Hey Guys,

I'm not sure if this is out of the scope of this sub but wanted to try this out. I've been studying the sound design and formats of older first-person shooter games of the 90s. Specifically Quake-engine based games like Quake, Quake 2, Half-life and other games like Star Wars: Dark Forces, Duke Nukem 3D, and Diablo (1996) (Note: Diablo uses 22050). The reason behind this is because I'm working on some Quake mods that look to retain similar aesthetics from around '96/'97.

What I'm trying to understand is how they were able to surpass the the frequency response of 11025kHz (a little above ~5512.5k)? Some sound files reach up to 10k, while most of them reach a minimum of 7500k! From reviewing some of the files, most of them seem to be hard clipped/limited to take advantage of the 8-bits allowed to them. But some of them seem to have some sort of dynamic range (ie. not clipped/limited—reaching full scale). I've used multiple converters (SoX, ffmpeg) and they seem to not surpass the ~5512.5k mark. My assumption here is it may be anti-aliasing filters applied during conversion. Would anyone have any more knowledge as to how they’re able to surpass the frequency limit?

EDIT: I don’t mind aliasing. I think it’s part of the sound/charm of the era. Just like it’s part of the sound of vintage samplers. I’m looking into how to disable the filters essentially for said sound.