(http://www.imagechicken.com)


Disc 1 (45:26)
1 The Hundred Years' War
2 England and France
3 Battles Won and Lost
4 Daytime in the Tavern
5 Mercenaries' Tavern
6 Battle Plan
7 Launching an Attack
8 Defending the Allied Encampment
9 Clashing with the Enemy
10 Attackers in Battle
11 Defenders in Battle
12 Waging War
13 The Main Battle Begins
14 Under the Cover of Night
15 Onward to Glory
16 Outnumbered
17 The King of France
18 The King of England
19 An Important Battle
20 Fighting for France
21 Fighting for England
22 An Average Outcome
23 Triumphant Outcome
24 Defeated in Battle
25 Temporary Retreat
26 Spoils of War
27 Beautiful Setting



Disc 2 (19:23)
1 Joan of Arc
2 The Black Prince
3 Rejoicing in Victory
4 Anguish and Disillusion
5 Tension Under Pressure
6 Temporary Tranquility
7 Valiant Actions
8 Historical Background
9 Hope for Joan of Arc
10 Glory to the Black Prince
11 Reaching a Milestone
12 Calm Before the Storm
13 The War Reaches an End


http://www.divshare.com/download/3141595-821

Another AWESOME soundtrack by KOEI!!! Enjoy everyone!:D

-Album Details-

Title: Bladestorm The Hundred Years' War Original Soundtrack
Publisher: Koei Co., Ltd.
Catalog Number: KECH-1442/3
Release Date: September 19th, 2007
Price: �3,600

-Music Credits-

Sound Directed by Shinichiro Nakamura

Music Composed by Jamie Christopherson, Soundelux Design Music Group
Orchestrated by Thanh Tran and Jamie Christopherson
Performed by The Prague Symphony Orchestra
Conducted by Adam Klemens

Latin Text and Vocals Performed by Evelina Christopherson

Additional Orchestra and Choir Samples Supplied by
East West Quantum Leap Symphonic Orchestra and Symphonic Choirs

***

Excellent post. Grand, epic, orchestral music.

Thank you, qqqqqqwe.

YES!!! EPIC and ORCHESTRAL all the way! Amazing work KOEI did here!



Attackers In Battle reminds me of songs from Tenchi wo Kurau II=)

First of all, so people don't get confused and think I'm being ungrateful: DISCLAIMER: Thank you for your post, qqqqqqwe - it is much appreciated. I respect the poster and I love everybody. I respect the fact that some people enjoy this score, and some people believe it is good. The following critiques are directed solely at the music and not at you, or anybody else.

Arthierr hyped this thing up to the hilt in another thread, so I went off to find it...

It's an 80% synth score from hell! I don't know what the Prague Symphony are suppposed to be doing, but they're barely audible here - obviously there was almost no budget for this score. Even the choir is fake. This I could forgive if the music was particularly fine, but without wishing to be unkind to anybody, this really is the epitomy of "faux-epic, faux-orchestral" cliche scoring. Once again, I dispute referring to this as orchestral when almost all of it isn't in one way or another.

You don't call margarine butter, because it's not butter. It's margarine - it's fake butter. You call it margarine. (Yes, some kinds of margarine have a little bit of butter in them, but it's padded out with vegetable oil and various other crap.)

You don't call synth orchestral, because it's not orchestral. It's synth - it's (mostly) a fake orchestra. You call it synthesised. (Yes, some kinds of synthesised music have a little bit of orchestra in them, but it's padded out with keyboards and samples, and various other crap.)

In short - I don't like this, I think it's unmitigated dreck.

Once again, thank you for your post - I'm sure other folk will enjoy it - but for the reasons I have stated above, this is not my cup of tea. :)

Peace!

Bump for this great score. Give it a try, people.

It's an 80% synth score from hell! I don't know what the Prague Symphony are suppposed to be doing, but they're barely audible here - obviously there was almost no budget for this score. Even the choir is fake. This I could forgive if the music was particularly fine, but without wishing to be unkind to anybody, this really is the epitomy of "faux-epic, faux-orchestral" cliche scoring. Once again, I dispute referring to this as orchestral when almost all of it isn't in one way or another.


This article :


Real and synth orchestras add character to video games.
http://digitalcontentproducer.com/soundforpic/revfeat/video_sonic_sophistication/

Urgh... Thanking you kindly for that article, but what a load of utter crap it all is. (No disrespect to yourself or the poster intended - once again...)

They speak as though the synthesiser adds something really special. It doesn't. A slightly-too-small orchestra is better than a slightly-too-small orchestra that some idiot has overdubbed with shoddy synthesiser tracks to try to make it sound better. They claim the synth tracks are so great that it makes everything sound "hyper-real" - if this is new contemporary parlance for "not real at all" then Mission Accomplished.


Koei wanted the dramatic sweep of orchestral music, but could not commit the resources to record the entire score with live players. In this day and age, that's not a problem.

Bloody hell, yes it is... Why do you think that, even today - when synthesiser technology is so advanced - a producer will still get a real orchestra if they possibly can? Synthesisers are fake musicians - fake musicians make fake music, fake music inspires fake emotions, and fake emotions are as good as - if not worse than - none at all.

And, of course they could've committed the resources. They could have recorded the whole damn score for $10,000. What's the development budget of a game nowadays? I'm fairly willing to bet they could've found ten grand somewhere in that big ole' box of cash. Find a decent composer, for starters, who actually understands how a symphony orchestra works... Or at the very least a competent orchestrator...

If I can afford to hire an orchestra to record a demo CD, out of my own pocket, surely a big game company can do the same...


“I used Jamie's prerecorded synth strings and brass and so forth to enhance the live orchestra, to make the 60 players sound more like 90 or 100, to give it a larger-than-life, almost hyper-real orchestral sound,” says Los Angeles-based veteran orchestral scoring mixer John Rodd.

Bullshit. 60 players can sound absolutely breathtaking. 60 players will sound like an orchestra. 60 players plus synth does NOT sound like 90 players... It sounds like a shitty synthesiser. Any *good* recording engineer can tell you that there are ten thousand different things you can do in post production to beef up the sound of a smaller orchestra. The "bigness" comes from the quality of composition, scope of the music, skill of the orchestrator, and experience of the recording engineer. If it has to come in sheer numbers and ear-splitting volume, there's solid proof right there that your music is shit, so you're trying to cover for its inadequacies by piling on the decibels.

Anybody know Bruce Broughton's Heart Of Darkness? That's a 55 piece orchestra.




“The advantage of blending live and synth orchestras is being able to achieve a more powerful, thick sound,” Christopherson says.

Spoken like a true idiot.


“If your synth stuff doesn't sound good, though, it can sure kill the sound of the live orchestra. The challenging part is to try and get those to sound like they are coming from the same room at the same time, and that's where a good mixer like John Rodd comes in.”

Well, obviously John Rodd isn't the fantastic mixer Christopherson says he is, because I saw through the synth within four seconds of playing the damn thing, and even my mother - who couldn't tell a synthesiser from a french horn - said that it sounded like a keyboard.

Synth **CAN** sound very good. The library the guy is using (EastWest Quantum Leap) is BREATHTAKING. It's pretty hard to make it sounds as shoddy as it does here. Hats off to them.


“I'm a strong believer that if you use a live orchestra for the beginning parts of a game or film, the player's ear starts to assume that everything is live, and they can become fooled later on when you switch to synths only,” Christopherson says. “That being said, the opening movie and startup scene are live orchestra, as well as the end credits.”

Only to the deaf, the musically inept, or the brain-dead.

And wow, they even managed to make the orchestral sections sound like a synthesizer, a-la Hans ZImmer. They have sixty players and they don't have the foggiest idea what to do with them. So they make them play synthesizer music and beef the rest up with synthesizers -- so it all sounds like a synthesizer.

THAT'S what I call a top notch post.

I won't be as lenghty as you, but here's a few considerations :

- The EastWest Quantum Leap IS a great sampler, I have the silver edition and although it's not perfect, it sounds very good once mastered. And indeed I find the sound in this ost below what it should be.

- You're right, a 60 musicians orchestra is more than sufficient to produce a very good sound. I wonder why they felt the need to add some synth on top of this. ??????? They should have added only some reverb, equalization, filters... (if necessary).

Really a pity...

Edit : anyway, even if it's flawed, I really enjoy this OST and thank qqqqqqwe for posting it.

BTW, if you like some REAL orchestra, you should try this :

Atsuhime OST (2008)
Thread 58983

Haven't listened to it yet, but if there is indeed synth enhancements, well, someone made a very bad, un-composer-like, judgment call. There was only one score that benefited from using synths intended to enhance the orchestra and that was Tengai Makyo 2. It'd take too long to explain why that score works the way it does and why attempts to "fool" listeners into thinking they're hearing live musicians often ends up sounding shitty, so I'm not going to go into it right now.

Synths should only be a worst case solution to lack of live performers. But if you do have the performers, they should never need enhancing with synths. It's like playing the choral part from Holst's Neptune on a keyboard synth. Smaller orchestras do it all the time, and it sounds painfully terrible.

You're absolutely right! Synth sounds like shit in an orchestra.
I'm a huge fan of film scores and I discovered music from video games a few years ago.
I love epic orchestral game soundtracks but I would like to discover composers or soundtracks that I ignore.

So, can you make me suggestions of orchestral epic games scores without synth? Thanks to you all.

Wow, I'm hearing all sorts of references. Yared's rejected score to Troy (tracks 102, 106, 107, 115, 122, 123, 124, 203, 204 etc., basically the main theme, 127), Conan the Barbarian (104), Shore's Lord of the Rings (108, 117), Zimmer's Backdraft (115), Dvorak's New World (126),

From my initial listen, all I can say is that there's serious potential here, but it is buried under the synths.

There seems to be a problem in the strings in tracks like 110, which leads me to believe their live recordings alone weren't so great and they attempted to boost the sound using synths. Except for the first tracks, there isn't anywhere I can say that sounds distinctively like live musicians playing. It all sounds fake. Even the trumpet often comes across sounding like bagpipes at times.

As for the orchestration, where are the winds? There's a whole orchestral SECTION that is not being utilized properly. If anything the flutes and piccolo can strengthen string ostinatos and runs. Jeremy Soule's Total Annihilation is a great example of how short battle tracks can use winds effectively.

I understand that there isn't a lot of room for counterpoint since the ostinatos take up a lot of space, and the rest of the instruments are attempting to blast out the melody so it can be heard over all the percussion.

Overall the compositions aren't bad. It's very ostinato-heavy, as is most game music, and harmonically driven by block chord motion (as opposed to thematically driven.) It fails to sound realistic mainly where the synth is exposed, especially in the chorus and strings. Overall it's not very complex, but it works well as standard Media Ventures "wall of sound" fare. Maybe they could have attempted less lyrics and more "ahhh" if they couldn't get a real chorus.

The thematic development would have been great had the theme not originally belonged to Gabriel Yared. It's very distracting to hear it in almost the exact same context as Troy, minus the fantastic orchestral sound of course.

I have no problem with synths. Jeez, I still listen to snes OSV's:). But I agree that synths used only for making orchestra more powerfull is... cheap. But it happens very often also in movie scores (I'm not talking only about ex media ventures). I can understand game makers, that they are trying to make things cheaper (game development is expensive, and money that come from it isn't that great. As i red, only the biggest productions gives money.), but Hollywood? Did U hear last Narnia? What a fake sound it has. With a budget about 200 milion dollars? I don't get it.


Anybody know Bruce Broughton's Heart Of Darkness? That's a 55 piece orchestra.

Really? Sounds much bigger. And I thinks that's the point - good composer, good orchestration, good performers and good score. Without any electronical boost.

Anyway I like BLADESTORM, it's catchy and easy to listen.


BTW, if you like some REAL orchestra, you should try this :

Atsuhime OST (2008)
Thread 58983

Indeed very pretty music:).

Except for the first tracks, there isn't anywhere I can say that sounds distinctively like live musicians playing. It all sounds fake. Even the trumpet often comes across sounding like bagpipes at times.

Funny, isn't it, how they've managed to completely obliterate the sound of the orchestra for almost the entire score...

I can pull better synth sounds off my old AWE32 - and this guy has a professional 5gb sample library.


As for the orchestration, where are the winds? There's a whole orchestral SECTION that is not being utilized properly. If anything the flutes and piccolo can strengthen string ostinatos and runs. Jeremy Soule's Total Annihilation is a great example of how short battle tracks can use winds effectively.


Composers seem to be terrified of wind instruments nowadays - or more specifically, at anything that sounds like ornamentation. When was the last time you heard a trill in a Hollywood score? At that, when was the last time you heard a composition that included a part for properly arranged wind section... Anything that distracts from the "big" "epic" sound is mercilessly stripped away.


It fails to sound realistic mainly where the synth is exposed, especially in the chorus and strings. Overall it's not very complex, but it works well as standard Media Ventures "wall of sound" fare. Maybe they could have attempted less lyrics and more "ahhh" if they couldn't get a real chorus.

There's too much of that kind of crap being written as it is... Anybody with a synth, a compressor plugin, and a CD of "The Rock" can do MV. Am I the only person in the world who's fed up with this artless cookie-cutter scoring? And with complete fools without one iota of musical ability forging careers as composers whilst simultaneously, great musicians are drifting off into obscurity because there's no work for them any more...


Haven't listened to it yet, but if there is indeed synth enhancements, well, someone made a very bad, un-composer-like, judgment call. There was only one score that benefited from using synths intended to enhance the orchestra and that was Tengai Makyo 2. It'd take too long to explain why that score works the way it does and why attempts to "fool" listeners into thinking they're hearing live musicians often ends up sounding shitty, so I'm not going to go into it right now.

Amen to that. There is not a musician's mentality present in any of this. It's a producer's mentality. The two are *never* compatible. Christopherson is *not* a composer.

I'm not familiar with the score you mentioned - I will track it down.


I have no problem with synths. Jeez, I still listen to snes OSV's

Ooh, neither do I, my friend - I love synthesizers when they're allowed to do their own thing. A synthesizer programmed to sound like a fake orchestra, being mixed with an inadequate (questionable) orchestra in a misguided attempt to beef it up - now, that's where I have a problem. :)


I can understand game makers, that they are trying to make things cheaper (game development is expensive, and money that come from it isn't that great. As i red, only the biggest productions gives money.), but Hollywood? Did U hear last Narnia? What a fake sound it has. With a budget about 200 milion dollars? I don't get it.

Well, they must be breaking even otherwise they wouldn't bother. Particularly in the console market, where piracy is nigh-on impossible for the average Joe, I can assume that their revenues must be pretty high, or at least high enough to recoup their costs.

As for Narnia, well, that's the contemporary technique all the way. The irony was that it was performed by a gigantic (world class) symphony orchestra. But you just can't compensate for shitty composition, uninspired orchestration, and deaf recording engineers who approach a symphony orchestra with the same mentality they would an electronica band.

The fact is, if you plan ahead, use your head, and hire a competent musician, a fully orchestral score is within the reach of *all* but the most money-starved projects. If you do the hard work yourself, contracting an Eastern European orchestra, with enough recording time to lay down 70-90 minutes of music, will cost you $10-15,000. And you get a lovely holiday in Prague, or Brno, or Slovakia, or Bulgaria. In the great scheme of things, that's a negligible sum for *any* studio / company supported venture - particularly for such an integral part of your production.

In short, producers don't give enough of a shit about music to do it well. It's that simple. It's not about money. It's about not giving a damn, and about the (often correct) assumption that 99.9999% of gamers won't give a damn either.

If a company asked me to score a game, I'd offer to do it for a reduced fee, or no money at all, to maximise the percentage of budget actually going towards making music.

Paying some tosser like Christopherson, his hot-shot recording engineer, and presumably the usual raft of orchestrators - THAT costs money... A lot of money.


Really? Sounds much bigger. And I thinks that's the point - good composer, good orchestration, good performers and good score. Without any electronical boost.

Exactly. Broughton knows what the hell he's doing. He also had a sensible recording engineer.

This "we had to use a synthesizer to beef up a small orchestra" argument is utter fallacy. What they're really saying is "we had to use a synthesizer to try to bury substandard composition in ear-splitting volume and pray to God that nobody notices the music is very, very loud, but complete shit."

Atsuhime OST (2008)
Thread 58983


Indeed very pretty music:).

If you like it please leave a thanks to the releaser, it will also bump the thread to the frontpage so that other people can notice it.

Composers seem to be terrified of wind instruments nowadays - or more specifically, at anything that sounds like ornamentation. When was the last time you heard a trill in a Hollywood score? At that, when was the last time you heard a composition that included a part for properly arranged wind section... Anything that distracts from the "big" "epic" sound is mercilessly stripped away.

Right, but we can still hear some high level ornamentation with someone like Nicholas Dodd, for instance. Also anime music often use it.


Amen to that. There is not a musician's mentality present in any of this. It's a producer's mentality. The two are *never* compatible. Christopherson is *not* a composer.

http://www.jamiechristopherson.com/index2.html
He can be really good when he wants to. He's the guy who composed "outro" from Lineage2, wich is a magnificient piece.


Ooh, neither do I, my friend - I love synthesizers when they're allowed to do their own thing. A synthesizer programmed to sound like a fake orchestra, being mixed with an inadequate (questionable) orchestra in a misguided attempt to beef it up - now, that's where I have a problem. :)

Yes, there's a distinct gap, a clear discontinuity between what's synthesized and meant to be so, and synthesizers who try to imitate a real orchestra and fool the listener. It's very hard to do the latter, and modern technologies aren't still accomplished enough.


As for Narnia, well, that's the contemporary technique all the way. The irony was that it was performed by a gigantic (world class) symphony orchestra. But you just can't compensate for shitty composition, uninspired orchestration, and deaf recording engineers who approach a symphony orchestra with the same mentality they would an electronica band.

Personally I find Narnia boring and unoriginal, as if it came from a free music library. Remember "Willow" ? THAT was a sublime fantasy score.

Agreed. Willow is a masterpiece. Horner wonderfully entwined Prokofiev, Britten and Schriabin into his own then romantic Russian style. The future of orchestral music in Western cinema (and possibly games) is looking bleak. I think the Japanese and Koreans are the only current composers working consistently in traditional orchestral style for cinema, games and anime and I would think that is the best place to find well written orchestral music today.


Personally I find Narnia boring and unoriginal, as if it came from a free music library. Remember "Willow" ? THAT was a sublime fantasy score.

Want to hear what a small orchestra (about 40 musicians) can do, once mastered ? Listen to this :

Masanori Takumi - Claymore Original Soundtrack - Seikan Naru Tatakai.mp3
http://rapidshare.com/files/140264894/Masanori_Takumi_-_Claymore_Original_Soundtrack_-_Seikan_Naru_Tatakai.mp3

Here's a quotation from Hitoshi Sakimoto :


HS: Well, there are 10 to 20 sound sources that you can typically buy -- orchestra-style sound sources and various other sound sources -- and lately, the quality of these sound sources has become quite good, to the point where they sound pretty real. A while ago, they weren't that good, though, so what I always tried to do was never actually simulate an orchestra. Instead, there are some great sounds that come out when you play the sound sources through the sequencer -- it doesn't sound real, but it has a unique flavor. So what I've always tried to do was try to take advantage of that sound, rather than try to simulate an orchestra or something else.

The entire interview can be red here :
http://www.1up.com/do/feature?cId=3163748

That's the point, when you try to imitate an orchestra, you sometimes look ridiculous. Instead you can use synth sound if it sounds good, but not necessarily realistic. And some of these sounds are sometimes quite enjoyable to listen to.

Agreed. Willow is a masterpiece. Horner wonderfully entwined Prokofiev, Britten and Schriabin into his own then romantic Russian style. The future of orchestral music in Western cinema (and possibly games) is looking bleak. I think the Japanese and Koreans are the only current composers working consistently in traditional orchestral style for cinema, games and anime and I would think that is the best place to find well written orchestral music today.

You must mean Prokofiev (October Revolution Cantata), Bartok (Cantata Profana), Janacek (Glagolitic Mass), Schumann (Renish), and the Bulgarian folk song "Mari Stanke Le." :D

No, I mean Prokofiev Rom and Jul (first act strings), Britten's Sinfonia di Requiem (I think 3rd movement) and Schriabin's tone poem.


You must mean Prokofiev (October Revolution Cantata), Bartok (Cantata Profana), Janacek (Glagolitic Mass), Schumann (Renish), and the Bulgarian folk song "Mari Stanke Le." :D

This is Willow you're talking about, right? Where all the main themes are derived from the pieces I mentioned?

Choir theme - Janacek's Mass, segues into Bartok's Cantata Profana note for note
Willow's theme (shakuhachi theme) - Bulgarian folk song I mentioned, again, note for note
Adventure theme - Schumann's Rhenish
Bavmorda's theme - Prokofiev's October Revolution Cantata
Danger theme (4 note motif) - Rachmaninov's first symphony
and another theme that takes from the march from Grieg's Peer Gynt Suite

I've heard the pieces you've mentioned, but I don't think they can be found in Willow, at least, not as obviously as the ones I mentioned.

Escape from the Tavern borrows several long bars from Prok's Romeo and Juliet as does the final two tracks of the album in places.
Britten's Sinfonia Da Requiem, Dies Irae, is quoted heavily in almost all the action scoring of Willow as in Cocoon and Star trek III. I'm looking beyond the themes.

I would be very grateful if you would please upload the tracks of Janacek;s Mass and Bartok's Cantata. I'm very intersted in Schumann's Rhenish you mentioned also. Would be interesting to see if the orchestrations and tempo are the same. From those I have mentioned are quite literal sketch transfers.


This is Willow you're talking about, right? Where all the main themes are derived from the pieces I mentioned?

Choir theme - Janacek's Mass, segues into Bartok's Cantata Profana note for note
Willow's theme (shakuhachi theme) - Bulgarian folk song I mentioned, again, note for note
Adventure theme - Schumann's Rhenish
Bavmorda's theme - Prokofiev's October Revolution Cantata
Danger theme (4 note motif) - Rachmaninov's first symphony
and another theme that takes from the march from Grieg's Peer Gynt Suite

I've heard the pieces you've mentioned, but I don't think they can be found in Willow, at least, not as obviously as the ones I mentioned.

Streich
Thank you for the Walton. Just noticed.

So not to derail this thread anymore :), I uploaded the tracks in the classical thread:

http://forums.ffshrine.org/showpost.php?p=1135994&postcount=94

Thank you so much for this soundtrack, the epic and orchestra are so fantastic in this ost, i love them.

Your welcome.


Thank you so much for this soundtrack, the epic and orchestra are so fantastic in this ost, i love them.

Lets hope Dannyboy doesn't see that one.

What was that? ;)

I'm late to the party but thanks for the upload :)

Yes there are synths (I really can't here any orchestra) but this is a good soundtrack for a game. Entertaining to listen too although it doesn't come close to something like Lair or Outcast

Shame from the EWQL fake choir... Why does nobody use REAL choir these days. Nothing beats the sound and depth of a real choir...

Money. They obviously used all their budget on the six piece orchestra and the five thousand piece synthesiser overdub to be worried about hiring 30 or 40 people to sing as well. EWQL isn't bad, but God, it's no substitute. Yet another example of modern composers trying to do "epic" and having absolutely no idea how - and no appreciation for the fact that "epicness" comes from composition and scope, not from noise and excessive volume...

^^
True. All those trailer companies like Two Steps From Hell, X-Ray Dog, Epic Score, ... use mainly (only?) synths and votox choir these day to creat this epic sound.

The compositions are good (although not original) but would be even better when performed with a full scale real orchestra. Personally I prefer epic scores from orchestral composers like Debney, Doyle which are mainly orchestral. Occasionally I listen to music programmers like Zimmer and Jablonsky... They have some good tracks too but all sound very alike.

thanks ! It's very enjoyable even not being fully orchestrated

OMFG!!! I was allways looking that OST. xDD

I love you. :D

downloading now, thanks for the share! I see this got quite a Heated discussion, haha. So will see what I think after I hear it. I too hate synth filling in for an orchestra, and there are plenty of big fantasy scores that have used small orchestras and managed to make it work.
Then again, I've been hearing plenty of very mediocre, lackluster and theme-less action video game scores recently... so that might make this one sound a bit better than it really is... we'll see.

I normally just browse but this I just had to hear.
Thank you very much, now I'm off to play it upstairs, they will know my name!

-Whoosh!