Here's a little taste of *some* of the missing music from Nichijou. :) (Yes. I know, it sounds like shit - it's clumsily extracted from the anime; quality is not a primary concern. It's just to give you an idea what's missing.)
Download -_nichijou_still_to_come.mp3 from Mirrorcreator - Upload files to multiple file sharing sites (http://www.mirrorcreator.com/files/12AOSWQH/-_nichijou_still_to_come.mp3_links)

Arial: I appreciate the comment, but I'll EAT MY HAT if anybody has ever seen that I've edited a post and genuinely thought "Gosh, darn, it would've made my day so much better if I could've read that."

I haven't been having a lot of luck in this thread lately and have constantly been making edits; believe me, nothing of value is lost. The previous one could be summarised into "This proves Hamauzu is crap beyond any shadow of doubt!" and the previous five could be summarised into "I am a drama queen."

You'll live without it. ;)

You'll live without it. ;)

... Oh, don't worry for me. I've read your post before you've edited it. Despite your light speed.

@JBarron2005 I'm afraid that's impossible. Stream quality was not 5.1


Here's Nichijou in FLAC:



Download Link (http://www.easy-share.com/1916627117/nichijou1.zip)

:3

Download keeps hovering at the 100KB/sec mark. Does this website have bad moments like in the middle/end of the day like megaupload until 11 at night?

100KB/s gets you the file in just over fifty minutes. Go make a cup of tea or something. ;)

That is true. At least it's not an unreasonable clip. Though the file is a bit big. Oh well, if i had patience I'd try later, but I don't.

It is indeed big... and you should be aware that 130mb of that is unintelligible chatter. I'm going to reupload tomorrow, to a few different hosts, and do an MP3 version as well - sans the drama.

Oh one of those live albums with speaking bits? Or you mean it's show quotes and cd drama etc?

It is indeed big... and you should be aware that 130mb of that is unintelligible chatter. I'm going to reupload tomorrow, to a few different hosts, and do an MP3 version as well - sans the drama.

Which cues are these? I want to be able to cut them out before listening.

Just the last two. But why put this on the offical OST ? Put more music on it, I say

Well the audience is fans of the anime who presumably speak Japanese. I don't understand it either but I know a friend who is big into these "drama" bits on CD.

YES! I didn't know this had come out!

This is without a doubt the award winner for "Most Unlikely Score Given The Subject Matter And Animation Style" - the show is really lovely... but Yuji Nomi's score... CRIKEY.

For those of you who are wondering what this actually is... Nichijou is a very, very random, but completely appealing, slice-of-life show about some schoolgirls... and a wind up android girl. So far, so ordinary. Immediately, you have a preconception in your mind regarding the kind of music it will get. Forget that. What we have here is nothing short of Yuji Nomi's finest - and most symphonic - score since The Cat Returns. Performed by a full orchestra (the Hungarian Symphony Orchestra) not the usual Japanese ensemble, it's just glorious.

[Edit: Almost every noteworthy piece is missing, and half the album is an incomprehensible radio drama. BUGGER. Roll on OST 2...]

Wait what? This is everything BUT the noteworthy stuff? Well I still love it as it is anyway. I can't wait to hear what the noteworthy stuff sounds like.

I agree that more of Berstein's scores like the Great Escape, Hawaii-
there are so many more-Herrmann Gez where does one start-he has so many great pieces composed-Nice to hear these suites anyway=

I've figured out what's going on with Nichijou; the first CD includes music from the OVA - the confusingly titled "Episode 0" which was in reality a self-contained mini-movie. Meaning there is even more music still to come than I had initially calculated.

I think I was unkind calling this un-noteworthy, because it's utterly gorgeous... but it is presenting a rather lopsided view of the score. :)

I've figured out what's going on with Nichijou; the first CD includes music from the OVA - the confusingly titled "Episode 0" which was in reality a self-contained mini-movie. Meaning there is even more music still to come than I had initially calculated.

I think I was unkind calling this un-noteworthy, because it's utterly gorgeous... but it is presenting a rather lopsided view of the score. :)

The Japanese do have a confusing way of releasing music. How many variations on a Hisashi/Moyazaki soundtrack are there again? Six at the least?

I think this is a very good article on the Symphonic Odyssey concert! Please have a peek to all who might be interested :). Also it gives information on each piece and their arranger. I was shocked at one of them in particular... see if you all might guess who it is :P?

JBarron2005: My friend, I would love to read the article... where is it? ;)

Doublehex: Indeed... they certainly make you jump through hoops. It never ceases to amaze me how, given the Japanese super-human instinct for merchandising, there is such consistent and genuine high quality in the productions. I have all the more respect when somebody says "Yes, it has to make money, and yes we're going to squeeze this franchise DRY... but God help us, it still has to be as good as we can possibly make it."

Doublehex: Indeed... they certainly make you jump through hoops. It never ceases to amaze me how, given the Japanese super-human instinct for merchandising, there is such consistent and genuine high quality in the productions. I have all the more respect when somebody says "Yes, it has to make money, and yes we're going to squeeze this franchise DRY... but God help us, it still has to be as good as we can possibly make it."

That certainly may be true for music, but in terms of other respects, they are just as bad as us Americans. Just how man stupid Kingdom Hearts and Final Fantasy spin-offs do we have? As of late, the main games aren't any good either. It's been six months since Square-Enix charged a subscription fee for FF XIV because it is so bad.

Then again, it gives us more opportunities for good music, so I'm not complaining too much.

JBarron2005: My friend, I would love to read the article... where is it? ;)

If I may warrant a guess...

Original Sound Version � Venturing Beyond The Norm: Symphonic Odysseys Live Report (http://www.originalsoundversion.com/venturing-beyond-the-norm-symphonic-odysseys-live-report/#more-14322)

Tangotreats,

LOL! Sorry my fiancee was talking to me while I was typing and I completely forgot to add the link :P!


Forgive me, everyone! NaotaM provided the right link.

A mostly decent article; written by somebody who is undoubtedly literate, but not at all in a musical sense. Tagging any composition with a melody as a "song" is probably my greatest bugbear, and something about his observations made me think that he lacks a broad musical experience. His almost random recognition of the WDR Symphony Orchestra as "the greatest orchestra in the world" reveals a fanboy-ish background. Essentially, it was "WOW OMG SYMPHONIC ODYSSEYS IS THE MOST EPIC THING EVER!!!!11one" but wrapped up in unusually (for a game music reviewer) competent English.

(Absolutely no offense intended to the good people of the WDR Symphony - but the best orchestra in the world they are not. They're very, very good - even excellent - but I expect the venerable gentleman of the London Symphony, the Concertgebouw, the Berlin Philharmonic, the Vienna Philharmonic, the Royal and London Philharmonics, etc, would have something to say about their enviable positions erased and overtaken by a freelancing radio ensemble! That, and it's rather foolhardy to judge an orchestra upon one performance at a concert of new music that undoubtedly received less rehearsal time and markedly less enthusiasm from the players than, say, a standard of the classical repertoire. I would not judge Van Gogh to be the world's greatest painter based on a doodle he drew on the back of a napkin.)

As for Hamauzu's arrangement, I found it like his other arrangements; sensitive, quite lovely, but again displaying no particular command of the orchestra - and, due to the fact that it is another arrangement of somebody else's composition - it also fails to demonstrate any compositional prowess he may posess. Still a lovely piece, though, and a credit to Hamauzu that for whatever reason [incompetence, lack of musical personality, poor orchestration skills, a belief that the melody deserved a pared down arrangement, all of the above, or neither] his arrangement simply "enabled" the loveliness of the music to be heard, rather than trying to reinvent the wheel.)

“Music = a song” needs to be stamped out of use. It’s not only inaccurate and insensitive, but depressingly betrays the pop hegemony to which everyone is a slave: one size fits all, squash everything into the same tiny mould. This is really a blunder of our generation above all and we ought to be ashamed at our ignorance. Lack of a musical ‘background’ is no excuse - what do they teach in school music lessons at secondary level?

Song as the predominant meta-genre has been with us for, what, over a century? Yet it is only now that we seem to think nothing exists outside of that narrow prescription. Variety is the spice of life! Thankfully, our language isn’t as impoverished as these people would have us believe; we have many words to describe music, so let’s use them!

I’d say it’s even more unforgivable for a VGM fan. Non-song forms come with the territory. How can you claim to be passionate about something you have no desire to treat with specificity?

As for Hamauzu's arrangement, I found it like his other arrangements; sensitive, quite lovely, but again displaying no particular command of the orchestra - and, due to the fact that it is another arrangement of somebody else's composition - it also fails to demonstrate any compositional prowess he may posess. Still a lovely piece, though, and a credit to Hamauzu that for whatever reason [incompetence, lack of musical personality, poor orchestration skills, a belief that the melody deserved a pared down arrangement, all of the above, or neither] his arrangement simply "enabled" the loveliness of the music to be heard, rather than trying to reinvent the wheel.)

It seems that might've been a compliment lol.

“Music = a song” needs to be stamped out of use. It’s not only inaccurate and insensitive, but depressingly betrays the pop hegemony to which everyone is a slave: one size fits all, squash everything into the same tiny mould. This is really a blunder of our generation above all and we ought to be ashamed at our ignorance.

I don't believe in taking the rap for the crimes of my peers and neither should you. We serve a very specific purpose; we are placeholders, caretakers - we are looking after sensibilities that our generation aren't currently interested in possessing, but without us they would entirely die. We should be proud that we are not only preserving something worthwhile, but that we're going against the grain in order to do so. :)


Lack of a musical ‘background’ is no excuse - what do they teach in school music lessons at secondary level?

I shudder to think, I really do.



How can you claim to be passionate about something you have no desire to treat with specificity?

Because a desire to "get it right"
is now considered snobbish and elitist. Being educated, using appropriate language, demonstrating knowledge about your chosen passionate subject - all challenge the dangerous perception that all things should be accessible to all people. I agree with that, but not when the sanctity of the artform is threatened by that "inclusiveness" failing to make simple demands of the consumer - to respect the artform. Today, the consumer consumes but pays no consideration to how that commodity came to exist in the first place - artists became artists because they realised and understood that it was necessary to attain a certain level of sophistication to properly appreciate and therefore propogate it. Now, to make such a request is to reveal yourself as pompous braggart trying to keep ruffians out of your exclusive club.

If we were talking about brain surgery, and a random individual suggested that brain surgery carried out by a bus driver with a rusty kitchen knife was just as worthwhile, proper brain surgeons and people with in-depth knowledge thereof would stand up and say "Beg pardon, but you don't know what you're talking about!" and not face a torrent of "My opinion is just as valid as YOURS!" / "Brain surgery is subjective!" / "Sometimes doing it my way works well enough therefore your method is obsolete!"...

You'd just be able to say "Be quiet, don't talk about things you don't understand" and that would be that.

In our world, everybody with a set of ears (regardless of what they're keeping between them) considers themselves absolutely qualified to not only comment but even influence mainstream opinion. Art should lead the people, not the other way around.

Well, this is my very first post on the FFShrine Forums. That's sad, considering I've been a member since...2009! That is way too long without uploading anything! Considering this, I am going to upload a link to one of my personal favorite scores, especially from an animated film. From 1997, this is the rare promotional score for Anastasia, by David Newman! (By the way, this is not my link.)

http://i.imgur.com/rH4Vc.jpghttp://
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=9VHRLVD3

If I may ramble for a bit, David Newman, at least as far as my limited knowledge of film scores and composers go, reminds me a lot of John Debney, in that he provides decent to great scores for films that really, REALLY don't deserve them (his most recent score was for Big Mommas: Like Father, Like Son for god's sake!). Every now and again, he does a great score for a film that deserves it (such as Serenity or The Brave Little Toaster) but for every Anastasia or Serenity, he churns out twenty The Cat In The Hat's or Norbit's. But the thing is, he's still really good at what he does. It's kind of a shame he's so under-appreciated really, but then again, just look at the legacy he has to live up to. His father was Alfred Newman, who I think needs no introduction on this thread; then you got his brother Thomas Newman, and his uncle Randy Newman, both of whom are again incredibly talented (and well-known) composers. Sort of the same problem Joel Goldsmith has, when you think about it.

But I digress, there was a score about to be uploaded somewhere in there, wasn't there? This is yet another example of David being forced to attempt to live up to his father's legacy, considering the fact that this film is a remake of the 1956 film Anastasia (a very, very, VERY loose remake, I might add) which was scored by his father Alfred Newman. Does this score stand up to its predecessor? ...I haven't the slightest clue. I've actually never heard the score for the 1956 Anastasia (though I need to.) Again, I digress. What I do know is that this is a lovely score. I can't really describe the score itself that well, (again, I don't know that much about the technical things. Sorry!) so I would normally try and talk about each cue individually, but I don't think you want to sit here all day reading my rambling.

However, I have good news and bad news when it comes to this link. The good news is, not only did the person who uploaded the link originally include the generally great songs written by Stephen Flaherty and Lynn Ahrens as well, in chronological order (In case anyone cares, my favorite songs are Once Upon A December, Journey To The Past, and especially In The Dark Of The Night. Most. Underrated. Villain Song. Ever! The rest of the songs are a little meh to me, to be honest,) the parts of the score that were on the original soundtrack that had singing in it (Prologue had Angela Lansbury and Lacey Chabert briefly singing Once Upon A December, etc.) have the singing removed, leaving only the score. The bad news is, not only are the pop covers of Journey To The Past and Once Upon A December by Aaliyah and Deana Carter and the song At The Beginning that plays over the beginning of the end credits on there, but all of the songs are in WAV format, which I know a lot of people hate. Thank goodness the score isn't in WAV, and that the horrendous Spanish cover of Journey To The Past on the soundtrack isn't on there! In any case, if you're still conscious after reading all this (or if you just downloaded the link and ignored this ramble all together) the rant is finally over. Enjoy the music!

---------- Post added at 08:10 PM ---------- Previous post was at 08:07 PM ----------

I don't know what happened, but the link isn't there, so here is the link. Sorry about it not being there the first time. My first post, and already I've made a mistake. Fantastic.
MEGAUPLOAD - The leading online storage and file delivery service (http://www.megaupload.com/?d=9VHRLVD3)

With the praise Desplat's decent-but-not-great "Lily's Theme" seems to be getting in the Deathly Hallows Part 2 thread, I thought it'd be a good opportunity to share some great weepy music:


DANNY ELFMAN
SOMMERSBY (1993)

MP3 -V0 | 16 Tracks | 83.9 MB



For me, this is one of Danny Elfman's greatest works. I sort of think of it as the adult "Black Beauty," although perhaps it would be correct to say "Black Beauty" is the kiddie "Sommersby," since this came first.

Anyway, this is one of Elfman's most gorgeous albums, dominated by lush string chords and harmonics, with ample, noble support from the brass and Irish-flavored fiddling and pipes for a folk flavor. Based around a tragic romance, the music is appropriately maudlin and heartfelt, with most of the intermittent joyful reprieves coming out of the folk idiom.

I'm befuddled when I hear that this score is the composer at his most un-Elfmanlike. Certainly he restrains his more manic rhythmic tendencies, but the melodies are pure Elfman. It's certainly not to be missed.


DOWNLOAD (http://www.mirrorcreator.com/files/KJOCKIHG/FeelingWeepy.zip_links)

Well, this is my very first post on the FFShrine Forums. That's sad, considering I've been a member since...2009! That is way too long without uploading anything! Considering this, I am going to upload a link to one of my personal favorite scores, especially from an animated film. From 1997, this is the rare promotional score for Anastasia, by David Newman!

Welcome to the thread and congratulations for such a nice post - quite an impressive 1st post! I remember I downloaded Anastasia long ago and forgot to listen to it, now I probably even lost it. So thanks for the recommendation and the link, good opportunity to try it. Also, interesting facts about this composer, which I'm not very familiar with. Do you happen to have the 1956 score? That would make a very interesting comparison point for film music enthusiasts here.



DANNY ELFMAN
SOMMERSBY (1993)
I remember how the score was ravishing and lyrical when I saw the movie, I didn't notice who was the composer, and it was a surprise to learn that it was Elfman, since it's not that easy to spot his usual style in this score. Elfman's sensitive, emotional side can be really something at times, as also shown by the fantastic Edward Scissorhands.


If we were talking about brain surgery, and a random individual suggested that brain surgery carried out by a bus driver with a rusty kitchen knife was just as worthwhile, proper brain surgeons and people with in-depth knowledge thereof would stand up and say "Beg pardon, but you don't know what you're talking about!" and not face a torrent of "My opinion is just as valid as YOURS!" / "Brain surgery is subjective!" / "Sometimes doing it my way works well enough therefore your method is obsolete!"...

This reminds me of that guy, in the POTC 4 thread, who - rather dickishly - defended this score with arguments like: "Hey, don't criticize this, it's just not your stuff, just a matter of opinion, everything is relative, blah blah..."

Well, if your teacher gave a F to your dissertation, would you say that it's only his / her opinion he / she expresses? Maybe your dissertation is actually very bad, comparable to a stinking pile of turd, that even would get a C in 6th grade (and you're now in 12th grade...). Maybe your teacher knows how to properly judge a dissertation, what qualities it should have and what flaws it shouldn't have to be a good or a bad one.

Film music has an history and a tradition, and other great scores have been composed in the past for big pirates / fantasy movies. Someone who has some little knowledge and appreciation for such things knows what to expect for this kind of movie, what sort of score would fit nicely, which characteristics and qualities it should have. And it's sad to say that by every aspect, POTC was, indeed, a stinking pile of turd, a failure beyond proportions, a shame to the great tradition of Hollywood's classic scoring.

This is not only a matter of opinion. You can't just use this argument anytime someone criticizes something. When something is bad compared to what should be expected and what has been done before, you have to clearly state it, otherwise everything will become acceptable, and eventually mediocrity will become the norm - as it's already the case in Hollywood nowadays.

I don't try to blow my own trumpet, but threads like this one, by being selective and demanding with music, by expressing criticisms when it needs to be and praises when it deserves to be, could actually help things to go the right direction, at some level or another.

Now, that's better - you and I agreeing on something. ;)

It sounds arrogant, but it really isn't. Sometimes, you just have to say "Look, this is crap. The fact that you believe otherwise proves that you are unqualified to decide one way or another."

If there is a turd in front of you, and somebody claims it is a bunch of freesias... you can discount that person's opinion on the grounds that a) they have no idea what the difference between a turd and a freesia actually *is* - whether through lack of sophistication or lack of experience and knowledge, or b) they are being deliberately obtuse and saying obviously ridiculous things in order to provoke an argument. A turd is a turd. Pretending otherwise - or expecting people to hold their peace if they believe otherwise - sets a dangerous precedent and eventually breeds a society where nobody has the sophistication or experience to know one way or the other.

Edit: And isn't "turd" just one of the greatest words in the English language? :D

Unfortunately, no. I've been looking for the 1956 score myself, actually, with no such luck. I'll probably have to buy the soundtrack from Amazon, despite the fact that brand new it's 44 dollars (Yikes! I'm not made out of money, you know), then rip it and upload it another time.

I'll make up for it, though, by uploading the Gone With The Wind 2-disc set later on today...that is, after I look up what company uploaded it, of course (I just looked, and I think Rhino Records released it. Does that mean it's okay to upload, or not?) Also, if it has been uploaded here before, please tell me. I wouldn't want to waste a post after all :)

---------- Post added at 10:26 AM ---------- Previous post was at 10:23 AM ----------

Whoops! I forgot the quotes. So, to elaborate on what I responded to:


Do you happen to have the 1956 score? That would make a very interesting comparison point for film music enthusiasts here.

I'll make up for it, though, by uploading the Gone With The Wind 2-disc set later on today...that is, after I look up what company uploaded it, of course (I just looked, and I think Rhino Records released it. Does that mean it's okay to upload, or not?) Also, if it has been uploaded here before, please tell me. I wouldn't want to waste a post after all

This one hasn't been posted in this thread, and I don't believe this label is forbidden, so feel free do do it. It's a much appreciated initiative. :)



BTW, wasn't it yesterday (July 18th) that Mike Verta recorded his live orchestral piece in LA? News about it would be welcome. ;)

Welcome Mr Hedgehog!

Arthierr, are you sure that hasn't been posted? I have it somehow and I'm not sure where I got it from. I've actually been working on-and-off on remastering it for a few months.

I did a quick search within the thread, with no result, but a larger search gave this:




Thread 83759

Well, if your teacher gave a F to your dissertation, would you say that it's only his / her opinion he / she expresses? Maybe your dissertation is actually very bad, comparable to a stinking pile of turd, that even would get a C in 6th grade (and you're now in 12th grade...). Maybe your teacher knows how to properly judge a dissertation, what qualities it should have and what flaws it shouldn't have to be a good or a bad one.

Comparing music to a dissertation is very disingenuous. Music is something that is registered on a purely emotional level. Either it moves you, or it doesn't. That is the only requirement for any piece of music to be enjoyed by anybody. A dissertation, on the hand, is meant to be picked apart and scanned on a technical level. You can't grade a research paper or an argument emotionally. When points are made and sources are brought up, they need to be judged in terms of how they support the point/argument someone is making.



Film music has an history and a tradition, and other great scores have been composed in the past for big pirates / fantasy movies. Someone who has some little knowledge and appreciation for such things knows what to expect for this kind of movie, what sort of score would fit nicely, which characteristics and qualities it should have. And it's sad to say that by every aspect, POTC was, indeed, a stinking pile of turd, a failure beyond proportions, a shame to the great tradition of Hollywood's classic scoring.

I think it's fair to say that "On Stranger Tides" isn't comparable to what people consider the "Golden Age" of Hollywood scoring. But you are again being disingenuous. A work of art or entertainment should be judged according to its intentions. "On Stranger Tides" was clearly not intended to be a score in the classical or conventional tradition. It's certainly possible to make a good argument for why PoTC4 is a mediocre or bad Zimmer score, but comparing it to scores to it wasn't even trying to imitate is kind of asinine. Anything can suck if you expect it to be something else.


This is not only a matter of opinion. You can't just use this argument anytime someone criticizes something. When something is bad compared to what should be expected and what has been done before, you have to clearly state it, otherwise everything will become acceptable, and eventually mediocrity will become the norm - as it's already the case in Hollywood nowadays.

Liking or not liking a piece of music *is* entirely a matter of opinion, and what does and doesn't constitute "mediocrity" is itself opened to debate. This may be unthinkable to you, but people can genuinely enjoy something that other people consider "crap". Take "Cars 2" for instance. There are *lots* of people who consider it to be an unbearable movie and Pixar's greatest failure, and then there are some very respectable people who make a good argument for why it isn't. Which side is trying to tear down the standards for good taste? What is good taste, anyway? There's no objective answer.

I honestly don't think there's such a thing as a bad opinion. What I do believe is that opinions can be poorly argued. But a poor argument doesn't make one opinion inferior to another; it just means someone made a bad point for their case. I don't know why I'm posting all this in this thread, but I just felt like I needed to post a response. In the future, I will continue to try to be more careful about how I respond to dissent...but I will continue to argue that Filmtracks writes terrible reviews, because *that* is a fact!

Apologies in advance if this post comes across as redundant or asinine.

I was forgetting to let you guys know of this :)

Thread 92439

I will continue to argue that Filmtracks writes terrible reviews, because *that* is a fact!


THAT is an opinion! Clemmensen's reviews can sometimes come across rather arrogant in tone, but I'll be damned if I've ever disagreed with a word he's ever written. Could it be that his reviews are "terrible" because they tend to rubbish your favourite scores? ;)

I did a quick search within the thread, with no result, but a larger search gave this:




Thread 83759
That's my upload, but I'm not sure how many mirrors are still working. The MegaUpload links should still be fine though.

And don't be fooled by the post title - the FLAC isn't coming soon, it's already available. Post titles can't be edited on here, sadly.

DANNY ELFMAN
SOMMERSBY (1993)


For me, this is one of Danny Elfman's greatest works. I sort of think of it as the adult "Black Beauty," although perhaps it would be correct to say "Black Beauty" is the kiddie "Sommersby," since this came first.

Anyway, this is one of Elfman's most gorgeous albums, dominated by lush string chords and harmonics, with ample, noble support from the brass and Irish-flavored fiddling and pipes for a folk flavor. Based around a tragic romance, the music is appropriately maudlin and heartfelt, with most of the intermittent joyful reprieves coming out of the folk idiom.

I'm befuddled when I hear that this score is the composer at his most un-Elfmanlike. Certainly he restrains his more manic rhythmic tendencies, but the melodies are pure Elfman. It's certainly not to be missed.

[CENTER]DOWNLOAD (http://www.mirrorcreator.com/files/KJOCKIHG/FeelingWeepy.zip_links)

read some good reviews about the film way back...and with it plus yours on the score, now i'm curious to hear it for myself. thanks for the share! :)

I did a quick search within the thread, with no result, but a larger search gave this:




Okay, that's the soundtrack I have, so that would kinda defeat the purpose of uploading it here...has The Wizard Of Oz 2-disc soundtrack been uploaded then? If so, then I'll probably just upload Gone With The Wind anyway, and Wizard Of Oz after that. After that...well, we'll let time decide that. :)

Tango,

My dislike for Filmtracks' reviews has nothing to do with their opinion of a score. It's purely a matter of how they write their reviews and how they approach the material. Too many massive walls of text that need to be broken down and distilled into digestible paragraphs. I personally think a lot of their Zimmer reviews spend more time reviewing the man than the music, and I don't think they give the music a fair shake in a lot of cases. Too much of his "Batman Begins" review is spent whining about Zimmer's indifference to studying prior material. He argued that Zimmer was "lazy" for not doing any homework. Never mind that Burton & Elfman ignored Nelson Riddle's legacy, or that Schumacher explicitly told Goldenthal to start from a blank slate. Nope, Zimmer is the one that's "lazy". That's the kind of nonsense that makes me avoid Filmtracks.

Oh, and by the way, is La-La Land Records banned here? I'd like to know, for a post on here I'll probably make later. Not today most likely, but it's a post I think would be enjoyed on here. All I'll say now is that it involves John Barry...

La-La Land Records isn't banned last I checked, but some people here prefer for new releases not to immediately be posted.

Alright then, that's good to know. Thanks!

As much as I love classic scores, I find that the Rhino version of GWTW is far too aged to sound any good. I prefer to listen to the Gerhardt re-recording that I have instead. It has been posted elsewhere on this forum as well.

Tango,

My dislike for Filmtracks' reviews[snip for brevity].

Aah, ok, point taken. Definitely agree with that. My vision goes weird after reading that page. Old Clem really needs to learn the art of brevity, and the joy of paragraphs.

His Zimmer & co reviews do tend to spend more time talking about the composer than perhaps one would expect... but one could argue that to understand the man is to understand the music. I think Clem doesn't like the albums but is keen to highlight the endemic culture and practices (largely stage managed by Zimmer) which enable that sort of music to be written - and which seem to strictly prohibit or at the very least dictate a series of terms and conditions to anything else. Perhaps saying "this score is a pile of poo" conveys how one feels about the music - but I enjoy Clem's (admittedly sometimes poorly researched) placing the music in context and discussing the wider picture. In an era where film music is nothing about art, creativity, diversity, and everything about corporate scoring factories mass-producing music exactly to specification (specialising in making the exact same thing time and time again, but occasionally in different colours, sizes, etc) it becomes more relevant to look not just as the combination of notes that make up music, but the situation under which they were written.

Having said that, I understand how a Zimmer fan would tire of reading page after page after page of obviously biased (justifiedly, I would argue, but nevertheless biased) judgements.

Sirus: GWTW is indeed atrocious. It brushes up surprisingly well, but since when all is said and done, it was recorded seventy two years ago... it will have limitations. The Gerhardt recording is indeed lovely, if incomplete - but it does offer a nicely rounded listening experience and frankly, the full score can be a little grating... not necessarily because of the sound quality, but just because of the sad truth that occasionally the "everything but the kitchen sink" approach to score releases do not particularly work in album form... :)

Sadly, Filmtracks are not the best writers. It is mostly pretentious fluff.

By the way, has any one got a copy of James Brett' Batman Live score? It is a wonderful score. Somewhere in the middle of Elfman and Goldenthal. It really sounds like the 90's are back. Not to mention the set design has completely ripped off Barbara Ling and Schumacher's visual concepts.

Does it have an actual soundtrack CD? I'd like to hear it!

I wish it did... there be excellent stuff... BATMAN LIVE - World Arena Tour | Watch (http://www.batmanlive.com/watch/)

Video at the bottom is about the scoring sessions with the London Metropolitan Orchestra in Abbey Road 1.

Comparing music to a dissertation is very disingenuous. Music is something that is registered on a purely emotional level. Either it moves you, or it doesn't. That is the only requirement for any piece of music to be enjoyed by anybody. A dissertation, on the hand, is meant to be picked apart and scanned on a technical level. You can't grade a research paper or an argument emotionally. When points are made and sources are brought up, they need to be judged in terms of how they support the point/argument someone is making.

If you believe music is PURELY registered on a emotional level, then you have no idea what you're talking about (or are you being "disingenuous"?). Do the words "craft", "know-how", "technique" mean something to you? Do you believe something as complex as symphonic music can be done by anybody? Music is a very complex art, one of the most intellectually demanding in fact. Learning and mastering music theory: melody, harmony, rhythm, but also other aspects such as instrumentation, orchestration, etc. is something of a really high intellectual level. When you have some *basic* experience in these fields, you can mostly tell the difference between composers who have a solid education and those who don't, and you can perceive if a piece of music reflects some actual expertise or not. For instance, it's really not that hard to see the difference in terms of technicity and complexity between John Williams' scores and the usual Remote Control production!

That's why comparing music composition to dissertation (which, in a way, is text composition) is not "very disingenuous", on the contrary, it's perfectly relevant. A piece of music has a form, a structure; it begins, it develops and it ends in an harmonious and meaningful way (when it's correctly done); it respects a certain number of rules, of laws of composition and orchestration - as there are structure and rules to respect in text writing. And by the way, dissertations aren't exempt of emotional value, they can also convey some at times - have you never been moved by some articles or essays, not only by the content, but also by the style?

But of course there *is* an important emotional content in music (although this has been discussed by some musical movements) but to summarize this art only to emotion arousing and just requiring that it has to "move you" to be good is quite a reductionist and simplistic position. There are many other aspects - aforementionned - to take into account for properly judging and appreciating a great art such as music. A pop song can move me, but will I accept a big movie to be scored with some pop song-like music, especially a big fantasy or scifi one? Shouldn't one have higher standards and expectations for such movies?

This is also applicable to other arts: some guy can randomly throw some poo on a canvas, and proudly state that he just created a masterpiece out of an irrepressible inspiration (and there WILL be people believing him and buying his stuff for a fortune), on the other hand, there are many true artists who spent years studying painting, anatomy, portrait, landscape, architecture, perspective, lighting, etc., who actually create superb paintings where every detail is stunningly well done, but who don't get the esteem and popularity (not to mention the money) they deserve because the state of art nowadays is what it is: a dubious business.


I think it's fair to say that "On Stranger Tides" isn't comparable to what people consider the "Golden Age" of Hollywood scoring. But you are again being disingenuous. A work of art or entertainment should be judged according to its intentions. "On Stranger Tides" was clearly not intended to be a score in the classical or conventional tradition. It's certainly possible to make a good argument for why PoTC4 is a mediocre or bad Zimmer score, but comparing it to scores to it wasn't even trying to imitate is kind of asinine. Anything can suck if you expect it to be something else.
When you go to a chinese restaurant, do you expect to eat tex-mex food? When you go see a Disney movie, do you expect to see porn scenes in it? So when you go see a big pirates / fantasy movie, isn't it legitimate to expect a certain kind of music in it: traditionally a huge, bombastic, sweeping symphonic score, utterly complex and thematic? Oh yes, I know, Zimmer is an "innovator", right? What's the word you used last time: "visionary"? And because of this stance, he's allowed to do anything, to consider as obsolete the heritage of the past and to get rid of the traditions of film music, right? The problem is that - even though sometimes he has some good ideas (or is it someone else uncredited?) - sometimes it just doesn't work, the result is crap, an indigestible mess, and POTC 4 is just one good example of complete failure when one tries to innovate without enough talent and "vision".

To conclude, my point is that judgment in arts, and specifically in music, isn't as relative and subjective as some people seem to naively believe. Judgment is also based on objective factors such as education, knowledge, culture, experience, etc. It can greatly evolve with time when one becomes more refined and sophisticated - some pieces of music, particularly in the classical repertoire, require to be highly versed in music in order to understand and appreciate them, such as The Rite of Spring. Music isn't necessarily as immediate and "emotion-based" than one would believe, the complexity underneath is something that counts a lot in the greatness of this art.

stupid itunes! was it so hard to put the fantastic captain america march on the cd? now that would be a perfect ending.btw if you see the movie there is something even better after the credits. so tell everyone to wait.

Btw, guys, any opinion on the Captain America score? I'd be curious to know what you think about it.

Arthierr,

To be honest, my knowledge of musical craft is very limited. I took one music appreciation course in college and that's it. So, yeah, I have no idea what I'm talking about. And yet, like a lot of people, music is a part of my life. I know what I like. You ask if I think something as "complex" as symphonic music be done by anybody? Go back a page and scroll up. See that score that you described as "ravishing and lyrical"? That was written by the guy from Oingo Boingo. When he was assigned to "Batman", he basically knew jack about working with a big orchestra. No classical training to speak of. That score had a lot of piano in it because he was still an amateur. The piano allowed him to get a grip on the music. He was as far from John Williams as you could get, right? And what happened? He wrote a superhero theme that people compared to "Superman".

Someone can spend their whole life studying sheets of music and working out meticulous orchestrations of perfectly harmonious melodies, and yet they may never become a Danny Elfman. Simplistic? Yes, but that's just the way it is. If a piece of music doesn't move its audience, it doesn't matter how well the notes are arranged and how well everything is orchestrated. They might as well be English teachers scanning a paper for punctuation and spelling errors.

On the subject of Disney movies and porn, I recall a picture of a topless woman being inserted into a frame of the original "Rescuers". :-)

You make a fair point, though. Someone who went into "Pirates of the Caribbean" expecting the music to sound like "Cutthroat Island" instead of "Crimson Tide" is in their rights to express their disappointment. Likewise, there were probably many people who were disappointed that Johnny Depp's Jack Sparrow dressed like Keith Richards and pranced around like a drunk. On the other hand, those are the things that characterized "Pirates" and made it stand out from the crowd. Breaking from tradition is good. Before 1977, Hollywood had a grand old tradition of aliens descending to Earth and attacking everyone. Then Spielberg made a movie called "Close Encounters of the Third Kind", where all the aliens wanted to do was jam with us. Kind of disappointing if you're expecting an alien invasion story, but very emotional and moving otherwise.

EDIT:

For what it's worth, I'm digging Alan Silvestri's "Captain America". It has a nice main theme that is suitably stoic and nostalgic. I'm pretty lenient when it comes to Silvestri, though.

Arthierr,

To be honest, my knowledge of musical craft is very limited. I took one music appreciation course in college and that's it. So, yeah, I have no idea what I'm talking about. And yet, like a lot of people, music is a part of my life. I know what I like. You ask if I think something as "complex" as symphonic music be done by anybody? Scroll up a bit. See that score that you described as "ravishing and lyrical"? That was written by the guy from Oingo Boingo. When he was assigned to "Batman", he basically knew jack about working with a big orchestra. No classical training to speak of.
Funnily, Alan Silvestri (who's recent score has just been mentioned) was also in the same case. But they're both very thorough autodidacts, who actually LEARNED an awful lot on their own, in order to be able to do what they did; plus, they are considerably helped by a bunch of very talented orchestrators.


Someone can spend their whole life studying sheets of music and working out meticulous orchestrations of perfectly harmonious melodies, and yet they may never become a Danny Elfman. Simplistic? Yes, but that's just the way it is. If a piece of music doesn't move its audience, it doesn't matter how well the notes are arranged and how well everything is orchestrated. They might as well be English teachers scanning a paper for punctuation and spelling errors.

This is another debate in which it's useless to get into. Competence vs talent, knowledge vs inspiration, training vs gift, etc. Let's just say that almost all great composers simply had both.


On the subject of Disney movies and porn, I recall a picture of a topless woman being inserted into a frame of the original "Rescuers". :-)

Picture please? ;) (Joke! Please don't here!)


You make a fair point, though. Someone who went into "Pirates of the Caribbean" expecting the music to sound like "Cutthroat Island" instead of "Crimson Tide" is in their rights to express their disappointment. Likewise, there were probably many people who were disappointed that Johnny Depp's Jack Sparrow dressed like Keith Richards and pranced around like a drunk. On the other hand, those are the things that characterized "Pirates" and made it stand out from the crowd. Breaking from tradition is good. Before 1977, Hollywood had a grand old tradition of aliens descending to Earth and attacking everyone. Then Spielberg made a movie called "Close Encounters of the Third Kind", where all the aliens wanted to do was jam with us. Kind of disappointing if you're expecting an alien invasion story, but very emotional and moving otherwise.

You have to be really, REALLY good and talented to be an innovator (and you cite a good example of it in cinema), otherwise you just end up looking silly and laughable. Innovation rarely tolerates mediocrity.

I don't quite understand the Danny Elfman references here... the guy may not have the education but he has proven time and time again through his music that he has the talent. (Even if Shirley Walker and Steve Bartek did a lot of the heavy orchestral lifting, and if his style has recently "matured away" from those glory days. Isn't it odd how the Elfman scores that people really love and really remember are from his self-tagged "rank amateur" days?)

IN short, Danny Elfman is not anybody. It's not about your education or your status; it's whether you can do it or not. That, I suspect, is what Arthierr is angling at. All he's saying is that those people who blatantly can't do it should get out of the damn way, making space for those who can.

As for having a certain expectation for a certain type of score based on the movie... I agree up to a point, but I feel like that is somehow diverting the issue in this context. A great composer could write a brilliant swashbuckling pirate score and score it for tuba and penny whistle. Good quality composition could make a score that is simultaneously musically beyond reproach, absolutely appropriate for the film and fully serving its purpose as a dramatic film score, and also be nothing like what people expect. The trouble is, that's not what happens. We get tat - time and time again. We get "composers" who stump out a few chords on a keyboard, pass it to twenty orchestrators, have it performed by a Mahlerian-scale symphony orchestra... and make it sound like cheap tat. Musically foul, and absolute bargain basement functionality as a film score.


If a piece of music doesn't move its audience, it doesn't matter how well the notes are arranged and how well everything is orchestrated.

You don't hear much modern classical music, do you? The genre is sadly stuffed up with music that's so spectacularly clever and complicated, imaginatively orchestrated, virtuosic... and sounding like complete unmitigated shit. The only movement it inspires in its audiences is moving towards the exit of the concert hall. The audience who are left gain great joy in analysing and overcomplicating and performing algebra on the fugal counterpoint... and even get angry when somebody suggests that music should be an emotional experience - because it challenges the "purity" of their music - which is, in a nutshell, a hugely impressive (but completely boring) equation played on musical instruments instead of written on a blackboard.

I have often told the story of a composer friend of mine who wrote really good music, which everybody liked including me. Then he had an epiphany whilst studying at the University of Snobbery, and overnight he started writing music that was completely unmusical. He couldn't understand why people suddenly didn't like it. I told him it was because it was boring and had nothing with which an audience could form an emotional response. His reaction? Fuck 'em - I write for the aficionado, not for Average Joe! And so now he's busily writing obnoxious, arrogant music that normal people detest, and similarly twisted misanthropes spend many a self-congratulatory trumpet-blowing (pardon the pun) hour going over with a fine tooth comb but never actually listening to it and feeling it.

It's a sad, sad world.

[Edit: Don't forget the enormous penises in The Little Mermaid. There's more porn in Disney than you'd think! ;) ]

I don't think we can take this discussion much further without reconciling our radically divergent views on film scoring, so I'll make this short. I think Danny Elfman is "anybody" in the sense of being a humble, competent musician who probably never would have had a shot at breaking into film scoring if it weren't for some connections. I doubt there are many classically trained composers who think being able to strum an instrument and croon qualifies someone "to do it" as you say. And yet, Elfman proved himself capable of doing it. It seems to me that, under the right circumstances, being a complete n00b in a field can be a benefit. (I repeat, under the right circumstances. The chances of someone who's never even been near an instrument composing a great musical composition are obviously very low.) It might be that Danny Elfman's unconventional musical upbringing developed a unique voice that may have not arisen under a conventional classical musical education.

And, yeah, I don't listen to much modern classical music. I guess I'm not missing much, which is a shame.

You are missing a lot... but unfortunately you have to sift through so much pretentious crap to find the good stuff, it sometimes seems as if it's not worth the bother...

I think you're absolutely right about Elfman; his unconventional musical background, combined with his undeniable natural talent has created something that almost certainly wouldn't have been formed otherwise. But Elfman, he's a particularly unique case - for every Elfman who came from a rock background and doesn't have a musical qualification to speak of, there's fifty useless tossers who can do a reasonably good Zimmer impression with exactly the same background and none of the ability.

I understand and utterly respect that you enjoy that particular variety of score, but hopefully we can agree on some common ground. I do not believe that the modern variety of film scoring provides the same depth and quality of music that past varities have. They may function perfectly well on a basic level, but they do not attain the same level of symphonic subconscious manipulation (if you will) that goes on in the classics. Human brains are hard wired to respond in certain ways to certain types of stimulus, and the previous generation of composers knew how to tap in to that, as well as to write a damn good tune, satisfy all the requirements to have their work classed as "music" and not merely a "film score" - AND bring all that together to add that special extra something to the film as well.

The purpose of a film score within a film has changed. But then film making itself has changed too. Modern scoring amounts to making some superficial sounds that are similar in overall mood to what is happening on the screen. But film scoring can be so much more than that - and it should be - and those composers who understand that and can write a score to those standards should be recognised for their greater skill and worthy praise...

Peace :)
TT

so Ive been discovering a lot of great Japanese composers, music for anime, video games, etc. on this thread from years ago, from members like Sanico, SirusJr and athierr, thanks so much!! what a treat. I know it was like 100 pages back, and in 2009, haha, but better late then never!!
Anyways, I'm trying to find "Sinfonia Tytania" by Hiroshi Takaki, but all the links are dead and can't find it elsewhere, would anyone be able to repost it?? thanks so much!

If you believe music is PURELY registered on a emotional level, then you have no idea what you're talking about (or are you being "disingenuous"?). Do the words "craft", "know-how", "technique" mean something to you? Do you believe something as complex as symphonic music can be done by anybody? Music is a very complex art, one of the most intellectually demanding in fact. Learning and mastering music theory: melody, harmony, rhythm, but also other aspects such as instrumentation, orchestration, etc. is something of a really high intellectual level. When you have some *basic* experience in these fields, you can mostly tell the difference between composers who have a solid education and those who don't, and you can perceive if a piece of music reflects some actual expertise or not. For instance, it's really not that hard to see the difference in terms of technicity and complexity between John Williams' scores and the usual Remote Control production!

That's why comparing music composition to dissertation (which, in a way, is text composition) is not "very disingenuous", on the contrary, it's perfectly relevant. A piece of music has a form, a structure; it begins, it develops and it ends in an harmonious and meaningful way (when it's correctly done); it respects a certain number of rules, of laws of composition and orchestration - as there are structure and rules to respect in text writing. And by the way, dissertations aren't exempt of emotional value, they can also convey some at times - have you never been moved by some articles or essays, not only by the content, but also by the style?

But of course there *is* an important emotional content in music (although this has been discussed by some musical movements) but to summarize this art only to emotion arousing and just requiring that it has to "move you" to be good is quite a reductionist and simplistic position. There are many other aspects - aforementionned - to take into account for properly judging and appreciating a great art such as music. A pop song can move me, but will I accept a big movie to be scored with some pop song-like music, especially a big fantasy or scifi one? Shouldn't one have higher standards and expectations for such movies?

This is also applicable to other arts: some guy can randomly throw some poo on a canvas, and proudly state that he just created a masterpiece out of an irrepressible inspiration (and there WILL be people believing him and buying his stuff for a fortune), on the other hand, there are many true artists who spent years studying painting, anatomy, portrait, landscape, architecture, perspective, lighting, etc., who actually create superb paintings where every detail is stunningly well done, but who don't get the esteem and popularity (not to mention the money) they deserve because the state of art nowadays is what it is: a dubious business.


When you go to a chinese restaurant, do you expect to eat tex-mex food? When you go see a Disney movie, do you expect to see porn scenes in it? So when you go see a big pirates / fantasy movie, isn't it legitimate to expect a certain kind of music in it: traditionally a huge, bombastic, sweeping symphonic score, utterly complex and thematic? Oh yes, I know, Zimmer is an "innovator", right? What's the word you used last time: "visionary"? And because of this stance, he's allowed to do anything, to consider as obsolete the heritage of the past and to get rid of the traditions of film music, right? The problem is that - even though sometimes he has some good ideas (or is it someone else uncredited?) - sometimes it just doesn't work, the result is crap, an indigestible mess, and POTC 4 is just one good example of complete failure when one tries to innovate without enough talent and "vision".

To conclude, my point is that judgment in arts, and specifically in music, isn't as relative and subjective as some people seem to naively believe. Judgment is also based on objective factors such as education, knowledge, culture, experience, etc. It can greatly evolve with time when one becomes more refined and sophisticated - some pieces of music, particularly in the classical repertoire, require to be highly versed in music in order to understand and appreciate them, such as The Rite of Spring. Music isn't necessarily as immediate and "emotion-based" than one would believe, the complexity underneath is something that counts a lot in the greatness of this art.

I can orchestrate music and I haven't studied orchestration or music theory in depth. However, I am limited in my knowledge on the subject and I find myself getting stuck more often than those who have studied theory. I certainly write what I feel most times, but to really appreciate orchestra music requires a more deep connection than just merely emotion. I focus on the music. I shut my eyes and listen to each and every instrument. I highly recommend Aaron Copland's book "What to Listen for in Music". That was certainly an enlightening read on how to further delve into some of music's greatest works.

Kanagawa Philharmonic Orchestra - Tytania Original Soundtrack
(Sinfonia Tytania)
|MP3|320kbps|108MB|17Tracks|
|Orchestral|Classical|Epic|Regal|Majestic|
|Originally downloaded from Nipponsei|

Download (http://www.multiupload.com/9HXFP6S79I)
PSW: smile

yay! thanks again Sirusjr!

L'exp�dition Jules Verne: A Bord Du Trois-M�ts Belem


Composed and Conducted by John Scott

Part I (http://www.megaupload.com/?d=T07ZVL6Z)
Part II (http://www.megaupload.com/?d=9YM4TF40)


By request here is a new upload of L'exp�dition Jules Verne, but this time i've added the artwork scans. It includes (in French), an interview with John Scott, along with notes by the director of the documentary, and by John Scott.

Thanks again, Sanico. Can't wait to hear this one!!

---------- Post added at 06:43 PM ---------- Previous post was at 06:32 PM ----------

Can't express how much I love John Scott. Ever since I discovered him about two years ago, every work just blows me away. The only one of his I didn't really care for was "North Dallas Forty", mostly because of the jazzy/80's sound, which ain't my thing. But classics like "Antony and Cleopatra", "Greystoke", "King Kong Lives", plus lots of smaller films I'd never heard of, always treated with gorgeous and epic symphonic and thematic writing!

Now here is something fun for you all! You may recall how I constantly seem to dismiss out of hand every synth soundtrack I have heard recently (especially in the way of generic use of samples in game soundtracks). But I have for you what sounds to me (at least in some parts) like proper use of samples.


TO Music File - Tetsuya Takahashi
MP3 320kbps CBR
Action|Sweeping|Majestic|Tension

Original Thread Here (Thread 86702)

hello dear score-philes. I come to you today with a question. So, quite a while back, I had downloaded the "Ultraman Symphony" album, performed by the Japanese Philharmonic. I knew nothing of the Ultraman series, but had heard that this album was very cinematic, so I tried it and listened to it.
Ultraman Symphony (http://www.godzillamonstermusic.com/MECB28110.htm)
However, I'm curious I can't find anywhere who actually Composed the tracks, are all the tracks by different composers? I guess I'd need to hunt down each series by track title and find who did each one?

Also, I'm sure this has been discussed a million times, but you fans of Japanese composers should be able to help me out quickly and save hours of reading. Other than the above album, what Ultraman soundtracks are the best? I specifically would prefer full orchestral music. What comes most recommended?

Also, trying to pursue more japanese "monster music". I've heard Akira Ifukube's original "Gojira", and one of his much later ones "Godzilla vs. Destoroyah", both of which are great. Are there other ones of the Godzilla series by Ifubuke that are worth getting, or are they mostly endless variations on the same idea?
Are there other composers who have tackled the Godzilla series who have contributed great orchestral scores? Also, any other monster music like Mothra, etc, that I should be checking out?

Ideally, I'd love to have a few good selections, but certainly don't need to get dozens of each, if they all share the same musical style or themes. Anyways, thanks for the help!

Hello everybody, I take the courage to post something in an internet forum for the first time in my life. Excuse my English, for it is not my mother tongue.

I have been following this thread (and the whole forum in general) since 2008, and the reason for this post is to contribute my view to the previous discussion, as someone who knows absolutely nothing about music (I don't even know the notes), but listens to music as passionately as anyone in here.

To my ignorant mind, music is (and should be) all about the emotional impact. I cannot listen to something that does not move me or does not evoke any feeling in me. I have liked musical pieces from people who proclaim themselves "self taught" (ex. Nobuo Uematsu), as well as from people who have been classically trained (I like Wagner much). Both of these have emotional impact on me.
So, music knowledge to me doesn't seem to be required to make a "good" piece of music. I see music knowledge simply as the best means to achieve music's ultimate end : emotional involvement of the listener. That, to me, defines "good" music.

I have observed this: Composers who have been classically trained have a more steady flow of "good" music, than those who are not. Those who are not trained, usually have one or two "hits" and then their quality subsides. Such a composer could be for ex. Danny Elfman, mentioned earlier. (feel free to flame) His quality is unstable to my ears. His early albums had something interesting to say, but after those, nothing as good came. The explanation I could give is that both categories may have talent (some may have more than the other), but the classically trained composer has a better means to invoke his talent into the music than the other.

Apart from that discussion, I would like your help on a matter of mine. I love orchestral music (as pure as I can find) from film scores. I hate synthesizers (except those that blend well with the orchestral background). Especially, I love film scores that evoke a feeling of grandeur, majesty, or, on the other hand, sadness and melancholy. I usually find what I like in epic (fantasy or not) movies.
My favourite film score of all times is this: Conan the Barbarian. The choice of orchestration is so good to my ears. The definition of Epic in my book. I obsessively try to find something similar to Conan for so many years now, and nothing seems to be close to it's sound. Could you please help me in my quest? Thank you in advance.

thegrizz70x7 - I can't help you on the composers names. Perhaps there is an entry on vgmdb for that release that could give you more guidance.

As far as actual ultraman suggestions are concerned, there are very few that are pure orchestral. Probably the closest thing in my mind besides those symphony albums (of which you should have found at least two, one Sahashi album and one with music by Toru Fuyuki) is Mike Verta's music for Mega Monster Battle Ultra Galaxy The Movie (which will not be posted openly in this forum out of respect for the composer who has posted from time to time). Even though the music in Mega Monster Battle Ultra Galaxy is 100% synthesized orchestra, it has that majestic feel that you get from a full orchestra. The best way to understand besides listening to it is to compare it to the work of Hitoshi Sakimoto with synthesizers. I think the ones Mr. Verta uses are very similar in sound to the stuff Mr. Sakimoto uses for his Final Fantasy Tactics, Valkyria Chronicles, and many other synthesized orchestral works.

I haven't been able to really enjoy too many of the other ultraman albums myself depsite downloading a number of them because they are sadly primarily synth-driven or at least synth-backed and it can be hard for me to pull out the good parts. Perhaps someone else will have a differing opinion and be able to provide you with better suggestions.

---------------------
imbacraft - I think you write quite wonderfully for someone who claims to be concerned with his skills with the English language. You should join in the discussion more often.

As far as that Epic sound, I think you will need to narrow down your ideas to better describe what about Conan you enjoy. If it is the blasting horns and pounding drums you may find enjoyment from many of the classic epics. For example, Miklos Rozsa wrote a number of large scores for the classic biblical epics that have a grandiose feel to them as you may enjoy. There is of course the wonderful Quo Vadis re-recording album that was made by Rozsa himself before his passing and the El Cid 3disc recording by Tadlow Music. Then he also wrote wonderfully grand music for King of Kings, Ivanhoe, and others.

I also find that the works of Erich Wolfgang Korngold and Dimitri Tiomkin provide me that grandiose feel as well, and you might find some love in the various re-recordings of Korngold's swashbuckling films such as The Sea Hawk and the available re-recordings of Tiomkin's work including the lovely 3Disc of The Alamo by Tadlow and Prometheus music.

You should also know if you haven't already heard it that Tadlow released a re-recording of Conan the Barbarian recently and has a re-recording of Conan the Destroyer in the works as well. They are also currently working on a re-recording of the lovely Fall of the Roman Empire by Dimitri Tiomkin and a full re-recording of Quo Vadis.

imbacraft:
I totally agree with your points, and also in your taste of music. Conan the Barbarian is also one of my all-time favorites. If you're looking for similar things.... well it's a huge world, and there's tons of good orchestral/thematic/epic scores out there. Specifically following from Conan, I would suggest Basil Poledouris' "Flesh + Blood", one he score a few years after Conan, also set in the medieval world, not quite as pounding and barbarian-ish as Conan, but still huge, with great action music and sweeping themes. Most of Basil Poledouris' work is absolutely fantastic, I would also recommend his score to "Les Miserables", which has some heart-breaking thematic work as well as grand sweeping orchestral action moments and the beautiful tragic sound at times.
Of course, Howard Shore's "Lord of the Rings", if for some impossible reason you haven't heard them yet.
Oh, actually, if you want something very similar to Conan, check out the video game score to "Age of Conan: Hyberian Adventures" by Knut Avenstroup Haugen, several tracks pay direct homage to the original Conan, loud, with wild vocals and percussion at times and epic scope. Also the sequel "Rise of the Godslayer" had more of an asian twist to the same formula. I dunno, there's tons to recommend, but those are a few suggestions off the top of my head.

---------- Post added at 03:49 PM ---------- Previous post was at 03:46 PM ----------

One more question for those of you out there into Japanese video games. So a long time ago had downloaded "Sounds of Onimusha" album, really great, loved it. But now that I'm looking at the tracks, I'm getting very confused.
I thought I had this:
TPCD 0215-2 | Sounds of Onimusha (http://vgmdb.net/album/874)
... but it seems my tracks are actually this:
CPCA-1048~9 | Onimusha Original Soundtrack / Symphonic Suite Rising Sun - VGMdb (http://vgmdb.net/album/873)

... so I'm really confused, cause overall the tracks seem to be similar, except the second one has more tracks. Any idea what is up with this? they both seem to be selections from the same composer, but totally different albums.... any help here?

They both appear to contain the same Symphonic Suite Rising Sun.

Also, I'm sure this has been discussed a million times, but you fans of Japanese composers should be able to help me out quickly and save hours of reading. Other than the above album, what Ultraman soundtracks are the best? I specifically would prefer full orchestral music. What comes most recommended?
I can't really help you there. I'm not a big Ultraman listener, the only ones (apart from Mike Verta's one) I listened to were Sahashi's ones, especially Gaia and the Ultraman movies, who all have some really good material at times and great themes. They all have been posted in this thread, so you'll be able to find them after a little searching.

Maybe someone here can help you with the other Ultraman albums.


Also, trying to pursue more japanese "monster music". I've heard Akira Ifukube's original "Gojira", and one of his much later ones "Godzilla vs. Destoroyah", both of which are great. Are there other ones of the Godzilla series by Ifubuke that are worth getting, or are they mostly endless variations on the same idea?
Are there other composers who have tackled the Godzilla series who have contributed great orchestral scores? Also, any other monster music like Mothra, etc, that I should be checking out?
Again, I don't have much experience here, but I know Takayuki Hattori, Michiru Oshima and Toshiyuki Watanabe composed for these series, and they're generally pretty good with an orchestra! Try these:
http://forums.ffshrine.org/f92/big-orchestral-action-music-thread-57893/211.html#post1481287
http://forums.ffshrine.org/f92/big-orchestral-action-music-thread-57893/138.html#post1351291
http://forums.ffshrine.org/f92/big-orchestral-action-music-thread-57893/210.html#post1479974


Excuse my English, for it is not my mother tongue.

Just out of curiosity, which is your tongue? (Mine is french)


To my ignorant mind, music is (and should be) all about the emotional impact. I cannot listen to something that does not move me or does not evoke any feeling in me. I have liked musical pieces from people who proclaim themselves "self taught" (ex. Nobuo Uematsu), as well as from people who have been classically trained (I like Wagner much). Both of these have emotional impact on me. So, music knowledge to me doesn't seem to be required to make a "good" piece of music. I see music knowledge simply as the best means to achieve music's ultimate end : emotional involvement of the listener. That, to me, defines "good" music.

Sorry to be redundant, but as I already said, emotion is indeed crucial in music listening, no doubt about it. Music would be incredibly boring and worthless without it.

BUT, there are in fact several "levels" of comprehension of music: there's a basic level where one will just need to feel some emotions to be satisfied, and to be able to judge a piece of music as "good" (that's why RC scores are enjoyed by so many people even though they're garbage, because most people just apprehend music at this level, and won't ask for more); and there's an "advanced" level of music comprehension, generally held by people who have some long and deep interest in music, and who have some basic knowledge and practice in this field. Their perception and evaluation of this art is somewhat different: they will indeed expect to be emotionally aroused, but they will ALSO focus a lot more on the technical aspects of music; they'll grant much importance to complexity, to production value, to performance level, etc.; they will be more exigent and hard to satisfy.

It's a bit like the difference between someone who only read novels, and someone who write some. The former generally only seeks a good reading experience, some fun, some emotions, some surprises, etc. That's it, he won't ask for more, he just wants a good story that entertains him. But someone who has some experience in novel writing will have quite a different approach to this subject. He will seek the same things as the previous person, but he will ALSO have other expectations: he'll grant much more attention to the beauty of the style, the richness of the vocabulary, the structure and coherence of the story, the depth and credibility of the characters, etc. His expert's eye will scrutinize and analyze the novel much more deeply than the average person, and his evaluation will be substantially more precise and valuable.

In short, there's an immediate and "superficial" approach to music, where the main - or only - criterion to judge "good music" is the emotional value; and there's a deeper or "expert" approach, where emotions are indeed very important, but other criterions will also weigh significantly in order to decide if a piece of music is good or not. Don't take this as snobbery or arrogance. I have not any contempt for people who have the former approach to music, I am myself a complete novice in so many disciplines, for instance I love food and enjoy to eat complicated dishes, especially from asian cuisine, but I don't know how to cook an egg!


The explanation I could give is that both categories may have talent (some may have more than the other), but the classically trained composer has a better means to invoke his talent into the music than the other.

Good point. A trained composer is like a very litterate person: he's able to express what he has to say in a very rich and developed fashion, because he's got a large vocabulary and a thorough practice of his art. In a way, he's much better "armed" to say what he wants to say, he's got a larger range of expressiveness.

Now, about the recommendations, I agree with the previous ones, and I would also recommend Lair, which has a strong Conan flair at times. You also might like Fafner (really grand and majestic, and performed by the Warsaw Philharmonic):
http://forums.ffshrine.org/f92/big-orchestral-action-music-thread-57893/120.html#post1306340

Just out of curiosity, which is your tongue? (Mine is french)

Greek. Enchant�! =)

That novel paradigm was fantastic! Very accurate! My question would be this: Should music be made for the average guy, or the academic professor?

Thank you all, sirusjr, thegrizz70x7 and arthierr for the suggestions! They are spot on (Haven't listened to Fafner only), for the details I gave. But I would like to be a little more specific in my taste: In Conan, it is not only the epic feeling (which you can get even from an old Zimmer score), but I seek specifically orchestrations that include unusual medieval instruments like the one used in the track "Recovery" from Conan, or the dulcimer, or the harp, etc. I not only seek the grand and/or sad feeling but also the "medieval tone" (Can't describe it better) which Basil so uniquely captures. The problem is that I have listened to almost everything the film score industry has to offer and still cannot find this magic Conan sound. So, I guess I have to look in classical music, which is too huge to find my way around on my own effectively. Maybe someone can come up with something? =) Thank you all again for the contributions!

Well I can't help you with the medieval sound you like because I find that the medieval sound as used by Poledouris is exactly what I can't stand about Conan and Flesh+Blood.

WELCOME new folks! As usual I have no time to give the fascinating discussion the responses it deserves, so I'll do my usual thing of picking out one sentence and randomly commenting on it...


My question would be this: Should music be made for the average guy, or the academic professor?

It should be made for both. There's no earthly reason why the two types of audience are incompatible - particularly as the facets needed to appeal to them often cross over. Average Guy may miss out on the finer points of compositional complexity, but his brain will process it subconsciously - even if it's just a vague sensation of familiarity and forward movement when he hears an early theme developed later on. And Mr Professor - unless he's stupendously stodgy - being a human being underneath it all - will respond to some simple crowd pleasing.

Everybody trots it out, but Star Wars is a good score to mention. It's a crowd pleaser. Average Joe loves it because he can hum it; it's accessible, melody-driven, feel-good music. But that alone wouldn't have catapulted it to the level of greatness it achieved - it is simultaneously a superlative composition - it stands up to analysis (at the very least in a motivic sense, and I would argue as pure music as well) and it is a complex score by definition of how it interacts with the film. The score is aware of the film, and vice versa. Nobody ever came out of Star Wars saying "I didn't even notice the score!" and nobody ever complained that they did notice the score. The score is the film, the world, the characters, the story.

Contrast that with the modern technique of taking a drab, cliched movie and dumping some mood music on top.

Conan is another fine example; but Poledouris was a master craftsman and so composed a score that appeals on all levels. That's why people are still playing Conan after thirty years, and record labels still find it viable to re-record, but ten years from now the world will have completely forgot that Transformers ever existed. Both scores serve the purpose they were intended to serve very well - and yes, that's a back-handed dig at the attitude film makers take towards music, as well as to the tired film industry in general.

I have to believe that eventually the powers that be will figure all this out - if the world survives that long - and before long, it will be fashionable to have real music in films again... Hopefully Hollywood will rediscover the concept of creativity and craftsmanship as well, and stop with the endless torrent of wisecracking CGI animals, ill-advised sequels, redundant remakes, and disrespectful reboots.

First of all, pleased to meet you tangotreats. I have read many of your posts in the past and I cannot remember a single time I disagreed with something you said.


It should be made for both. There's no earthly reason why the two types of audience are incompatible - particularly as the facets needed to appeal to them often cross over. Average Guy may miss out on the finer points of compositional complexity, but his brain will process it subconsciously - even if it's just a vague sensation of familiarity and forward movement when he hears an early theme developed later on. And Mr Professor - unless he's stupendously stodgy - being a human being underneath it all - will respond to some simple crowd pleasing.

I agree with this, they're not incompatible, but, in my opinion, the Average Joe can listen up to some level of complexity in his music. If things get too complex, he just stops the listening experience, usually in the middle of the song. The trained ear would not do that. This is more clear in our times, when the average guy is addicted (through mass exposure) to listening mostly easily followed themes included in music of short length. "Fast food music", if you wish. Should music be written to the level of complexity that the average Joe can take? And do not think that I degrade thematic music of short length. They can also be "good". It really depends.


I have to believe that eventually the powers that be will figure all this out - if the world survives that long - and before long, it will be fashionable to have real music in films again... Hopefully Hollywood will rediscover the concept of creativity and craftsmanship as well, and stop with the endless torrent of wisecracking CGI animals, ill-advised sequels, redundant remakes, and disrespectful reboots.

I think that Hollywood is pretty much musically dead, our terms of quality applied. I think the film score industry has reached the point which a "form", or "costume", if you like, has been developed and dominates the whole industry. I read in a book somewhere that every industry developed in a capitalist economy has a point which gets "formalised" and gets a solid shape which every investor follows for ensured success ("safe route"). I think most scores in Hollywood will be written in the style we are used to the present years, less melodic and more rhythmic. You will find, of course, a good score hidden here and there.But we can hope in European film scores. They still have to present a level of quality. And maybe we can hope in the video game scores. I hope I am too pessimistic...

Apart from that discussion, I would like your help on a matter of mine. I love orchestral music (as pure as I can find) from film scores. I hate synthesizers (except those that blend well with the orchestral background). Especially, I love film scores that evoke a feeling of grandeur, majesty, or, on the other hand, sadness and melancholy. I usually find what I like in epic (fantasy or not) movies.

My favourite film score of all times is this: Conan the Barbarian. The choice of orchestration is so good to my ears. The definition of Epic in my book. I obsessively try to find something similar to Conan for so many years now, and nothing seems to be close to it's sound. Could you please help me in my quest? Thank you in advance.


Hi Imbacraft and welcome. It's so nice to read more points of view of other members. Like you i'm also a great fan of Poledouris Conan soundtrack. As already pointed out, i agree with some of the suggestions mentioned earlier, for that medieval sound that is so "palpable" on Conan (e.g. Flesh + Blood, Lair).

If you permit, then let me try some more suggestions.
Herrmann Jason and the Argonauts (ok, maybe not exactly as you define medieval, but the way the music was orchestrated is worth of the listen alone), John Barry The Last Valley & The Lion in Winter, and John Scott William the Conqueror.

These four scores are quite different of Poledouris style of course, but they achieve at each distinguished style of composing, a flavoured medieval/mythic sound.



Also, trying to pursue more japanese "monster music". I've heard Akira Ifukube's original "Gojira", and one of his much later ones "Godzilla vs. Destoroyah", both of which are great. Are there other ones of the Godzilla series by Ifubuke that are worth getting, or are they mostly endless variations on the same idea?

thegrizz70x7, i couldn't tell because i haven't heard many Ifukube Godzilla soundtracks.
I've heard the score of the first movie and King Kong Vs. Godzilla, and this one is good follow up of the original (it's the third of the series but the second by Ifukube). That is if you liked the first one then most likely you will enjoy Kong vs Godzilla too.

What i've heard (and a lot in fact) is the concert arrangement of Symphonic Fantasia, that consists of 3 suites combining some of the themes composed by Ifukube for the Big G movies. The suite No.1, is the most famous and was recorded various times in numerous albums. I especially like the Destroy all Monsters theme near the end of the first suite. That theme is a power blast!!

btw, like many i don't speak English fluently as much as i wished to do. That's why i usually don't post in the orchestral thead, but i read each and every one of your posts, and for me is always a great pleasure read and discover new music from you all :)

Well for sure scores in the past golden age were formulaic for their time, in that they were written along a set style that was what people wanted to hear at the time. It just happened that they had good composers behind the wheel and they churned out a number of lovely scores. I don't doubt that a number of the modern composers could write competent scores if they were given the chance to (see: Brian Tyler, Lego Universe; Harry Gregson Williams, Shrek Forever After, Chicken Run etc.) But I think the problem is moreso that the studios have settled on a sound they want for films that these guys are able to come up with so that is what we get. It can be difficult to infuse something like The Dark Knight with the compositional quality we would expect to hear from a great score.

Apart from that discussion, I would like your help on a matter of mine. I love orchestral music (as pure as I can find) from film scores. I hate synthesizers (except those that blend well with the orchestral background). Especially, I love film scores that evoke a feeling of grandeur, majesty, or, on the other hand, sadness and melancholy. I usually find what I like in epic (fantasy or not) movies.
My favourite film score of all times is this: Conan the Barbarian. The choice of orchestration is so good to my ears. The definition of Epic in my book. I obsessively try to find something similar to Conan for so many years now, and nothing seems to be close to it's sound. Could you please help me in my quest? Thank you in advance.

You said you like Wagner, so are you also a fan of Mahler? His symphonies are the Conan the Barbarian of the classical world. Also I would recommend the symphonies and orchestral works of Howard Hanson whose orchestrations will remind you of Poledouris and John Williams. There's really no classical-counterpart for the medieval style used in Conan. The closest I can think of is Orff's Carmina Burnana.

As for fantasy film scores that come close to Conan's level of grandeur I'd recommend Horner's Krull and Willow, and Trevor Jones's Merlin and Excalibur (which, lucky for you, is mainly Orff and Wagner!)

edit: forgot to mention Goldsmith's 13th Warrior.

As for fantasy film scores that come close to Conan's level of grandeur I'd recommend Horner's Krull and Willow, and Trevor Jones's Merlin and Excalibur (which, lucky for you, is mainly Orff and Wagner!).

You also forgot to mention Shore's The Lord of the Rings. This is some of the most complex, beautifully composed music in film in the past 20 years and will stand the test of time with Conan and Star Wars.

Of course, that might be why you didn't mention it. Chances are, he already had it!

---------- Post added at 11:58 PM ---------- Previous post was at 11:58 PM ----------


As for fantasy film scores that come close to Conan's level of grandeur I'd recommend Horner's Krull and Willow, and Trevor Jones's Merlin and Excalibur (which, lucky for you, is mainly Orff and Wagner!).

You also forgot to mention Shore's The Lord of the Rings. This is some of the most complex, beautifully composed music in film in the past 20 years and will stand the test of time with Conan and Star Wars.

Of course, that might be why you didn't mention it. Chances are, he already had it!

I know I've forgotten Lord of the Rings, never could get into those scores.

Thank you all for the suggestions! =)

You said you like Wagner, so are you also a fan of Mahler?

Hi streichorchester, I have listened to some Mahler, but not to the extent which I can say I have got a clear taste of the composer. I like him very much, yes. Especially the 2th Symphony finale. Perhaps you could give me some pointers?


Also I would recommend the symphonies and orchestral works of Howard Hanson whose orchestrations will remind you of Poledouris and John Williams.

Never heard of this composer!


There's really no classical-counterpart for the medieval style used in Conan

Really? That's sad... I am so amazed by the unique Conan sound, that if I find some living classical composer, I will give him the Conan CD and say: You hear this sound? Write something like this!

Sanico, thank you for the John Barry - Last Valley and John Scott - William the Conqueror suggestions. Haven't heard them before! Downloading now! =)


I know I've forgotten Lord of the Rings, never could get into those scores.

For me, Shore's score for Lord of the Rings is very lyrical (ex. Rohan theme) and has a unique "ethereal tone" (clear in "Evenstar"), but lacks in action cues a bit. The percussion is repetitive. The themes of the score are very strong and memorable though. I would guess the Lord of the Rings scores have a problem of not being able to stand as music separate from the film. Because when I saw Lord of the Rings in the theaters, I was really awed at the music. But in my cd player, not so much...

Mahler's idea of the symphony stems from song, specifically folk songs with strong melodies. In a way the same could be said for Ralph Vaughan Williams.

I think all of Mahler's symphones are worth-while to listen to. I couldn't recommend just one or two. If you want to check out Vaughan williams I'd recommend Symphonies 2 and 5.

Another composer that comes to mind when I think of Poledouris's Conan score is Ennio Morricone, especially in the use of English Horn melodies and unconventional/acoustic instrumentation. There are many similarities in Conan and Morricone's Spaghetti Western scores. That's probably why Morricone was hired to score Red Sonja, which seemed to be all-around influenced by Conan.

Urgh, slow down, folks! ;)


I agree with this, they're not incompatible, but, in my opinion, the Average Joe can listen up to some level of complexity in his music. If things get too complex, he just stops the listening experience, usually in the middle of the song. The trained ear would not do that. This is more clear in our times, when the average guy is addicted (through mass exposure) to listening mostly easily followed themes included in music of short length. "Fast food music", if you wish. Should music be written to the level of complexity that the average Joe can take? And do not think that I degrade thematic music of short length. They can also be "good". It really depends.

Williams is about as complex as it gets, musically speaking - and I've never heard anybody say that his music is too hard for them. Perhaps there is some disparity in how we are interpreting the word "complex" - it needn't mean inaccessible. There's a lot of music out there which is complex - often to a point of lunacy - and offers absolutely nothing to the listener besides a huge pounding headache. As previously discussed, they're written to provide upper crust toffs with something to get excited about whilst they study the score sheets over a glass of vintage Cognac. Complex for me is about interplay - about thematic identity. If you don't care about or don't understand them, you don't care - because you'll still hear a big, melodic piece of music that sets the mood and provides a memorable experience. But if you delve further, you start to see all the clever stuff and it thus appeals to you on a completely different level. That sort of complexity doesn't turn people off - it just means that some people get what's going on, and other people still like it but take away a different impression.

I suppose that's why I loved the Star Wars scores when I was a kid, and still love them now I'm heading towards 30. It has nothing to do with Star Wars nostalgia - I positively despise the movies - but it does have a lot to do with the depth of the scores and their ability to entertain all sides of me - from the simplest basic human instincts through to over-analysis and academic study.

Sirus: Quite right pointing out that scores are largely just as formulaic in style as they ever were. Just like today there was a certain sound in the golden age - less to in the so-called Silver age... with the Herrmanns and the Goldsmiths of the world coming in and bringing genuinely creative new ideas to an artform which was essentially a slightly sanitised, fluffy version of Wagner. But back in the golden and silver ages, within the confines of the formula (a certain texture, a certain melodic feeling, etc) they allowed composers of superb calibre to work creatively. I get a reasonable impression of how that would work under the current formula in some of the Japanese scores where there is a conscious effort to write like a Hollywood movie score. So, what happens? All the prerequisites are there - banging percussion, electronics, drum loops, etc, etc... but look deeper and you hear outstanding musicianship. See Naoki Sato's Ryomaden; paint by numbers Remote Control on the surface, but an exciting thematic, melody-driven score underneath.

My question would be this: Should music be made for the average guy, or the academic professor?

Aha! Good question, you're a clever guy.

As it's been already answered, the answer is: for both, of course. Doing popular music doesn't exempt from making it with competence and craft. To use again my novel comparison, great novels, notably from the 19th century (my favorites), are quite accessible to the mass, and were anyway written mostly for a popular audience: the rising middle class of that time. And yet, these novels are considered today as masterpieces of litterature, written with incredible talent and mastery. Music, especially in the media, has to be the same: it's created for very popular shows: movies, TV shows, games, animes, etc. And yet it shouldn't neglect to be well done and enjoyable in itself.

In fact, I see this thread as quite a balanced place, in terms of of musical taste. Here, we're exigent enough to exclude the low quality, mass production, factory music made nowadays by Hollywood and Co; but on the other hand, we never go into the bizarre experimentations that are churned out by contemporary music. There has never been any avant-garde, atonal or serial stuff posted in this thread, and I hope there will never be, because this kind of "music" is, IMO, way too far from what a normal human brain can handle (maybe a computer would love this, though).

Cheers! :)

Ok, I just have to gush and say: I LOVE NAOKI SATO!!!! I've just been listening to Heroic Age 1 and 2, The Last Princess, and then Space Battleship Yamato (a while back), and just blown away by these!! Yamato was my first introduction, knew nothing much about the series, nor the composer but loved it. "The Last Princess" was good, but had a few moments that seemed kinda derivative, like one of the central themes strongly echoe's Achilles' theme from Horner's "Troy", etc, but still a great listen. But both "Heroic Age" score, My God!! bold, epic, and utterly gorgeous!

do people have other suggestions of good Sato works along the same lines?? I've seen mention of a "Lorelei" score, but somewhere else I read that it sounded very much like the typical Zimmer sound... which who knows, coming from someone else, might still be pretty good. Any other scores though, that I should check out?

As far as Naoki Sato goes... K-20 Legend Of The Mask is simple magnificent. It's a 2008 superhero score that could have fallen straight out of 1982.

Sato does have Zimmerish moments - Lorelei is a good example of how he can write something that superficially sounds like a typically brain-dead RC score but actually isn't. It's worth a shot, bearing in mind that it occupies that sound world... Also see the aforementioned Ryomaden, which even features the vocals of Lisa Gerrard. Oh, dear, how I hated it when I first heard it... but there's a lot there to enjoy.


In fact, I see this thread as quite a balanced place, in terms of of musical taste. Here, we're exigent enough to exclude the low quality, mass production, factory music made nowadays by Hollywood and Co; but on the other hand, we never go into the bizarre experimentations that are churned out by contemporary music. There has never been any avant-garde, atonal or serial stuff posted in this thread, and I hope there will never be, because this kind of "music" is, IMO, way too far from what a normal human brain can handle (maybe a computer would love this, though).

Some of the bizzare experimentations can be very good - both emotionally and compositionally. Let's not forget that Beethoven was considered experimental in his time; his famous fifth symphony was denounced as the "ravings of a madman".

Certainly there is modern music that is nothing more than well-written emotionless noise... but lurking in the realms of atonalism and serialism lies some fascinating works that really do reach you. I think that perhaps you need to be in the right "mood" for it, and you certainly need to "break yourself in" to get the best from it... But it happens to us all, and subconsciously.

When all I ever listened to was Bach and Handel, and somebody recommended Mahler... to my ears it sounded like absolute hell; a dissonant, themeless melange of noise. I hated it so much I completely ignored Mahler for five years. Time passed, my horizons were broadened, my ears were trained, and when I did return to that same piece (the 9th symphony if memory serves) I couldn't believe I was listening to the same thing... because what had sounded completely inaccessible and artless, now suddenly sounded like a sumptuous, heartbreakingly tragic outpouring of melody. I've now reached a point where I am finding it increasingly hard to actually pick out pure dissonances because they sound to me like just another musical colour. I find myself recommending music to friends believing it to be reasonably accessible (Schoenberg's Verklarte Nacht), and receiving complaints back about the horrible out of tune modern monstrosities I forced them to listen to! I told them they should try some later Schoenberg and tell me if it still sounded out of tune.

Point is we adapt and adjust and that is what keeps music fresh and exciting. :)

Great discussion, guys.
Regarding classical composers, I absolutly love Mahler, his Symphony of a Thousand is one of the most bombastic moments one can experience in all of music. Occasionally I listen to Handel and Beethoven but I what really connects with me on an emotional level is the music from Tchaikovsky and Dvorak, my favorite composers of all time. I have yet to hear a musical piece on the same level as "Largo" from the New World in a modern film, anime or game score, music that can leave you crying like a little girl. Joe Hisaishi is one of the few modern composers who achieved this nearly impossible task for me. He even used Dvorak's Largo for one of his film scores, another reason why he still remains my favorite eastern composer. Howard Shore's Lord of the Rings, and a few scores from Williams, Goldsmith and Poledouris did it for me as well. What I really noticed in the past few years is that I forgot most scores released in those years, yet the moment I hear a few notes from Laputa, One Piece, Star Wars, Conan, Hook, or Lord of the Rings I am instantly hooked and immidiately stop whatever I'm doing at the moment and just listen ... nothing else. This state of mind that the music opens for me is what truely separates a good score from a great one in my book.

Just a quick note to say the sixth and final Break Blade soundtrack has been posted by micobear here: http://forums.ffshrine.org/f91/broken-blade-bluray-bonus-ost-cd-vol-92758/#post1737889

Oh, dear God, I love Yoshihisa Hirano. I'd have his babies.

In delicious contrast to the previous scores which scored war and destruction, this one is all about peace and triumph. I've haven't had such a sensation of clouds clearing and glorious sunshine breaking out in so many years. And the final track may be one of the finest pieces of music ever written in any genre; Hirano takes all his major themes from the series, and ties them all together in a simply ravishing major key mini-symphony of five glorious minutes. Really, I haven't heard such effortless, tasteful manipulation of themes, well, ever. Some of the most frighteningly chaotic dissonant music distilled into a joyous brassy victory fanfare which develops! A warm rendition of the love theme follows - but all the torment, all the pain is gone. A brief, whimsical interlude for just the woodwinds leads into a brief dissonant storm of chaos, before breaking out into a playful, major key treatment of the Break Blade theme, with rolling timpani, trilling trumpets, sliding trombones (a Hirano trademark) and fluttering woodwind. Just breathtaking. Instant forgiveness for Bantorra. Structurally the piece owes a small debt to the full length RD Theme from Real Drive - but I am not going to fault Hirano for revisiting and improving upon an earlier idea - particularly when the end result is something so magical that it's almost an insult to have it languishing in a mecha anime... for it really belongs in the concert hall.

So, the Break Blade saga draws to a close - after six albums and 100 minutes of music released (and still a handful of cues unreleased... I'll put money on a two disc set coming out sooner or later,) it's easily Hirano's most substantial effort to date, and musically it's just a miracle. Hirano has never written a bad note in his life, but isn't it gratifying (and just a bit scary) to see that the guy effectively started his career with outstanding technique and continues to improve. Most people would be dead pleased if by the end of their career they achieved the level of craft Hirano had in his very first score. The guy is a genius.

One thing that I have always wondered about is what exactly (in both big picture and musical terms) defines a braindead "Zimmer" & Co MEDIA VENTURES / REMOTE CONTROL PRODUCTIONS ..and is there such a thing as a good Hans Zimmer score ?

Get your Insight Liger on TBOAM people.

Alex.

@Tango: Fantastic news ! downloading :)

And this one is in lossless no less! Fabulous!

In case anyone missed any, I am uploading a collection of all six parts as one album with tracks in order. Plus it is much better to listen as one long continuous album. All are VBRV-0 converted from the original wavpak except the last one which is converted from APE.

@alera2: I don't hate Zimmer as a composer, but I hate him for what he stands for as a music "producer" and for what he has done to film scoring. I really liked (and still like) some of his earlier works ‪The Prince of Egypt Soundtrack - "The Burning Bush" (Track 8)‬‏ - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GrUTsJ-8s1k&feature=related) BUT everything he did with his company has undeniably diminished the chance for far more talented composers like Bruce Broughton or John Debney to score a big project that could be the next Star Wars or Conan. Worse, Zimmer and his RC productions have dictated and established a certain style in Hollywood that has to be featured in every major blockbuster nowadays, thus destroying the chance for composers like Brian Tyler to show their true talent and potential.
The music Zimmer "produces" with his "composers" is just as effective as it needs to be for a mindless blockbuster, nothing more, it's copy-paste safe material without creativity, complexity or emotion. On paper the music is even worse. I liked the music of Zimmer when I could still believe he scored it as a composer, not as a producer. I can still enjoy some RC-stuff, Transformers 1 and At World's End were guilty pleasures (because at least they had some decent themes) but I will never understand the people who like and support RC productions like "On Stranger Tides" because it is braindead music without any artistic or technical merit.

Yoshihisa Hirano - Break Blade Chapters 1-6
MP3 VBR v-0 - 160MB - 47 Tracks
Orchestral|Choral|Strings|Action|Majestic

Download (http://www.multiupload.com/FVVYCA9WSO)
PSW: smile


Just Part 6 VBR v-0
Download (http://www.multiupload.com/R3KO5NJI7X)
PSW: smile

I combined all six bonus soundtracks from break blade into a single album so they flow better together. Parts 1-5 were converted from lossy wavpak versions that were around 360kbps. The part 6 was converted from APE.

At last, now all the Break Blade albums are ready to listen. Thanks micobear & Tango for pointing in the direction of part 6 and Sirusjr for putting them all together.

Recent Small Label Pack 02
MP3 VBR V-0, 14 tracks
Orchestral|Exotic|Spanish|French|Choral|Playful
Download (http://www.multiupload.com/1NGYUK16OB)


Here once again I present to this thread my way of sharing new releases without posting the full albums. There have been a number of lovely releases lately and I wanted to share some highlights to get you to check them out for yourself and buy the ones that really grab you.

This contains music from
Marco Polo (Les Baxter)
The Pride and the Passion (George Anthell)
Kings go Forth (Elmer Bernstein)
Drango (Elmer Bernstein)
The Happets in the Kingdom of the Sun (Zelita Montes)
Solisterrae (Pascal Gaigne)
Rainbow Suite (Mikael Carlsson).
All should still be available to purchase through the labels directly or screenarchives.com.

Yoshihisa Hirano - Break Blade Chapters 1-6
MP3 VBR v-0 - 160MB - 47 Tracks
Orchestral|Choral|Strings|Action|Majestic

Thank you so much, dude! I missed some of these, and now they're all gathered here, in one convenient pack, and in V-0. You're awesome! In fact I precisely wanted to ask for such thing, but you've been faster...

Also, I downloaded your TO upload, will try it soon and post some comments.



I know I've forgotten Lord of the Rings, never could get into those scores.

Me neither, in fact. There are some good themes, but these scores are globally so boooorrrrrring to me. Especially the action music, which is utterly disappointing. When you're used to Conan, Krull and Willow, it's not easy to find something approaching the same brilliance in the LOTR scores.



Some of the bizzare experimentations can be very good

You mean BIZARRE? Not the first time I notice this little mistake from you. Could the best writer of this thread have some weaknesses? ;)


@alera2: This is a discussion we've had many times in this thread, it would be redundant to talk of this again, but here's something I already posted, a quote from Tango (I didn't ask for his approval, but he's certainly ok with it ;)):


I see this "type" of score as broadly similar. They have several characteristics in common:

a) Massive orchestra and choir.
b) Compositionally and orchestrationally uncomplicated.
c) Stylistically predictable, and almost identical to the last.
d) Banging percussion in action cues.
e) Hundreds of people playing the same note.
f) Simple, cliched chord progressions instead of counterpoint.
g) Simple, cliched closely related to the chord progressions.
h) No melodies, or no memorable melody.
i) Drumloops, and/or inappropriate synthesisers.
j) At every "epic" moment, a highly cliched combination of a), b), c), d), e), and f) all culminating in a cheesy power-anthem style "epic" theme; and it must be epic because it is very loud, has a chanting choir, lots of electronics, a distorted grating drum kit, and all levels on the mixing desk turned up to MAX.

I totally agree, and I would like to add:

k) An insane tendency to apply some "post-producing" to the pure, genuine orchestral sound, transforming it into an horribly artificial sound that seems to be generated by a cheap sampler.

is there such a thing as a good Hans Zimmer score ?

I don't think you'll find much resistance when it comes to The Lion King, Driving Miss Daisy, Rain Man or Hannibal. However, it seems that Zimmer's recent methods for film scoring are so obnoxious and intrusive that any actual compositional merit is almost beside the point. He needs to become less repetitious, more precise with orchestrations and synthesis, more concerned with appropriatness to subject matter (he can't keep giving blockbusters the same sound and sudddenly go cerebral for an "austere" Awards-bait movie) and to on-screen action.

If he does that, and allows the musicality of his work to shine though, then (for me at least) his composition can start being taken at face value again.

Thanks for the complete pack Sirusjr :)

Me neither, in fact. There are some good themes, but these scores are globally so boooorrrrrring to me. Especially the action music, which is utterly disappointing. When you're used to Conan, Krull and Willow, it's not easy to find something approaching the same brilliance in the LOTR scores.

Amen to that! I've spent the last ten years listening to people rave about Lord Of The Rings - and I find myself bored sick by pretty much all of it, with the exception of a handful of themes and oddly enough, Gollum's Song. Rather like the films, to be honest - overlong and spectacularly dull. How anybody can sit through all three of those things in their theatrical editions, let alone in their Fanboy Orgasm Superlong Edition From Hell director's cuts, is utterly beyond me.


You mean BIZARRE? Not the first time I notice this little mistake from you. Could the best writer of this thread have some weaknesses?

Quite right, although I must point out that I do not in any way deserve the title of "best writer" - though I would grudgingly answer to "most opinionated writer", "most biased writer", "most likely to cause a calamitous argument", and "most likely to make perverted comments about female composers"... ;)

My only defence is that I always write without a spell checker because I believe that if you grow accustomed to using them, you become dependent and lose your own skill. This means that I tend to make the same stupid mistakes over and over again until somebody like your good self points them out to me.


here's something I already posted, a quote from Tango

I must say that I'm touched that you keep that quote so readily to hand! I would like to respectfully submit a slightly revised edition, which rightfully incorporates your point "k" and removes some of the more redundant stuff...

a) Massive orchestra, unimaginatively wielded, poorly recorded, and electronically reprocessed in post production so it resembles a sampler.
b) Compositionally, orchestrationally, and emotionally very straightforward and uncomplicated.
c) Stylistically predictable and following a precise pattern.
d) Banging, repetitive percussion in action cues.
e) Power created exclusively with volume and repetition; dozens of people playing simple music in unison, or just playing the same notes.
f) Simple, cliched, overused chords and chord progressions. A conspicuous avoidance of complex chords, or anything that may be construed as old-fashioned. (See John Ottman's despicable "re-harmonisation" of John Williams' Superman love theme.)
g) No recognisable melody.
h) Incessant drum loops used to create momentum in place of skilled composition.
i) To highlight every "epic" moment, all of the above culminating in a cheesy power-anthem style "epic" theme; thus categorised by extreme volume, choir chanting "ah ah ah", lots of electronics, a distorted drum kit or other opressive percussion, and all levels on the mixing desk turned up to MAX.
j) A composer who talks about "creating" or "making" the score, not "composing" or "writing" it - reinforcing their concept of music as basic sound design. A composer who has in his studio a staggering panoply of computers and electronic equipment, but no piano and no manuscript paper anywhere in sight. A composer with no grounding in classical repertoire or even in classic film scoring technique. Joe Hisaishi threw a little musical in-joke into Ponyo - when it is revealed that Ponyo's birthname is "Brunhilde" her theme suddenly becomes orchestrated like Wagner's Ride of the Valkyries from Die Walkure - an opera about the mythological Brynhildr.

f) Simple, cliched, overused chords and chord progressions. A conspicuous avoidance of complex chords, or anything that may be construed as old-fashioned. (See John Ottman's despicable "re-harmonisation" of John Williams' Superman love theme.)

I've always said that the key to writing like John Williams is to write like Stravinsky, Shostakovich, bunch of other classical composers, etc. John Williams never tried to write like John Williams, which is why many people who try to write like John Williams fail and end up writing a poor knock-off, or in the case of Ottman's Superman, a boring knock-off. What Ottman "ought" to have done is listen to Strauss like Williams did and get ideas from there. Not a Strauss man myself (or an Ottman man, for that that matter) but if Williams is listening to the classics, so should every other film composer. That should be like film composing 101 - just a giant listening list.

It has been a while since I have posted something. And since I have quite a few videogame projects that are pretty much done, I suppose I will take advantage of the situation. Presenting...

DOUBLEHEX'S WEEK OF VIDEOGAME MUSIC!

Starting today, I will be posting a new videogame soundtrack that most of you guys probably did not hear, or did not hear in an organized manner with album-quality tracks.

First off, allow me to link all of my World of Warcraft related projects...


World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade - The Complete Soundtrack


Thread 92172

World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King - The Complete Soundtrack


Thread 92736

Now since technically Cataclysm was posted yesterday in the greater Video Game Music forum, we'll just consider that my Monday contribution. :)


World of Warcraft: Cataclysm - The Complete Soundtrack


Thread 92765

Now on top of all those expansion packs - which by themselves gives you 12~ hours of music, I also did all of the update music. This raises the music to 31 hours.

Thread 91741

As for Tuesday:


The Lord of the Rings: War of the Ring

Thread 92807

Yeah - that covers everything You Needed To Know About RCP Scores in a awesome checklist.

Now I know what not to do.

The Lord of the Rings: War of the Ring</font></font>

Lennie Moore and Chance Thomas? Nice mix I would say. Downloading now:).

Lennie Moore is quite the funny guy.

&#x202a;Lennie Moore : "An Evening With" : Part One&#x202c;&rlm; - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4DIFi3u4nqA)

Here's a little presentation with him talking about Outcast, Old Republic and Pamela Anderson ;)

EDIT: The new Halo Anniversary Edition will also be scored by Lennie Moore BUT sadly it's just a rerecording of the original score.

@Doublehex: Ah crap, horn not porn ... I really screwed up.

Lennie Moore...and his porn collection?

Another rarity for you guys . . .

This is from a series considered by some to be the worst modern anime series ever made. Criticism after criticism for everything Dragonaut: The Resonance attempted to do or featured can be found on the Internet with a couple of button presses. Hell, just Google "Dragonaut review" and see what pops up. However, for all of the abuse the anime gets, it gets praise for three things: 1. The Japanese voice-acting, 2. the English voice-acting, and 3. the musical score, composed by unknown Kousuke Yamashita, who has since moved on to the more famous (in Japan anyway) Digimon: Xros Wars.

And the score is amazing indeed. Gentle piano and woodwind melodies backbone much of the soundtrack, adding soul, sentimentality, and tragedy. Eventually, we also get strings swells and cello solos to add more dramatic and lonelier emotions to the melancholy. Rock guitars swirl with tormented synths and strings for most of the battle scores. And when the battles grow intense, horns and live snare drums roar to life, helping your imagination to soar into the sky. It's enough to make you think this is a score to a really good anime instead of an OST tragically wasted on lackluster animation and writing that have caused some to nickname this show "Boobonaut".

Dragonaut: The Resonance Original Soundtrack 2-Disc 320 KBPs/325 MB
Orchestral/Choral/Rock Guitar/Electronic/Uplifting/Majestic/Melancholy



MEGAUPLOAD - The leading online storage and file delivery service (http://www.megaupload.com/?d=ZOU73IU1)

I fully admit it, I stole this one, but I took the time to relabel a few things and recode the thing to be better used on playlists and on iTunes. However, I'm in no mood to struggle with the translation, so right now everything's in romaji. If anyone else wants to give a translation a go . . . go ahead.

I recently gave this another chance and liked it a lot more than I did when I first listened to it.

I'm quite curious as to why you refer to Yamashita as "unknown" when he had a number of high profile anime scores under his belt (Garasu No Kantai, recognised as one of the finest sci-fi scores to grace animation, Xenosaga, Shion no Ou, and Getsumen to Heiki Mina) not to mention a dozen or so well regarded live action scores and even a couple of game scores... not bad for a chap who was just 34 years old at the time of Dragonaut...!

And why you singled out Xros Wars as one of the greater things he's moved on to - a comparatively lackluster score (by Yamashita's standards) severely hindered by budgetary constraints and the general crapness of Digimon...

No criticism intended; it just seemed some odd statements. Like saying Superman was scored by unknown John Williams who later scored a bit hit with Heartbeeps.

*looks puzzled* ;)

I recently gave this another chance and liked it a lot more than I did when I first listened to it.

I'm quite curious as to why you refer to Yamashita as "unknown" when he had a number of high profile anime scores under his belt (Garasu no Kantai, recognised as one of the finest sci-fi scores to grace animation, Xenosaga, Shion no Ou, and Getsumen to Heiki Mina) not to mention a dozen or so well regarded live action scores and even a couple of game scores... not bad for a chap who was just 34 years old at the time of Dragonaut...!

And why you singled out Xros Wars as one of the greater things he's moved on to - a comparatively lackluster score (by Yamashita's standards) severely hindered by budgetary constraints and the general crapness of Digimon...

No criticism intended; it just seemed some odd statements. Like saying Superman was scored by unknown John Williams who later scored a bit hit with Heartbeeps.

*looks puzzled* ;)

Xenosaga - The Animation is considered to be a much-inferior adaptation of the game. Glass Fleet has been critically ravaged nearly as much as Dragonaut. And Shion and Getsuman didn't exactly make an impact either and neither show has been released in the West. The most high-profile project he's ever been part of is the Digimon project, even though budget and stuff hamper the score's quality. The Digimon project is where the majority of Japanese and Western viewers have heard of him.

And Dragonaut single-handedly ended GONZO's golden age and began the studio's downfall. So yeah, Yamashita-san has been turning out good tunes for shit and for stuff that is kinda cult-ish in Japan and completely unknown in the West.

That's kinda what I meant.

Here's my Wednesday entry - I sense a combination here.



.MP3 VBR -0 320 | 57 Tracks | Running Time: 1"54'42


http://www.megaupload.com/?d=V78N9N80

1. Lennie Moore - The Dragon Shard (Intro) (1:32)
2. Lennie Moore - Main Titles (2:48)
3. Lennie Moore - Order of the Flame Main Theme (2:04)
4. Lennie Moore - Airship Assault (2:04)
5. Lennie Moore - Faith of the Silver Flame (2:03)
6. Lennie Moore - Zealous Might (2:05)
7. Lennie Moore - Know the Gods (2:03)
8. Lennie Moore - A Calculated Assault (2:03)
9. Lennie Moore - Lady Marryn (2:05)
10. Lennie Moore - Might of the Righteous (2:03)
11. Lennie Moore - Prayer (2:06)
12. Lennie Moore - Paladin Charge (2:03)
13. Lennie Moore - Mind over Might (2:03)
14. Lennie Moore - The Warforged (2:03)
15. Lennie Moore - Kael the Thief (2:04)
16. Lennie Moore - Knives in the Light (2:04)
17. Lennie Moore - Power of Gods (2:04)
18. Lennie Moore - Breakthrough (2:04)
19. Lennie Moore - Ancient City of the Elves (2:13)
20. Lennie Moore - Realm of the Lizardmen (2:03)
21. Lennie Moore - Siberys: Fragments of the Heart (1:59)
22. Lennie Moore - The Seal (0:29)
23. Lennie Moore - Lizardmen Main Theme (2:00)
24. Lennie Moore - Defenders of the Dragonshard (2:00)
25. Lennie Moore - Rulers of the Jungle (2:06)
26. Lennie Moore - Barbarous Might (2:04)
27. Lennie Moore - Shamanism (2:08)
28. Lennie Moore - Ambushing From All Directions (2:07)
29. Lennie Moore - Wowen the High Shaman (2:04)
30. Lennie Moore - Servants of the Earth (2:03)
31. Lennie Moore - Tribal Culture (2:00)
32. Lennie Moore - Sacrifice (2:07)
33. Lennie Moore - Through the Underground (2:04)
34. Lennie Moore - Monster from the Deep (2:02)
35. Lennie Moore - The Yuan-Ti (2:04)
36. Lennie Moore - Redfang's Maul (2:08)
37. Lennie Moore - Devotion to the Dragonshard (2:07)
38. Lennie Moore - Charge of the Lizardmen (2:00)
39. Lennie Moore - Darroc (2:11)
40. Lennie Moore - The Queen (2:02)
41. Lennie Moore - Graveyard (0:31)
42. Lennie Moore - The Umbragen Main Theme (2:03)
43. Lennie Moore - Powers of the Drow (1:59)
44. Lennie Moore - Satros (2:02)
45. Lennie Moore - Powers from the Dark (2:01)
46. Lennie Moore - A Cold Mind (2:04)
47. Lennie Moore - Overwhelming Calculation (2:02)
48. Lennie Moore - The Illithid (2:04)
49. Lennie Moore - The Shadows (2:02)
50. Lennie Moore - Gifts from the Dark (2:06)
51. Lennie Moore - Reapers of Souls (2:03)
52. Lennie Moore - Corruption (2:02)
53. Lennie Moore - Whatever is Neccessary (2:02)
54. Lennie Moore - The Lady Vampire (2:09)
55. Lennie Moore - Vanquishing the Inferiors (2:05)
56. Lennie Moore - Reaping the Dragonshard (2:03)
57. Lennie Moore - Victory in Grasp (2:02)

Sweet, thanks Doublehex. curious what is the Dragonshard score like, is it orchestral?

Sweet, thanks Doublehex. curious what is the Dragonshard score like, is it orchestral?

It's Lennie Moore. Of course it's Orchestral! Well, synth interwoven with real instruments, but still orchestral in philosophy.

Okay, so I just found something really cool. Guild Wars 2 is not out yet, but from what we have heard via the Race of the Week trailers, this is Soule's most inspired work to date. Soule is a hit or miss man...and most times he misses, but when he hits we get some great stuff (Icewind Dale, Supreme Commander, Total Annihilation off the top of my head).

Well, to make a long story short...well, some of it got recorded at Gameconn last year. Guild Wars 2 - Unofficial Soundtrack.zip (http://www.mediafire.com/?9gbvg7u64b3ziuv)

Haha, thanks for the clarification on Dragonshard. I read some reviews which sounded interesting so I will check it out, despite the lack of full orchestra. Actually, I had never really heard of Lennie Moore till now (gasp! shock! yeah i know... (gotta start somewhere)), but sounds very fascinating. Definitely will check out "Outcast", and "War of the Ring" already on the list. Any others of his I should check out?

I also want to find a bunch of Mark Griskey stuff (Lion-Witch-Wardrobe, Prince Caspian, Iron Man 1 & 2, Incredible Hulk, etc), anyone have any of these? I've only seen mention of game rips, but even then I can't seem to actually find them.

As to Jeremy Soule, I've heard several of his. I've heard the first 4 Harry Potter game scores, which I actually really loved, maybe not on par with James Hannigan's work for the later ones, but still, I really enjoyed them on my first listen. Also the "Elder Scrolls" work, which I also thought was solid. Will have to check out your above suggestions, as so far what I've heard falls more into the "hits" department.

Haha, thanks for the clarification on Dragonshard. I read some reviews which sounded interesting so I will check it out, despite the lack of full orchestra. Actually, I had never really heard of Lennie Moore till now (gasp! shock! yeah i know... (gotta start somewhere)), but sounds very fascinating. Definitely will check out "Outcast", and "War of the Ring" already on the list. Any others of his I should check out?

There's my Dragonshard rip, as well as a few leaks of his Watchmen score - so much better than Bates. The comparison between his "Pagiacci" scene and what Bates did is night and day. One is emotional, somber, and showing a clear insight in how music works. The other is the clear opposite. Beyond that, I haven't listened to any other of his stuff. Tango is something of a fan (I recall him saying that he is most looking forward to his contribution to The Old Republic), so I'm sure he'll give us some pointers.


also want to find a bunch of Mark Griskey stuff (Lion-Witch-Wardrobe, Prince Caspian, Iron Man 1 & 2, Incredible Hulk, etc), anyone have any of these? I've only seen mention of game rips, but even then I can't seem to actually find them.

I have a rip of KOTOR II out there - fantastic stuff. It walks the fine line between Star wars and Gothic, and it works so well. That is the only piece of his that I have had the pleasure to listen to, although with me requesting a rip of his Prince Caspian that will change soon enough. Gladius is something of a guilty pleasure - not much substance, but lots of fun. I guarantee you that his Force Unleashed work is what got him the job as lead composer for The Old Republic.


As to Jeremy Soule, I've heard several of his. I've heard the first 4 Harry Potter game scores, which I actually really loved, maybe not on par with James Hannigan's work for the later ones, but still, I really enjoyed them on my first listen. Also the "Elder Scrolls" work, which I also thought was solid. Will have to check out your above suggestions, as so far what I've heard falls more into the "hits" department.

Elder Scrolls is in the middle of "Hit" and "Miss" for me. The main theme is fantastic - easily recognizable and well written. However, some of the tracks seem to overall say not much of anything (ie forgettable) or fall into fantasy cliches. I am liking what I hear with Skyrim, though.

I still find his style rather unique and easily recognizable in the game music world. But as previously stated, most of his work is really dull. But once in a while a strong theme pops up, even when the rest of the score is a bit lackluster (Morrowind, Eye of the North). And then he really hits the nail on the head with stuff like Total Annihilation or Quidditch World Cup. I have high hopes for Guild Wars 2 and Skyrim.

Btw, any news on the CD release of Lego Universe ?

Jeremy Soule is an arrogant bastard. Some of his scores are tolerable, but whenever I'm listening I have a picture in my head of Soule - the haughty turd that he is - proclaiming his greatness and status as a "symphonist" and it puts me right off. Soule is not a symphonist. Neither is that obnoxious little shit Andy Brick. Mahler was a symphonist. Beethoven was a symphonist. Bruckner was a symphonist. Soule is a guy with a jaw-dropping battery of synthesisers who rips off John Williams to write video game scores.

Lennie Moore, now there's a composer who can do anything. It's a great pity he has not had the opportunity to do another Outcast as he's clearly one of the most capable musicians alive today. Dragonshard is an interesting side to Moore, but ultimately it's a cheapie synth score with a handful of live instruments to sweeten the mix. I listen to it, and it's like hearing Outcast stripped of all its imposing grandeur. It sounds like Moore's first score after his frontal lobotomy. The guy was born to orchestrate. He wrote Outcast with a pencil and paper. He is a genius. He deserves more than that. Apart from some additional music on Trinity and Beyond, and the Watchmen motion comic (stunning music, so naturally no release) has he ever had the opportunity to write a big symphonic score again? Travesty. Hearing that he is going to orchestrate that hideous overrated crap Halo doesn't fill me with joy - but at least it's something... though it strikes me as a little like hiring Rimsky-Korsakov to arrange the Teletubbies Greatest Hits.

Griskey... meh. I never liked any of the new Star Wars game scores - proof that you can throw a lot of money at a score, but that if you have third rate composers no amount of fluffy Williams-esque orchestration is going to fool anybody. Jesse Harlin? Wilbert Roget? COME. ON. Gordy Haab has his moments, but why in the name of God do you need six composers to write a score nowhere near as good as the score - written by one man it so desperately tries to emulate? Moore should've scored that solo. Now that would've been something. As it transpired we got a completely generic load of expensive sounding drivel. Just watching these guys in the "making of the score" videos - particularly Roget sitting at his keyboard gingerly knocking out some bland chord progressions - makes me so mad. A universe away from the videos of Williams scoring the movies; sitting at a piano with Herb Spencer, just making music.

*sigh*

Sorry folks, this must be my most negative post of all time. My apologies. Just been one of those days after which a vent is most satisfying... Normal cheerful service will be resumed shortly.

Jeremy Soule is an arrogant bastard. Some of his scores are tolerable, but whenever I'm listening I have a picture in my head of Soule - the haughty turd that he is - proclaiming his greatness and status as a "symphonist" and it puts me right off. Soule is not a symphonist. Neither is that obnoxious little shit Andy Brick. Mahler was a symphonist. Beethoven was a symphonist. Bruckner was a symphonist. Soule is a guy with a jaw-dropping battery of synthesisers who rips off John Williams to write video game scores.

Arrogant or no, he still produces good music every once in a while. I could be the most arrogant author in the world and say I am better than Tolstoy...but if I produce a work that is great - not War and Peace material, but still great - than what does my arrogance matter? I still put out something of worth. And artistically speaking, isn't that all that counts? For us to add some contribution to art?


Lennie Moore, now there's a composer who can do anything. It's a great pity he has not had the opportunity to do another Outcast as he's clearly one of the most capable musicians alive today. Dragonshard is an interesting side to Moore, but ultimately it's a cheapie synth score with a handful of live instruments to sweeten the mix. I listen to it, and it's like hearing Outcast stripped of all its imposing grandeur. It sounds like Moore's first score after his frontal lobotomy. The guy was born to orchestrate. He wrote Outcast with a pencil and paper. He is a genius. He deserves more than that. Apart from some additional music on Trinity and Beyond, and the Watchmen motion comic (stunning music, so naturally no release) has he ever had the opportunity to write a big symphonic score again? Travesty. Hearing that he is going to orchestrate that hideous overrated crap Halo doesn't fill me with joy - but at least it's something... though it strikes me as a little like hiring Rimsky-Korsakov to arrange the Teletubbies Greatest Hits.

Your comments on Dragonshard is right - it really makes me wonder what he could have done if he was given a full orchestra. Be that as it may, what we got is still good music. I love, love the Silver Flame combat theme. One of the most catchy fight themes I can remember. But, I don't think Moore wasn't given to orchestrate because the developers didn't want a full orchestra - it was probably because they didn't have that big of a budget. Liquid is in the same shoes as Obsidian in that they are trying to do great things with a shoe string budget. They just couldn't afford a full orchestra I bet!

And right again - the music that deserves to be released doesn't. I am beginning to think I should try sending Moore an email and ask if he has some copies he'd be willing to send to a fan. I would love to hear his Watchmen with great quality.

I disagree that Halo is crap. There are some great themes in there - the Halo theme, the riding on the Pale Horse from the original game, the ending theme from Halo 3. It's not the greatest music of all time that lots of people say it is - it is overrated. But it's still good quality stuff.


Griskey... meh. I never liked any of the new Star Wars game scores - proof that you can throw a lot of money at a score, but that if you have third rate composers no amount of fluffy Williams-esque orchestration is going to fool anybody. Jesse Harlin? Wilbert Roget? COME. ON. Gordy Haab has his moments, but why in the name of God do you need six composers to write a score nowhere near as good as the score - written by one man it so desperately tries to emulate? Moore should've scored that solo. Now that would've been something. As it transpired we got a completely generic load of expensive sounding drivel. Just watching these guys in the "making of the score" videos - particularly Roget sitting at his keyboard gingerly knocking out some bland chord progressions - makes me so mad. A universe away from the videos of Williams scoring the movies; sitting at a piano with Herb Spencer, just making music.

Two things Tango. 1 - this is five hours worth of music. I would not want any one composer to have to write that many hours of music in any period of time less than two years. You are just risking a creative breakdown here. Six composers for five hours of music seems just fine to me.

Secondly...what do you mean none of the Star Wars game scores aren't decent? You cannot mean to say that The Force Unleashed main theme isn't one of the nicest new take on Star Wars you have heard in recent memory? What about McNeely's Shadow of the Empire? Is "Vode-An" from Republic Commando a poorly conceived piece by your standards? Say it ain't so.

Now, my opinion on the musical language from Star Wars? If I was to film a new Star Wars movie, the first thing I would say to my composer? As much as I love the marvelous themes of the films, Star Wars has relied on it too much. Outside of the Williams' films, many games just use his stuff. Whenever we have somebody score anything Star Wars related, we tell them to make it sound like Williams. I would tell them, "Joe, throw out Williams' themes. Tell us, in your own musical words, what Star Wars is. Create your own Love theme. Give us a new Empire theme. Make it orchestral, but make it 100% yours and a totally new impression on what Star Wars sounds like."

So, I am a little dissapointed that they are having six composers try to sound like Williams. The Old Republic takes place 5,000 years before the first movie! Why are we even using Williams' themes to begin with?

The problem is that even when they have the freedom to write a new interpretation of Star Wars it WILL be compared to Williams and compared to Williams every new interpretation apart from the Sith Lords (which can stand on it's own) was a weak effort for a star wars score, good game music but nothing compared to Williams. Shadows of the Empire is definetly the best interpretation I have heared yet but maybe Lennie Moore has changed that.

@Tango: The more I see (and hear) about the Old Republic the less I am interessted in it. I will grab the gamerip just for Moore's pieces. What really annoyed me during the music interview was the statement that music should not be noticed during gameplay or noticed at all, a statement I strongly disagree with with all my being (the guy works on a freaking STAR WARS game for god's sake). The same guy also claimed that no one would play a level or a whole game just for the music which is absolutly wrong (Great music is one of the most important aspects if I decide to buy a game, hell I bought a PS3 for Ni No Kuni just to hear Hisaishi's masterpiece in combination with stunning visuals).

I agree, and it frustrates me. A good piece of music is a good piece of music - it should stand on it's own merits, no? The previous contribution to a franchise should have no impact on the quality of the newest. If it is good, then it is good! Elfman didn't adhear to the previous Batman music when he did Batman and Batman: Returns. Why are we doing the same thing here? Because Williams' Star Wars is a masterpiece? I don't think that is right.

First of all, a quick clarification about Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. You say above that KOTOR 2 is by Mark Griskey, and indeed I see that listed. But I had previously downloaded KOTOR 1 and 2, composed by Jeremy Soule... is one of those wrong, or did they each compose Different scores for the same series??

Also, I certainly can't speak to the personality of these composers, but I see where you're coming from Tango. Maybe a bit harsh, haha, but still good to have high standards these days. Frankly, I tend to get a bit soft occasionally with scores, certainly after all the Media Ventures sound, hearing anything fully orchestrated, even if its a direct Williams knock-off--still feels so refreshing. But true, there certainly are tons of these VG scores that if really listened compared to other similar work from the past... have little to offer. For example, I heard "Lost Planet 2" the other day by Jamie Christopherson, and was incredibly disappointed. I mean, big live orchestra, tons of percussion... but every track sounded exactly the same, little thematic content, just tons of action music loops. Ironically, even the original "Lost Planet" even though fully synthetic, I like quite a bit more, because it actually had an occasional strong theme.

Oh well, there's still lots of work I need to check out, for now it's still sorta a new frontier for me, so it's still exciting. I'm sure disillusionment will come in and out.

First of all, a quick clarification about Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. You say above that KOTOR 2 is by Mark Griskey, and indeed I see that listed. But I had previously downloaded KOTOR 1 and 2, composed by Jeremy Soule... is one of those wrong, or did they each compose Different scores for the same series??

Soule did only the first installment (thank God). No offense, but the only interesting piece with KOTOR are the Character Creation themes and the Final Battle theme.


Also, I certainly can't speak to the personality of these composers, but I see where you're coming from Tango. Maybe a bit harsh, haha, but still good to have high standards these days. Frankly, I tend to get a bit soft occasionally with scores, certainly after all the Media Ventures sound, hearing anything fully orchestrated, even if its a direct Williams knock-off--still feels so refreshing. But true, there certainly are tons of these VG scores that if really listened compared to other similar work from the past... have little to offer. For example, I heard "Lost Planet 2" the other day by Jamie Christopherson, and was incredibly disappointed. I mean, big live orchestra, tons of percussion... but every track sounded exactly the same, little thematic content, just tons of action music loops. Ironically, even the original "Lost Planet" even though fully synthetic, I like quite a bit more, because it actually had an occasional strong theme.

Oh well, there's still lots of work I need to check out, for now it's still sorta a new frontier for me, so it's still exciting. I'm sure disillusionment will come in and out.

Lost planet 2 has only two themes of worth - the main theme and the sub theme. Great themes to be sure - I love them to pieces when I am in the mood for some good old fashioned bombastic music. But overall LP2 is not that great.

Yeah, and sadly those actual thematic bits in LP2 weren't even written by Christopherson, but by the in-house composer. I guess Christopherson really just orchestrated a lot of bombast. Haven't played the game, but shame about the music.

Actually, Christopherson did the main theme, while the in-house composer did the sub theme.

Don't like Soule, never did, but why he is such a douche? I don't have time to make some search, so what makes U say that Tango? Is that something he said in some interview or it's just the fact that he calls himself a "symphonist"? Because if the latter then I see no problem. Comparing to most of the Hollywood "composer" today, he actually is a symphonist without budget. After all it's just a word, not a big deal imo. Don't know why the hatred... And what did Andy brick do to you? I'm just curious.

As for Halo - I love those scores (mostly), so I'm really interested what Lennie will do with this music. Hope he didn't get the "dude, just record it again" attitude...

Are any of the Harry Potter game soundtracks worth listening to? I've never tried listening to them for the same reason I've never tried listening to the movie scores after Doyle's mehffort.

Speaking of which, it's just crazy how many composers live in Williams's shadow. Harry Potter, Star Wars, Superman, etc. Will anyone ever beat Williams at his own game?

I don't think any composer who writes a new Star Wars (or Harry Potter, or Superman, etc.) is being unfairly compared to Williams. If composers like Soule or McNeely choose to imitate Williams, they are inviting comparison. The key is to not imitate Williams.

But how many composers managed to match or even surpass their predecessors? Horner's Wrath of Khan following Goldsmith's classic TMP. Goldenthal's Batman Forever following Elfman's classic Batman. Silvestri's Mummy Returns following Golsmith's Mummy. That's some pretty impressive company. And I can't really think of any other examples from major franchises. If it's that impossible, why bother trying?

Arrogant or no, he still produces good music every once in a while. I could be the most arrogant author in the world and say I am better than Tolstoy...but if I produce a work that is great - not War and Peace material, but still great - than what does my arrogance matter? I still put out something of worth. And artistically speaking, isn't that all that counts? For us to add some contribution to art?

Absolutely, but I don't rate him artistically. Every score is solid and functional but, like Soule's descriptions of his own work, is just a load of cliched gestures couched in superficially impressive language... but not any version of great. When it boils down to it, the guy hasn't got the chops - and so tries to convince the world that he has by Herrmann-esque self-aggrandising egomania. The difference, of course, is that Herrmann was a great composer and therefore one could accept the outstanding arrogance and monumentally flawed personality... just because.


And right again - the music that deserves to be released doesn't. I am beginning to think I should try sending Moore an email and ask if he has some copies he'd be willing to send to a fan. I would love to hear his Watchmen with great quality.

Something tells me you might get somewhere; Moore is by all accounts a stupendously nice fellow.


I disagree that Halo is crap. There are some great themes in there - the Halo theme, the riding on the Pale Horse from the original game, the ending theme from Halo 3. It's not the greatest music of all time that lots of people say it is - it is overrated. But it's still good quality stuff.

It's all relative; some of Halo is tolerable... but would you rather have a re-recording of the original score, or Moore scoring it himself?


Two things Tango. 1 - this is five hours worth of music. I would not want any one composer to have to write that many hours of music in any period of time less than two years. You are just risking a creative breakdown here. Six composers for five hours of music seems just fine to me.

A few points...

1) Five hours of music is only the equivalent of two or three feature films - and composers are lucky if they see four weeks to score those.
2) Realistically, three or four of those five hours will be atmospheric filler music - the sort which can be written very quickly. The showpieces are what takes time.
3) Quality, not quantity; rather than stuffing the game full of hours and hours of crappy music, why not have half as much genuienly good music? There has to be some room for movement since they're effectively filling it up not only with five hours of original score but with every other note of music ever written for the Star Wars universe, full stop. How many variations on essentially the same themes do you need?


Secondly...what do you mean none of the Star Wars game scores aren't decent? You cannot mean to say that The Force Unleashed main theme isn't one of the nicest new take on Star Wars you have heard in recent memory? What about McNeely's Shadow of the Empire? Is "Vode-An" from Republic Commando a poorly conceived piece by your standards? Say it ain't so.

Shadow isn't a game score; it's a book score that got popular and therefore was used in a game later on. Therefore it doesn't count. ;)

It's all very "nice" but in the Star Wars universe, Williams already has everything covered. Why on earth would I want to listen to Griskey's incompetent noodling when I could be listening to Empire, or Jedi? Hell, even Revenge?


Whenever we have somebody score anything Star Wars related, we tell them to make it sound like Williams. I would tell them, "Joe, throw out Williams' themes. Tell us, in your own musical words, what Star Wars is. Create your own Love theme. Give us a new Empire theme. Make it orchestral, but make it 100% yours and a totally new impression on what Star Wars sounds like."

I would not throw out the themes, but I would instruct my composer to use them as raw material from which to write their own unique score. Writing something of the quality of Williams doesn't mean writing something of the style of Williams and that's where everybody fails. It's the musical equivalent of Elvis impersonators. Elvis is dead; live with it. Pretending to be what you're not might be fun for a little while but it doesn't create great music.

One can learn how to "sound" like Williams... but one can't learn how to "think" like him... nor should they try. They should think their own thoughts, not try to second guess somebody else's.


So, I am a little dissapointed that they are having six composers try to sound like Williams. The Old Republic takes place 5,000 years before the first movie! Why are we even using Williams' themes to begin with?

Because they're iconic.

That, and frankly these moron composers wouldn't be able to write anything comparable. These scores use the themes as a crutch because it's all they have.


(From K1nerfan): The problem is that even when they have the freedom to write a new interpretation of Star Wars it WILL be compared to Williams and compared to Williams every new interpretation apart from the Sith Lords (which can stand on it's own) was a weak effort for a star wars score, good game music but nothing compared to Williams. Shadows of the Empire is definetly the best interpretation I have heared yet but maybe Lennie Moore has changed that.

This.


(From thegrizz70x7): Frankly, I tend to get a bit soft occasionally with scores, certainly after all the Media Ventures sound, hearing anything fully orchestrated, even if its a direct Williams knock-off--still feels so refreshing.

Indeed, same here. But it sets a very dangerous precedent if we modify our standards to the extent that we will hear any old piece of crap and if it has even the most cursory contrasting feature to the dominant MV/RC dreck, we will hail it as greatness. It ain't. It is what it is - soulless attempts to emulate another composer.


(From streichorchester): But how many composers managed to match or even surpass their predecessors? Horner's Wrath of Khan following Goldsmith's classic TMP. Goldenthal's Batman Forever following Elfman's classic Batman. Silvestri's Mummy Returns following Golsmith's Mummy. That's some pretty impressive company. And I can't really think of any other examples from major franchises. If it's that impossible, why bother trying?

Interesting that you mention those, because they're all scores where the new composer basically went and did their own thing and didn't feel some misguided need to stylistically emulate their predecessors.

It's all very "nice" but in the Star Wars universe, Williams already has everything covered. Why on earth would I want to listen to Griskey's incompetent noodling when I could be listening to Empire, or Jedi? Hell, even Revenge?

At the risk of misinterpreting some kind of ironic statement, I would say that Griskey's scores go way beyond incompetent noodling! I think they're some of the better game scores out there. The fully blown orchestral writing may be an attempt to copy Williams' style to some degree, but it's still very well crafted music with some great integrations of Williams' themes. And although Williams' scores will always be the definitive sound to the Star Wars universe, that doesn't stop me enjoying some of these other really rather good scores that other composers have produced for various Star Wars related media.

I might as well not listen to anything but Bach, Mozart or Beethoven if technicalities of musical worth were a problem! ;)

It's a new day - that means it's time for a new selection of videogame music. This time we have a selection from Jeremy Soule at one of his most darkest - Armies of Exigo.


Armies of Exigo

.MP3 VBR -0 320 | 23 Tracks | Running Time: 40'14

http://forums.ffshrine.org/f72/armies-exigo-93005/#post1740991

Ah, Armies of Exigo, I strangely don't remember the music. Although, thats probably because the game itself had no impact on me other then its bizarre resemblance to Starcraft and Warcraft. *_*

Edit: Forgot my manners, many thanks for the upload to you and every other uploader in this thread.

I recently checked out this video for Skyward Sword and you can hear a pretty clear sample of how the battle music will sound like and it sounds great, I even heared a fugue &#x202a;The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword - Ghirahim Gameplay (Wii)&#x202c;&rlm; - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_OLelDZAWIw). Still some synth tracks but all of the minor and major boss battles seem to be fully orchestrated http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2gZzD9FnWlY

My first experience with Skyward Sword's music and I am liking what I hear alot.

How much you wanna bet it will be 4 years until we get a full gamerip? *sigh*

Nintendo would be stupid not to release an offical ost, at least for the club nintendo members and you could at least buy it via ebay. But then again Nintendo has proven to make quite unreasonable decisions lately. First, they did not completley orchestrate Ocarina of Time and now they refuse to listen to their fans who started an enormous online petition to ask Nintendo for a western release of some of their games . That reminds me, has Pandora's Tower been posted here, the choral stuff was good stuff in my opinion.

Ah, before I forget it, here is a nice score I discovered recently &#x202a;Royal Fleet [Uncharted Waters Online ~Tierra Americana~ OST]&#x202c;&rlm; - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jB0UrDNnuLA)



Brass / Wind / Swashbuckling Adventure

Download (Thread 89779)

Thanks for linking those vids Klnerfan! Best preview of the score we've had yet. I'm assuming the orchestral/synth mix will be similar to Galaxy, which is absolutely fine by me. One minor point: I don't think from what I hear that's a fugue or even 'fugal' - we've yet to hear that technique from Yokota, though I'm sure he's perfectly capable of it. It's nice that the orchestration changes and beefs up as the fight progresses too. Now that my fears that this would be Gusty Garden Take 3 have been put to bed, I'm really looking forward to it :)

That Skyward Sword boss theme is actually quite good.

Those skyward sword tracks sound very promising, and the gameplay looks great too.

About uncharted waters online, I used to love uw2 and I was annoyed when I realized there were sequels that hadn't been released in north america (including an MMO!) ... Some of the music sounds fine, but it seems to have the same effect on me that music MMO music does, which is that is bores me to tears. This is purely that most MMO music just feels like it's trying to be "unoffensive" , but I guess they have good reason to do so as the player will hear every single song MANY times. This soundtrack feels a bit better than some in its genre, with "Battle Deck" and "American Sea" standing out to me as examples of it, but fails to impress generally.

hey KinerFan, who composed the music of Tierra Americana that you shared above? I checked out some cues on YouTube and it sounds pleasant, maybe a little light and simplistic, and not sure if they have a real orchestra or just good synths, but I might download the whole thing.

It's Friday - you know what that means? Besides it being after Thursday and before Saturday?

It means that it's time for a new piece of orchestral game music. And this one is different for a whole lot of reasons - besides the fact that it isn't my rip (it's FunnyML's - I just numbered the tracks in chronological order), but this score remnants a lot from Classical Central Europe. Even the track names have a classical feel with them being quotes of the Old Scottish text that the chorus quotes. This is a really fantastic score, and I am sure you guys will love it.


Untold Legends: Dark Kingdom

Cover designed by FunnyML

http://forums.ffshrine.org/f72/untold-legends-dark-kingdoms-arranged_-93085/#post1742441

nice uh...cover art there...
guess i will give this a shot, thanks.

nice uh...cover art there...
guess i will give this a shot, thanks.

Trust me - if I could find a better piece of art to use, I would. But Dark Kingdoms was very lacking in promo art - they pretty much all involved the chick in leather bikini armor. :/

So...lovely discussion guys, did anyone listen to my latest sampler pack?

The second Zelda video reminds me of The Egyptian in the are music. I also hope you can turn off the sound it makes when you hit an enemy, that would get so annoying over time.

This week of videogame music is coming to a close, and to lead up to the grand finale I present a not often heard Dynamedion score - the free to play Korean MMO Runes of Magic! As you can expect with all of Dynamedion's works, this is very good stuff. It is a lot to take in - close to seven hours worth of music. But from what I have managed to listen to so far, all of it is good. So, enjoy!


Runes of Magic


http://forums.ffshrine.org/f72/runes-magic-dynamedion-93191/#post1743478

LOL Seven hours of music? Seriously? I'm sure you could cut it down to an hour or two of the highlights.

My highlights are not your highlights. Who is to say what I think is the best music is not what you say is the best music? With all of my gamerips I have always provided as much of the music is possible - I don't plan on changing that anytime soon.

Well, it's the seventh day. I always believed it best to go out with a bang. Let me represent some of the best music in the MMO genre - Laura Karpman's work for EverQuest II. I also included in the post all of the subsequent work done by Inon Zur. Now, it is no secret that Zur is not one of the greatest writers in music working today, with him having only done one "great" work (Icewind Dale II) and all th rest being either good, acceptable, or just downright terrible and cliche. With that said, I think his work for the EverQuest II expansions are some of his better writings.

Now, if this is your first time expierenching EverQuest II musically, start with the best - Laura Karpman's works. This is some of the best bombastic fantasy music you will ever find. The main theme is memorable, and all of her music is fantastic. Not a single one of her notes is boring. This is all fantastic work people.


EverQuest II: The Complete Collection


160 CBR .MP3 | 618 Files | Running Time: 17"00'40

http://forums.ffshrine.org/f72/everquest-ii-complete-collection-93251/#post1744776

The links for EverQuest II and Desert of Fate & Kingdom of Sky are the same ?.

I fixed that already. :)

I fixed that already. :)

Thank You... I didn't mean to Karp Man... lol.

Dragonaut: The Resonance Original Soundtrack 2-Disc 320 KBPs/325 MB
Orchestral/Choral/Rock Guitar/Electronic/Uplifting/Majestic/Melancholy

Thank you very much. As a fan of Yamashita, it's a pleasure to see one of his albums, and a quite good and imposing one, to be posted here. Very minor point: I already posted this one here long ago, but this one really deserves a re-post! Impressive score indeed, with great themes and some stunning action pieces. A bit like Fafner and Heroic age, this score really has a sense of massiveness and variety: epic, romantic, tragic, martial, joyful, etc. it covers almost everything a large scale epic score should have. Great stuff.


I took the time to relabel a few things and recode the thing to be better used on playlists and on iTunes.
What do you mean by "recode"? You did a transcode? Or do you speak of the jap fonts?


@Doublehex: Not that I want to diminish your merits, in fact I thank you for these posts, and quite admire your efforts and dedication for creating such exhaustive rips.

But, to be frank, so many hours of music just seem to be completely inaccessible to most people. In fact I never downloaded such "megarips" with hours and hours of music, because most of it probably is made of redundant cues and dull background music, and one has to be very patient to be able to gather the worthy parts (and I don't have such patience). What most people want are the good bits, the highlights, the standout pieces, the listenable stuff. Only hardcore game music fans, collectors and ultra-completionists are likely to be satisfied with such huge rips.

The argument claiming that each has his own highlights is utterly debatable, and in fact certainly plain wrong. When one has some basic music listening experience, it's not that hard to differentiate what's worthy and what isn't, what's listenable and what should be left aside, what's well-crafted stuff and what's quickly produced generic music. One example I just remember is Killzone 3, in which the first third of the album features some very nice orchestral music, effective and quite pleasant, and the last two third contain the boring, repetitive, unoriginal, forgettable underscore.

So, the best idea, in order to satisfy everybody, would be to post complete rips, AND, also to provide some sort of album sized version of the rip, only including the best parts, or at least some of them. This way, in case someone really loves the album version, he could then download the whole stuff to have more material. In fact, I'm greatly tempted to try some of these rips, but not having the time nor the disk space to download, listen and cherry-pick the good stuff, I'll simply pass until some good people have the kindness to post a sampler of selected pieces.

Anyway, thanks again and bravo for your efforts!



So...lovely discussion guys, did anyone listen to my latest sampler pack?

Downloaded, but not tried yet. Will do soon. :)


And of course thanks for the last contributions, and sorry to not comment on them because of lack of time, but I'll check everything progressively anyway.

The argument claiming that each has his own highlights is utterly debatable, and in fact certainly plain wrong

Arthierr, this may be your French to English mind talking, but are you saying that pretty much everyone likes a score the same way? Because if so, I think that is a somewhat ridicules notion. Musically, everyone is incredibly diverse and all have different tastes, even within the same circle (in this case, orchestral music).

Now, you are right about my two mega rips (Runes of Magic and the EverQuest II expansions) just having massive catalogs of "alterations". However, what if people like these alterations? That wouldn't be fair to those people for me to post what I like best.

I do agree that anything more than three hours is very daunting - but then again, people buy box sets with similar lengths spread across multiple CDs all the time. The Medal of Honor boxset had 9 or so hours worth of music, and people loved it. Mayhaps if I had spread it across multiple 'CD" folders people would find Runes of Magic less daunting.

I think what Arthierr is saying is that, for the purposes of this thread, one can easily trim down such rips to the highlights. If there are in fact multiple versions of the same song then you should pick the one that is the most artfully orchestrated, or the one with the least amount of synth backing it. Sure there is a significant amount of subjectivity to music but I can think of very few people who would really want that many alternates of the same track. Just look at the rip to Majin that was posted earlier. If you really got down to it, there were only a few tracks worth listening to. You can easily post a trimmed down version for this thread in addition to the mega-complete rips for everyone else.

Arthierr, this may be your French to English mind talking

I don't even know what this MEANS. Probably nothing anyway.


are you saying that pretty much everyone likes a score the same way? Because if so, I think that is a somewhat ridicules notion. Musically, everyone is incredibly diverse and all have different tastes, even within the same circle (in this case, orchestral music).

First of all, you should really better choose the words you use. I personally double-checked my previous post to see if there's any offensive term. But it seems you didn't have the same wisdom. Calling my statement a "ridicules notion", especially when replying to it with such a poor, generic, and ultimately inappropriate argument, *is* utterly "ridiculous".

Then, it seems you have some trouble understanding the notion of "quality" in music. I didn't think this would turn into a spin-off of the recent "music knowledge and taste" debate, but let's go for it.

So for you everything is relative and subjective in music? Everybody has his own equally valid opinion of it? There's nothing like good music or bad music, or in this case, good cues or worthless cues? There's no objective differences in quality between them, because everything depends on the listener? For instance, to use again the Killzone 3 example, according to your point of view, there's no objective difference between the first third of the album and the last two third? These pieces are technically, artistically, emotionally equal, and all is ultimately a matter of personal interpretation and of individual taste? Is this what you mean?

If so, I'm sorry to tell you that your musical taste is somewhat flawed, or primitive, or both. It seems you're not capable of telling the difference between some actually well done, technically well-crafted, artistically worthy, and emotionally inspired pieces, and some generic, unoriginal, dull, and quickly made junk, of which game scores, especially large ones, are PLENTIFUL of. Why? Because composers (unless they're exceptional or over-motivated by a huge assignment), won't just be at 100% of their capacities during the whole score, whether because they humanly can't, or they don't have the time or the budget to do so, or they're simply not willing to do so much effort just for a game score. So they'll just quickly produce some basic pieces for the less important parts of the game, and they'll do some quite better pieces for the more importants parts, like the cinematic scenes for instance (this mostly applies to western game scores though, because japanese game scores are generally more consistent in terms of internal quality).

YES, everyone should like a score mostly the same way. I don't mean this in terms of genre: people who like romantic music will prefer such cues, and those who favor virile action music will prefer it to other cues. I mean this in terms of musical quality: a dull, generic romantic cue is a bad quality one, even for people who like this kind of music; a cheaply made, repetitive action cue is a bad quality one, even for action music fans. Anybody who has some basic musical experience can differentiate these cues from good quality ones. In the Last of the Mohicans for instance, anybody can *normally* tell the difference in quality between the beautiful, inspired, thematic pieces composed by Trevor Jones and the basic, insipid, forgettable pieces composed by Randy Edelman. This ain't rocket science.

I really don't understand how there could be people who seem to ignore the notion of "highlight". Not subjective, personal highlight, but ACTUAL, factual, objective highlight. Not being able to tell if a piece (or a score) is superior to another because it's better composed, orchestrated and performed, but also more inspired, emotional and memorable, just seems like a serious lack of musical capacities and taste, actually. I hope you didn't mean it this way, and that I misunderstood your answer.

Okay, so I had a decent reply but it got lost when I accidently clicked on one of my side buttons. I apologize if this reply seems less coherent as a result.

So, first off, I looked back on my post and it did seem to be more offensive than I originally intended. An apology is in order.

Now your entire argument rests on the idea of not everything being subjective, that there is a point where crap is crap and good is good no matter how you swing things. And I agree! Up until a certain point, we as artistic viewers (or listeners in this case) need to say: this is crap/this is good stuff! If we say that everything is subjective, then we are just begging for crap to overwhelm art. ...Oh, look, that is exactly what is happening! Whenever we give good, valid reasons why the newest Media Venture score sucks, we just get told, "Well, that's your opinion." And as a result, we have to ask when the last great, memorable score to a Hollywood film came out.

What we disagree on, is the idea of me doing a "Best of", because what I say is the best part of a great score is not what YOU'RE best part of a great score is. Like you said, it's not all relative, but some of it has to be.

I think there is a difference between a best-of that cuts out repeat tracks and one that removes other tracks because they are a different style. I think we can all agree that one of the more important things in an orchestral score is melody, and one can objectively identify the tracks that have a melody and distinguish from those that don't. In the end, it is a matter of judgment what is the highlight but most people in this thread trust that if another of our frequent contributors went through and did just that, they would get something that would be a much better representation.

Think about the album presentations of various soundtracks. Now certainly there are times where the better pieces of music are left off because they were not written in time to make it on the actual album (such as re-scoring after major edits) but many times the music left off is not as exciting as the music they include in the album. Do some people prefer the material left off to what is included in an album? Sometimes sure they might, but you can still pick out what most people would consider the highlights without too much trouble if you were given the C&C version first.

Well, the thing is I am one of those type of people that wants as much of the score as possible, even if there is some crap left in. If I don't like a certain cue then I just won't listen to it on future listens, but at least I have the option.

Medal of Honor Box is very bad example. Those are scores from 8 or 9 games, so those albums are already "albums", not "all music from". There are tracks carefully selected to give us "the best listening experience"... And 7 hours rip is really a bit to much (17 O_O from Everquest too ). I know that everybody has different taste, but noone can stand 7 hours of music when one piece works well, the other one sounds like POS (cause for one ambient track will be stunning, for the other not so much). So yeah, trimming a rip is very good idea, even if you think that it'd kill it. Also there is other idea, divide it into subgenres: ambient part of rip, action part of rip, regal part etc. Not very precise thing, but at least giving an oportunity to skip things, and sometimes long download, that I'd certainly do not like. And actually it's not that hard cause the overall mood of track you can tell by listening to first few seconds... Which will still be hella lot of seconds when rip lasts 17 hours;).

Thanks for your efforts though, it's really apreccieted. Don't know when I get time or patient to try 'em out though;).

Well, the EverQuest 2 rip does fall into the example of several different albums. The core EverQuest II is 2 and a half hours, and I gave different download links for each expansion pack. So, it's 17 hours across eight soundtracks.

I really appreciate your effort Doublehex but I noticed something about your Runes of Magic rip that seems to be a good example of why Sirusjr and arthierr have a valid point. A third of the music is copy-pasted from other Dynamedion scores (Spellforce 2, Spellforce, Gothic 4, Settlers, even Anno), another third is synth or ambient cues which are subpar or without melody. A big noticable difference is the quality of the remaining pieces. The 7 hours could be streamlined into 2 hours without losing anything. I encountered similar problems with some of my uploads and I had to cut cornes (one of the reasons being a huge filesize that will take forever to upload) but surprisingly, I don't feel the need to listen to a whole game-rip ever again after I've cut out the parts for my compilation.
That said thanks for Laura Karpman's Everquest II and Dark Kingdom, I enjoyed them a lot.

@Sirusjr: I'm in the same boat as arthierr, I had a busy week but I will give your compilations a listen, as I always have :).


Great News, the new Nichijou OST is out and by god it is glorious. I don't care if it's just a few tracks, Sasahara no Theme is one of the best orchestral pieces I've heared in all of anime, no, in all media.

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=XKBIJHZ8

I really appreciate your effort Doublehex but I noticed something about your Runes of Magic rip that seems to be a good example of why Sirusjr and arthierr have a valid point. A third of the music is copy-pasted from other Dynamedion scores (Spellforce 2, Spellforce, Gothic 4, Settlers, even Anno

That I find surprising. Wouldn't those scores be held under the copyright laws of the respective publishers? Maybe the laws are different in Germany, but I don't see how Dynamedion can just copy and paste their previous scores for a new game with no consequences whatsoever.

The Snow Queen
by Akira Senju





MEGAUPLOAD - The leading online storage and file delivery service (http://www.megaupload.com/?d=Q5LVOQSH)

hey Naota, thanks for sharing "Snow Queen". I don't follow anime, so I have no idea about the show/film itself. But I've listened to "Red Garden" and "Tales of Vesperia: First Strike" by Senju and loved both of them. Is this score along the same lines, big and orchestral?? if so, I'll definitely check it out, thanks again!

---------- Post added at 10:19 AM ---------- Previous post was at 10:18 AM ----------

Also, to Kinerfan and others, about the "Runes of Magic" game rip, I too would love to get a shortened version of the score, especially if, as you say, lots of the music is tracked to begin with, I certainly don't need repeated tracks that I already have elsewhere. If anyone is able to make a trimmed down version, I'd love to see it!

Well, I am going to at the very least try to get rid of the ambiance that Klnerfan is talking about. Now, maybe it is just the parts I have gone through right now, but I can't find any ambient tracks, and unlike most MMOs, there are no "duplicate" tracks. As far as I can tell, all of the music is completely unique.

RE: Nichijou OST 2

There is at most two minutes of decent music here, as compared with the first soundtrack. What a disgrace. Track 6 is indeed lovely but also only 1 minute 36 seconds long. It looks like this trend of packing in soundtrack albums with the blu ray or dvd releases is going to get even more common as time goes on.

I also suspect Snow Queen is an early Akira Senju score based on the cover art, because that doesn't look like anything recent. However, looking online it seems it is only from 2005, interesting indeed. I will have to check it out.

Thanks for The Snow Queen Naota! It was one of my favourite stories growing up. I didn't know there was a Senju-scored version! :D

I also recommend the Soviet animation from the 50s. I believe Miyazaki says it inspired him to become an animator.

Snow Queen is indeed 2005. It's not big, but it is orchestral; very intimate, romantic, and icy!

As for Nichijou, it's actually closer to seven minutes. Still a massive stinking ripoff. What's wrong with a soundtrack CD? Or are they going to do that AS WELL, presumably when the series has finished?

Edit: There are THIRTEEN VOLUMES of DVDs for Nichijou. It's a 26 episode series so that's two episodes per disc... the cost? 60 USD per disc. Are anime fans in Japan rolling in money, complete idiots, or both? And who's willing to bet that there will be a couple of minutes of music on a "bonus CD" with every single one of those volumes?

I think it's a matter of Anime Studios knowing that fans will pay any rediculis amount...however, they are quickly realizing that fans will not make ends meet. Many stuidos are having a lot of money problems, and anime is pretty much a niche in the States. No small part due to the outrageous cost. A TV season will set you back maybe $40-60. An anime season will set you back at least $120.

Frankly, I don't like the new music distribution method either, it's stupid and you have to wait longer for an offical OST. The music is recorded long before the show is even broadcasted, so why let us wait months or years for an offical soundtrack. I'm still hoping for a complete OST for Star Driver but the third bgm-disc is not even available and I don't know how long it will take for the OST to be released. Regarding Nichijou, I was just impressed by the quality of the orchestral tracks available but 13 volumes ? 13 months before an offical soundtrack release ?!!!

Doublehex: It's a niche because the West traditionally views Japanese animation as being about tentacle rape or motorcycle gangs, and absolutely nothing else. That and the only real exposure Americans get to anime (unless they go out looking for it) is through badly dubbed crap on Cartoon Network. Here in the UK, we have absolutely NOTHING on TV. We used to have a TV channel called "Anime Central" which broadcast subtitled (and occasionally dubbed) anime eight hours a day - but they only got to big shows like Escaflowne, Gundam Seed, etc - and they went bankrupt. (And I never got to see it, because they closed down before I got my satellite dish.) Nowadays, the only anime we get on TV is occasional runs of Ghibli films. It's a classic chicken and egg scenario; people don't know what's out there, and they will never find out because nobody knows what's out there. Even the folk I know who claim to be "into" anime, when probed, reveal that they're only watching Bleach on Youtube, and the occasional Hentai when they're really drunk. With the exception of my girlfriend, and some friends from Japan, I don't know anybody in the real world who views anime as anything but a bizarre curiosity; badly animated corny stories about robotic rapists and people with impossibly colourful hair.

In Japan, to complete your Nichijou set - just one series of one anime - would cost you almost $1,400. That is a joke beyond all sanity. If the studios are going skint, and it's because they're not making enough on merchandising, maybe they should look at some way to let people buy a DVD of their show for less a month's salary...!

What you say is true Tango, but I always considered the price point a much bigger issue than the cultural identity. Many of my friends who are fans of anime - those that have collections of manga, and routinely have a list of anticipated anime shows for each season - don't have a single DVD. The point is money - it is just too expensive to be a legit fan. I guarantee you that many people who have friends that are into anime would have become fans themselves if it weren't for the price issue. I think the price issue just digs a deeper cultural hole for the Western world. They see it not just as a waste of time for immature adults, but as an expensive waste of time for immature adults with way too much money on their hands. It's something of a similar issue many video games of my generation face...except for the fact it is more of a generation gap than a cultural one, and that video games are mostly accepted by society.

I always find the term "immature adult" funny, especially when there is no clear definition of what a mature adult is even supposed to be. How do you determine maturity ? I would say it's more about your actions and less about your hobbys !

@Doublehex: Well, video games are at least affortable for most people ;) and we even have an art museum for games here in Germany, noteworthy when most parents over here think that games will turn your child into a homicidal maniac.

@Tango: How sad it is. It's even worse in Germany where we produce some of the worst dubs of all time (especially for hentai). Without the Internet I would not have found many classics and favorites that easily top many TV shows or movies in the west I've watched in recent years and some bloody good music.

The problem with being an anime fan is there are so few legitimate ways to watch new shows before buying the DVDs. Just like I wont buy a CD until I get to sample it, I wont buy an anime until I can sample it. Probably the best way to get anime in the USA right now is to subscribe to Crunchyroll, but you have to hope that they get a decent set of shows from any given season because they never have everything. Netflix has also been putting a ton of anime up on streaming (way more than I could ever watch) even though most of that is dubbed.

When I used to buy anime, I would grab the ones I really liked when the box set came out through a rightstuf.com and usually spend $45 for a season, which wasn't so bad. The problem is I rarely want to watch an entire season over again so buying it is stupid, which is why I went for Crunchyroll for a while. It really is a shame because there is so much good stuff out there but it is hard to find it among all the crap.

I always find the term "immature adult" funny, especially when there is no clear definition of what a mature adult is even supposed to be. How do you determine maturity ? I would say it's more about your actions and less about your hobbys !

Which is even more ironic when one of the adults criticizing you for not growing up is a 41 year old Twilight fan.

Oh, absolutely, I agree. My point was more along the lines that it's a bit rich for Americans to see a $50 box set and claim anime is too expensive for them, when in Japan if you're collecting the series episode by episode, you'll be spending over a grand.

Westerners in general feel that anime isn't made for them - and they have a point. I'm sure that Japan couldn't give a flying bollocks whether anybody outside of Japan watches it or not. They certainly don't make any attempt to push their product outside of the domestic (and occasionally the wider Asian) market. If you're talking about Western releases, I don't think being an anime fan is any more expensive than being a movie fan - at least from the perspective of buying DVDs. Probably less, since you can buy one entire series of anime (which, even for a short series is still six hours of viewing) for the same price of a movie. Watching free subs is the Western equivalent of a Japanese person sitting down in front of their TVs and watching a new show. (As proof of how much the Japanese care about us; I shall repeat a story I told some months ago. I wrote to the company who sell most of Masamichi Amano's back catalogue. I said I wanted to buy one copy of every single soundtrack they had in stock. A week later, I received a reply which basically read (they were more diplomatic but the meaning was clear,) "Bog off, gaijin fuckbag we make enough money from Japanese customers. Why would we arse around sending stuff airmail to foreign countries like yours? Tough tits, you can't have the CDs. Stick your money up your arse. Warmest regards, Phoenix Entertainment."

You seem to be suggesting that Westerners don't buy anime because they think it's stupid - which was my argument as well, but then you're also saying that although they're fans, they don't consider it worth spending money on. That's just the way people are nowadays; give me lots of stuff for free, I don't care where it came from or how much money it cost to make it, just gimme. The Japanese as a society are considerably less full of arrogant hypocrisy than most of the West; hence they're spending money - and they're being fleeced. Meanwhile, companies like ADV are going down the bog because people aren't buying their comparatively cheap DVDs.

Not that it bothers me at all to be a part of the niche...

But I think that people aren't buying their DVDs for the same reason nobody is buying any DVDs lately. American consumers have rejected the idea of physical media for the most part and yet Anime is still primarily sold in the USA on DVD or Blu-Ray (which for the most part is a huge waste of money because they are just upscaled and not TRUE HD). I think it will only be when companies start to offer a reasonably priced monthly fee all you can watch anime streaming service, like Crunchyroll yet with the stuff they don't have yet, that we will see the companies making any money.

On another note, I've been listening to Patrick Doyle's Rise of the Planet of the Apes and it is absolutely phenomenal. The emotional cues touch me and the action cues give me a rush and a fast heart-beat. Doyle manages to take the modern score sound and infuse it with a proper amount of interesting percussion and some instruments we usually don't hear on scores, and he gives us a true feeling of triumph. I will be buying the CD for sure.

All that is true, of course - although I maintain that the Anime industry in the West is like the American flag industry in Japan; pursued by a tiny, tiny minority of specifically interested people, and consequently of little or no interest to the powers that be.

That said, the companies involved right now are hardly embracing new technologies as they should; this is a world of downloads and of immediate gratification. For average day-to-day consumption, physical media is cumbersome, slow, and expensive.

If I were a Western company producing and selling localised anime, I'd have all my releases available for viewing on my website. I'd produce good quality dubs (love 'em or hate 'em, they're necessary for the mass market) and I'd invest in marketing further than the "OMG NARUTO IS SUGOI KAWAIIII, ARIGATO GOZAIMASU FANSUBBER-SAN!" crowd and try to expand, and appeal to a higher-brow demographic. The real marketplace for anime is the people who don't even know it exists.

As for ROTPOTA, I heard the samples, and that was enough to convince me that I wouldn't give it a second though. Doyle has fallen; he has compromised his musical integrity for easy money, just like so many before him. If somehow he's shoehorned some vaguely decent ideas into the hideously restrictive "modern score sound" framework then I suppose that's good news, but in the end it's like praising a gangland murderer because he send his mother a birthday card.

Heh, ADV. They cratered more because of a long chain of horrible business decisions. Basically the same bubble mindset that killed their predecessors; at some point, they started vastly overestimating the potential value of things and paid too much to license a lot of properties that just weren't ever going to sell well. If I remember correctly, this has killed anime importers and manga publishers, in multiple waves. They take their initial success to mean that anything they license will sell just as well, scoop up a lot of series that aren't actually very popular, and then go bankrupt. Other poor decisions also usually factor in, but overextension and oversaturation are by far the biggest issues.

The pricing issue is mostly detached from that. It's not that people demand everything for free; it's that their sense of fair price for value is based on what other things are priced at. Plain old movies are 120-ish minutes for $20 on blu-ray. A $30 DVD with 75-100 minutes of anime fares very poorly in comparison. And that's using movie prices as the benchmark, while avoiding all the better minutes-per-dollar deals found in sales and TV box sets and video games. On top of this, as the price goes up, we run face first into the wall of opportunity cost; I could spent $1000 on Nichijou, but that's more than what I'd expect my yearly movie budget to be. To get Nichijou requires me to give up on the 25 new movies and 10 new video games I could have had for the same amount of money. Anime horribly loses in this price war. Even in Japan, anime is losing the local equivalent.

[I now pause to mourn, for I have it even worse; what I'd really like is Legend of the Galactic Heroes...]

Here's something *very* interesting as a follow-up of the recent discussions about music comprehension. Remember when I recently posted this?


Sorry to be redundant, but as I already said, emotion is indeed crucial in music listening, no doubt about it. Music would be incredibly boring and worthless without it.

BUT, there are in fact several "levels" of comprehension of music: there's a basic level where one will just need to feel some emotions to be satisfied, and to be able to judge a piece of music as "good" (that's why RC scores are enjoyed by so many people even though they're garbage, because most people just apprehend music at this level, and won't ask for more); and there's an "advanced" level of music comprehension, generally held by people who have some long and deep interest in music, and who have some basic knowledge and practice in this field. Their perception and evaluation of this art is somewhat different: they will indeed expect to be emotionally aroused, but they will ALSO focus a lot more on the technical aspects of music; they'll grant much importance to complexity, to production value, to performance level, etc.; they will be more exigent and hard to satisfy.

It's a bit like the difference between someone who only read novels, and someone who write some. The former generally only seeks a good reading experience, some fun, some emotions, some surprises, etc. That's it, he won't ask for more, he just wants a good story that entertains him. But someone who has some experience in novel writing will have quite a different approach to this subject. He will seek the same things as the previous person, but he will ALSO have other expectations: he'll grant much more attention to the beauty of the style, the richness of the vocabulary, the structure and coherence of the story, the depth and credibility of the characters, etc. His expert's eye will scrutinize and analyze the novel much more deeply than the average person, and his evaluation will be substantially more precise and valuable.

In short, there's an immediate and "superficial" approach to music, where the main - or only - criterion to judge "good music" is the emotional value; and there's a deeper or "expert" approach, where emotions are indeed very important, but other criterions will also weigh significantly in order to decide if a piece of music is good or not. Don't take this as snobbery or arrogance. I have not any contempt for people who have the former approach to music, I am myself a complete novice in so many disciplines, for instance I love food and enjoy to eat complicated dishes, especially from asian cuisine, but I don't know how to cook an egg!

I hope I didn't sound arrogant and haughty when I said this. The fact is that I've been trained (among many other things) in psychology (academically) and in music (as an autodidact), and one of the various things I had a certain interest about was, well, music psychology (seems pretty obvious, no?). so I wasn't just talking drivel. I should have posted then some links to various articles on the subject, so here's a good one now, quite clear and accessible to the non-specialist.

But before, let me again reiterate my point from this specific perspective: basically, trained musicians and untrained musicians mentally process music differently, brain-wise. Untrained musicians and amateur listeners tend to mainly process it with the right hemisphere of the brain, which is - very roughly - specialized in global perception, imagination, intuition, etc.; while trained musicians / listeners mostly process music with the left hemisphere, which is specialized in more intellectual functions: language, reasoning, analysis, etc. Therefore, as I said, the amateur tends to mostly perceive music in a more global and emotional way, while the musically trained individual tends to be able to process it much more analytically and intellectually, while ALSO being able to feel the emotions it conveys.

Here's an extract of the article on this point:


Musicians and Nonmusicians

An experiment was conducted at Columbia University where groups of musicians and nonmusicians listened to simple melodies of 12 to 18 notes followed by shorter melodic fragments. This was done in either the left ear alone or the right ear alone (Bever 538). Just as a given hemisphere controls the opposite hand, each of our ears also send the strongest, clearest signal to the opposite hemisphere (Springer 80-81). In each case, the subject was asked if the fragment was a part of the melody. The nonmusicians scored better in samples heard by the left ear, but the musicians scored better in the right ear samples. The conclusion that was drawn from this experiment was that a musically sophisticated subject can organize a melodic sequence in terms of the internal relation of its components. Dominance of the left hemisphere for analytic functions would explain dominance of the right ear for melody recognitions in experienced listeners; as their capacity for musical analysis increases, the left hemisphere becomes more involved in the processing of music (Bever 539).


In another study, a group of non-musicians were observed to have a greater relative increase of blood flow in the right hemisphere while listening to a recording of classical guitar music compared to when they were listening to speech. In still another study, the amount of EEG alpha recorded over the right side decreased, indicating greater activation, when subjects sang a song as apposed to just speaking the words of the song. In all these experiments, it was found that this right hemisphere dominance in association with musical experiences only occurred with the nonmusicians, implying that trained musicians do not engage in the same mental process during musical tasks (Segalowitz 98). Nonmusicians perceive music in the right hemisphere because they are not analyzing what they are hearing; they simply experience it. Musicians, on the other hand, have analytical knowledge about what makes music work and they approach music more intellectually; therefore, they use their left brain to a greater extent.

To learn more on this fascinating subject, here's the link to this very good article that globally reviews the relations between the brain and music. I greatly recommend to read it entirely, if you want to know more about how humans process music. This is an indispensable lecture for all followers of this thread.


The Two Sides of Music
Jack H. David Jr.
The Two Sides of Music (http://jackhdavid.thehouseofdavid.com/papers/brain.html)

FASCINATING indeed! The concept that different people (read, educated versus uneducated) take very different facets of music - has been obvious to me for many years and to most of the good people in this thread, but to state it simply sounds snobbish. Here is corroborating evidence. Excellent stuff. The implication - that the uneducated are effectively selecting only "half" of what's there, makes a lot of sense, and also explains why certain types of music appeal to Average Joe but not to a musician, or one who is musically minded. Some music simply doesn't excite those additional left-hemisphere sensors.

It also makes important points about going too far in the other direction - music which fulfils all the criteria for being clever and appealing to analysts... but failing to interest on the most basic levels. (See most classical music of the last 80 years or so.)

To my mind, great music appeals to musicians and non-musicians alike. Average Joe loves Superman because it's a cheerful tune and it makes them feel happy - and Mr Musician loves Superman because of all the stuff that Average Joe loves... and because it's exceedingly well crafted, imaginative, interesting, mentally stimulating music.

If I weren't half asleep I'd have something more astute to say, but since I am, I don't, and so will stop now...

But thank you for posting that!

If we wanted to extrapolate the thesis of this article to Hollywood's contemporary scoring, we could say that Hollywood nowadays mainly tries to reach people's right brain, and tends to severely ignore or neglect their left brain. What's important today is emotion, ambience, mood, etc. and ONLY THIS. Music has to be simple and effective, it has to focus on a simple role: pushing the right emotional button at the right time. It has become a simple wall of sound that gives the spectator / listener the right emotion and the intended mood when necessary, and nothing more. The intellectual and technical aspects of music are often neglected, complexity has become useless (waste of time for the same emotional result) and subtleness is now optional (how could you notice it behind a wall of SFX anyway?).

The past great composers of Hollywood almost all had a solid classical training (with the notable exception of Silvestri and Elfman, but they both learned a lot *by themselves* about orchestral music, and they had wonderful orchestrators on their side). They knew how to compose for an orchestra. Their music was clearly inspired (from simple stylistic influences to downright plagiarisms) by the classical repertoire, especially from the 19th and early 20th century. Therefore their music was frequently quite complex, subtle, intelligent, and spoke directly to the left brain, on top of the indispensable right brain stimulation (because film music *is* all about emotion). It had both: emotion and intelligence. It satisfied everybody: the average joe and the professional (unless the latter was lost in an ivory tower).

But now it seems Hollywood has lost all interest on favouring intellectually and technically advanced music. It has lost almost all ambition in creating music that is admirable and fascinating IN ITSELF. If the masses are satisfied and the albums are sold enough, that's all Hollywood needs, and screw the "advanced" score fan and the true meloman. Those have to either listen to the scores of the previous decades to be satisfied, or to look towards this myterious land full of orchestral riches called Japan.

Wrong thread

That guy may be many things (I will remain silent for the sake of my own sanity), but for me he's not a musician .

hey NaotaM, just wanted to follow up and say thanks again for "The Snow Queen", loved it!! fantastic little score, wonderful violin theme, gorgeous orchestrations to present a charming winter feel. At times old-fashioned and quaint, but in a very adorable kind of way. Lovely work by Senju!

Wrong thread

That guy may be many things (I will remain silent for the sake of my own sanity), but for me he's not a musician .

He's not a composer - he's a song writer that uses orchestral elements in his songs. Bad songs at that, but that is what he is.

hey NaotaM, just wanted to follow up and say thanks again for "The Snow Queen", loved it!! fantastic little score, wonderful violin theme, gorgeous orchestrations to present a charming winter feel. At times old-fashioned and quaint, but in a very adorable kind of way. Lovely work by Senju!

Well, you're very welcome. Glad you enjoyed it(and that I found something that wasn't a repost for once. :p )

Got a few more treats coming, too.



Shaolin Girl
by Yuugo Kanno





Part 1: https://rs123l35.rapidshare.com/#!download|123tl2|343092278|YuK-ShG1-2.part1.rar|170000|R~6034719FA03F6DEECFF694C7C9C8C 262

Part 2: https://rs449tl3.rapidshare.com/#!download|449dt|343096152|YuK-ShG1-2.part2.rar|47699|R~9CD94F63E98D8C0F64BD77E29CE84F F5


Hoshi no Umi no Amuri
by Mina Kubota




MEGAUPLOAD - The leading online storage and file delivery service (http://www.megaupload.com/?d=B56Y387I)

thanks for the new shares. Since I know nothing about these anime titles, could you describe briefly what the music is like, to know whether to download them?

Rule of thumb: if it's in the thread, download it. It has served me well over the years. :)

Rule of thumb: if it's in the thread, download it. It has served me well over the years. :)

haha, good point. I probably haven't followed that to a T, but certainly have been finding Tons of jewels in the last few weeks thanks to this thread, so clearly people have good taste!

Although that said.... people do have different tastes, and not Everything has been to my liking, for example overly synth scores, or anime scores that have a "pop" sound, or game/anime scores that have lots of mixed styles like jazz/rock/etc mixed in with the orchestral music. So it's simply that i know I won't love Everything, so I try to be a bit selective, as I already have a huge list of music I've gotten from this thread that I have yet to listen to.

Well, Shaolin Girl is vast, heroic and grand, lots of big orchestral gestures and sweeping strings tinged with asian accents and instrumentation, along with Yuugo's other loves and obsesions peppered around. Some beat-heavy electronica here, solemn piano writing there. Yuugo Kanno is sorta like a less eccentric Iwasaki at times.

Hoshi no Umi is a bit more intimate, ethereal, almost spacey. Mina Kubota isn't called the Post-Yoko Kanno or female Joe Hisaishi for nothing, and while I'm not sure how weel either of those pidgeonholes fit, she certainly earns her praise. She displays a strong hand for melody and evocative soundscaping here with equal parts touching, slower pieces and quietly menacing orchestral passes. I heartily reccomend both scores.

Naota: see? That's exactly what I asked you once. A few notes describing what your posts are about. Now people know what to expect and what they'll get in those scores. Thank you! (and please do it again next times)


About the video link posted above, I really don't know why it's been posted here, since the poster didn't say anything, but in fact it wonderfully illustrates some points of the various discussions about music we have here: how some composers with poor education and very basic knowledge of music manage to achieve a relative success anyway, because they sound "hip", original, inventive. They're being praised because they don't do like before (you know, when composers knew what they were doing), they don't even try to be a *little* academic, they just throw on a paper... sorry, on their keyboard the first crap that comes to their mind, and TADAAAA, here they just created a masterpiece.

Thanks for your recent contributions NaotaM, I enjoyed them alot. Anything that even remotely resembles Joe Hisaishi is an instant download for me ;)

EDIT: Damn you Rapidshare, anyone got a different link ?

Love Shaolin Girl! Downloading the other one :)

God dammit.

There goes my next post.

For once I am glad that Nipponsei separately tags the different artists, the songs on that release are not very good. Was glad to be able to easily remove them.

EDIT: Damn you Rapidshare, anyone got a different link ?

What was wrong with RS? I managed to download it with any trouble? Did you miss the new placement of the Download button - I know I did at first. I was used to see the timer bar.

That would be too simple to be the problem, the site is in fact not displayed proberly and not working either, no matter where I am or what computer I use it's still the same. I don't know if it's a local problem or not because some of my friends have similar problems with RS.

EDIT: I've tried many browser but it's still the same result. I've had this problem for over a month now but I hope it's just temporarily.

Well Hoshi no Umi no Amuri is absolutely lovely! Complex orchestrations, woodwinds, great sound. Love it!

thanks again for the shares, NaotaM. "Hoshi" was very nice, listening to "Shaolin Girl" now, an interesting mix, some epic, some modern and goofy, but enjoyable.

Since I'm a bit of a cover artwork addict, and I couldn't find anything decent for Shaolin, I just made my own, sharing in case anyone wants it. Uploading in full-size so people can re-scale as desired. Enjoy!

That would be too simple to be the problem, the site is in fact not displayed proberly and not working either, no matter where I am or what computer I use it's still the same. I don't know if it's a local problem or not because some of my friends have similar problems with RS.

What is your browser? It's working fine in Chrome.

Hoshi no Umi no Amuri is really great. But those short tracks on almost every anime score starts to annoy me...

I recently found a video that could not be a better contrast to the video posted above: &#x202a;Brian Tyler - Pro Tools 8&#x202c;&rlm; - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bf5fO0tS2Hs)
Here you have a musician, not just an audio tools user who has the delusion that he creates music.

What I love is that he has all these electronic equipment - that Pro Tools 8, a keypad - but he also has real instruments in his studio. It just shows that he knows the importance of the real, of just plain physicality. No matter how good a program is, it can't simulate the touch, feel, and sound of real instruments - and that is something that most "composers" nowadays just find so hard to understand.

Well, the only thing missing would be music sheets and pencils lying around all over the place and I would instantly love the guy, (you should have seen Lennie Moore's room). You are really talented nowadays if you don't even need audio tools to compose for a film, game or anime. After Lego Universe I'm certain that even Brian Tyler would do well without one but as he said, studios and producers demand a certain sound and audio tools can make the whole process of composing much easier to manage. With time talented composers can do incredible things with audio tools, Mike Verta for example. But nonetheless I still believe audio tools should only be supplemental to the composing process and not become the primarily source of it (that's the problem with Zimmer and his RC composers in general).

Suguru Matsutani - Usagi Drop OST 1
ESCL-3747 | 8/3/2011 | MP3 320kbps | 134MB
Relaxing|Piano|Strings|Woodwinds

Download (http://www.multiupload.com/7O2MWPQRSR)
PSW: smile

This is a nice little relaxing score, slow, emotional, and peaceful. It has a nice simple theme that is used throughout. There are also some usual cutesy sounds as well.

Thanks, looks lovely :)

Well, the only thing missing would be music sheets and pencils lying around all over the place and I would instantly love the guy, (you should have seen Lennie Moore's room). You are really talented nowadays if you don't even need audio tools to compose for a film, game or anime. After Lego Universe I'm certain that even Brian Tyler would do well without one but as he said, studios and producers demand a certain sound and audio tools can make the whole process of composing much easier to manage. With time talented composers can do incredible things with audio tools, Mike Verta for example. But nonetheless I still believe audio tools should only be supplemental to the composing process and not become the primarily source of it (that's the problem with Zimmer and his RC composers in general).

Very interesting discussion. Here are a few thoughts about these new so-called "composers" with their battery of synthesizers / samplers and their insanely huge sound libraries.

Basically, before these tools were invented and accessible to anybody, these people simply couldn't exist as composers. They were just eliminated by a sort of natural selection, because being a real composer (especially in the orchestral field, which is very demanding) meant that you had to seriously learn how to compose and orchestrate, how to put things on a paper, etc. There were no easy ways, either you knew or you didn't. You had to actually show that you have some decent skills and knowledge in music, and those who didn't were quickly spotted and politely asked to pack it in, because they simply weren't up to the task.

Now anybody who has a music software and a decent sound library can randomly start experimenting with it, put together a few lines of notes and some big orchestral sounds along with some banging percussions, and suddenly claim: "Hey, I'm a composer too, now!". You don't need much knowledge to use these tools, you can learn how to use them in one or two weeks, and that's all some people believe they require to become actual composers. As you said, they have the delusion of being true composers because they just churned out an indigestible mixture of sounds.

There's a whole generation of new "composers" nowadays, like this guy from the video, who tries to achieve success in the business of music (and sometimes succeeds in it) without really feeling the need to thoroughly learn their craft and develop a real expertise in it, just because they have access to these new tools that allows them to quickly produce something that vaguely sounds like music. Maybe they can fool some naive amateur music listeners, and give them the impression that they're genuinely original, creative, inventive, etc. But people with a trained musical ear won't be so easily deceived, they'll easily spot the mediocrity and the lack of craft behind the appearences.

It's greatly time that people learn to differentiate those amateurs from real composers, those who know their job and are good at it. How many of them are left aside, under-employed, reduced to insignificant assignments because some guys who have no talent nor knowledge but sound "hip" and modern (and have some good relations in the business and some luck) get the job opportunities? A lot, way too many, in fact. Let's hope competence and knowledge will mean something again.

arthierr,

I completely agree with what you had said about sounding modern. I had watched Harry Potter a few weeks ago and in the previews I had heard a lot of music that sounded like Hans Zimmer. Only one score out of the five films previewed caught my ears... that was the music of John Williams with the preview of War Horse. The theme was just as beautiful as one would expect from Williams; however, it also made me feel sad at the same time, because I knew that four out of the five films sounded what most Hollywood scores sound like. Hearing John's trailer music made me miss the good times in film music, but it was a cold reminder that film music is more rough than diamonds.

Now I'm getting very excited for Tintin score having read an impression of it in another thread:
FSM Board: Tintin and the secret of the unicorn - Williams (http://www.filmscoremonthly.com/board/posts.cfm?threadID=81053&forumID=1&archive=0)

arthierr,

I completely agree with what you had said about sounding modern. I had watched Harry Potter a few weeks ago and in the previews I had heard a lot of music that sounded like Hans Zimmer. Only one score out of the five films previewed caught my ears... that was the music of John Williams with the preview of War Horse. The theme was just as beautiful as one would expect from Williams; however, it also made me feel sad at the same time, because I knew that four out of the five films sounded what most Hollywood scores sound like. Hearing John's trailer music made me miss the good times in film music, but it was a cold reminder that film music is more rough than diamonds.

Speaking of Tintin, I just saw the trailer &#x202a;Trailer Tintin : The Secret of the Unicorn (Spielberg 2011)&#x202c;&rlm; - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bDlm3eLRut0) and the music is awful, the archetype of RC style music. Luckily, as Sirusjr's post shows, we all know that Williams' score will be miles away from this garbage, incomparably superior in every aspect. So the music heard in the trailers (in general) doesn't necessarily reflect what will be heard in the movie. No worries then (for the moment!).

It's a pity though that Tintin, according to this mysterious reviewer, is rather comedic and light-hearted. I expected some kind of new Indy score, a glorious mix of adventure, action and heroism. Not this time, apparently.


Sirusjr: thanks for your last uploads! Will try them ASAP, as usual.

Fascinating about this Love-Shyness and music. I'll definitely have to read the rest of the Wikipedia article, as I likely fall under this category. Certainly the musical descriptors are very revealing and certainly seem to reflect my tastes. Only things I might chance is that I don't particularly like "brassy jazz music" or "easy listening". I like most types of Classical, especially the more modern, romantic composers, like Tchaikovsky, Wagner, Prokofiev, etc.
I do have exceptions, like for example "Apocalyptica" which can be very "heavy" and loud, although I prefer the dark cello work, and less of the heavy metal side. I do also like my fair share of oldies and classic rock, but I don't obsess over it, study it, or collect it like I do with soundtracks.
Interesting food for thought :-)
Darn, now you got me hooked, and I'll have to read "Overcoming Love-Shyness" How-To's, haha.

Wow what a fascinating article! Interestingly enough, I can relate to a number of the listed characteristics of a love-shy person (which I wont get into for fear of going far too off-topic and into personal subjects) and so some of the musical taste and movies section is interesting. I would think that I must have a much milder case because many of the things that love-shy people are said to not enjoy (rock music, action/adventure movies, etc) I tend to enjoy.

I do quite love vocal ballads (but generally hate musicals), love brassy music (but hate a lot of jazz), enjoy some easy listening music (but more in the form of soundtracks), and of course soundtracks and classical music (though the more dissonant or complex stuff I haven't gotten into). I've also been into the more melodic side of metal and rock for quite some time, as opposed to the crazy death, black, thrash, hardcore metal that has become ultra popular.

thegrizz - send me a PM and we can discuss some of the more melodic types of metal and such, I have been heavily interested in that area of music for quite some time and have made a few samplers for various people of my favorites.

Basically, before these tools were invented and accessible to anybody, these people simply couldn't exist as composers. They were just eliminated by a sort of natural selection, because being a real composer (especially in the orchestral field, which is very demanding) meant that you had to seriously learn how to compose and orchestrate, how to put things on a paper, etc

I actually like the opportunity that modern world gaves us - everyone can make music, even if you are deaf. Hell, my cat can make music if he jumps on keyboard while FL Studio is running. And that's AWESOME xD. It's not bad thing at all. But bad is this - here comes an example: I have tonz of samplez and I can put some blocks together - I'm PRO compozer for ALL MEDIA, fuckz yeahhh! That particular approach I hate. But it has actually almost nothing to do with technology, it's all about people who are vain or dumb. Or both. Noone who is sane or at least have a small amount of modesty, would call himself a composer if know nothing 'bout theory. Because "composing" is THINKING - over structure, harmonies, colour, what will come next. Not just putting random sounds, which sometimes work fine together. Composing is not a stream of conciousness... I - for myself - make music, I'm no composer, but I'm really glad, that I have a chance to do it without knowing shit. I'm also huge ignorant because of that. Happens. But we shouldn't blame technology, opportunities for all that's evil. Blame people. Good technology in good hands can do marvels...

And I think it's a great moment to give to all of youe some of my pieces. Basically I don't think I made some skill improvements , maybe a tiny ones. One thing for sure - form is still a bit of a mystery to me;). But if U like itrack below, try some more and check the rest of my soundcloud account. I'm sneaky... xD

Back at Home by Herbaciak on SoundCloud - Create, record and share your sounds for free (http://soundcloud.com/herbaciak/back-at-home)

I hope I didn't give the impression that I blame the technology. Of course I don't. These new tools are indeed a considerable progress and finally allow everybody to at least try to compose, and that's a very good thing. Isn't it wonderful to see all these people proudly posting their creations in various forums and music platforms? Artistic expression and creation MUST be promoted, and thanks to these tools a lot more people through the world have access to what was formerly reserved to a very limited cercle of priviledged.

But randomly playing with these tools in order to have fun creating music is quite different than being a trained composer who knows exactly what he's doing and how to do it. What I blamed was the lack of modesty or the delusion of some of these people who believe they're actual composers because they have a super-duper sound library that allows them to produce something that vaguely resembles music.

When you're an amateur musician, you have to be lucid about yourself and humbly admit it. I despise the attitude of some this "composers" who genuinely believe that they're true artists, who "create" original, groundbraking "music", and who intentionally don't try to "emulate" the traditional orchestral sound because it's vintage and old-fashioned. Well, no wonder why they don't "try" to emulate it, since they simply CAN'T do it anyway. This is way above their poor skills.

Just to develop a little this notion of "natural selection" of composers I talked about earlier, here's how things (very globally) worked before these tools were invented: a composer and a director would discuss about the appropriate music for a movie; the composer would present some ideas, would play them on piano, until they got an agreement; then the composer would complete the whole score (with many consultations with the director) and would pass his sheets to an orchestrator, which would translate it into an orchestral score; then the conductor would perform the score with a live orchestra.

It's obvious that at ANY point of this process, if someone notices that the composer hired doesn't really know what he's doing and how to do it, his days are numbered, since an incompetent composer not only means a bad score, but also a loss of time and money. Imagine these new composers, who mostly only know how to use a sequencer and a sampler, placed in such situation: would they be able to compose an artistically and technically accomplished score? Could they play their ideas on a piano? Could they write an entire score on paper? Could they orchestrate by themselves or give the right instructions to an orchestrator? Could they do the same for the performance?

A composer isn't alone in the scoring process. The orchestrator, the conductor, the players, but also the engineer, who are all generally trained professionals, would very quickly spot the incompetent amateur, and would be willing to to eject him from the production, and rightly so. And if they're forced to work with him (because he's the producer's nephew or something), they'll do it with bitterness and contempt. Eventually, it's very likely than the final score would be a bad one, because sometimes a good orchestrator can "enhance" things to a point where they become acceptable, but sometimes he can't. You can't do sushis with rotten fishes.


And I think it's a great moment to give to all of youe some of my pieces. Basically I don't think I made some skill improvements , maybe a tiny ones. One thing for sure - form is still a bit of a mystery to me;). But if U like itrack below, try some more and check the rest of my soundcloud account. I'm sneaky... xD

Back at Home by Herbaciak on SoundCloud - Create, record and share your sounds for free (http://soundcloud.com/herbaciak/back-at-home)
Like the previous times, your music is puzzling, intriguing. There are some good aspects: at times nice orchestrations, overall good ambience, a perceptible global structure, etc. But at times it's really a mess, some notes which shouldn't be together happen to be together, which gives an impression of chaos, disharmony and random improvisation. Perhaps this is intentional, but I doubt so, since this piece is clearly a feel-good, major-key one (the tag say: cheerful). You should really focus on composing simple, effective piano pieces in the first place, with nice melodies and precise harmonies, and once you've done this, only then should you start orchestrating them.

Does composers still speaks with directors anyway (with few exceptions)? It seems that today it's just producer who's telling: bring me epicness! And we get the epicness of our time. We all know how this sounds...


sometimes a good orchestrator can "enhance" things to a point where they become acceptable

Yeah, but these days, when one score is orchestrated by 10 or even more people (how they even work?!), it just makes bad things worse... Although it's true, good orchestration really can make turd shine. It would still be turd, but shiny one xD.


You should really focus on composing simple, effective piano pieces in the first place, with nice melodies and precise harmonies, and once you've done this, only then should you start orchestrating them.

Two tracks on soundcloud (rather fresh ones) were actually written that way (in 70-80%). It's not that hard to guess which ones. And writing them was... hard. It's completely different kind of thing. Much harder than just putting "random" sounds all over the place. It's actually much more of a "composing" than my standard method: an idea and the mood first and after that - let's dance;). But as I said many times before - it's just fun for me, a hobby.

One more thing, completely different subject though - I fell in love in Mina Kubota's music. So once again thanks for introducing her to me with Hoshi no Umi:).

I'm really interessted in her works now after Hoshi no Umi. She even worked on ARIA (pleasant surprise) but I would really like to know if she scored some movies or dramas.

Hey guys, a question. Would you happen to be interested in the music of Grant Kirkhope? I've got his stuff for the Banjo-Kazooie games and Donkey Kong 64. The only problem is that with the exception of Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts, the rips go for 4+ hours. Banjo-Kazooie is 4, while Banjo-Tooie is 7, as well as Donkey Kong 64. I went through most of them, trying to look for cutable tunes...and, well, there really aren't any. No sort of ambiance, and as far as I could tell, no "alterations". I know how some of you didn't like the long running time of Runes of Magic, so I'm giving you guys the option here.

I posted this before, but forgot to let you know ;)

I have Re-Posted again re-enconded from flac to mp3 VBR -V0. I am just sorry the booklet scans are not so good :(


(http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/163/sailormoonrlogo.png/)
美少女戦士セーラームーンR
Bishoujo Senshi Sailormoon R (Thread 93586)

(http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/215/01fronts.jpg/)
Sailor Moon R ~Symphonic Poem~ (http://forums.ffshrine.org/f91/sailor-moon-r-symphonic-poem-93720/#post1750204)

Release date: 1994.04.01
Catalogue number: COCC-11579

Composed by: Toshiyuki Watanabe (1, 3, 4, 6, 7)
All Arranged by: Toshiyuki Watanabe
Performed by CITY OF LONDON SINFONIA
Conducted by Richard Pittman

Hey guys, a question. Would you happen to be interested in the music of Grant Kirkhope? I've got his stuff for the Banjo-Kazooie games and Donkey Kong 64. The only problem is that with the exception of Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts, the rips go for 4+ hours. Banjo-Kazooie is 4, while Banjo-Tooie is 7, as well as Donkey Kong 64. I went through most of them, trying to look for cutable tunes...and, well, there really aren't any. No sort of ambiance, and as far as I could tell, no "alterations". I know how some of you didn't like the long running time of Runes of Magic, so I'm giving you guys the option here.

Well ya know, there ARE official ost's floating around for the Banjo series at least that cut the track list back to just the main themes for each level and everything. I adore Kirkhope and actually prefer the gamerips in the all the cases you mentioned just because there ARE so many neat "alterations", which is sort of the point(I still think those games were the among the only ones to incorporate seamless shifts in music for different areas and scenarios well).

If you want to post the gamerips, I say go for it, regardless of how long they are. Contrary to what seems to be the consensus here, people will always have their own highlights and dislikes with a score, always, and even if it's four hours of music, I don't think it's such a horrible compromise to post the whole shebang and let people decide for themselves like adult human beings with the capacity to form their own opinions on what they might like, what to keep and what to excise, which I'm guessing is what you were going for during that Dynamedion business awhile back.

All that said, though, I'm not sure how well any of these scores "fit" this thread's orchestral focus, great music though it may be. If you want to introduce people here to Kirkhope's work, I'd recomend starting with Viva Pinata, which I believe has been posted already but I wouldn't complain. Got no room to speak there. :p

The *point* of asking for "trimmed-down" versions of gamerips wasn't of course to let somebody else decide what one should hear or shouldn't (that's why removing tracks in an album based on his own preferences is a bad thing). The point was to have a sort of sample album that gives a taste of what the full gamerip has to offer, preferably featuring some highlights and a bit of each genre: exploration, battle, etc. This way, people can a *LOT* more easily decide for themselves if it's worthy or not to download 10 or 20 hours music.

Regardless, Kirkhope is indeed a wonderful composer. I discovered him with Viva Pinata, which was posted in this thread by Lens. Absolutely exquisite music, delicate, heartfelt, magical and utterly melodic. Kirkhope shows an impressive capacity to compose a perfectly mastered score with a rather limited orchestra (since the orchestrations mostly focuses on strings and woodwinds, but with such a fluid, effortless virtuosity!). The result is outstanding.

And just so nobody misses it, let's repost it:




VIVA PI�ATA
GRANT KIRKHOPE

The City of Prague Philharmonic conducted by Nic Raine



MP3-V0
Multiupload.com - upload your files to multiple file hosting sites! (http://www.multiupload.com/Y0UACUW7H7)

Now I'm sticking my neck out here. Not only is this VGM, but it's also performed by the dreaded C.O.P Phil! ;) I don't want to linger on truisms about how this isn't Prokofiev or Sibelius, but it IS an absolutely lovely score and the orchestra are on fine form. I'm surprised it hasn't featured in the thread thus far.

Grant Kirkhope was originally a trumpet player by trade and attended The Royal Northern College of Music. He joined Rare in 1995, working on many of the N64 classics. Viva Pinata is a million miles away from his moody music for Goldeneye and Perfect Dark or the looney-tunes-meets-cockney-knees-up of Banjo Kazooie, glowing with innocent pastoral melodies and simple sonorous orchestrations. It was nominated for a BAFTA award in 2007.

This is my own rip from the cd soundtrack, with one addition. I've slotted in "Fields of Gold" (Day 6 from the game audio files) where it felt right musically in the sequence of the album. Why this track was left out I don't know - it's simply to sweet to miss :)

Quote from Kirkhope's website:

Thanks arthierr/Lens for this, gotta say--one of the strangers covers/concepts I've seen in a while, but the reviews sound great, so will give it a listen.

---------- Post added at 05:13 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:12 PM ----------

actually shoot! the link is dead, any chance for a re-upload?

The MU link is ok. Go for it, you won't regret it. :)

Thanks arthierr/Lens for this, gotta say--one of the strangers covers/concepts I've seen in a while, but the reviews sound great, so will give it a listen.

---------- Post added at 05:13 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:12 PM ----------

actually shoot! the link is dead, any chance for a re-upload?

The Megaupload option is still active.

haha, woops, good call guys! For some reason only the Rapidshare showed up at the top, the others we hiding way down the page, I didn't even know there were more options. Thanks again!

Hi folks,
I don't actually have anything to post today but I would like to say that from now onwards (until I get sick of doing it, or forget, or somebody shouts at me and tells me to stop) I will be prefixing my future uploads with the following, in reaction to a recent drama in the Anime forum... (This drama: Thread 93739)



For EVERYBODY - All Are Welcome
Please do download from this thread, whatever kind of computer you have or operating system you prefer!
Users of all major platforms will be able to open this archive.
Music sharing is about sharing music; it is not an elitist club for IT fascists.

I just read the thread.

I have no words.

Pretty inane, isn't it? When you want to share something, you do it in the most convenient way for everybody. The central criterion is accessibility. Asking to have or get a specific computer to access your uploads is pure nonsense. However, no need to overreact just because *ONE* troll did this. Happily the very large majority of the people here have more reason and good sense. This is a very minor incident that shouldn't be taken too seriously.




Sailor Moon R ~Symphonic Poem~

Release date: 1994.04.01
Catalogue number: COCC-11579

Composed by: Toshiyuki Watanabe (1, 3, 4, 6, 7)
All Arranged by: Toshiyuki Watanabe
Performed by CITY OF LONDON SINFONIA
Conducted by Richard Pittman

Sailor Moon R ~Symphonic Poem~ is among the albums I wanted to post here and completely forgot. People shouldn't be fooled by the anime girly stuff-like aspect of it. This is a sweeping, sumptuous, gorgeous symphonic album that shouldn't be missed. Just forget that it comes from Sailor Moon, imagine it's an unknown album that someone lent you. Discover it with no preconceived opinion and you'll see how this thing is wonderful.

Now, those words made speechless. :)

Speaking of Tintin, I just saw the trailer &#x202a;Trailer Tintin : The Secret of the Unicorn (Spielberg 2011)&#x202c;&rlm; - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bDlm3eLRut0) and the music is awful.

John williams music is awfull?

Pretty inane, isn't it? When you want to share something, you do it in the most convenient way for everybody. The central criterion is accessibility. Asking to have or get a specific computer to access your uploads is pure nonsense. However, no need to overreact just because *ONE* troll did this. Happily the very large majority of the people here have more reason and good sense. This is a very minor incident that shouldn't be taken too seriously.

Yes it was a minor incident in the great grasp of things. But, I still think what Tango proposes is a good idea. It sends out a message - we'll suffer it once, but never again.


Sailor Moon R ~Symphonic Poem~ is among the albums I wanted to post here and completely forgot. People shouldn't be fooled by the anime girly stuff-like aspect of it. This is a sweeping, sumptuous, gorgeous symphonic album that shouldn't be missed. Just forget that it comes from Sailor Moon, imagine it's an unknown album that someone lent you. Discover it with no preconceived opinion and you'll see how this thing is

Okay, I'll give it a try. Although I suspect my manliness meter is going to take a plummet.

---------- Post added at 07:09 PM ---------- Previous post was at 07:08 PM ----------


John williams music is awfull?

That is trailer music, not John Williams. Trailer #2 has about 20 seconds worth of Williams' music for it.

The music in the Tintin trailer is not by John Williams. It is instead some generic trailer music. I thought it sounded lovely the first time I heard it in theaters, then I went online to check it out again and realized who it was written by.

That is NOT John Williams.

Edit: Regards the Mac thing, I don't consider my reaction an overreaction; it's a statement that I believe in the principles of openness. I respect the right of every man and woman to use the computer platform they enjoy best. Personally I am not a Mac fan, but if you are I'm not going to try to make it hard for you to listen to my uploads. We're here for the music. I consider mine a form of non-violent protest and a way for me to remind people what's important every time they see a post. And if it shows up that obnoxious little turd for what he is at the same time, then all the better... :)

And really, folks, get the Sailormoon Symphony. For God's sake. It is NOT what you think it will be. You will not be threatening your masculinity by listening to it. It's a muscular, symphonic work brimming over with melody, grand orchestrations, and of course a superlative performance from a fine London orchestra... :)

There's no risk for your virility in listening to Sailor Moon Symphonic. ;) That's why I insisted on the fact that nobody should have preconceived ideas or suspiscions of cutsey / girly aspects in this album, because there's no such thing in it. This is pure orchestral grandeur, full stop. Just forget the context, just ignore where it comes from, so the beauty and power of this thing can transport you.


Faleel: apparently you didn't see the trailer I mentioned. Just see it and you'll understand.

I do hope you guys realize I was (mostly) joking in regards to the (supposed) threat to my (already diluted) manhood. I already listen to orchestral music - as far as society is concerned, I can't get more womanly than that! :p

Intrada just released a new McNeely score: Squanto. Sounds quite lovely.

I did see it, It had williams music in it between 0:20 and 0:37 approx.

&#x202a;Tintin Score Snippet set to the Comic Book&#x202c;&rlm; - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xrSdbD_ifqc&feature=related)

---------- Post added at 03:39 PM ---------- Previous post was at 03:38 PM ----------

And it has been confirmed by people with the sheet music.

(http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/98/tkca72242.jpg/)
Kangengakukyoku GIANT ROBOT THE ANIMATION -Chikyuu ga Seishi suru Nichi- I Kanzenban
管弦楽曲　ジャイアント・ロボ１ THE ANIMATIONー地球が静止する日ー 完全盤 (http://forums.ffshrine.org/f91/giant-robot-symphonic-suite-ginrei-ost-60295/#post1152741)

Release date: 1993.02.21
Catalogue number: APCM-5007

Re-release date: 2001.10.24
Catalogue number: TKCA-72242

Music Composed, Arranged and Conducted by: Masamichi Amano
Performed by: Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra

Tracklist:

01 Jokyoku
02 Higeki wa Futatabi
03 TRAIN CHASE
04 GIANT ROBOT
05 Kokusai Keisatsu Kikou
06 BF Dan
07 URANUS no Shuugen
08 ALBERTO no Shuugeki
09 Taisou no Gyakushuu


(http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/546/tycy5594.jpg/)
[GIANT ROBO Gaiden] GIN REI with blue eyes -Aoi Hitomi no Gi Original Sound Track-
ジャイアントロボ外伝 青い瞳の銀鈴 オリジナル・サウンド・トラック (http://forums.ffshrine.org/f91/giant-robo-gaiden-gin-rei-blue-eyes-93953/#post1752798)

Release date: 1998.02.25
Catalogue number: TYCY-5594
Label: Toshiba EMI

Music Composed, Arranged and Conducted by: Masamichi Amano
Performed by: Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra

Hey Sirusjr, I had no idea that Intrada was releasing McNeely's "Squanto"--that's awesome!! it's been years since I saw the film, so don't remember the music off the top of my head, but early orchestral McNeely is Always something to track down!

*Doublehex proceeds to listen to Sailor Moon Symphonic Poem*

*Music you would expect from a classical symphonist comes through his headphones*

WTF Japan?! For a kid's show! A girly kid's show at that!

---------- Post added at 10:49 PM ---------- Previous post was at 10:49 PM ----------

*Doublehex proceeds to listen to Sailor Moon Symphonic Poem*

*Music you would expect from a classical symphonist comes through his headphones*

WTF Japan?! For a kid's show! A girly kid's show at that!

There is one major rule in Japan: Even the most ridiculous concept will be approached with serious care. If you think Sailor Moon's girly concept in combination with an orchestra is weird, you should see the ridicolus "soft porn" anime shows these days that get an surprisingly high budget (more than most shows about "normal" stuff) and fantastic music, see Samurai Girls. Only in Japan will you find so much experimantation with music and opportunities for composers to score whatever they want. Sometimes it does not work but most of the time, it does. I even like most modern elements in Japanese scores and a combiniation of styles that surprisingly works &#x202a;DRAGON FORCE (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E6tpJBPVvuE). Currently I was really surprised when I skipped through some shows to search for decent music and found an equally great score as Samurai Girls in a show about Ninja-Girls and huge huge breasts. Japan is weird, but wonderful at the same time.

Also if anyone hasn't checked out Giant Robo before, do it now ! Easily one of the best anime scores out there, even when over half of it is "inspired" by great western scores. I see it more as a homage to the old orchestral sound of Hollywood than anything else. The only downside is that the action cues can get a bit repetitive but aside from that it's excellent.

Everyone should listen to this. Fantastic score!

Thread 93888

Hello everyone !!
A week ago i just discovered the music of Masamichi Amano, and since then I have been tracking all his music that is available, specially his orchestral works ( i do like a lot his urotsukidoji music anyway xP), and a i found in this thread the music of The Aurora , but the links are down ...if someone could please re upload will be awesome :)
Im dying to listen more of his work ( i have listen until now the 8 discs of giant robo,super atragon, stratos 4, urotsukdoji , princess nine, battle royale I y II and also I saw the Sin movie only for the music jejejeje)
thanks :)

Debney employs the London Symphony and at first it sounds mightily impressive, but eventually it dawned on me that the writing was very bland -- it is the very definition of the generic adventure score with the tiniest hint of a seafaring melody embedded into the brass fanfares; at best, it achieves the cliche "pirate movie" sound, a modicum of personality. Listening to "Morgan's Ride" again as I am typing this up, I'm hearing absolutely no surprises in the chord progression; the most obvious choice is always made, the easiest transition. In a world (thanks Don LaFontaine!) populated by samples and entire ensembles playing in unison, the Cutthroat score stands out for its use of a huge, world-renowned orchestra. But as we are all aware, this thread and forum is stuffed with such works, and by comparison the lack of personality and vision embodied by Debney's score stands out as thoroughly mediocre.

Compare Cutthroat to Korngold's Sea Hawk, especially as conducted by Charles Gerhardt. Although Korngold defined the "pirate movie" sound, listen to the dynamic variances in tone and color, the details in the lush orchestration. Listen to Debney's battle music and then listen to Korngold's duel. Debney sounds outright pathetic in comparison. I am not a fan of the "Pirates of the Caribbean" scores by any means, but let's look at the dance-like quality of Zimmer's action music for that series alongside Debney's wall-of-blah; Zimmer's inspiration may be obnoxiously puerile and recycled, but it is there in far greater volume than Debney imbues in his own effort. And I know there hasn't been a lot of love for Michael Giacchino in this thread, and I agree that his writing is a bit... shall we say, thin? But, honestly, I would take his Star Trek over Cutthroat any day of the week.

I must have been in a really pissy mood when I wrote this a year ago. I don't totally take it back (I do still agree that Cutthroat is overrated), but listening to it again, I accept it for what it is -- big dumb fun homage.

Just wanted to pop in here and give some members here a note to watch out for new scores from Naoki Sato (Blood-C) and Toshihiko Sahashi (Sacred Seven). Both are listed on VGMDB as having score releases in October.

Yeah can�t wait for both ;)

London Philharmonic Orchestra - Video Game Heroes - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8HdEySg0-A0&feature=youtu.be&hd=1)

London Philharmonic Orchestra - Video Game Heroes - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8HdEySg0-A0&feature=youtu.be&hd=1)

He mentioned an album - any idea when that will be given a release? I saw no mention of it on the site.

On the web site it says: Video Game Heroes Album will be released in Autumn 2011.

Oh.

Now I feel stupid.

No shame, this is really exciting news. I hope this will get a DVD recording as well, not all the music played live will be on the album, perhaps a 2CD edition ?
This and Zelda Symphony in the same Year, another Sato and Sahashi score in October, the third OST of Star Driver next week. Glorious.

Oh, you mean these? ;)


Urotsukidoji: Legend of the Overfiend

Music composed by Amano Masamichi

Thanks a lot to Zero Kyori


Urotsukidoji: Legend of the Overfiend Complete Collection I

(http://img519.imageshack.us/my.php?image=uro001gt3.jpg)

Disc 1 - Legend of the Overfiend
MEGAUPLOAD - The leading online storage and file delivery service (http://www.megaupload.com/?d=5YH7EZ1I)

Disc 2 - Legend of the Demon Womb
MEGAUPLOAD - The leading online storage and file delivery service (http://www.megaupload.com/?d=KJLBXUO1)


Urotsukidoji: Legend of the Overfiend Complete Collection II

(http://img144.imageshack.us/my.php?image=uro2001rrqm7.jpg)

Disc 1 - Future Story & Wandering Story (Return of the Overfiend & Inferno Road)
MEGAUPLOAD - The leading online storage and file delivery service (http://www.megaupload.com/?d=LY3LBKT1)

Disc 2 - The Wanderer (The Urotsuki)
MEGAUPLOAD - The leading online storage and file delivery service (http://www.megaupload.com/?d=EM4NXT0L)

Hello

Could please this links be re-up ?
I went to the other urotsukidoji ost thread but the links are dead and it seems that the persons responsable of that thread are innactive :/

Thank !!! :D

London Philharmonic Orchestra - Video Game Heroes - YouTube

Interesting set. And orchestral Angry Birds? How is that not awesome?:D

I have for you guys a few samples from the Bayonetta soundtrack ripped from the demo. They are the only orchestral type tracks from the demo. Credit goes to pietastesgood for posting the rip.
[center]James Hannigan - Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs - Game Rip


Hi, can anyone re-upload this score again?
Thanks!

James Hannigan - Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs - Game Rip|MP3|VBR
|Ripped by OrangeC|Cover by Bi0|25Tracks|149MB|Converted from OGG|
|Orchestral|Lush|Adventurous|Majestic|Regal|

Download (http://www.multiupload.com/XWFKCA7E5S)
This is a rip of the soundtrack from the video game based off the movie by the same name. There were originally a bunch more tracks but the ones I cut out were 10 seconds or less so they weren't worth keeping. Most of the tracks are 3 minutes long. This is another amazing work by James Hannigan and the audio quality is fantastic. Don't pass this up just because it is a rip.

Fresh re-up by request.

Thanks for "Cloudy" Sirusjr, this one was next on my list, nice to have it refreshed!

anybody have any track titles for "Cloudy"?

Doubtful, it is a game rip after all. I doubt very many people have played the game, which would be needed to get any sort of accurate titling.

Doubtful, it is a game rip after all. I doubt very many people have played the game, which would be needed to get any sort of accurate titling.

Sure, that makes sense. Although I have seen several game rips on here that have been "soundtrack"-ified. Aka, someone went thru all the files and labeled and named according to the game scenes, and/or edited to get rid of stingers, or combine into suites, etc. It seems like you're sort of done the latter already, it just makes a much more pleasant listen when I have track titles to guide me along. Oh well, what matters is the music after all!

As a thanks, I just rustled up a quick Cover artwork for the game, a bit more exciting than the one attached (no offense), not meant to replace, just giving an alternate. Enjoy!