild, both shareware and fully purchased copies.

jonhohle 2mo ago
Oops, I can see how that reads like only the shareware version is this way. It’s often cheaper if you’re just going for the music.

doubled112 2mo ago

The data track never sounds very good. A little too industrial for my tastes.

986aignan 2mo ago
Now I'm curious if it's possible to make a data track that has at least some resemblance to actual music. That could be an interesting challenge if it can't obviously be ruled out.
- jonhohle 2mo ago
  In each sector 2048 of the data bits are just bits, but each data sector also includes 12 bytes of sync, 4 bytes of metadata and 288 bytes of ECC that are not really controllable (if you want the disc to be readable). Then there’s the ISO 9660 on top that will impact the first few sectors. If you have a single file (say a zip/tarball/rar, image) you could limit that. Assuming you could mask the noise from the ECC at 75hz it might be possible.
- BLKNSLVR 2mo ago
  Sounds like the sort of thing Aphex Twin would do.
  - prmoustache 2mo ago
    That's how I tentatively "imitated" Aphex Twin and Autechre when I was a teenager using impulse tracker. Selecting random files as samples until I would find a section that sounded the way I wanted.
  - eythian 2mo ago
    I think it's the sort of thing Master Boot Record should do
- breezybottom 2mo ago
  Well all digital music is data, so yes.
samplatt 2mo ago
Honestly that'd probably appeal to Reznor's aesthetic.

hadlock 2mo ago

NIN and iD (re-?)released a vinyl record set for the 30th anniversary a couple weeks ago.

Lammy 2mo ago

> Just don’t forget to skip track 1. There is very slightly more to it than just the mixed-mode sessions: the audio tracks on the Quake CD were mastered with pre-emphasis, so your ripper or player needs to apply corresponding de-emphasis EQ in order for them to sound correct. 1996 was actually a strangely late year to find any CD mastered with pre-emph; it was mostly an '80s thing: https://www.studio-nibble.com/cd/index.php?title=Pre-emphasis_(release_list) https://www.studio-nibble.com/cd/index.php?title=Pre-emphasi... On top of being a technique that had fallen out of common use by that time, Quake has the pre-emphasis metadata flagged in the subcodes but not flagged in the TOC, so some software players/rippers like (annoyingly) Exact Audio Copy won't heed it: https://wiki.hydrogenaudio.org/index.php?title=Comparison_of_CD_rippers#Pre-emphasis_detection https://wiki.hydrogenaudio.org/index.php?title=Comparison_of... Here's a side-by-side comparison — my EAC rip of my MacSoft version of Quake (left) alongside the output of `sox_ng deemph` for the same file (right): https://i.ibb.co/9m18CSsk/Emi-2026-08-17-18-52-48.png https://i.ibb.co/9m18CSsk/Emi-2026-08-17-18-52-48.png And if you're curious, here's the pre-emphasis subcode channel Q flag and pre-emphasis frequency response as described in the Red Book standard, and sox_ng's code for undoing it: ― https://audio-union.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/Red-Book-Audio-Recording-Compact-Disc-Digital-Audio-System-IEC-60908-Second-Edition-1999-02-ISBN-2-8318-4638-2.pdf#page=39 https://audio-union.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/Red-Book-... ― https://audio-union.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/Red-Book-Audio-Recording-Compact-Disc-Digital-Audio-System-IEC-60908-Second-Edition-1999-02-ISBN-2-8318-4638-2.pdf#page=133 https://audio-union.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/Red-Book-... ― https://codeberg.org/sox_ng/sox_ng/src/branch/main/src/deemph.plt https://codeberg.org/sox_ng/sox_ng/src/branch/main/src/deemp... Although if someone has been unknowingly listening to the pre-emphasized tracks for thirty years, maybe the ‘incorrect’ one is what sounds right to them? :)

protimewaster 2mo ago
IIRC, it's actually debatable if the pre-emphasis flag is supposed to be set. I don't remember the exact details anymore, but I think it was discovered that there multiple releases with bit-identical audio tracks, but some of them have the flag set while others don't. They can't both be correct, because the audio data should've changed if the emphasis was removed.

jillesvangurp 2mo ago

I remember I had the CD but rarely used it because having to pop in the CD just to play the game was annoying. So, I mostly played it without the sound track. Also, I never was that much into nine inch nails. Just not my genre. But my memory of the game is that it was fine without music.