My own rip of the game's soundtrack sounds waaay better then the MP3 files on offer from GOG.

Link please?

I agree; I don't think it sounds "horrible", but the fullness of the original music is gone for sure. I played this back in 1994 or whatever and the music was top notch at the time. Maybe whomever converted for GOG version used an inferior algorithym or something?

Anyway, if you can upload it for us to enjoy that would be great :)

Wish I could, but I have no rights to do so. I just used audacity to record the sound from in the game, cut off the junk and saved as an mp3.

Let's talk about sound quality. The game cannot "sound worse" over time. Just your impression of the music was better, so therefore you are disappointed with the results.

Well since the original game used MIDI music, it can, in fact, sound different.

Did you have an MT-32, or a GM1? Or did you have one of the Creative cards with a crappy wavetable?

I remember my first 32bit card. Man that thing made Wing Commander lag like crazy.

I have to agree with OP, and respectfully mention to the other posters that they might be missing the point here.

The MP3s are 11KHz, 34Kbps recording, they do sound pretty crappy, like you're listening to them over AM radio or an analogue telephone.

Other soundtracks I've gotten from GOG haven't sounded nearly as poor.

The content is OK, sounds like it might have been produced with an SC-55 or similar. But the audio files GOG have provided in this case are junk.

After purchasing the GOG version of this game (I try to support GOG.com whenever it is feasible), I checked it out and found the sound/music quality to be worse than the original game. I ended up reloading the Apogee version I had bought a while ago from the 3D realms store, and I found the music to be as powerful as I remember it.

I am in agreement that the GOG.com version is worse in sound quality. It is very odd that it is so, because the WC-1 & WC-2 sound quality is the same as the old game, and privateer plays like a dream. I am not sure what went on, but GOG.com should fix the sound and re-release it.

I've got a better quality version I found on <abandonware site here>. Although Raptor clearly is no longer abandonware, I figure maybe the GoG team could take a look at this copy of the OST and re-up? ;)

Was this issue ever resolved?

I'd like to see this get changed as well.
I don't wish to purchase an inferior version of the game here.

Oh no I thought this would be the original DOS version with MIDI :(

Unfortunately it still sounds awful. Listened to my MIDI-versions via Winamp 2.93, activated DirectMusic /MS Synthesizer Output-Support, added Reverb and now it sounds the way it used to on my good old AWE 32 soundcard.

Since the gog-provided ingame-BGM is a .wav-file, i was confident to just switch them with ones i recorded (diskrwiter-plugin from WinAmp) and made my own, better sounding .wav-files of each of the original MIDI-Files. Sadly that didnt work, the game (its emulator) seems to have big problems with .wav-files with better quality eg. 22khz sampling and above, stereo sound, 8/16-Bit...

Please, dear GoG-team, fix this jewel from sounding so awful!

Cya, DJMadMax

Make sure you contact Support on this issue.

Hmm, I wonder how much it would cost to get a band or something (PPOT? Romeo Knight? Machinae Supremacy?? :D) to cover the Raptor songs with real instruments for use in the game?

I started tabbing the lead part of the first level music maaany years ago but got stuck once it hit the fast bits!