"Outtake I" - Liner Notes - November 29, 2000

Hurry up or you'll miss the train! This track is part of a good ten minutes of "Look-at-my-pretty-guitars" garbage that was mercifully tossed before release. Despite a disgustingly cute midgets-in-lederhosen quality, it is given some dignity by the oboe stylings of Roger Wiesmeyer. Like the Monastery intro which eventually became the second part of our Diablo II title screen, this is a good example of how NOT to pace game action music.

You may notice an instrument which makes it nowhere else into this little game -- the classical guitar. Even though I have probably fallen asleep to the sound of Segovia more than any other recording artist, I was never able to reconcile the Spanish sound of this instrument with the feel of the game. There is something inescabably warm and seductive about the sound of nylon which just did not fit with the feel that the steel strings established in the original game. The flamenco riffs I tried to insert always seemed a bit forced. Some people around the office liked this track, despite the fact that those open mandolin chords now make me wince.

- Matt Uelmen

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