I mentioned in a previous thread with Diaries of Olan and the Composers Edition that every year I produce an album for Christmas in honor of game music. By re-writing an entire score/soundtrack based on the pure story as if a movie score by using themes from the game composer added in with my old style of creativity.

I also mentioned that a year back, I stopped doing it because I felt unappreciated and that nobody cared or wanted to hear it. But after registering at this board and having the honor of your company, you have knocked me right back into the game. I picked up my pin immediately and decided on not one, but TWO releases. I wanted to make up for a lost year.

This year I have something very special planned for you all. But like children wanting to sneak a peak under the wrappings, I'm only going to leave little hints and clues until I unveil the covers of the albums.

I'll start you off with my first hint, and we'll go from there. You ask whatever you want, (Yes or No questions), and I'll reply yes or no. If someone hits it on the mark, the present will be opened early. Either way, the scores will be released. And for the record, I promise something that will BLOW you all away. It's time for Diaries of Olan to collect a little dust and be set aside for something new and amazing.

Okay, so here we go.

You have TWO scores coming your way. I'll give a hint for one of them. And please remember fellas, yes or no questions! We don't want Bart Simpson melting our plastic tree and ruining Xmas.

HINT: The ghost of Christmas past is here to ring his bells of a land that was once explored but recently brought back in a remake. This game I speak of has been touched by my hands and known well.

Now I know that's a HUGE hint and probably will give it completely away... but what the hell... Have fun. The sooner this one is solved, the sooner we can get to the GOOD one.

Happy Holidays everyone, and Good Luck!

Oh and by the way, the first three winners receive a special gift ( a real one ). It will be a DVD/CD set. The dvd will contain behind the scenes interviews with me, orchestrators I work with. Live session recordings and other goodies. The CD's will be the two I am releasing in MP3 format here, in pressed form. So whoever wins will be winning a master recording of each of these new scores.

Again, Good luck! (oh and in the honor of Xmas, be kind and courteous to everyone... try not to flood a million answers and/or questions or once. I can only answer so many. So for the record, I will allow one question and one answer per person, until I answer them. One at a time or you will be disqualified... and I really DON'T want to disqualify anyone. I love fans and people that appreciate my music and would never want to deprive anyone of something that can be appreciated and honored.

- AJT.

Tomb Raider Anniversary?

I feel sorry for you... I have no idea who you are, what "Diaries of Olan" is, and nobody is replying to your topic. xD

Anyway, guess I'll give it a go.

Final Fantasy Tactics (War of the Lions)?

Hello, interesting idea for a thread, and I know I'll be watching and guessing as the questions go... But... I'm personally hazarding a wild guess that it was Nights? Which is indeed back as a remake/sequel on Nintendo Wii?!?

~WalkingTiger

I feel sorry for you... I have no idea who you are, what "Diaries of Olan" is, and nobody is replying to your topic. xD

Anyway, guess I'll give it a go.

Final Fantasy Tactics (War of the Lions)?


Don't feel sorry for me... Do your homework.

War of the Lions would be the closest answer. But I answered this one in another thread. A spin off of all the FFT games, titled "My Moogle and Me".

Don't feel sorry for me... Do your homework.

War of the Lions would be the closest answer. But I answered this one in another thread. A spin off of all the FFT games, titled "My Moogle and Me".

Right... right... Well, maybe you should actually keep your official site up. Did you know most of the pages are missing?

And yes, the hard truth is that people don't care who you are or what you do. Deal with it.

is the game out?

Right... right... Well, maybe you should actually keep your official site up. Did you know most of the pages are missing?

And yes, the hard truth is that people don't care who you are or what you do. Deal with it.

Uh no... if you read right, doing your homework means you'd find out that people actually do care. The fact that this website is HUGE means that most of the fans probably haven't even seen this thread yet, deal with that. I know my website is incomplete, I'm a composer not a webmaster. Here's some hard truth, stop trying to bring me down just because you contribute nothing to life and are equally worth nothing. Jealousy is a sin, didn't you know that? Don't you know anything?

Hello, interesting idea for a thread, and I know I'll be watching and guessing as the questions go... But... I'm personally hazarding a wild guess that it was Nights? Which is indeed back as a remake/sequel on Nintendo Wii?!?

~WalkingTiger


No sorry, although the second score is based on some Nintendo original series.

Is the second one Zelda?

You are the Real Andrew James Thomas ?

Wow, what a composer like you is doing in such an underground and totally illegal community like this ?

You are the Real Andrew James Thomas ?

Wow, what a composer like you is doing in such an underground and totally illegal community like this ?

Illegal?

I would say Final Fantasy 7. =D

Oh, and by the way - even if we don't guess it, I'm sure it'll be awesome. Can't wait for it! X3

I'm curious... I love any score music at all, so I can't wait til you share it :D

You are the Real Andrew James Thomas ?

Wow, what a composer like you is doing in such an underground and totally illegal community like this ?

huh???? yes it's really me. If you're talking about file sharing, even the top Hollywood composers do it.


And you guys are getting on the mark, The second disc is titled "Heroes of Nintendo" a compilation of themes from Mario, Zelda, Star Fox, and Metroid. Plus a bonus of others.

Will release both soon!

Well...

Sharing and Spreading Copyrighted Music that are normaly only available for sale is not really legal isn't it?

Composers do it?
I guess Jeremy Soule would not be happy to come here and see all of his albums on such links (while it is needed to pay to download them on his website "directsong"), see my point?

I'm not really good friends with Soule. In fact quite the opposite... I was talking about Marc Shaiman, Alan Silvestri, Don Davis. We do a lot of backdoor distributing to scores that aren't available in stores. Davis posted complete versions of his Matrix scores secretly a couple years back. I say this now because I know it cannot hurt him. Jeremy Soule is a mediocre composer that has his head way way to far up his.... well. :) You understand? Composers like myself compose to compose. I don't go around saying I'm the next John Williams. And Soule is FAR FAR from being anything to what Williams is. I asked Alan Silvestri and Marc Shaiman if they knew who Soule was, and they both replied with, "who?".

It's great to know that composers want to have their music heard and not only money... Too bad music industry (industry which makes music, it sounds so disgusting. <_<) doesn't think music is for people, not for their money.

^^^ Yeah I second that especially considering how little % of CD sales artists and composers actually get while greedy corporation CEOs pocket millions every year!

Soule's score to Oblivion was fantastic though. The man has talent, just not the greatest deal of variety in it. Can't fault him for that.

The man has talent, just not the greatest deal of variety in it. Can't fault him for that.

Yeah, you can. A good soundtrack requires variety, it has to tell a story outside the medium it is presented in. That's why people like John Williams and Nobuo Uematsu are so highly acclaimed - their music can stand alone outside the movies/games they featured in. Now, I'm not saying Soule is a bad composer - just not a great one, in some people's opinions. Other than maybe a couple tracks from Secret of Evermore, I can't say that any of his music stands out in my mind, yet there are a dozen or more songs by Uematsu that I could name.

HINT: The ghost of Christmas past is here to ring his bells of a land that was once explored but recently brought back in a remake. This game I speak of has been touched by my hands and known well.
I'm likely going to be wrong on this, but... is it Conan the Barbarian?

On another note, would you happen to have any CD pressed composer promos to give out? Or is distribution of those kinds of things illegal? =o

Yeah, you can. A good soundtrack requires variety, it has to tell a story outside the medium it is presented in. That's why people like John Williams and Nobuo Uematsu are so highly acclaimed - their music can stand alone outside the movies/games they featured in. Now, I'm not saying Soule is a bad composer - just not a great one, in some people's opinions. Other than maybe a couple tracks from Secret of Evermore, I can't say that any of his music stands out in my mind, yet there are a dozen or more songs by Uematsu that I could name.



hahahah! you mean THE John Williams and THE Nobuo Uematsu? IMO those two are perfect examples of how some composers recycle their music all the time. Yes they are damn good, yes they both have created milestones. and still the too recycle their evergreens.

I'm likely going to be wrong on this, but... is it Conan the Barbarian?

Yes, you are wrong. I have pretty much already revealed what each disc is.




On another note, would you happen to have any CD pressed composer promos to give out? Or is distribution of those kinds of things illegal? =o


I have lots of pressed CD promos that are given to me every year by the Academy or other CD pressing companies. They are 100% legal as long as they are not re-distributed illegally. But I don't have any to give out.

This is Tim Burton's Nightmare Before Christmas on PS2/XBox consoles (2005)...
From Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol...

This is Tim Burton's Nightmare Before Christmas on PS2/XBox consoles (2005)...
From Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol...

thats what i was thinking for a bit

Jeremy soules music is pretty good in my opinion

Which thread will the albums be uploaded to?

hi James, I have the diaries of Olan and it's very good. No need to bring Soule down, i loved the morrowing OST, and the oblivion OST was nice. I'm looking forward to your albums . Don't let stupid people offend you. Axersia, shut up.

i don't particularly care for morrowind or oblivion. i think they aren't that great of games. the music was probably the best part though.

Hello Mr. Thomas,

I am also a fellow composer, except not quite as reputed as you are, but I create music just the same :). I really enjoyed listening to Diaries of Olan and your Zelda arrangements. They are nicely done, and I wish more people would venture outside the game's score and create inspirations like Olan.

You should visit http://www.squareenixmusic.com/forum/ or better yet, www.squaresound.com/forums. You have fans there, too. I was wondering if you wouldn't mind listening to something I've arranged. I would really like some professional input on it. You can find most of my work here: http://www.squaresound.com/arrangements/index2.php?arranger=Josh+Barron. Thank you for all the work you have done, and hopefully I might yet hear more from you. Good luck.

Sorry to everyone for my absense as of late. I finally got my big call to do some Hollywood projects and I've just been drowning in work/moving and all that.

To the poster above me, I would love to check out those websites some more, but from what I searched I couldn't find any mention of my name on either site. Perhaps I am not looking in the right places?

Anyway, I promise to upload those scores as soon as I can!

Right... right... Well, maybe you should actually keep your official site up. Did you know most of the pages are missing?

And yes, the hard truth is that people don't care who you are or what you do. Deal with it.

Eee, sorry to say but his first album didn't do half bad on these forums, and demonstrated the guy has some talent.

I respect you on these forums, you've helped many people out, but try to be a bit more respectful. =/

Happy New Year! Gift 1 is here!



I apologize for the long wait, but I am finally able to bring you gift number one. I was going to surprise you with a whopping 3 different albums this year, but I could barely pull one off by New Year. I'll upload the cover image when I can, unless someone wants to volunteer to make the cd covers for this one. Enjoy, comment, tell your friends.


I'll try and get number 2 up (this one was a total surprise) tomorrow, if not soon. But it's a Silent Hill fan album. Very eery and creepy...

Anyway, happy new years! Be safe.



Try and get some mirrors too guys, I don't have unlimited bandwidth.



http://www.andrewjamesthomas.com/games/

It's in there. And the others will be in there when I get around to it.

I think Track 10 is a repeat of Track 9. Could you re upload it please? Also, can we get the artist names for the tracks from other albums (8, 16)?

Oh, and thanks for the album! It's a wonderful New Year's gift.

I'd say Koji Kondo would be the artist for the other orchestral tracks. And there are no duplicates.

Ah. I just double-checked; 9 and 10 sound so similar...and the track lengths are identical, so...my mistake. It was a long night for me - a long, long night of organizing my iTunes library.

Yes, that's how I spent my New Year's Eve. I enjoyed every minute of it, too.

Thanks for the upload awesome stuff,
if you need to spread the word you could upload the tracks individually to youtube and then email the links to some of the main gaming blogs.

If anyone wants to distribute the releases, feel free to. As far as I'm concerned the direct releases will only happen here.

Silent Hill is up.

Sorry to triple post. But many people made inquiries about my website. I just wanted to let everyone know that the guy I originally hired to create it finally finished it. It looks sloppy to me, but at least something is there.

Check it out if you want.

www.andrewjamesthomas.com

This thread is so gay!