Reason for Recording
How ironic is it that one of the Saturn's best and beloved games got a crappy soundtrack release? The OST for NiGHTS was recorded at poor sound quality and was only a bare-bones collection of songs from the game to boot; it had only one of the ending themes, for example. It also did not take advantage of the A-Life system. See, while the boss and miscellaneous musics in NiGHTS were static, redbook music that streamed off the disc, the stage musics were composed of 5-7 segments of PCM each, and each segment of a song had four variants, depending on the mood of some of the Nightopians in the stage. As you played each stage repeatedly trying to break your record, you would anger some Nightopians and please others, and the music would change accordingly. The official OST had the plain music that you heard when you first played each stage, and no variants. It also contained none of the charming music from Christmas NiGHTS (which is forgivable because the OST was released before Christmas NiGHTS.) I recorded Nights Full Selection to make available an OST with good sound quality and an abundance of music from the game.

This soundtrack remains the most popular one I've ever recorded and released. The occasional Google search has it popping up on sites here and there, and I've even had some people mistake it for an official soundtrack release upon downloading the MP3s.

Method
The method for recording this soundtrack was relatively simple compared to some other projects I've undertaken. Many tracks for Nights--more than half of the first disc in the OST--can be pulled directly from the game CD as redbook tracks. I extracted these, and later adjusted the volume levels of the .wav files in order to put them in line with the music that had to be recorded directly from the game. At the time when this was recorded, I was recording from consoles using a Soundblaster Audigy with external breakout box.

For the remaining, non-redbook tracks on the first disc, I used the game's built-in sound test. Mind you, I'd lost my game saves due to some memory card issues and had to re-play and finish the game for both Elliot and Claris to access all the music. I arranged the tracks in the order that appeared logical to me--some people think that the music for a boss should come right after the music for the stage it appears in, and I usually agree, but the difference in music for the stages and bosses in NiGHTS is too harsh to have one after the other. Tracks that didn't appear in the sound test I had to give titles to.

The second disc is where things get interesting. Every track on the second disc comes from Christmas NiGHTS. An unlockable present in CN, the "Melody Box" was the defining inspiration for this soundtrack release. This option allows you to listen to the music from any NiGHTS stage while adjusting the moods of the Nightopians to your desire, so you can hear what each segment sounds like from any mood. Even the most basic stages with 5 segments each have 4x4x4x4x4 (1024) segment combinations, which can be staggering. The basic sound test in NiGHTS plays the music that would appear if all the Nightopians were at the second mood (Happy), which is how they start when you first establish a save file, so I simply set all the segments to Cheering, then Content and then Angry, and recorded the stages for each of the three variants. Because this creates 18 different tracks, I couldn't loop them twice like I did with the main stage themes--I wanted to leave room for Christmas NiGHTS on the CD.

The music for Christmas NiGHTS is mostly redbook, just like NiGHTS; tracks 19-22 are different themes played at the title screen depending on the Saturn's internal clock date (regular, wintertime, Christmas Day and New Year's Day, respectively.) Two stages are available for play in CN, but only the music for Spring Valley in Wintertime ("Jack Frost's Chime") is available in the melody box; "Dream Bells" does not segment like other NiGHTS stage music. Both stages have the same boss music, the "In Holy Light" version of the Gillwing battle. In addition, there was a mode where you can play as Sonic and you fight a Puffy-esque Robotnik, while a variation of "She Had Long Ears" plays. Lastly, for finishing the stages, you get the third and final version of "Dreams Dreams" which is in a cappella.