Grant Kirkhope uploaded a piano solo version of Kingdoms of Amalur music yesterday.
Reckoning Main Theme Piano Version by Grant Kirkhope on SoundCloud - Create, record and share your sounds for free (http://soundcloud.com/grant-kirkhope/reckoning-main-theme-piano)

Grant Kirkhope uploaded a piano solo version of Kingdoms of Amalur music yesterday.
Reckoning Main Theme Piano Version by Grant Kirkhope on SoundCloud - Create, record and share your sounds for free (http://soundcloud.com/grant-kirkhope/reckoning-main-theme-piano)

Note that the arranger is Brent Kennedy, who has done a good few video game piano arrangements recently (notably for vvvvvv and super meat boy)

Ah, splendid - we're back! How about some more music?

Time for a twofer, this evening - these scores may be the best kept secret in orchestral game scoring. Like Outcast, they are mature, symphonic works that feel more like concert hall works than game scores. Performed by the Russian Philharmonia Symphony Orchestra and the Moscow Symphony Orchestra, ladies and gentlemen, here is...
Both these scores are good, great even. I've not heard them before, so it's a nice surprise. But man, I don't think they're quite at the level of Outcast. Outcast was an anomaly; one that in my opinion hasn't been repeated since. No modern game score has repeated that level of not just orchestral grandeur, but originality, and thematic completedness. I will always remember listening to it around nearly 12 years ago, thinking it was going to open up a whole new era of soundtracks for games, and since then becoming more and more jaded and disappointed that it was a fluke. As you can see, I hold Outcast to games in the same regard as I hold Star Wars to film music. :)

Masamichi Amano
Suite Symphonique "Gaia"
Hamamatsu Symphonic Wind Orchestra (http://hswo.jp/), conducted by Tohru Asada
AAC ~256kbs | 4 Tracks | 51:21 | 97 MB

Release Date: 21.05.2008
Recording Date: 20.-21.10.2007
Label: Cafua
Catalog Number: CACG-0115 (http://www.cafua.com/products/detail296.html)



01. Suite Symphonique "Gaia": I. De la Naissance de la Terre Au Commencement de Civilisation Du Monde
02. II. Le Mouvement Qui Considere L'influence Que L'humanite Cause a L'enveloppement de Civilisation, Querre Et Effondrements
03. III. Le Mouvement a Toutes Les Victimes de Guerre Dans L'histoire de la Terre
04. IV. Finale

From the iTunes Store.

DOWNLOAD
http://www.adrive.com/public/yrpm7y

Nice one Herr Salat. Both albums are great. Cheers

Herr Salat: AMAAAAAAAAAAAZING! I had no idea these even existed... and I must say I'm really, really enjoying them. Amano's background is with wind and brass bands so these feel like they're getting right back to his roots.

I wouldn't call these recordings cheap, though - nor would I call the orchestra small... Remember, there are no strings here - they're not a traditional symphony orchestra, they're a wind ensemble... which has a sound and texture all of its own. How Amano chooses to disperse the string parts in the band arrangement of Aurora is fascinating.

As for Gaia, it's going to take a long time for me to properly digest these pieces - but so far I think I'm falling in love with them. I don't think this is a score from anything; listening to it I would guess that it's one of Amano's incredibly elusive symphonies. The whole thing screams out "original composition". Heavy on dissonance, light on traditional melody (but the quieter sections, of the second movement for example, are nevertheless so beautiful) but still 100% recognisable as Amano.

Many, many thanks again!

And please, don't ever be afraid to ask for an upload if something I've posted in the past has dead links. :)

WOW, what an abundance of nifty music, recently! Where to start? :D

Thanks a lot to everybody, of course, and I'll post a bit later an extensive comment inspired by Herr Salat's last post (BTW, amazing professional-looking post, mate!). It features, from what I understand, an album which is an adaptation of an anime score, and another album apparently designed to be a standalone artwork. This is spot on with the recent discussion about media music vs art music. In fact I recently had a few more thoughts on the subject that I'd like to share with you. Coming soon. :)

Those russian pirate scores are big surprise. It really doesn't sound like game music - not Outcast level, but still great and very far from standard VGM.

Also I have to apologize Lockington - I can't stop listening to Journey 2. Still doesn't remember damn note out of it, but while it lasts, it is just wonderful adventure.


I recently listened to There Be Dragons by Robert Folk and it is a very enjoyable film score

True, it is truly enjoyable, highly melodic, without any annoying underscore. Really like it.

Overall it's pretty solid month when it comes to new film music releases - Journey, Dragons, Black Gold.

And when it comes to VGM I'm interested in new Resident Evil, it won't be the greatest score ever, but I like what I hear in rip - TheWhistleTeam's Channel - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/user/TheWhistleTeam?feature=watch#p/c/42015C8ED9869AB2/22/T1ZDWKujPGs) .

And there is still new FF concert coming... Good month it is - I like the leap year:).

*grumbles*

Folk have to stop taking my comments out of context! ;)

I didn't say I thought it was anywhere near Outcast's level of quality - that score is simply in a league of its own. I remember hearing and thinking (unlike the more optimistic Streich) "This is the beginning and end of an era, all at once..." and that was true. Then again, something can compare badly to Outcast and still be extremely good, if not excellent.

I cited Outcast in my description, only to convey what they do have in common; a broad, symphonic sensibility. :)

Mio min Mio / Mio in the Land of Faraway Soundtrack (by Anders Eljas)
GENRE: Score
DATE: 1988
COUNTRY: Sweden
AUDIO CODEC: MP3
QUALITY: 320 kbs
PLAYTIME: 47:35

The film's theme song, "Mio My Mio", was composed by two former ABBA members, Benny Andersson and Bj�rn Ulvaeus, and performed by the Swedish band Gemini.[17] The film's background music was composed by Anders Eljas with assistance from Benny Andersson,[5] and performed by The Soviet Film Symphony Orchestra with Sergei Skripka as the conductor

ul.to - Not available (http://uploaded.to/file/kd38vht7)

I cited Outcast in my description, only to convey what they do have in common; a broad, symphonic sensibility.

We all know that Outcast is one and only in VGM world and noone ever did anything even close to it (including Moore himself).

And I understand you and agree with what you say. Those "pirate" scores share with Outcast style of composing - it's more of a concert music, than just simple illustration. And I know that you didn't compare them. I did;).

warstar937: actually, if you hadn't posted these jazz / orchestra scores here, I wouldn't even know they existed! So thank you!



What are we going to get next? Beethoven's Fifth The Collector's Edition: A lovingly produced 5,000 CD set containing every single recorded performance of Beethoven's seminal masterpiece ever made. An additional bonus 500 discs feature outtakes, alternate mixes, and retakes (including ten discs devoted to George Szell's 1964 record-breaking 243 separate takes of the final movement coda) and bonus recordings of Beethoven's nine hundred variations of the famous four note opening of the first movement, each performed in a guest recording by the esteemed South West-North-Eastern Municipal Community Orchestra of the Falkland Islands conducted by Jose Bogbrush. (Please note that for budgetary reasons, two horns, two trumpets, and two trombones have been omitted from the brass section.) A final 500 extra-special-bonus CDs include the four note opening recording sessions with the fourth player of the second violin mixed slightly down and to the right, for your listening pleasure. Yours for only twenty-five thousand dollars, plus five hundred dollars postage and packaging. Please note that a fork-lift truck will be required to maneuver this magnificent leather-bound box set into your house.

I know humor shouldn't be too commented nor analyzed, for it can spoil its spontaneous impact, but I greatly enjoyed this kind of "machine-gun" humor with its incredibly rapid succession of jokes, where every sentence, every portion of sentence becomes a laughing occasion. Kudos, then. :D

james hannigan Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Part 1) soundtrack download please ???

herbaciak: I bet he could if he were given the opportunity... but he seems to have drifted in to providing "additional music" for crummy Mark Griskey scores now. Which seems a little bit like me hiring God to push a wheelbarrow.

Jerome Moross' score for "The Big Country" (1958); James Newton Howard for "The Fugitive" and Gary Chang's score for "Under Siege" are ones that come to mind when I think of big orchestra scores in action films... its a shame that today's movies have way too many artists performing in films and not enough of an orchestral score.

Thank you very much for amano music

Even though Outcast is the greatest game score ever written, there are still many scores out there that come somewhat close to it's substance and grandious magnificence, some closer than others. For example, here's a quick list of my favorite game scores that I would put close to Outcast.

Afrika
Age of Pirates Caribbean Tales
AION Symphonic Score
Anno series (and Dynamedion scores in general)
Arc the Lad (typical Oshima score)
Blue Stinger (typical Sahashi score)
Dante's Inferno (best horror score a game could have, shame the game was absolute shit)
Dragon Quest: Orchestal Albums
Elemental Gearbolt
Final Fantasy: Orchestral Albums (mostly Distant Worlds)
Fragile ~Sayonara Tsuki no Haikyo~ (extremly biased on this one, the music just connects with me, reminds me of Hisaishi)
Gothic 3
Hana Ki Sou: Symphonic Score (This one comes very close to Outcast)
Harry Potter: Game Scores (Hannigan's Order of the Phoenix and Half Blood Prince)
Intelligent Qube
Jet Force Jemini (Someone, please orchestrate this baby)
Killzone
Kingdoms of Amalur
Kirby series (aside from Valkyria Chronicles and Grand Knights History this series has the best synth music I've heared in games, insanly cute and awesome like Kirby itself)
LAIR (comes very close to Outcast but lacks substance)
Lego Universe
Medal of Honor series
Mario and Sonic: Jeux Olympics
Ni no Kuni (very very close to Outcast)
Nobunaga's Ambition (Kousuke Yamashita's most bombastic game score)
Ogre ~Grand Repeat~
Primal
Reign of Revolution
Sakura Taisen series (Tanaka's highly enjoyable music with J-Pop that is actually as complex as the BGM)
Secret Weapons over Normandy
Shadow of the Colossus (I'm a little biased on this one, SotC is still one of the best games I have ever played, and the music is Kow Otani's best work alongside Haibane Renmei)
Shenmue: Orchestral Score
Stronghold (Synth score featuring R�zsa and Poledouris)
Star Fox Assault
Super Mario Galaxy 1+2
The Legend of Zelda series
The Old Republic (partly because of Moore)
The Sith Lords
Valkyria Chronicles (give Sakimoto a full orchestra already)
Viva Pinata
Warhawk
World of Warcraft
Xenosaga I: Orchestral Score (A shame Mitsuda did not score the other two, perhaps no budget for the LPO?)

But Outcast aside, the OGCs are still the pinnacle of orchestral game music for me, followed by the WDR Symphonic Game Concerts.
While it's indeed sad that a score like Outcast won't appear every decade, the world of game music is nonetheless full of gems and magnificent music that doesn't need to hide behind Film music anymore (especially in this day and age). Perhaps we will see more Hollywood composers changing their medium or working for both (it didn't hurt John Debney or Brian Tyler, on the contrary). I say the next Outcast will eventually arrive, written with pencil on paper with no audio tools insight. A man can dream, right?

Nice list, never heard Ni no Kuni before, glad I have now.

As much appreciation as I have for pencil and paper composing, they're still just tools, like any midi sequencer. A good composer can use either just fine. But using pencil and paper does usually lead to one valuable component lost on many a MIDI composer: using a piano. Most think a piano is used in composing just to hear what you wrote, but actually it's a good indicator on whether or not the orchestration of the music would be worth it. I guess you could say if I don't like your music as heard on piano, I probably won't like it performed by a 100-piece orchestra.

That's one of the reasons I appreciate composers like Uematsu so much. His music sounds great no matter how you arrange it; chiptune, piano, string quartet, whatever.

You mentioned LAIR on your list as a score that has a lot going for it, but still lacks that substance. I think that missing substance is exactly the fact LAIR's music ain't so great if you play it on a piano. But sometimes a movie or game doesn't demand pianoability of its soundtrack, and that's okay, just not my cup of tea.

The "pencil and paper" thing is an interesting one; principally, it seems to be a good yardstick against which to evaluate a composer's musical acumen - if he can write music (ie, with a pencil and manuscript paper) then he has obviously attained a certain level of skill which will hopefully translate into convincing composition.

Then again, you can teach any idiot how to write music - just as you can teach any idiot English - but there is no guarantee that either will use their new skills to say anything worthwhile!

I find it somewhat analogous to the old "typewriter phenomenon" so often cited by great authors. Computers are great for getting it done as quickly as possible; but for some (myself included) the presence of a typewriter somehow provides focus. Computers can accept input faster than you can provide it or even think it - but to type on a typewriter, or write music with paper and pencil, the act of input is slow and methodical. One cannot hit "delete" quite as easily. One does not receive electronic guidance, or productivity tools. There is a certain romanticism about it.

It's why I still have the typewriter I learned to type on in 1988, and draft out important documents on that prior to re-typing the finished product on computer. I like the smell of paper, and ink, and the feeling of physical interaction with the medium. I don't email Miss Tangotreats; I get out a pad of paper and a fountain pen, write her a letter, and put it in the post - ink blots, mistakes, and all.

Outdated, old fashioned, redundant, obsolete, inefficient, slow, they say... but what works works.

Then there's the piano question! How true about Uematsu! That was precisely what made me realise how good he really is. Play it with a 100 piece orchestra, great music. Play it on a piano, great music. Sing it in the shower, great music. Doesn't matter. There's a guy who can't read or write music, but it doesn't matter because it's inside him all the same and he has found a way to get it from inside his head into the real world where we can all appreciate it.

And what are Uematsu's most memorable works? And what medium were they written for? --- highly restrictive 8-bit sound chips, low-polyphony MIDI, etc. The mind is focussed by the limitations of the performance - forcing one to distil one's ideas, make every note count, and concentrate only on what's important.

The same sort of feeling I get with Mozart; add one note, it doesn't work. Take one note away, it doesn't work. Was it Mozart, or somebody else, who said "Write only what is necessary, and no more"? Sage words... :)

I agree with everything you said Tango except for the utility of using a typewriter!! Dear god man, even when I am doing a handwritten note to someone I write it up on the computer first and make sure I read it over a few times before writing it out. Of course my boyfriend gets handwritten notes for the important occasions but I would hate the note to lose the extra polish I can give it if I edit it on the computer first.

It is an interesting phenomena. I notice this often with movies with multiple orchestrators. The ones that go about things the hard way (for example Conrad Pope still hand writes many of his scores) almost always end up with cleaner, more interesting, and generally more effective cues even though they were given the same level of material to work with. Often taking more time and effort can force the proper amount of thought.

I suppose what is really important is that the product is the best quality it can be, with as much polish as possible. It doesn't matter how you get there. Technology can certainly improve process, make things faster or more efficient. It also increases the temptation to be satisfied with lesser quality. Because it is so easy to make something that is "functional", people often don't strive to go further to something that is truly great. I suppose the point is if you want the creation to be easier, you must also put more thought and effort into the product to counter that effect.

In the end, what I'm trying to say is that there are pros and cons to everything. People need to find what allows them the product of highest quality and stick with it.

Tango:


http://i.imgur.com/IMGuT.gif

Interesting to see all this Outcast love, even claiming it to be the finest game score of all time. Was never really that crazy about Outcast, to be honest. Maybe it was impossibly high expectations after seeing everyone here applaud it to the heavens and I haven't actually sat down to listen to all of it beginning to end yet(got about halfway through), but it sounded to me like a parade of pretty much every classical/Golden Age film score cliche you could care to name. Very well-produced, wonderfully-written, but never surprising and at times even sorta boring. I'd easily put the Dragon Quest suites, Ni no Kuni, Mario Galaxy, and Nobunaga's Ambition(Kanno's scores, not Yamashita's somewhat ordinary, unremarkable work) over it, but I do greatly respect anyone who strives to create real, authentic orchestral music for the medium to the extent that Moore did, even if I find the final product kinda underwhelming.

But if we can list so many scores that "come close", perhaps we don't really need to fret over quality orchestral and instrumental game music dying out just yet.

To make a quick note on the "piano test of quality", not all great music will really sound all that great when applied to the ivories, at least in a straightforward, transcriptive manner. Uematsu's works fine enough, I guess, but considering how simple and pop it all usually is, that's a given, and I find his Piano Collections dreadfully boring anyway. Bland transcription, melody + accompaniment arrangement. Yawn. You could do that with anything if it's simple enough, but this won't hold true for all music, and in no way is that an accurate test of a song's true strength. Sometimes, it's a simple matter of adapting a song's qualities to terms and techniques idiomatic to the instrument. See Hamauzu's far superior Final Fantasy X Piano album. Perhaps even Lair would sound gorgeous on the black and whites with a skillful hand adapting it to a pianistic style instead of trying to cram a wall of sound orchestration into the soundboard.

^^^ This.

Knowing that your work will be exposed, and knowing that you won't be able to hide behind sheer noise and spectacle... has a habit of concentrating the mind.

I remember when I first got my hands on EWQL Gold. I was writing for days and days and thinking "Holy crap this is amazing!" - and then it hit me. I was writing complete and utter shit. Nothing but big gestures, musical sound effects, tricks of orchestration. It was a great experience for improving my arranging - but it was soul absent. I remember writing a crummy theme and thinking "never mind, you can't really tell when it's performed by eighteen horns, twelve trombones, four Wagner tubas, rolling timpani, and 140 voice choir!" and then mentally slapping myself in the face for I always tend to orchestrate as I'm going along (as opposed to some folk who plan out the piece on piano and go back after it's finished to flesh it out for whatever ensemble they had in mind) but ever since I always try to think to myself "this will be played by a solo piano / flute and cello / string quartet / whatever" and if what I'm writing doesn't convince me when considered under those circumstances, it goes right in the bin.

Makes me think back to my first quartet. It's pretty humiliating now (I wrote it when I was 15) but I gave a copy to my mother, expecting the usual patronising "Well done, sweetie!" but she didn't say anything. Weeks passed, no comment. Then she gave me a painting. She said the quartet made her think of that picture, and she got out her oil pants and just painted it. That made my year - and it helped me focus on the things that are important in music.

I'm planning to revise that thing and record it later this year as a bit of a taster session for my orchestral recording in 2013. IE, do a little bit, see if it's a disaster, and if it turns out OK then I'll feel a bit better about laying out the cash for the orchestra...

I'm not saying it was any good. I'm not saying I'm a great composer, a good composer, or even a competent composer. But I think I'm going at it from the right perspective. I may still be shit. But I've always thought that it's not failure that's shameful; it's not trying or doing it wrong because you didn't know enough about it to do it right.

Well said! I mainly write music in Sibelius but EWQL is just to make it sound a little better than the MIDI ;). Do you have recordings to share? I would be interested in hearing your work.

HAHA! Yeah, it's an old stuff I quickly drew at my job, when I got bored. Actually, it doesn't represent me but one of my colleagues. Just thought it would do the job for this little joke. (What humorous mood lately in this place, ladies and gentlemen! I sure enjoy it!)


Also, when I recently found the Bastard!! OSTs, they were stored in a forgotten folder where I put some other interesting albums, so perhaps there will be more nice music to be posted soon... ;)

(http://imgur.com/2ckfx)

So you don't feel left out... Two things we learn from this exercise: a) I draw at the skill level of a two year-old, and b) All you guys are fantastic. :)



Anybody left off because I ran out of space and my hand started to ache. :P

Tango,
First of all, your interpretation of this thread is dead on.
Second, now I'm going to have to post more just to spite you.
Lastly, I am disturbed by my lack of arms in the picture.

Hey, why do I have a big Groucho Marx style moustache?

And here's my take on Streich: "These two notes here are clearly a blatant rip-off of Dunayevsky's Ballet Suite for orchestra."

And here's my take on Streich: "These two notes here are clearly a blatant rip-off of Dunayevsky's Ballet Suite for orchestra."

Haha!


Hey, why do I have a big Groucho Marx style moustache?

I confess, the big 'tache is a shameless French stereotype.


Lastly, I am disturbed my lack of arms in the picture.

I told you I couldn't draw. I actually had to steal Doublehex's stick man design as I couldn't even do THAT by myself! ;)

Hey, that EQ2 rip wasn't 12,000 files long! Just 626! Ha!

But, yeah, pretty funny there. My rips ARE rather long, but what can I say? I am a completionist. :D

EDIT: I also just realized that my doodle also has the relative address of my residence...give or take 20 miles. If one of you are going to axe murder me, please at least let it be to Herman's Psycho. You guys owe me that much.

Come now, I should be flipping at least two birds, maybe three if you could do my feet. I've done it before.

Also, what are those things next to you? Beer cans?

Also, what are those things next to you? Beer cans?

I'm guessing they are the drums that are causing him such distress.

edit: I take that back, it does look like they say beer.

Tango you perv, why on earth i'm flashing out my pretty boobies :D

Anybody left off because I ran out of space and my hand started to ache. :P

I'm going to make like my guitar and gently weep in the corner.

Tango you perv, why on earth i'm flashing out my pretty boobies :D

Did you now know? TangoTreats...is a man!

I look like I am wearing a suit and tie hehe very sophisticated. Too tired today to do a visual response to this madness I unleashed.

Just so nobody feels left out, here's a few more takes I can think of:

Tazer: "Did I mention last week I played in Mahler's Symphony No. 6 at Carnegie Hall? After that I had a drink with the guest conductor and personal friend of mine: Claudio Abbado."

klnerfan: "Here's my new custom album for you, guys: half the tracks in a different order. Hope you enjoy!"

Hater: "That new score is the greatest thing in the history of film music, no, in the history of human kind. Trust me."

Billie: "(*^o^*) I'm so KAWAIIIIII! ♡^_^♡"

Herr Salat: "I post here since only a month and MY posts look ten times better than all of yours put together, suckers!"

herbaciak: "Here's new piece I wrote lately. Tell me what U think;) (in a non harmful way)."

Mike: "All the music posted in this thread SUCKS. Except mine."

JRL3001: "I post here only once a year, but hey, forgive me 'cause I'm a nice guy!"

So true :p

Looks like I missed a lot of fun *sad piano music starts playing*.

I just wanted to pipe in and say I've been really enjoying the drawings and the music. There is a certain organic approach to writing that is lost when using computers, and although I'm not a terribly creative person in writing and music I do hold onto this idea.
Now if only I could find that damnable cornet...

Tango you perv, why on earth i'm flashing out my pretty boobies :D

I thought they were your arms; a hands on hips, sassy yet endearing thingy...

I can assure you, Sir Treats is the most chaste-minded man I know ;)

I lol'd over that picture! Interesting visuals and by that I mean the beer and the boobs :P.

I thought they were your arms; a hands on hips, sassy yet endearing thingy...

Um, yeah... that's what they were - arms... <_<

I'm sorry, but I'm afraid they were indeed boobies; there are only so many ways one can convey femininity when dealing with stick figures, after all...


Tango you perv, why on earth i'm flashing out my pretty boobies

Are you admitting to having pretty boobies? ;)


I can assure you, Sir Treats is the most chaste-minded man I know

Hmm... when do you want to go drinking again? :P

I'm sorry, but I'm afraid they were indeed boobies; there are only so many ways one can convey femininity when dealing with stick figures, after all...

And thus the lack of a Baywatch Flatland, which is perhaps the most oxymoronic concept in entertainment history, conceived by one Joshua Lazlo, current Executive VP of Creative Development in Hasbro's film division.

I thought they were your arms; a hands on hips, sassy yet endearing thingy...

Yeah, same here.

But as they are indeed boobies, why doesn't she has arms? A woman with big boobies and no arms, I think I saw this in a movie I accidentally rented twelve times...

A woman with big boobies and no arms, I think I saw this in a movie I accidentally rented twelve times...

What's the title? :P But I must ask... what does this have to do with orchestra music? Perhaps it has to do with playing the timpani hehe!

Yeah, perhaps it's time to come back to orchestral music, haha!

Speaking of which, I'd like to recommend this extremely fun album I downloaded some months ago. People who loved Yamashita's drama scores will certainly love this one.


Kono Shin, Takami Yu
Mei-chan no Shitsuji OST

(http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/17/616csxpnplss500.jpg/)


Here's the main title, I just love this kind of highly optimistic, cheerful, bombastic music:
Mei-chan no Shitsuji OST - Track 1 (Overture) [READ DESCRIPTION!!!] - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WTQltloX1iw)

One of the best tracks, hola Zorro!
Mei-chan no Shitsuji OST - Track 12 (Duel!) - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNdJQ2uYGDM)

Fresh upload provided by our good friend Tango:
http://www.mirrorcreator.com/files/FZG3GTUB/KSTY-MCNS_0.rar_links

HAHA! You make us go out looking for the links ourselves now?! ;)

Yep, because I only have the partial OST (deleted a few tracks), and since the MF links are ok... ;)

The most important thing is that now people *know* (more) about it. Mission accomplished.

Quite right. ;)

It's really beautiful... This has reminded me of another Takami Yu score I had been keeping back for another rainy day...

Edit: Would it annoy you if I were to take away the magical mystery tour and provide a single-part upload for the good people on this thread? I've even tagged it in English as a bonus... ;)

Edit again: Hopefully you won't be annoyed, but here it is anyway... http://www.mirrorcreator.com/files/FZG3GTUB/KSTY-MCNS_0.rar_links NOT intended to steal your thunder, but to provide a few alternate download links. :)

Extraits du concert - Masashi Hamauzu en concert � Paris on Vimeo (http://vimeo.com/36368475)

I know this isn't orchestral but it is good music nonetheless. This is music from Hamauzu's concert in Paris. It has a lot of new music to it as well as stuff from his Piano Collection arrangements. Enjoy!

On the subject of Masashi Hamauzu, I have read an interview that he is interested in making another Final Fantasy XIII Piano Collection, but it depends on 1) whether or not SE will give him the ok and 2) if there is enough fan support. His solo album Imeruat is scheduled to be released this spring. If the EP is anything to go by, I think it will be great. I'm interested what all the rest of you might think of the video above.

It's really beautiful... This has reminded me of another Takami Yu score I had been keeping back for another rainy day...

Would that be Gakko ja Oshierarenai? Because it's pretty much in the same style and quite fun as well.


Edit: Would it annoy you if I were to take away the magical mystery tour and provide a single-part upload for the good people on this thread? I've even tagged it in English as a bonus... ;)

How sweet! Thank you very much. I'll edit my post to include your link (unless you want to post it in your own post).

Aha, no! It's actually a collaboration with Seikou Nagaoka for a 2009 TV drama - a very tuneful, orchestral score for a show set in the Edo period; so it's full of traditional Japanese instrumentation and eastern melodies. Really lovely stuff... I think it might be coming up very shortly... ;)

Feel free to use my link for Mei-chan no Shitsuji! :)

Many thanks to Tango and Jbarron2005 both.

What with all this Ben-hur talk, I was wondering if anyone could be so kind as to repost or point me to the original Rosza work or whatever is considered the seminal performance as I've yet to hear it myself. If anyone has Sparticus too, that would also be greatly appreciated.

Thanks a lot, and looking forward to this other one too!



Extraits du concert - Masashi Hamauzu en concert � Paris on Vimeo (http://vimeo.com/36368475)

I know this isn't orchestral but it is good music nonetheless. This is music from Hamauzu's concert in Paris. It has a lot of new music to it as well as stuff from his Piano Collection arrangements. Enjoy!

The funny thing in this link is that it also features a video announcing Michiru �shima giving a concert in Paris. If someone finds a video of this, please post it here. Thanks!

Arthierr is just trying to subtly employ the scarcity principal ;). By posting links to the youtube videos of the score without a link he hopes to make us want it even more than if he just posted it directly. [Sorry, couldn't help it, have been reading Cialdini's The Psychology of Persuasion lately]

Thanks a lot, and looking forward to this other one too!




The funny thing in this link is that it also features a video announcing Michiru �shima giving a concert in Paris. If someone finds a video of this, please post it here. Thanks!

I believe this was back in January. A video would be superb, though.

Arthierr is just trying to subtly employ the scarcity principal ;). By posting links to the youtube videos of the score without a link he hopes to make us want it even more than if he just posted it directly. [Sorry, couldn't help it, have been reading Cialdini's The Psychology of Persuasion lately]

Oh, very subtle! This means, by providing a new link to this score (IE giving easy and immediate access to it), Tango just greatly reduced the appeal of it? Bravo, Tango, another big blunder from you... ;)

Buuuuuuuuuggggggggger... ;)

What with all this Ben-hur talk, I was wondering if anyone could be so kind as to repost or point me to the original Rosza work or whatever is considered the seminal performance as I've yet to hear it myself. If anyone has Sparticus too, that would also be greatly appreciated.

I can post the Decca/Vocalion pairing with Quo Vadis conducted by Rozsa in the late 70s. Probably the best sound at any rate, and enough of either score for the non-die hards like moi.

I can post the Decca/Vocalion pairing with Quo Vadis conducted by Rozsa in the late 70s. Probably the best sound at any rate, and enough of either score for the non-die hards like moi.

Sounds good to me. Thanks.

I would be interested too. Thanks in advance!

Sorry, I'm a little late to the analog posting party, but I wanted to say hi with a little freehand engraving on the inside of my computer case!

Well, shit. I can't outdo that.

Touche sir.

MIKL�S R�ZSA
QUO VADIS/BEN HUR (Phase 4 Recordings)
The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and Chorus
&
The National Philharmonic Orchestra and Chorus
conducted by Mikl�s R�zsa



These recordings have been posted before but only, I believe, from the earlier Decca pressings; these rips are from the Vocalion joint issue from 2007, remastered, and (apparently, as I have no direct comparison) sound superior. Regardless, these recordings date from 1977 and 1978 -- the pinnacle of the analog era -- and were made in Decca's Phase 4 process. They are almost certainly the finest sounding recordings of these famous scores under Rozsa's baton.

The two scores are justifiably famous, having all but invented the "Hollywood epic" sound, massive and majestic. They are pillars of craftsmanship, but I would also say they lack depth equivalent to their 2+ hour lengths -- they are to overwhelm, to awe, to beautify, but divorced from their filmic context I find that they outstay their welcome. These albums, at just over 40 minutes each, are at an ideal length to appreciate the scope of Rozsa's achievement without being bludgeoned into stupefaction.

It's also still in print, but I decided to share in lossless anyway as the primary benefit of this release is the stellar sound quality, so I'm also providing purchase links at the bottom of the post for those who might wish to do so and support the label. Enjoy!


Thread (Thread 123521)

Thanks a ton, Tazer, but is there any chance it could be in mp3. The zip files are weird and I can't read them with what I typically use for converting FLAC.

James Hannigan Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows: Part 1 soundtrack download please ?????

LALALAND HOOK VERY VERY SOON

James Hannigan Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows: Part 1 soundtrack download please ?????

Oi, not again!

LALALAND HOOK VERY VERY SOON

Yes YES! YES!!!

Thanks for these Tazer, and thanks for separating them so I can just grab the Ben Hur. I already have a good quality version of the Quo Vadis that was posted a while ago by Sanico in this thread.

Yes YES! YES!!!

I second that! Make it happen!

Yes YES! YES!!!

Hold on minute, here is the real quote:
Alright, kiddies -- we here at the triple L need a HUGE FAVOR from you. . .

With all your heart we need you to say, "I do believe in fairies. I do! I do!"

With any luck, tomorrow, Feb 21, 2012 -- day 1,106 -- will finally mark the end of our grand adventure . . .

but it sounded to me like a parade of pretty much every classical/Golden Age film score cliche you could care to name.
You're going to have to back up this claim with examples. Classical/Golden Age inspirations I can see, cliches I cannot.


Very well-produced, wonderfully-written, but never surprising and at times even sorta boring. I'd easily put the Dragon Quest suites, Ni no Kuni, Mario Galaxy, and Nobunaga's Ambition(Kanno's scores, not Yamashita's somewhat ordinary, unremarkable work) over it,.
Those are good scores, but don't quite carry the same kind of impact as Outcast did. For one, Outcast is more like a movie score in its completedness and motivic consistency; unprecedented for its time, and highly original in its conception. Other game scores in that era that contained great orchestral music were usually in short bursts, like Final Fantasy 8, or like in the case of Broughton's Heart of Darkness, insultingly short.

In the end it is a matter of opinion, but I do consider Outcast to be like the Star Wars of game music, except for its obscurity which is 100% the fault of the game.

Also, I can see how it might be boring since the tracks are long and repeat at least once. The choral music is great, but over the years I've been liking the non-choral tracks more and more.

Hold on minute, here is the real quote:

Day 1,106? Of what? 1,106 days ago was February 11th 2009, whatever significance that has.

Either way, this is NOT Hook.

Could it be when was Hook first hinted at? or when they first started trying to release hook?


It's coming. Limited to 5000. 2 CD's.


Source?


Retailer.

Streich: I tend to agree. Although I'm not sure if it's the greatest game score in history or something, because a) I haven't closely listened and "analyzed" it long enough, and b) there's an awful lot of game music I haven't heard out there, I do admit that Outcast nonetheless features some superb qualities, especially when you look at it in a global perspective: structure, homogeneity, thematic / motivic consistency, etc. This is really impressive stuff, way more than what you would usually expect for a game score. It's also interesting, and saddening, to see how this kind of exceptionally refined and accomplished work, created by an highly motivated and talented man, is relatively rare in the field of media music, as if very hard work and quest for excellence were unnecessary.


Tazer: thanks a lot! At last I get to hear this version that people have praised so much. :)

You're going to have to back up this claim with examples. Classical/Golden Age inspirations I can see, cliches I cannot.


Those are good scores, but don't quite carry the same kind of impact as Outcast did. For one, Outcast is more like a movie score in its completedness and motivic consistency; unprecedented for its time, and highly original in its conception. Other game scores in that era that contained great orchestral music were usually in short bursts, like Final Fantasy 8, or like in the case of Broughton's Heart of Darkness, insultingly short.

In the end it is a matter of opinion, but I do consider Outcast to be like the Star Wars of game music, except for its obscurity which is 100% the fault of the game.

Also, I can see how it might be boring since the tracks are long and repeat at least once. The choral music is great, but over the years I've been liking the non-choral tracks more and more.

Having finally listened to the whole thing a day ago, twice, in preperation to discuss it, my final impression is that my initial impression still stands: I'm less than impressed. Cliche may have been an overly strong term, but my major problem with the work is that throughout the whole score, not one minute passes where I escape this niggling thought in the back of my head, "I've heard all this before. Many, many, many times, and better." Which is odd, as such a thought rarely crosses my mind when listening to composers who are notably unshy about their influences, like Kanno or Amano, perhaps because they imbue everything with enough of their own palpable style that I barely notice comparisons until they're pointed out to me. I'm too busy being swept up in the music.

But here the film conventions are noticeable to the point of distraction. This is all highly subjective and perhaps has to do more with my unfamiliarity with Lennie Moore's style prior to this and my lack of any particular love for film scores in general(I can count the film scores notice in the original context on one hand), but the last thing I could ever call Outcast is "original." I hear a shitload of influence from Shirley Walker, her Batman scores in particular(none of which I've even listened to in years), in nearly every track, to the point that World of Snow approaches a note-for-note recreation of her theme, among others. "Boring" is another harsh term, but I'm afraid it applies very much here, more than my standards will allow to be acceptable. Soldier's Camp, World of Marshes, Ancient Forest World, to name a tiny few, are endless, repetitive borefests that sometimes take up to three minutes just to move a little, only to then settle into another measure to repeat over and over and over and over, and they're all chunked together on the album. I remember the Main Theme and its reprise being kind of nice, but I also can't really recall what they sound like at the moment, so that's a knock, too. The whole score is also rather one-note. I can only take so much gloomy choral stuff and harsh, march-like progressions in one sitting.

And as far as Outcast's "impact" and historical significance goes(arguing it has any at all, as I had never heard of it till the topic in this thread strayed towards it and I've been a game score nut for years), that's nice to ponder and discuss but matters less to me, far less, than whether the music makes any sort of impact on my ears, and all the scores I named and many, many more I could name, easily best Outcast in that regard. I respect the score greatly for what it meant for the possibilities of game scoring in its day, the strength of the writing and use of motifs, the skill and perserverance Moore demonstrated in penning such a work for a game, and however many advancements on music-writing and composers in the field it may or may not have inspired, but music-wise, it just does little for me. It's infinitely more interesting, to me, for what it represents than what it is.

Since we're at it, here's a repost of an interview I posted a long ago here. It gives some cool insights on how Outcast is "a little more" than your average game score, even an orchestral one:


Lennie Moore at GSoundtracks
GSoundtracks - Interview with composer Lennie Moore (http://www.gsoundtracks.com/interviews/moore.htm)


And of course, here's the score, if you haven't tried it (!):

Lossless: Thread 89228

MP3 320: Thread 64147


OUTCAST SOUNDTRACK


---------------
Tracklist:
---------------
01 Prelude
02 Daokas
03 Soldier's Camp
04 Heaven On Adelpha
05 World Of Marshes
06 Fatally Wounded
07 Main Theme
08 The Ancient Forest World
09 Watch Out!
10 Let's Fight
11 World Of Snow
12 World Of Temples
13 Main Theme (Reprise)
14 Oriental Spirit
15 World Of Mountains
16 Orchestra Rehearsal
17 Ulukai Dance

The funny thing in this link is that it also features a video announcing Michiru �shima giving a concert in Paris. If someone finds a video of this, please post it here. Thanks!

I will keep looking for it and if I do find it I will certainly share :).

I really hope that this music Hamauzu wrote for the concert will get released. He did say on Facebook that he hopes to release them eventually, but I do know that the Frenzy Under Pressure piece will be an Imeruat track. How about that rendition of Besaid Island with the piano and violin? Gave me chills

except for its obscurity which is 100% the fault of the game.

Game was absolutely wonderful. Big. Fresh. Orginal. I loved it. One of my most favourite games ever. And definitely my favourite game score ever. Music in this game is just pure poetry. It never bores, it never ends, it is always there. And it is wonderful. The greatest score ever written to VGM. But... well, Moore copied this score in his orchestrations to Trinity and Beyond - note to note actually. Moore isn't incredible composer. He did something stunning, fantastic, out of the standard. Once. He never did that again. He'll never repeat that. Imo. It was one time only.


Soldier's Camp, World of Marshes, Ancient Forest World, to name a tiny few, are endless, repetitive borefests that sometimes take up to three minutes just to move a little, only to then settle into another measure to repeat over and over and over and over, and they're all chunked together on the album

First of all there was never an Outcast album. What U listen to is always game rip. Or rather CD rip, cause score was recorded on second CD of the game. Yes, as audio CD. And if U think that those tracks are boring - ok. No problem 'bout that. But calling 'em repetitive... Well, U R just deaf;P.


arguing it has any at all, as I had never heard of it till the topic in this thread strayed towards it and I've been a game score nut for years

Guess you are not that old to remember the game;).

For me Outcast is, and will be the greatest score ever written for a game. Yes, it is sentiment for me. Fuck off;P.

Good for you. And I do consider a soundtrack CD, with a documented tracklist and the words "ORIGINAL SOUNDTRACK" right there on the box art in huge text, to be an "album", yes. :p

Mmh, how interesting...

Listen to this:
Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning Soundtrack - 02 The Age of Arcana - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W3toSxjzfOo)

Then this mysterious piece:
http://www.mediafire.com/?1s66gtxzr6h152k

Coincidence?

Can you guess where this last piece comes from? ;) Clue: it was composed way before the first one for another fantasy game.

A gamerip is where somebody pulls music tracks out of the folder structure of the game and transcodes it to some format we can hear. A soundtrack album is a CD with music on it. This is clearly the latter. :P

I'm not quite sure what herbaciak is getting at here; "The music in this game is pure poetry, my favourite score ever" and then a sentence later "Moore isn't an incredible composer" - well, to produce pure poetry and your favourite score ever, he has to be rather incredible, surely? ;)

And, I consider it a wonderful, wonderful work - and oddly enough for some of the same reasons NaotaM doesn't like it. World Of Marshes, for example; it's sparse, yes, absolutely! But whoever said good music had to be in your face all the time to be effective. Those tense woodwind chords are hinting at the theme from the very beginning; but you don't get it handed to you on a plate. Gradually, the theme evolves itself out of those primordial chords. It's four minutes of music extrapolated from basically two bars of raw material. And it never repeats, and never outstays its welcome.

I would say, though, that Ancient Forest World may be the weakest point of the album - at least, for me. Low on development, low on thematic material - and that's one cue that even the staunchest fan of the score has to admit is repetitive. I think Moore was going for a Planet Of The Apes thing, but didn't quite get to the point as he does in the rest of the score. I still find it enjoyable to listen to; but compared to the late romantic tone poems Heaven On Adelpha, World Of Snow, etc, and the - well, it falls a bit flat. It seems like the only part of the score that isn't conceived as pure music - it's an overlong piece that is obviously designed as ambient background.

But, I don't know... yes, it's flawed, but I find so much to love in Outcast and so much that borders on creative miracle, that I can forgive them.

I don't doubt for a moment that Moore has another Outcast in him; in fact, I believe he's got something ten times better. Whether he'll have the opportunity to write it down, though - that's the question. Outcast was Moore's first and so far, last big orchestral project. Now he's writing additional music for Star Wars games (which leaves basically no room whatsoever for creativity; particularly as he's not even the principal composer so has to emulate and mesh with the atrocious noodling of comparative amateurs like Messrs. Griskey, Roget, and Harlin.)

As usual, I find myself disagreeing with the general crux of NaotaM's argument... but I'm fascinated to hear it, and it has made me listen again to this score with the fanboy goggles off, and the critical ear on. I'm somewhat relieved that the critical ear still believes it to be, on the whole, a masterpiece. A flawed masterpiece, to quote Confucius, "Better a diamond with a flaw than a pebble without."

---------- Post added at 11:01 PM ---------- Previous post was at 11:00 PM ----------

Arthierr: Please tell me it's Wing Commander.

And, whatever it is... DEAR GOD IT'S A NOTE-FOR-NOTE DUPLICATE! :-/

It's not WC!

But this piece is nearly from the same period. Think popular western fantasy game from the 90's, with several very successful sequels until today, renowned for their soundtracks.

Elder Scrolls?

*knows nothing about games*

Elder Scrolls?

Which one, to be precise? ;)

Which one, to be precise? ;)

Err, well it sounds rather old and only the most recent three have had official album releases. If I had to guess...the second one?

WE HAVE A WINNER! :D

Indeed, it comes from Daggerfall, composed by the very talented Eric Heberling. This piece is a rendition of the original midi using my personal soundfont.

I'm very familiar with the music of Daggerfall because I used it, among others, to build my midi soundfont, since the music is superb and gives a good idea of how orchestral instruments should sound like. That's how, when I heard the KoA piece, it immediately reminded me of that Daggerfall piece.

BTW, if some of you are interested, I've done a few more renditions of Daggerfall for personal use, I can post them on request (there's some very nice music, there).

Redguard?

Oh ... too late, so it was Daggerfall.

YAY! *feels special*

And sure, sounds like some cool stuff to be exposed to. Though now that you say it was a recreation you did in midi, does that mean the original sounds even more like the Amulur piece that later ripped it off?(I still quite like Amulur too, mind.) Wild.

Nono, it's not a recreation, it's a straight rendition of the original midi file, simply using my "bank of sounds", so to speak.

Perhaps it's not necessary to post my own renditions, because I just found a guy who did some even better. Check this out:

http://teatimecoder.com/file_download/163/dan_goodale_df_sunnyday.mp3

I'll post more later... ;)

Well considering Daggerfall was not performed by a live orchestra, it is nice to see it properly recorded in Amalur, even though it is a note-for-note recreation.

Also, Hook is confirmed
Orders will begin March 27, 2012 at 1 pm pst
Retail Price: $29.98

You wer saying Tangotreats?

I guess Kirkhope must have really loved those games back then a bit too much. I don't blame him, though. Games from that era have some sort of unresistable charm to it (apart from excellent synth music). From Another World to Arena & Blood Omen to System Shock, Thief, Outcast and Soul Reaver, all these games have character, interesting mechanics, atmosphere and even superb writing. Sometimes I find myself amazed by how much they were able to achieve with the limited hardware, software and sound.

That said I want to play this little game too :):

Have some Poledouris (http://www.mirrorcreator.com/files/1IZHHNMS/Poledouris.mp3_links)

I just added an MP3 link for the Ben Hur tracks to my Rozsa post.

I also hadn't heard of Outcast and just listened to it over the weekend. I enjoy it quite a bit but I can also see where NaotaM is coming from. The orchestration and development are superb, demonstrating a lot more nuance than something like LAIR, although I think LAIR demonstrates more of an emotional arc; listening to Outcast this evening, beyond the technical fireworks of the music, I got tension tension tension TENSION tension... and little else. I haven't listened to the later, apparently more beautiful tracks in its sequence quite as much, but overall I can certainly understand why it could be considered repetitive, particularly from an emotional viewpoint. Great stuff, though.

Good news about Hook. I can't say I hold this one quite as high in esteem as I once did -- the kitsch factor within has become more grating -- but it is still Williams in good form.

To think I thought the soundtrack to Amalur reminded me of Fable... For the most part it is an alright sounding score. However, I will give Kirkhope the benefit of the doubt and say that the music projects the idea of a magical land very well.

Well considering Daggerfall was not performed by a live orchestra, it is nice to see it properly recorded in Amalur, even though it is a note-for-note recreation.

No offense, dude, but this doesn't make any sense... It's like if you said: "That guy copied my essay, but since he did it with such a beautiful handwriting, it's nice."

BTW, I don't do any accusation either. Composers also listen to a LOT of music, and sometimes they forget that the cue they just wrote, thinking it's their own creation, actually comes from elsewhere.

No, it would be like if some one copied an old scroll and copied it onto a computer and printed a book under his name.

This analogy is also valid. Nevertheless I don't think you clearly understood the abstract essence of my metaphor. Think of it again. Clue: it has something to do with "form" and "content".

EDIT: Nevermind, it worked.

Many thanks, again.

What did you use to open the zip? 7zip works for me, and its free...or are you using a type of OS that doesnt work with zip?

BTW, I don't do any accusation either. Composers also listen to a LOT of music, and sometimes they forget that the cue they just wrote, thinking it's their own creation, actually comes from elsewhere.

At first I went, my god they are the same but after a few listens I can certainly understand how it would happen even without ever hearing the previous piece of music. Chord progression is similar but it is the chord progression from multiple songs in the score so it makes sense that its a variation upon previously established themes. Then take the melody. It is the main theme of the entire game which was written much earlier than this cue and if I played the main theme with the sneaking song I wouldn't think they were the same song. The first two notes or so are the same but that make sense anyway because they are chord tones and stepwise motion. After that they are different although the key/progression keep them within the same range with some similar tones. The orchestration is also incredibly common and logical in the setting. There are a billion times that a slow quiet theme has been orchestrated with an english horn playing the melody over strings filling out the harmonies according to good voice leading and whatnot. I just disagree with anyone who listens to that and thinks "this could only happen if you heard it and wrote the same thing!". Is it unfortunate that it ended up so similar, yes but I can see how it could happen without ever hearing the other one.


As to NaotaM's impressions of Outcast. The reason many of us hold it as a greater than the others is its sense of development. If you take a small isolated segment of the score, it is solid, well constructed, and interesting, but may not blow you away. It benefits from being having longer tracks which allow the tunes to properly develop in a variety of ways. It is quite rare that game scores are allowed the time to do this. Its not about listening in the moment, its about listening as a whole (which is sadly something that isn't valued or practiced by many people nowadays).

finally! Hook 2cd expanded on march 27th

A gamerip is where somebody pulls music tracks out of the folder structure of the game and transcodes it to some format we can hear. A soundtrack album is a CD with music on it. This is clearly the latter. :P


Good for you. And I do consider a soundtrack CD, with a documented tracklist and the words "ORIGINAL SOUNDTRACK" right there on the box art in huge text, to be an "album", yes.

Damn all of you... cause you are right;).


I'm not quite sure what herbaciak is getting at here; "The music in this game is pure poetry, my favourite score ever" and then a sentence later "Moore isn't an incredible composer" - well, to produce pure poetry and your favourite score ever, he has to be rather incredible, surely?


He did incredible Outcast, but after that I never heard anything more than mediocre from him. That's what I meant... No. It's not that. He is incredible composer, he just has less than good projects or secondary gigs. Guy should leave the industry and write concert music - and spend the rest of his days as poor, but wonderful artist;).

And the greatest thing about this discussion is fact that I listened to Outcast again. Twice;).

You wer saying Tangotreats?

Haha, my plan worked! ;)

1. Really hope it's Hook.
2. Say it isn't, thus guaranteeing that it IS so I look stupid.
3. Hook is duly announced. I look stupid, but HOOK IS ANNOUNCED SO WHO CARES?!!?! :D :D :D :D :D

Regards Kirkhope, well, it's the same theme; but it's a theme that seems to derive naturally from the chord progressions - and chord progressions are rather easier to come by. I can almost believe that this wasn't intentional - at least consciously.

That said, nobody has any idea which cues were written first; for all we know Kirkhope could have decided right at the outset to base his thematic material on the old Daggerfall score and therefore make that melody and harmonic accompaniment a central part of the score.

It's interesting though - as Shadow suggested, plagiarism is usually easier to spot as plagiarism because it's just some stolen stuff dumped right in the middle of a score which has no relationship to the rest of it. This is different; rather than Kanno-plagiarism ("I like this passage of this score so let's throw it in here") we have "I like these chord progressions and this melody; let's build the score around them" and so it would seem to fit the description of homage better than the description of theft.

Klnerfan; what is that "Poledouris" thing? It doesn't sound a thing like Poledouris...

I'm quite sure it does, at least in the beginning: 13. Chamber Of Mirrors From Conan The Destroyer - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nwNuSf1pJWo#t=1m48s)
But to clarify, this one was composed two decades before that thing above.

TazerMonkey,

Thanks for sharing Ben Hur. I must be honest... I haven't listened to Rozsa's work before, but this certainly has piqued my interest. Great stuff! Thanks again!

I had been hoping to make a Rozsa post myself; very relevant to recent topics - but alas, the postal service has let me down. So, perhaps tomorrow... ;)

Hopefully a very nice Japanese TV drama score coming up later today, from the same composer as arthierr's earlier Mei-chan no Shitsuji post; a show that can't quite decide what genre it wants to be... so it ends up being a Sci-fi historical romantic medical comedy drama thriller!

---------- Post added at 02:25 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:22 PM ----------

Klnerfan; well, the rising horn motif at the beginning are suspiciously similar to Conan (and Robocop) but by and large the piece sounds nothing like Poledouris at all. Might I enquire what it's from?

It's from a british medieval castle building and siege warfare simulator known as Stronghold. It's a 2D-Strategy game that my friends and I still play on occasion, and some of the music is very hummable, especially Castlejam (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pP3D8bkLfAI&feature=related). Here's the soundtrack if anyone wants it: ftp://ftp.take2.de/extras/StrongholdMusic.zip.

That said I want to play this little game too :):

Have some Poledouris (http://www.mirrorcreator.com/files/1IZHHNMS/Poledouris.mp3_links)

Dude, this game is only fun if you post both pieces together. ;) It's important, because sometimes people don't know or can't instantly recall the original piece. That said, this is an obvious ripoff, no doubt here. Nice find. ;)


About the Daggerfall / KOA one, I could easily believe that it's a coincidence if the original piece came from a completely different kind of source, say a cutesy anime from the 70's, then it would be unlikely that there is some intentional reuse.

But here we have exactly the same kind of product: large scale western fantasy RPG game. Daggerfall was very popular at that time, and its music was much praised for being inspired, immersive and memorable. So it's unlikely that a guy who has been a professional VG music composer for years doesn't know anything about it. Furthermore, this Daggerfall cue I posted is only one of the pieces that feature this melody and chord progressions, there are a few others.

What I think is that the developers perhaps wanted a similar sound, so they asked the composer to try to emulate it a bit. Perhaps some of the developers have been avid gamers in the 90's, who enjoyed Daggerfall and its music a lot, so they wanted to hear something in the same vein - a sort of Daggerfall power 10.

Pure speculation, of course. ;)



There are a billion times that a slow quiet theme has been orchestrated with an english horn playing the melody over strings filling out the harmonies according to good voice leading and whatnot.

Just to be precise, the melody in the original midi is played by a clarinet, but since I don't have a decent sounding one, I replaced it with the closest sounding instrument I can find: a oboe.

Fracture (VG) (Chris Tilton & Chad Seiter) (2008) download please ????

Don't let the title scare you off this is a nice orchestral soundtrack from composer Jeff Cardoni, who hasn't done too much feature work but has worked on CSI and Entourage on television.


http://forums.ffshrine.org/f92/firehouse-dog-jeff-cardoni-2007-mp3-320kbps-110351/#post1923934

How interesting! Thanks, Wild! :) Will try ASAP.

Since we're at it, I remember once you posted another album here. I was quite busy, so I couldn't DL and try it, and I postponed it to the next day. And when I finally had the time to come and have activities in the forum, then WOOF! I saw you edited your post to take it off!

I can't even remember what this score was. But I sure would like to give it a try, if possible. :)

Bumpety. Amazing how quickly our splendid thread can drop back to page FIVE!

Astonishingly enough, the postman came today - on Saturday - and so I can contribute a little Rozsa; fitting nicely into the previous subject of Ben Hur and re-recordings...




MIKLOS ROZSA
Three Choral Suites
Cincinnati Pops Orchestra
Mormon Tabernacle Choir
conducted by Erich Kunzel
(Orchestrations and reconstructions by Daniel Robbins, Christopher Palmer, Julian Kershaw, Erich Kunzel, and John D. Price)



My rip. Scans included.

MP3 (LAME 3.98.4 -V0): http://go4up.com/dl/1BW21C4cU76K
FLAC (Compression Level 8) - Part 1: http://go4up.com/dl/1IjdcMUGxibg
FLAC (Compression Level 8) - Part 2: http://go4up.com/dl/16S8pkeignJP

Ben-Hur, Miklos Rozsa's masterpiece, must be the most re-recorded score in history; even the composer himself recorded it a number of times (occasionally under pseudonyms, and with less-than-stellar ensembles). This album is a little different. It contains three concert-suite arrangements - each picking noteworthy music from Ben-Hur, Quo Vadis, and King Of Kings respectively - that condense each score down to a bite-sized twenty minutes. Rozsa began to plan out these suites during his twilight years but passed away before he could complete them. Robbins, Kershaw, Kunzel and Price finished the work that Rozsa and Palmer had started, and Kunzel recorded them in 2004 - and here they are.

As standalone concert works, they are excellent; but they certainly won't sit well with folk for whom only the complete score will suffice.

Kunzel's orchestra and choir (recorded months apart in two different cities) are both excellent and the recording is just superb - it really shows up those hideous Tadlow recordings for the incompetently mastered monstrosities they are.

There's very little more to say; the scores speak for themselves so I will forgo my usual "dripping-with-superlatives" review and just say that the suites are splendid, the performance is top class, and the recording is beautiful. As an introduction to Rozsa, an hour of excellent music, it's spotless.

In my tradition of posting "alternate" reviews from people who just don't get it, I'll leave you with these words from William Sommerwerck; a well-known arrogant little man who has been polluting the newsgroups for many years. The mind genuinely does boggle; I suspect that Mr Sommerwerck lost his many years ago but it's still worth reading his words, if only for their comedy value:


Comically bad music for pretentious films

I've never understood Miklos Rosza's [sic] popularity as a film composer, particularly among producers. Though Bernard Herrmann was still alive, Harryhausen and Schneer asked Rozsa to score "The Golden Voyage of Sinbad", hoping perhaps for something reminiscent of "The Thief of Baghdad". The result -- unlike Herrmann's classic scores for Harryhausen films -- is instantly forgettable. Note, for example, the scene in which the statue of Kali comes to life. Harryhausen has given Rozsa terrific visuals, but Rozsa has no idea how to musically exploit them. The result is a "I can't write music, but if I could, I'd do a better job" reaction. Rozsa's worst trait was writing down to the audience's lowest taste. This album has a fine example, the "Star of Bethlehem" music (band 2). You won't believe how kitschy it is until you hear it, the musical equivalent of a Thomas Kinkade painting. Feel free to laugh out loud -- I did. (The main theme from "King of Kings" is almost as poor.) A film composer's lot is not an easy one. The restraints too-often seem to outweigh the opportunities. Yet a handful of composers has produced truly fine film scores of lasting interest. Unfortunately, Miklos Rozsa wasn't one of them.



[Edit: Dead links replaced 20/11/2012]

^Sounds like Mr. Sommerwerck needs a stick-ectomy, pronto. Thanks Tango.

Tango - wonderful post! Love that one.

I don't think it is necessary to declare the Tadlow recordings as failures though. FOTRE and Taras Bulba are quite good.

I don't think it is necessary to declare the Tadlow recordings as failures though. FOTRE and Taras Bulba are quite good.

One of the issues for me with Tadlow's approach to recording/mastering, quite apart from technical quality, is whether or not it's idiomatically appropriate to the music. Tiomkin's rather elaborate orchestrations benefit from the multi-mic, condensed, close mix, but I think Rozsa calls for greater space, atmosphere and, for want of a better word, scale - all of which the Telarc team deliver.

Tango - wonderful post! Love that one.

I don't think it is necessary to declare the Tadlow recordings as failures though. FOTRE and Taras Bulba are quite good.

I didn't say they were failures; I said they were incompetently mastered and hideous - both are facts. Some are less awful than others, but they are all plagued by unskilled engineering, lowest-common-denominator mastering, no quality control, and a poor recording venue.

Wondeful stuff! I used to borrow, some years ago, another Three Choral Suites disc, but the cover was different. I don't know if it was the same one, but it's one of my favorite Rozsa albums. I didn't ripped it then, because my old computer wasn't equipped to do this (yes, it was THAT many years ago...) Good to have it back! Thanks!

Also, this quote is very interesting because it features a kind of mentality I talk about in a big post I started writing recently, but kinda left aside due to other priorities. But since you had the good idea to bring this up, it's a good reason to finish and post it!

Never heard of this Sommerwerck guy, but seems to me just cause he blasted something you happen to be appluading as you post isn't due reason to call him a dunderheaded windbag. That said, it'd be a much better review if he went into any detail about why he finds Rosza's music to be unbearable kitsch, but still.

Eh, guess I should just be glad my grinding against the popular opinion is usually just described as "fascinating" and keep my mouth shut. :p

As I indicated, the gentleman is very prolific. Taking that review in context, I would counter that it is more than due reason to call him a dunderheaded windbag - or indeed an arrogant lunatic which is what I actually called him.

Sommerwerck on John Williams and Hook: "There's little to say about John Williams' typically tedious, repetitive, and unimaginative score -- except that it's tedious, repetitive, and unimaginative."
Sommerwerck on Ben-Hur in another review: "Miklos Rozsa's "best-ever" score is rarely more than cornball tripe."
Etc, etc.

I didn't blast him because he disagreed with me; I'm sure that you know me better than that. I blasted him because he made a number of intensely controversial statements - which would be vigorously denied by 99.999% of the film score community - committing the ultimate and often seen sin of confusing opinion with fact. Not everybody likes Rozsa; and a review stating "I do not like his music because..." would be most interesting to read. A review stating that Rozsa is effectively the worst film composer - and one of the worst composers full stop to ever put pencil to paper - with no backup whatsoever beyond "Because I said so" requires a challenge and should not be taken seriously.

Rozsa's fanbase include names such as Munch, Previn, Solti, Bernstein, Starker, Heifetz, Ormandy, Korda, etc. Jerry Goldsmith cites Rozsa as the reason he pursued a career as a film composer; indeed, Goldsmith was his pupil.

In a nutshell, I believe that he dislikes certain scores, certain composers, certain styles - which is fair enough - but because he cannot reconcile two opposing facts - a) he doesn't like it, and b) it's generally recognised by a respectable subset of educated persons to be excellent - he takes the typical route of "If I don't like it, it must suck."

I just knew that you would turn up and start complaining about this; despite the fact that I'm reasonably confident you already know the exact reason why I cited his "review" as an example of pure lunacy. ;)

There's nothing wrong with grinding against popular opinion; but logic would seem to dictate that you should put at least some cursory effort into it.

I think you pretty much hit the nail on the head in your post, NaotaM. The guy doesn't put forth any backing of his opinion.


The result is a "I can't write music, but if I could, I'd do a better job" reaction.

I can't even decipher what this sentence is supposed to mean. It seems to indicate he thinks Rozsa is incompetant, yet in the next he accuses Rozsa of writing down to the audience. The logic is swirling.

By comparison, your contrariness is almost always supported with reasoning, so at least your thoughts make sense... from a certain point of view. (I've always wanted to use that line! Apologies to Alec Guinness.)

As for Tadlow, I agree that Fall of the Roman Empire sounds pretty damn good. Taras Bulba, I'm not very familiar with as it didn't grab me from what I've sampled. Lawrence of Arabia doesn't sound bad, but it definitely isn't up to par with the likes of Telarc at their finest. And Conan...

Well, Conan. I was listening to it on a set of overrated earbuds when I was defending it, but now, with better equipment and perhaps more refined ears, I am almost ashamed. The performance is wonderful, but I can barely stand to listen to it anymore. It's like listening to Metallica. The problem is that neither recording satisfies me now; the original is too flawed in the performance and the SQ isn't great (will be interested to hear samples from the impending Intrada release), and the Tadlow is hard to listen to for any length of time because it's trying to perforate my eardrums. Just frustrating.

Well, Conan. I was listening to it on a set of overrated earbuds when I was defending it, but now, with better equipment and perhaps more refined ears, I am almost ashamed. The performance is wonderful, but I can barely stand to listen to it anymore. It's like listening to Metallica. The problem is that neither recording satisfies me now; the original is too flawed in the performance and the SQ isn't great (will be interested to hear samples from the impending Intrada release), and the Tadlow is hard to listen to for any length of time because it's trying to perforate my eardrums. Just frustrating.

Haha well I am used to the overpowering wall of sound because I am a big metal head so music that is consistently loud doesn't necessarily irritate me. I do notice whenever I hear proper dynamic range though and enjoy it when available. Often I am happy with a metal album as long as it doesn't have clipping. I was blown away when a new album by a small group called Beyond the Bridge was released with true dynamics. (Check it out on youtube, great progressive metal album).

I like metal, too; especially prog metal! I'll definitely check out that group.

I just like my metal to sound like metal and my scores to... not. I find that I generally prefer orchestral music to sound like a concert than the close-miked approach.

I just knew that you would turn up and start complaining about this; despite the fact that I'm reasonably confident you already know the exact reason why I cited his "review" as an example of pure lunacy. ;)

Er, I do? Cause as I indicated, I had no context for the guy or his apperant history of such unfounded statements until you just provided it. Without it, it read as just "haha, look at this jackass." Now I realize, or at least understand your reasoning for believing him to be, a "lunatic".

When you don't have all the information, you fill in the missing bits with negativity.

Assume my intentions are good; assume there is logic behind my statement. That, I believe, is what friends do - and I have come to regard you as one. ;)

Assume my intentions are good; assume there is logic behind my statement. That, I believe, is what friends do - and I have come to regard you as one. ;)


I just knew that you would turn up and start complaining about this; despite the fact that I'm reasonably confident you already know the exact reason why I cited his "review" as an example of pure lunacy.

*shrugs* If you say so. But ahm watchin' you. Those dern winky faces never spell anything good. :)

Just a quick note that Tokumei Sentai Go-busters started today and Megumi Ohashi's score is typically splendid. No massive surprises so far; all the usual Sentai trademarks are there - house style, big orchestra, brassy score. And so begins another year of waiting for five soundtrack CDs...!

Is Nichijou finally done? After 8 soundtrack CDs there's only 90 minutes of music! Star Driver will never get a full OST and Gundam Age will take at least 8 months until vol.4 comes out ... I'm already tired of this new trend in Japan regarding music distribution.

I believe there are at least two more Nichijou CDs to come. They're not even close to having all the orchestral score on CD. I can think of at least half a dozen centerpiece cues that are missing so far.

Star Driver is a shame, but at least the music made it to release somehow...

And Gundam Age, well, that's the way it goes with these year-long shows. That's not a new trend. Quite probably they haven't even recorded all the music yet. For the big shows, they tend to space out the sessions throughout the run - presumably so if the music goes down like a lead balloon they can get somebody else for the next quarter of the series, and equally if the series itself fails miserably, they can cut their loses and cancel the whole thing - and they didn't waste money recording 50 episodes worth of score.

Gundam Age was a bad example, it just frustrates me that on top of very long waiting times (like GA) we get like 10minutes of score from a Blueray Bonus CD. Sometimes I can stomach it when the music is excellent (and Nichijou definitely is) but I just want to pay for the music itself, not the product it's attached to.

Same here. It's really irritating. I hope it's a flash-in-the-pan thing and not indicative of a general move from soundtrack CDs to Bluray bonus CDs... and then to no CDs at all.

For the time being, I'm grateful that one way or another, 99.9999% of Japanese scores do get released.

How much stuff from Star Driver was actually missing, do you think? Cause I've seen the show, and the three OST's seem to have pretty much all the bases covered.

Or are we just lamenting the recent trend of painfully brief Bluray bonus-only OST releases? Cause, yeah...that blows. Blood-C is the worst recent example I can name.

I don't *think* there's anything missing from Star Driver, but I didn't really pay enough attention to the show to know for sure.

From my perspective, this is a bonus-only lament. Which is an enormous pain in the rear end.

Something I noticed while browsing way back into the thread. Hana Yori Dango 2 was only 128kbps but now that it's down ... well we can't have that!

Hana Yori Dango 2 Returns



Download (http://www.mirrorcreator.com/files/8KYPIAPE/Hana_Yori_Dango_2.7z_links)
MP3 / V0 / 13 Tracks / 40min

Ripped from CD and with english tags. Yamashita's reprise of the Returns Theme in Final was superb but I still prefer the original theme afterall. I'm tempted to buy Yukan Club as well, perhaps later this year.

Thank you so much, klnerfan! I really wanted to have this one in good quality, and I thoroughly searched the web to that effect, to no avail. Now it's available at last. :)



Bumpety. Amazing how quickly our splendid thread can drop back to page FIVE!

Yeah, at some point it almost becomes *rude*. Given the quantity of traffic this thread gets, it means a lot of people leeching / lurking around here just forget to *occasionally* post a little word of gratitude or a comment on one of the many discussions, not to mention posting some actual music (what a crazy idea!).

I remember at the beginning of the year, when the thread went to page 12 or something (even though it was thoroughly visited), I said to myself: "Hey, if nobody gives a shit, why should I?". But I know how these things work though, and I've been a leecher / lurker in many places too, but I generally have the courtesy to say thanks or make a comment, once in a while. ;)

And for you, lazy leechers, there's even a new feature at the bottom of each post that allows you to simply click a button to show that you appreciate something. No more effort, no more inconvenience, this nifty little thing spares you the herculean task of typing "thanks" or "thx" or "ty". Pretty cool, isn't it? ;)

Well I don't usually like the bonus soundtrack trend it seems to give us most of the music as far as I can tell. Break Blade took six different releases but finally got it all out. A much earlier example is the soundtrack for Kara no Kyoukai Garden of the Sinners by Yuki Kajiura. It was released first in six small parts and was eventually released as a two disc music collection (http://vgmdb.net/album/22635). From the perspective of the anime companies, perhaps they want to encourage the purchases of the blu-rays by making that the exclusive avenue for getting music initially. Then they can always release it separately later.

John Williams Greatest Hits Brandenburg State Opera House, Cottbus & Evan Christ download please

Soon I may be posting a 1950's film score, that sadly, does not seem to have the original recordings released (only re-recorded suites).

Intrada has released a new Ron Goodwin score! This time a sumptuous medieval-styled score!
SIR GAWAIN AND THE GREEN KNIGHT (2CD) (http://store.intrada.com/s.nl/it.A/id.7474/.f)

In this recent post (http://forums.ffshrine.org/f92/big-orchestral-action-music-thread-57893/367.html#post1912373), perhaps I gave the impression of saying that music composed for a purely artistic purpose is inherently better than music composed for an incidental purpose. Actually I didn't. Indeed Art Music should theoretically be of higher quality than media music, since it has greater ambitions, "purer" intentions, and more authenticity and personal value; but in actuality, things can be a little different. It's interesting to note, for instance, that in his Amano post (http://forums.ffshrine.org/f92/big-orchestral-action-music-thread-57893/371.html#post1919889), Herr Salat seemed to consider Amano's score-adapted album a better listen than his art album, which is also a feeling I tend to share.

Another intertesting point is this recent piece of review (http://forums.ffshrine.org/f92/big-orchestral-action-music-thread-57893/376.html#post1925610) posted by Tango, in which some critic expresses a rather dubious opinion on Rozsa's music, stating that it's "kitsch". Now here's the big word: "kitsch". This is one of the terms "highbrow" critics and theorists use to denigrate media music in general, some even going as far as calling kitsch nearly all forms of non-avant-garde art!

Before going further, let's define what "kitsch" means. Basically, it's a form of art generally having the following characteristics:
- tasteless, tacky (in one's personal opinion, of course)
- colorful, florid
- accessible, readily understood (at least on a superficial level)
- openly aiming for beauty, aesthetic pleasure
- expressive, evocative
- sentimental, sometimes over-emotional, or displaying artificial, made up emotions
- using conventions, techniques, rules or formulas
- rooted in tradition, inspired by the great works of the past
- rather unoriginal, lacking creativity or artistic self-expressiveness
- having commercial purposes, marketable, "art for money"
- having a popular, mass-appeal, supposedly mainstream

Reminds you of something? Indeed, most of these are more or less the characteristics of media music! Especially the type of which we enjoy in this thread, that is, neo Romantic, grand orchestral music. But it can get even worse: some critics go as far as considering as kitsch the whole Romantic period, which is for them the origin of this trend towards sentimentality and "bad taste"!

It's not the objective of this post to discuss this kind of insanity. But to be brief, let's just say that I consider most of the avant-garde movement, especially from the 20th century, as complete and utter bullshit. These people simply have forgotten what art originally is, unless they never understood it in the first place, being lost in their pseudo-intellectual / sociological / political delusions. Anyway, most of them are very bad artists who terribly lack some real craft, skill, knowledge, and talent. When you can't actually draw, sculpt or write music, but want to be an artist anyway, what do you do? Simple: randomly churn out some (ugly) nonsensical junk, and label it as "Great Art", "Innovative" or "Genius". You can be sure that some fool will take you seriously. And if you're lucky and have the right connections, you might even make a ton of money.

On the other hand, the question I find interesting to ask is, can media music be great? Can it even be better, in some regards, than "high art" music?

You should have probably guessed that my answer to this question is: yes, it can (otherwise I probably wouldn't have started this thread!). Let's imagine that instead of the Star Wars scores, John Williams had composed a Star Wars symphony (commissioned by some local institution which for some reason wanted a grand sci-fi symphony); would the result be as impressive, rich, diverse, complex, inspired, effective - and of course, fabulously enjoyable? I personally don't think so. There are in fact several reasons than can make a media score a better listen (for the vast majority of people) than a pure work of art. Here are some of them:

Being colorful / accessible / expressive / sentimental / using formulas / lacking originality / being commercial / popular / rooted on tradition, etc. have never been in themselves indicators or causes of "bad art", it's even sometimes the opposite. Let's take for instance grand Romantic composers: most of them actually worked for money, coming from rich patrons or institutions, and they partially aimed at a somewhat popular audience (middle class). They were usually commissioned to write on demand such or such types of work: a symphony, an opera, a quartet, some church music, etc. Very few of them had the means to be financially independent, thus having the possibility to freely compose anything they wanted to, without the necessity to please an audience or a commissioner. Most of the best works of the Romantic period actually feature many of the characteristics listed above. And yet they nonetheless ended up being considered as masterpieces that stood the test of time.

Composing for a media also gives more purpose to the final result. The fact of having a very specific, pre-determined context upon which the music has to be written, gives a lot more focus and precision to it, compositionally and in the choice of orchestrations. The composer must be as pertinent and accurate as possible. No digression, no equivocation here - only straight, razor sharp effectiveness. This sense of purpose usually makes the music more appreciable, since it makes a lot of sense in the listener's mind. The music seems to relate a story or a setting in itself, and in its finest details. People like Horner or Williams are masters of such technique.

Indeed, media music tends to requires much more clarity and straightforwardness than concert music. In short, it has to be accessible, readily understood. The listener must instantly identify what the music is about when s/he hears it: suspense, joy, a green forest, a desertic lanscape, Luke fighting Vader who has decided to save his life even though the Emperor is watching them but here comes Yoda to the rescue with this moron of Jar Jar who forgot to put his pants on, etc. Some people (see above) can dismiss clarity in arts, because they treat it as easiness, as opposed to great art which should be "challenging" (thus leading to aberrations such as "no sense, all interpretation"); but most people would agree that clarity and accessibilty, in arts or other aspects of life, are most of the time a real benefit.

Often, media music gets a much more substantial budget and means than concert music. It's not so rare that film composers, for instance, get a 90-120 piece orchestra, sometimes a prestigious one, some top-notch players, a choir, a bunch of orchestrators, some great recording halls, etc. Concert composers, on the other hand, often have to face serious budget limitations, since the local department of music which commissioned their works has limited ressources. So they end up being performed by very limited ensembles, and not for long, because of the lack of audience, which brings us to the next point.

Media music also frequently gets a lot more exposition than concert music. Let's be honest, concert halls generally aren't quite full when it comes to contemporary works, which get very reduced coverage and very limited audience. Compare this with the worldwide exposure of most Hollywood movies, and you'll see how it can motivate a composer to give the best of himself. I remember John Williams saying in an interview that it's more stimulating to compose for movies than to compose for the Olympics, because in the latter case you have thousands of people hearing your music (at the stadium), but in the former case it's millions, perhaps billions of people who'll end up hearing it. Therefore the difference in scope influences the way he tackles the creation of the music.

Since media music, especially neo Romantic one, is rooted in the Romantic tradition, it features the same highly pleasant and appealing traits: openly beautiful, melodic, colorful, florid, meaningful, expressive, emotional, complex, etc. Perhaps this kind of music is not necessarily very innovative, daring, or "forward", not to say offensive or provocative, but at least it just tries to be "good music", which is there to give some genuine aesthetic pleasure to the vast majority of human beings (on top of effectively illustrating something, of course). Perhaps some nutcases might consider this as a cheap, petty, superficial, unambitious purpose, but most reasonable and intelligent people would agree that it's quite a respectable objective. And some madmen might even say that it's the original and fundamental function of art - but shhh, in the current state of arts, this is the provocative and daring thing to say!

My point essentialy is, music composed for medias (in a broad sense), when really well done, can lead to more appealing, fun and enjoyable music than purely artistic, somewhat "highbrow" works. I insist on the fact that mostly the fun factor ought to be higher, not necessarily the actual artistic / intellectual merit, which should theoretically be more prominent in a work of art. That's why I think it's wrong, even indefensible, to treat media music as an inferior, vulgar, undeserving form of art, since it can also lead to some truly great and admirable works. That said, I can understand that some advanced music listeners can at times find the straightforwardness and emotionality of some of the media music out there a little too "kitsch" for them, and thus would prefer to go back to works of the Classical period. But perhaps then, after a while, they would get a bit tired of these and would need some good natured orchestral fun again.

In which case, you're in the right place!

Alright, here is the 50's score I promised, its....:

Walt Disney's TREASURE ISLAND (1950)

Composed By Clifton Parker



All tracks are ripped from the rear channels of the DVD, the music is monoish, and the SFX are mostly still present, but some tracks sound quite clean.

http://www.peeje.com/files/359746625/CP_WD_TI_FOST.zip.html

Great stuff here - thanks!!

Just a precision about my last post: some of the severe judgments expressed on avant-garde art are in fact more specifically directed at graphic arts, more than music, since I'm more familiar with the former and less with the latter. So perhaps there are some really great avant-garde musical works that I'm not familiar with out there, which are not some genuine bullshit and swindles, like it's often the case in graphic arts, perhaps...

For those who love the Rozsa re-recordings posted recently, they were recently re-issued by Decca in a budget form cheaper than the original discs. This one is a two-disc set that includes Julius Caesar as well (one of the most amazing Rozsa scores and another amazing re-recording).
Amazon.com: Rozsa: Ben Hur / Quo Vadis / Julius Caesar: Rozsa, National Phil Orch: Music (http://www.amazon.com/Rozsa-Ben-Julius-Caesar-Vadis/dp/B0047VETBY)

They are even cheaper if you live in the UK:
Miklos Rozsa: Bernard Herrmann: Lpo: National Philharmonic: Rozsa: Film Music: 2cd (2010): CD: hmv.com (http://hmv.com/hmvweb/displayProductDetails.do?ctx=280;1;-1;-1;-1&sku=703779)

Just a precision about my last post: some of the severe judgments expressed on avant-garde art are in fact more specifically directed at graphic arts, more than music, since I'm more familiar with the former and less with the latter. So perhaps there are some really great avant-garde musical works that I'm not familiar with out there, which are not some genuine bullshit and swindles, like it's often the case in graphic arts, perhaps...

Who gets to define what "bullshit and swindles" are? A man with a well-known and passionate bias against the avant-garde?

For what it's worth, I find Amano's more melodic music easier to listen to... but I am fascinated by his recently posted concert hall work. It's not offensive to their ear, as so much modern concert music is - and it's incredibly compelling. It is something you can get your teeth into. To employ the old cliche, the film scores are extremely tasty snacks - but the concert scores are the acquired taste, expensive meal at a prestigious restaurant about which you initially think "pretentious shit, how can they get away with charging XXX money for that? Daylight robbery, I tell you!" and leave thinking "Wow, that was absolutely incredible..."


Indeed Art Music should theoretically be of higher quality than media music, since it has greater ambitions, "purer" intentions, and more authenticity and personal value; but in actuality, things can be a little different.

"Actuality" means something that can be factually verified and measured.


It's interesting to note, for instance, that in his Amano post, Herr Salat seemed to consider Amano's score-adapted album a better listen than his art album, which is also a feeling I tend to share.

It's interesting only in the sense that it collaborates (as much as a survey consisting of two people, one of whom has a pronounced bias, ever could) what we knew all along; for casual listening, Average Joe tends to prefer music outwardly melodic and approachable.


Before going further, let's define what "kitsch" means. Basically, it's a form of art generally having the following characteristics:

<snip for brevity>

Reminds you of something? Indeed, most of these are more or less the characteristics of media music! Especially the type of which we enjoy in this thread, that is, neo Romantic, grand orchestral music. But it can get even worse: some critics go as far as considering as kitsch the whole Romantic period, which is for them the origin of this trend towards sentimentality and "bad taste"!

I think it takes a person with a certain kind of musical taste combined with a very specific and restricted view of the functions of film music, to feel that way. Rozsa is anything but subtle; particularly Ben-Hur. It's a score - and a technique of scoring - very specific to a badly bygone era of film-making. It is an evolution of late nineteenth century grand opera, modified to accompany a moving picture. It does not try to stay out of sight. It is proudly manipulative, full-on, emotionally full, melodic music. It doesn't sit right with many people; but Mr Sommerwerck seems to think that his taste dictates quality. Judged against the modern concept that a film score should be seen and not heard, it is a miserable failure.

Let's not forget that there are reviewers out there who blast War Horse as being "too much" and praise Dark Knight as a masterpiece of film scoring. Some people - particularly fans of modern film-making which eschews good old-fashioned storytelling, dramatic theatrics, and larger-than-life emotions in favour of grit and effects - are uncomfortable with forthright film scores. That's their prerogative, of course - but they are not evaluating the music on a musical basis (they can't - because they are not intellectually or emotionally equipped to do so) and therefore should not harness their dislike of the style to "prove" its lack of worth.

Ben-Hur is an excellent film score, it is impeccably crafted, meticulously researched, evocative music, and Rozsa was a truly, truly great composer.


Being colorful / accessible / expressive / sentimental / using formulas / lacking originality / being commercial / popular / rooted on tradition, etc. have never been in themselves indicators or causes of "bad art", it's even sometimes the opposite. Let's take for instance grand Romantic composers: most of them actually worked for money, coming from rich patrons or institutions... ...And yet they nonetheless ended up being considered as masterpieces that stood the test of time.

I'd say that was even more pronounced in the baroque and classical eras. Writing music was a day-job to JS Bach. Another day, another mass. Mozart wrote music explicitly to play in the background whilst rich aristocrats munched away at their supper. Haydn churned out 104 symphonies over a 36 year period - that's three symphonies a year for for almost four decades - not to mention the other fifty million things he wrote. Not once did they allow the less-than-prestigious circumstances they were writing for influence their passion for writing music.


Media music also frequently gets a lot more exposition than concert music. Let's be honest, concert halls generally aren't quite full when it comes to contemporary works, which get very reduced coverage and very limited audience. Compare this with the worldwide exposure of most Hollywood movies, and you'll see how it can motivate a composer to give the best of himself.

Some composers still pack out concert halls; absolutely nothing has changed. Thousands of composers toil away with tiny audiences and piffling commissions - and those who made it big get giant gala concerts and endless accolades.

It's important to realise that audiences in concert halls are going there to listen to the music - which is a far more valuable audience than fifty billion people packing into a smelly cinema to watch Transformers and unwittingly hearing some semi-orchestral music while they're trying to concentrate on atrocious special effects, explosions, and generic plot developments.

Sure, in terms of sheer numbers, the movie theatre wins hands down - but for quality of audience, for attentiveness, for the knowledge that they are there for you and not merely for something you contributed to and from their perspective could just as easily not have bothered with the same end result for them.


That's why I think it's wrong, even indefensible, to treat media music as an inferior, vulgar, undeserving form of art, since it can also lead to some truly great and admirable works. That said, I can understand that some advanced music listeners can at times find the straightforwardness and emotionality of some of the media music out there a little too "kitsch" for them, and thus would prefer to go back to works of the Classical period.

Had to finish off by agreeing unreservedly with something. ;)

Does anyone else think it hilarious that over at Film Sycophants Monthly they tar and feather people for complaining about sound quality and musical redundancy yet there are now several threads complaining about a freaking jewel case?

Some of you here might like this soundtrack.

http://forums.ffshrine.org/f92/battlers-carl-vine-1994-mp3-256kbps-110585/#post1929505

Thread 110559

I highly recommend this gamerip. Over 50 minutes of new music of which 30 minutes are orchestral.

More previews of Kid Icarus Uprising (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gou5G0GMik4&feature=related).

For those who love the Rozsa re-recordings posted recently, they were recently re-issued by Decca in a budget form cheaper than the original discs.

This arrived in the post yesterday morning and sounds fabulous. I can't say for certain if it's a new transfer, but it does seem a touch more vivid and refined to my ear, with smoother highs (vis-a-vis the FLACs from previous issues). Placebo? Perhaps, but it's an excellent bargain! Decca Eloquence have also put out two Herrmann double-discers collected from the famous Phase4 recordings, which I'm also keen to get my hands on :)

Thanks for the suggestions, guys. :)


Tango: thank you so much for tackling this topic with this (intelligent and polite) reply, my friend, thus giving me the possibility to answer and develop my views a bit further. I can't do it tonight though, but will ASAP (in a friendly and respectful way, just like yours). :)

What? You suck. Screw off, Frenchie!

:-D

JOE HISAISHI
Ni No Kuni - Wrath Of The White Witch
The Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra
orchestrated and conducted by Joe Hisaishi



01 - Fragments Of Hearts (Instrumental) # | 02 - Ni no Kuni Main Theme
03 - Morning of Beginning | 04 - Hotroit
05 - Watched From Above # | 06 - Incident Occurrence!
07 - Oliver's Tears # | 08 - Arie ~Recollection~
09 - Shizuku | 10 - Mighty Magic
11 - Field | 12 - The Hero Of The Kingdom #
13 - Neko Kingdom's Castle Town | 14 - Desert Kingdom's Town
15 - The Village In The Woods # | 16 - Imperial March
17 - Fierce Battle # | 18 - Crisis
19 - Tension | 20 - The Haunted Lands #
21 - Battle | 22 - Welcome To Jabo's Lair #
23 - Jabo, The Black Wizard | 24 - Imargen Battle
25 - Labyrinth | 26 - To The Decisive Battle
27 - Final Battle | 28 - Wrath Of The White Witch #
29 - Miracle ~Reunion~ | 30 - Opening - The Other World #
31 - Fragments of Hearts

Introduction: Why, and What

In 2009, Joe Hisaishi recorded around fifty minutes of music with the Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra for Ni No Kuni - at the time, planned only as Nintendo DS release. During the development cycle, it was decided to create a version of the game for the Playstation 3; creativity took over and the concept grew and developed - and a year later, "Wrath Of The White Witch" was born. With new scenes and subplots added to the PS3 version, Joe Hisaishi returned to compose necessary additional music - and recorded a further thirty minutes of symphonic score to compliment his original material.

This is the full orchestral score. The new music comes from Bar's rip; the superb quality AC3 surround audio (48khz, 640kbps) has been meticulously downmixed to stereo and downsampled to 44.1khz - for compatibility purposes as well as because there was no signal about 20khz in the game rip anyway. All cues that were released on the 2011 CD have been sourced directly from that CD. This production owes a debt to Bar - obviously for providing the raw material in his splendid rip, but also for his track titles and ordering, on which I have substantially based mine. I have roughly maintained his ordering but have made a few changes to ease the flow; Bar had both versions of Fragments Of Hearts running consecutively at the end of the album; I have chosen to begin my album with the instrumental version and then play the DS version of the Main Theme. Hisaishi's new arrangement of the main theme has been moved to the end of the album, where it appears as the penultimate track before the vocal version of Fragments Of Hearts provides tidy closure. Parts 1 and 2 of Wrath Of The White Witch were clearly composed with the idea of running together and so have been seamlessly joined to form one continuous piece of 5 minutes and 10 seconds.

A "#" mark indicates a track that was sourced from the game rip. All others are untouched and come directly from the soundtrack CD.

LAME -V0 3.98.3 - http://www.mirrorcreator.com/files/6D6G5GF7/JH-NNK-EXP_0.rar_links
FLAC - http://www.peejeshare.com/files/360054048/JH-NNK-EXP-FLAC.rar [tracks marked "#" from a lossy source]

Time for our monthly dose of crap!

Twilight Symphony March Preview - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eOCXF7HjfPk)

Haha!

I got as far as reading "songs" in the description and then remembered that we are dealing a group whose collective IQ is outclassed by the piece of cheese I am currently eating...

...then turned it off in disgust.

Then I better offset it with something containing real talent, to wash away the bitter taste from your...ears?

"Burning Homestead" on piano (Star Wars) - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lwG2rj_kNb0)

Yes! More Ni No Kuni! Thanks, Se�or Treats. I really appreciate the tidy presentation of all the music that's available up to now.

Oh my gosh so many great stuff here. :)

Does anyone have the music to Act of Valor by Nathan Furst? It's a digital release from Amazon.

Time for our monthly dose of crap!

Twilight Symphony March Preview - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eOCXF7HjfPk)

Truly execrable. If that is symphonic then I'm the Kwisatz Haderach.

But more Ni no Kuni more than compensates! Thanks, Bar/Tango! I'll wait for the FLAC version.

Thanks for the new Hisaishi, tangotreats!

Cheers!

HOLY WOW! The instrumental version of fragments of hearts is *dies*... Great post tango!!

What? You suck. Screw off, Frenchie!

:-D

And you blow, dickhead! :p




JOE HISAISHI
Ni No Kuni - Wrath Of The White Witch

... But you make some pretty cool posts, let's admit! Thanks, dude!

You are right about that arthierr ;)

JOE HISAISHI
Ni No Kuni - Wrath Of The White Witch
The Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra
orchestrated and conducted by Joe Hisaishi

Ni no Kuni was one the great scores of the last year. It's Hisaishi in the best of his symphonic compositions. Thanks so much Tango for give us the enjoyment of listening the additional music :)

JOE HISAISHI
Ni No Kuni - Wrath Of The White Witch
The Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra
orchestrated and conducted by Joe Hisaishi



thank you Tango for that new & nice contribution

Glad to be of service, ladies and gentlemen. :D

I have just added a FLAC link to my earlier No No Kuni post. Have at it, and enjoy. :)

Usual disclaimer to avoid flames from people who cannot apply common sense: About 30 minutes of this album is not from a lossless source; cues marked with the "'#" symbol. They are sourced from exceptionally high-quality files extracted from the game - 5.1 channel Dolby Digital at 640kbps. This is twice the bitrate at which 5.1 channel AC3 is generally considered transparent. In producing this album I have mixed down the surround tracks (CORRECTLY!!!) to stereo, and consciously attempted to emulate the sonic properties of the original soundtrack CD. (Well, actually, I haven't done anything except a by-the-book mixdown - when you do it right, it sounds like the CD with no additional effort.)

Nobody ever seems to get surround mixdowns right. (The reason being because they don't know what to do with the channels; or more accurately the software they're using doesn't know - so we end up with crazy mixdowns with front left going to the left and back left going to the right, centre channel to the right, back right to the left, etc... Which may sound trippy to some people, but it creates a completely incorrect soundstage! Suffice to say, the correct way to do it is to combine equally front left and back left, and send the result to left. Combine equally front right and back right, and sent the result to right. Traditionally, the centre channel is mixed down by 3db before being added equally to left and right, and likewise with the LFE track.)

The end result is that the game-sourced tracks are, to all intents and purposes, indistinguishable from those sourced from the soundtrack CD.

Of course, transcoding lossy to lossless is frowned upon but in this case it is absolutely the right thing to do; when one has to apply processing to a lossy source, the only way to prevent further quality loss is to encode the finished product losslessly.

Great review of Chihayafuru soundtrack showed up on my favorite anime soundtrack blog :)
Chihayafuru Original Soundtrack & Character Song Album 1 – Review (http://blog.animeinstrumentality.net/2012/03/chihayafuru-original-soundtrack-character-song-album-1-review/#comment-8735)
Join in the discussion in the comments :)

I've never used Peeje, so maybe I'm missing something, but the FLAC seems to be down for Ni No Kuni.

That file has been deleted. Either by tango himself, or by recieving a copyright complaint. I had the same thing happen to one of my links, so I did not re-upload it.

Hmm, sod it.

I didn't delete it; Peeje are liars. I suppose it's for the best that the bubble bursts now, instead of in six months when everybody has uploaded everything there believing it's safe, and then *pop* it's gone...

Yeah, if you click on their "contract" button, "abuse" is one of their standard options.

It happened to me on this thread...

http://forums.ffshrine.org/f92/they-wont-stay-dead-music-soundtrack-night-94901/2.html

I guess that all hosters need to allow an "abuse" option to prevent them being sued.

Well John Carter ost is out. It is certainly nice and thematic - the main theme is good, if a bit simplistic. I wrote some comments on another thread.

It sure sounds like a Giacchino score. Much of it reminds me of Star Trek in the orchestration and overall sound. The main theme is quite good, if a bit simplistic. It hits all the right emotional notes. From my first listen I find that there aren't enough sub-themes, though I may be missing some. There is quite the tribal sound to most of the choral work here. While it seems to fit the subject matter of the film, it still feels a bit cliche like tons of other recent ethnic scores.

I can't help but feel like if someone other than Giacchino was writing the music, it would be a bit more bright in the orchestrations. Much of the music is fairly simplistic, without enough proper movement to keep my interest.

LOL! I posted a broken link! The file is still there! :-D

www.peeje.com/files/360054048/JH-NNK-EXP-FLAC.rar

Have updated previous post.

It looks like you have some lunatic "white knight" after you, in the thread you linked to.

This classic Tangotreats overreaction has been brought to you by Too Much Beer, Thumping Headache, and Hangover Industries, Inc.

I'm preparing an edit of a soundtrack for this thread. Hint: It contains two movements from a popular symphony, one of the two movements is terribly messed up and distorted while the other sounds nice and clear. There is a lot of disgusting distorted material here - as if the distortion was purposefully used for stylistic purposes that I have cut out.


Asura's Wrath Highlights - Kaoru Wada (103, 121, 217, 220, 224) and Chkayo Fukuda (everything else)
Orchestral, Piano, Whistling, Electric Guitar
Also contains Dvorak Symphony Number 9 4th movement
Some music performed by the Tokyo Philharmonic Chorus (101, 106, 201)

Download (http://www.mirrorcreator.com/files/YMOJPVVU/AsWh-Hgts.rar_links)
PSW: smile

Thanks to !!!!! for posting the gamerip properly edited.

Here's something I've started uploading. No doubt many are at least somewhat familiar with it, since it's about as BIG and ORCHESTRAL as you can get, but since obtaining a set can be prohibitively expensive, I thought I'd upload this for the curious:


RICHARD WAGNER
DER RING DES NIBELUNGEN
The Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra
conducted by Sir Georg Solti

4 Operas | 14 CDs | 14h16m56s



Even if you're not interested in downloading, I'd really like to get a good discussion going on the thread, considering the enormity and importance of the Cycle!


Link to Thread (Thread 110808)

Uncovering the Song of the Hero - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uO8IaTtk12I&feature=player_embedded)

Not the most outstanding compositions in orchestra, but some of you might enjoy. :)




Densetsu no Yuusha no Densetsu ORIGINAL SOUNDTRACK
The Legend of the Legendary Heroes Original Soundtrack
伝説の勇者の伝説 オリジナルサウンドトラック
(http://forums.ffshrine.org/f91/densetsu-no-yuusha-no-densetsu-original-soundtrack-110880/#post1936067)

Release date: 2010.12.22
Catalogue number: LACA-9203~4
Label: Lantis Co., Ltd.

Music by: Miyu Nakamura

Disc 1

01 LAMENT ~Yagate Yorokobi wo~ (TV size)
Vocals: Aira Yuuki
Lyrics: Aki Hata
Composed: Nijine
Arranged: Nijine

02 Hajimari no EPILOGUE
03 Oukyuu the palace
04 Shiro
05 Nichijou no Hitotoki
06 Machi
07 Hirusagari no Ki no Shita de
08 With the breeze
09 Odayaka na Sora
10 Cherish
11 a peaceful life
12 Kimi no Me ni-
13 Tonari ni wa-
14 Romantic Mode
15 Kamiawanai Futari
16 Otenba na Onnanoko
17 EYECATCH
18 Seijaku no Naka
19 Toushin
20 Yurameki
21 xxx
22 discord
23 Fuwa no Naka ni
24 Yami he no Kyousoukyoku
25 Yochou
26 Yami in deep
27 Boku no Me ni-
28 C-Cherish
29 Osanai Kimi he
30 Tasogare-Yuu
31 Truth Of My Destiny (TV Size)
Vocals: Ceui
Lyrics: Ceui
Composed: Kotaro Odaka, Ceui
Arranged: Kotaro Odaka

32 EYECATCH


Disc 2

01 Last Inferno (TV Size)
Vocals: Ceui
Lyrics: Ceui
Composed: Kotaro Odaka, Ceui
Arranged: Kotaro Odaka

02 overture
03 Koushu
04 A Turn
05 Surprise Attack
06 force's enemy
07 Sentou
08 Kousen
09 Ashu
10 Shinobikomu Ma no te
11 Ugomeki
12 Yurameki
13 Itten Kiki
14 Haritsumeta Kuuki no Naka de
15 Kakehibi
16 Konton no Uzu
17 Chi no Yodomeki
18 Itte Tairitsu
19 Geki
20 Ki Kousen
21 Ishu
22 Yuusei no Jin
23 Toikakeru
24 Seijaku no Naka
25 Taiji
26 Kakusei
27 Owari no nai Michi he
28 Kanashimi ga Kawaru toki
29 Ketsui no Tatakai
30 EYECATCH

So, how about a little more activity around here? ;)

First off, thanks for the last contributions, mates. I didn't have the possibility to hear them yet (very busy period lately), but I look forward to enjoy them as soon as I can. Then, as I announced some time ago, I've got myself a few rare and (IMO) quite worthwhile posts to come. I'll give you some hints about them (can you guess which albums they are?).

The first will be the compilation of all the symphonic pieces of an asian RPG game that some of you might have missed (as I did myself). Be ready for twenty minutes of truly massive, and I mean MASSIVE (Kanno scope, say), symphonic greatness. And no, this is not overselling!

The next one I've planned will be straight in the continuity of our recent art / media music discussion topic, since it's an adaptation of an anime / drama score in the form of Classical music (in a broad sense), by one of my favorite composers. A virtuosic and fascinating album which is a bit less an easy listen than your usual anime score, but a delight for the classically trained ear.

Coming very soon. ;)

Interesting news, Javier Navarrete is scoring Wrath of the Titans (Djawadi scored the remake of Clash of the Titans). It seems his score isn't being rejected either, though from the samples I can tell why. I have a hard time deciding if I like what I hear in the samples but I'm leaning on the side of "eh another Thor"
WRATH OF THE TITANS (http://wrathofthetitans.warnerbros.com/index.php#/soundtrack)

The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes - Miklos Rosza

Download PLoSHE.rar from Mirrorcreator - Upload files to multiple file sharing sites (http://www.mirrorcreator.com/files/1DA2B3Y9/PLoSHE.rar_links)

Based off of Rosza's violin concerto- a real overlooked gem. A suite of the score was composed/arranged for a Rosza album some years ago, which is a nice preview on youtube: The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes (1970) - Suite - Miklos Rozsa - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5G2eEdznS2I)

Takashi Yoshimatsu
Piano Concerto: Memo Flora


Piano Concerto: Memo Flora Op. 67
1. Flower: Andante tranquillo - Allegro
2. Petals: Andante
3. Bloom: Allegro

4. And Birds Are Still... Op.72
5. While An Angel Falls Into A Doze... Op. 73
6. Dream Colored Mobile II Op. 58

White Landscapes Op. 47
7. Divination by Snow: Adagio
8. Stillness in Snow: Moderato
9. Disappearance of Snow: Largo

Download (http://www.mirrorcreator.com/files/6Z7XH2CU/Takashi_Yoshimatsu_-_Memo_Flora.zip_links)


I full-heartedly recommend these pieces to the thread regulars (and anyone else too, they are gorgeous).
It is some of the most serene and beautiful orchestral writing. Its also a treat to hear compositions that are written to take advantage of the small orchestra size.
Often with a smaller ensemble it is just scaled back and underpowered, with these tracks I wouldn't have it any other way. It is one of my favorite surprise finds.
In particular "And Birds Are Still..." takes me to another place every time I hear it.

APologies for the request here, but really trying to find Temple of Doom (williams) the definitive version. The multiupload is down and its no where on the net. If anyone would be so kind to upload the film version of the collection I would REALLY appreciate it. It had some nice additional music in not so bad quality. thanks in advance

APologies for the request here, but really trying to find Temple of Doom (williams) the definitive version. The multiupload is down and its no where on the net. If anyone would be so kind to upload the film version of the collection I would REALLY appreciate it. It had some nice additional music in not so bad quality. thanks in advance

I saw your request in the thread concerned (ONLY 90 mins ago), and I'm re-uploading it NOW, but it is over 600 Mb. BE PATIENT !.

Thats really kind of you. Thanks very much in advance. Appreciate your time.


I saw your request in the thread concerned (ONLY 90 mins ago), and I'm re-uploading it NOW, but it is over 600 Mb. BE PATIENT !.

[]

bishtyboshty: that was a little vigorous, but your help is much appreciated, as usual. :) (Do you happen to get a decent salary for your services around here?)

BTW, having greatly upgraded, over the last months, my knowledge of emotion management and mind control, I'm available if anyone needs advices. ;)



The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes - Miklos Rosza

Download PLoSHE.rar from Mirrorcreator - Upload files to multiple file sharing sites (http://www.mirrorcreator.com/files/1DA2B3Y9/PLoSHE.rar_links)

Based off of Rosza's violin concerto- a real overlooked gem.

Oooooh, I didn't know this score had a purely artistic origin, before it was turned into a score (which can also be artistic, of course, but in a different way). This is spot on with the current trend of the thread. Bravo! And thanks too, since I haven't heard this Rosza yet!




Takashi Yoshimatsu
Piano Concerto: Memo Flora

Actually, this is very welcome for me, personally, because I'm a lot into relaxing stuff since some months. Nowadays, I must admit I can hardly listen to violent and aggressive music, unless it's VERY well done, and even then it's only a few minutes that I can take (which is something that could sound odd from a guy who started a BIG ORCHESTRAL ACTION MUSIC THREAD! Isn't it?). I listen to a lot of powerful music, though, but mostly if it has a positive, hopeful, cheerful tone. As you perhaps have guessed, this progressive change in my musical sensibility does reflect some personal and psychological changes (I'm a lot into personal development stuff).

Melodic, soothing and impassioned. Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra with Kenneth Alwyn conducting some rhapsodic orchestral greats. The first four easily out do Gershwin's more famous piece I think! Enjoy

https://encrypted-tbn0.google.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTOLOt5Appegw_oxjAqCZgWUz0zbn8VA TekQgorfc_LzTjxq0Gf

Warsaw Concerto and Other Film Themes

1. Warsaw Concerto: Wawsaw Concerto 'Dangerous Moonlight' - Richard Addinsell
2. The Dream Of Olwen: The Dream Of Olwen 'While I Live' - Warsaw Concerto
3. Spellbound Concerto: Spellbound Concerto 'Spellbound' - Miklos Rozsa
4. Cornish Rhapsody: Cornish Rhapsody 'Love Story' - Warsaw Concerto
5. Rhapsody In Blue: Rhapsody In Blue (Complete Version) 'Rhapsody In Blue' - George Gershwin

https://rapidshare.com/files/2377636856/Rhapsody_Concertos.rar

PS - I apologise about the low bandwidth...will re-up if its popular or requested at a higher rate.

Ah, some splendid music in there! Richard Addinsell almost outdoes Rachmaninoff - with a little help from Roy Douglas. Incidentally - Roy Douglas is still alive at the age of 105. Awe-inspiring. :)

Not to mention the others - Hubert Bath's Cornish Rhapsody, Charles Williams' The Dream of Olwen, both personal favourites as well. All shameless ripoffs of late romantic piano concerti, but all so beautifully done and utterly convincing.

Hello fellas, been quite away to this board unfortunately, but better to ask you who would you recommend me that plays Franz Schubert's serenade ? Which version(s) are the best for you, please mention them.

From Jwfan (http://www.jwfan.com/?p=2513):

13 March 2012, 9:55 pm
An interview with album producer Didier C. Deutch reveals that La-La Land�s upcoming release of Hook will not be complete due to some cues being excluded at the request of John Williams. The full interview can be found here (http://www.underscores.fr/index.php/2012/03/interview-didier-c-deutsch/) (in French). Here�s the related excerpt:


After numerous exchanges between his representatives and La-La Land, the release was endorsed by Williams.

The production cost was enormous, but fortunately Columbia came to the rescue. All I had to do was to go to the studio with my engineer, with all the elements in their place exactly as I designed the complete music of the film, from beginning to end. So we put on this double disc all we hear in the film, including pieces that have not been used. Meanwhile, John Williams, through his intermediaries, said he wanted to hear what we had done. He made a few suggestions. He asked that certain pieces that were repetitive be eliminated, and he excluded some pieces that didn�t fit with the rest of the score like Take Me out to the Ball Game. In short, he re-created the soundtrack as we hear it on this double disc.

"he excluded some pieces that didn’t fit with the rest of the score"

Lol, I bet a lot of hardcore collectors are putting guns to their heads right about now.

Good. I trust Williams' judgement. It will be a superb album and I'm pleased to hear some of the superfluous fluff will be left off.

Hope you're right old chum...glad the jazz piece is out, but I hope he doesn't cut out ANY of the swashbuckling music that was not released. The only album I thought that he produced that hit the mark was Angela's Ashes and maybe Jurassic Park. What does repetitive music mean?!! gggrrr


Good. I trust Williams' judgement. It will be a superb album and I'm pleased to hear some of the superfluous fluff will be left off.

Hope you're right old chum...glad the jazz piece is out, but I hope he doesn't cut out ANY of the swashbuckling music that was not released. The only album I thought that he produced that hit the mark was Angela's Ashes and maybe Jurassic Park. What does repetitive music mean?!! gggrrr

I suspect this is stuff like alternates that are essentially the same as other versions of the same cue or jarring source cues that don't really fit. Neither of those really need to be in the La La Land release.

The word Complete with regards to film scores is a bit over-used. People complaining that a score is not complete because it leaves off a few alternates are missing the point of these expanded re-issues. The point is not to include every single cue that was ever written (although FSM sometimes does provide this) but to provide all the major cues restored with modern mastering technology. Based on La la land's track record with prior scores, especially 1941, I think we can rest easy that the most important cues were included.

Absolutely, some alternatives with only minor notes of difference are totally unnecessary, but so much of Hook that is outstanding is utterly brilliant. And judging by the 4 CD release that has been around, so many cues not released would be sorely missed. Still, as you say, 1941 would be a good benchmark.


I suspect this is stuff like alternates that are essentially the same as other versions of the same cue or jarring source cues that don't really fit. Neither of those really need to be in the La La Land release.

The word Complete with regards to film scores is a bit over-used. People complaining that a score is not complete because it leaves off a few alternates are missing the point of these expanded re-issues. The point is not to include every single cue that was ever written (although FSM sometimes does provide this) but to provide all the major cues restored with modern mastering technology. Based on La la land's track record with prior scores, especially 1941, I think we can rest easy that the most important cues were included.

Bodacious Space Pirates - Element Garden (2012)
Orchestral|Soaring|Electronic

Download (http://www.mirrorcreator.com/files/0L9H10OU/Mouretsu_Uchuu_Pirates.rar_links)
psw: smile
This had two tracks of drama stuff at the beginning that have been removed for this posting.

Bodacious Space Pirates - Element Garden (2012)

I think I have to get this because of that title.

I think I have to get this because of that title.

I think I agree.

I mean Space Pirates? AND they are bodacious? Hot damn. I have no idea what that means, but it sounds awesome!

Hehehe, it has a very mario galaxy feel to it at times. Fun music.

Orchestra? Where?

WOOOOOOOOOOW! I haven't been reading lately, and never knew about this Hook re-issue!! That's like Christmas for me right now!
After all this time listening to these crappy sound versions... I've been dreaming with a proper sound for years!! YEAH! HOOK THEEEEEEEEEEEMEEE FOREVEER! Hook- Presenting the Hook (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-8qOQUzTxM&feature=related)

P.D.: sorry for all that excitement XD

---------- Post added at 01:18 PM ---------- Previous post was at 01:07 PM ----------


[CENTER]
JOE HISAISHI
Ni No Kuni - Wrath Of The White Witch
The Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra
orchestrated and conducted by Joe Hisaishi

AAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH
Why have I been out these last months??? WHYYYY!!!
Is there anybody with a mirror for the "flac" file? The original link is down.
Thanks tango!!

Speaking of Joe Hisaishi... here is a release that came out last month from the master himself. It is very good, but is that really a surprise to any of you? I present to you the album Vermeer and Escher :). Enjoy!

Oh and please note this link is here courtesy of p0llux.

Joe Hisaishi - Vermeer & Escher [2012.02.15] [VBR0].rar (http://www.mediafire.com/?6c1ych96ms3nmeo)

Album information -

Catalog Number WRCT-1013
Release Date Feb 15, 2012
Publish Format Commercial
Release Price 2857 JPY
Media Format CD
Genre: Instrumental
Classification Original Work
Published by Wonderland Records
Composed by Joe Hisaishi

Track list:

01 Sense of the Light
02 Circus
03 A View of the River
04 Blue and Eyes
05 Vertical Lateral Thinking
06 Muse-um
07 Trees
08 Encounter
09 Phosphorescent Sea
10 Metamorphosis
11 Other World

Description

Original compositions by Joe Hisaishi inspired by the art work of Vermeer and Escher.

GO SHIINA
Tales of Legendia
Symphonic Pieces

The New Japan Philharmonic
conducted by Taizo Takemoto





Download Tales_of_Legendia_Symphonic.zip from Mirrorcreator - Upload files to multiple file sharing sites (http://mir.cr/12W1TUCH)

01 - melfes ~ Shining Blue
02 - To Deliver the Feelings
03 - Delkes Black Wings
04 - Funeral March
05 - The Prayers Become Power
06 - TALES


I must admit, I originally grabbed this OST only because it was from a Tales series game, and in fact I'm quite a fan of *some* of the beautiful music featured in this series (and in other games scored by Motoi Sakuraba), especially the amazingly serene and graceful pieces you can find there. But as it turned out, this time the composer was Go Shiina, and the music was very different than usual, mostly featuring an odd "mixed genres" style of music (jazz and stuff, but not really orchestral) that sounded rather original. However, there was one really cool and unexpected surprise: the presence of a bunch of purely symphonic pieces scattered all over the OST.

And I mean some HUGE ones. Frankly, the only kind of symphonic music of this scope in asian media music that I can spontaneously remember is Kanno's orchestral music - you know, this sort of massive sound, rich orchestrations, sheer power, etc... The New Japan Philharmonic truly delivers a brilliant performance. I don't know why they felt the need to include such pieces in the game, given the hassle and expenses they represent, but hey, it's Japan!

By the way, higher in this page I said: "nowadays, I must admit I can hardly listen to violent and aggressive music, unless it's VERY well done". Well, this statement perfectly applies to the piece "Delkes Black Wings", which I indeed greatly enjoy and listened to many times, even though it's frantic and furious, but SO GOOD!

This post includes all symphonic pieces of the OST: six pieces for a total of twenty minutes of orchestral grandeur. Enjoy!

SHIINA mostly additional music MIX

http://t2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTwyTqqq67mjExrAyubBztF3gdWScOFO rM1PXrycHEP96Rg0GztVeIn0RknIg

Tekken
Idolmaster
God Eater BURST
Kyou Kara Maoh!
Tales of World
Echoes of War

Total: 1H 12M


Go Shiina MIX.7z (http://www.mediafire.com/?n0u7lg444z6lecz)

This is mix of Shiina works - mostly from scores where he was only addition to additional composer (except for Kyou and BURST).

Wonderful music, lots of electronica, lots of orchestra, lots of Tango saying "this guy is overrated".


Enjoy:D.

This guy is overrated.

STOP, Shiina!

Yes, really! Legendia is fun and all, but you can thank the long-suffering orchestrators Natsumi Kameoka and Hironori Osone for that... As with the most recent Ace Combat, where Wataru Hokoyama takes amazingly bland raw material and over-arranges it to a point of farce, to trick you into thinking you're listening to something great. Whenever I see names like Hokoyama, Amano, Yamashita, etc, listed as orchestrators it sets the alarm bells ringing. It's like hiring a three year-old with a box of crayons to repaint the Sistine Chapel, with Van Gogh, Michelangelo, Rembrandt, and Da Vinci as "advisors".

Or hiring some idiotic tired electronica double-act to score Tron Legacy, with Bruce Broughton as an "orchestration advisor".

...oh, wait.

Everything from Shiina sound way to much like Shiina to say that it's just orchestrators job. Basically whenever I hear Shiina music I can tell that it's his. In orchestration, melodies, rhythm, use of electronica. Orchestrators can do a lot, but they can't create a style of a composer.

Is Shiina a genius? No. He is brilliant multi-genre composer who works with good orchestrators. What's wrong with that?

We'll have to agree to disagree; he is a poor composer, an atrocious tunesmith, has absolutely no arranging skill whatsoever, and relies upon cliches and shitty-sounding electronica to masquerade as a "style". He doesn't work with good orchestrators through choice; producers assign them because they know the idiot can't handle an orchestra on his own!

Exactly the same scenario with Masashi Hamauzu. Would you let somebody of that calibre play with your expensive symphony orchestra?

I can't really take a side here, because I only know the guy through his ToL score (that's why Herb's introduction pack is welcome to know him more), but based on my experience of ToL, precisely, I can tell that only the symphonic pieces really grabbed my attention (and not in half!), the other ones sounding not bad, but somewhat unfocused, improvisational, overly experimental (mixing hamburger with fried rice is creative, but is it good?). Perhaps it's just an impression, and his music requires much more listening to be understood and appreciated...

Anyway, when you listen to the ToL symphonic pieces without any preconceived ideas (like I did the first time), it's very hard not to be amazed by the beauty and grandeur they genuinely feature. And this, I believe, is the most important. :)

Oh, absolutely. I really, really enjoy Legendia - but I just can't ignore the fact that the only time I ever enjoy Shiina is when he's arranged by somebody else.

If I were a composer working on a big project, and they told me Wataru Hokoyama was going to be my orchestrator... if I were in a bad mood, I'd kill myself. If I were in a good mood, I'd resign from the project, tell them that they really should hire Hokoyama to score the thing full stop, give up composing, and start a new career. It's a vote of no confidence. It's a way of saying "You're not very good, so this guy who has a very definite musical personality and consummate orchestration skills, will be taking your stuff and making it sound OK."



So, I suppose you could say I like the music as it eventually turned out - even if it is arguably a case of style over substance - but I don't like Shiina.

I always think of him as a kid just out of secondary school with orange hair, sitting in a train station, eating biscuits and crying his eyes out because nobody wanted to listen to his demo tape. Then somebody took pity on him and the rest is history. (He told that story in the Echoes Of War documentary - in which he comes across as a silly child who likes to play with keyboards.)

Edit: Not in the Echoes Of War documentary - must've been somewhere else... My point stands. ;)

Tangotreats being baseless and insane again. Nothing new there. ;)

Sorry, dude, say what you will about Shiina,(like with Hamauzu, you're emphatically wrong and I can accept that) but this assertion that a game composer must be awful and talentless and should cry themselves to suicide because a professional orchestrator handles a tiny fraction of their stuff, as if that is some new, damning trend in the realm of game music that has anything whatsoever to do with lack of ability or confidence, makes absolutely zero sense, full-stop.

Zzzz

*chills to some Shiina and then mabe some Grand Finale, reminding me to remind Uematsu to bend down and thanks whatever God he prays to for Hamaguchi entering his life and making his superficially catchy tunes sound like they weren't discovered on some horrendous longlost Zeerust MIDI contraption from some alternate dimension 80's to this day and whose very presence is proof he was a hack all along

I'm excited for the release of the Gravity Daze/Rush soundtrack (Tanaka) so I've uploaded the end credits from Alundra, which is a PS1 game also scored by Tanaka. It is the only piece with orchestra from the game. The rest of the soundtrack is a pleasant synth in my opinion, but I didn't include any of that. Enjoy:

Alundra End Credits.rar (http://www.mediafire.com/?3961u34z9vaidb2) (FLAC)

Reminds me; did they reveal whose scoring Bravely Default?

*chills to some Shiina and then mabe some Grand Finale, reminding me to remind Uematsu to bend down and thanks whatever God he prays to for Hamaguchi entering his life and making his superficially catchy tunes sound like they weren't discovered on some horrendous longlost Zeerust MIDI contraption from some alternate dimension 80's to this day and whose very presence is proof he was a hack all along
Wha?

Wha?

Uematsu-Hamaguchi being the immediately obvious, and oldest, Ur-example in pointing out the thuddingly silly logic of Game Composer + Orchestrator = Lousy Composer Using Crutches.

Of course, I could go on and on. Shimomura-Wada. Masami Ueda-Hirano. Matsueda-Eguchi. Ishimoto-Sato. Well, actually, that last one's true.

Ah, got it.

I think the problem lies with the tendency for real live orchestral music to serve as a "rite of passage" for us midi composers wanting to write epic music. We glorify live orchestral music, and when some silly attempt at John Williams goes awry, we lambaste it outright. I don't think Uematsu was ever trying to be more than what he was: a really good video game tune-smith - and that's why he excelled. Nowadays every game/film composer is itching at their chance to load up on orchestras and choirs, which on one hand is good for your average orchestrator-for-hire, but bad for your average fan-with-good-taste.

Ah, got it.

I think the problem lies with the tendency for real live orchestral music to serve as a "rite of passage" for us midi composers wanting to write epic music. We glorify live orchestral music, and when some silly attempt at John Williams goes awry, we lambaste it outright. I don't think Uematsu was ever trying to be more than what he was: a really good video game tune-smith - and that's why he excelled. Nowadays every game/film composer is itching at their chance to load up on orchestras and choirs, which on one hand is good for your average orchestrator-for-hire, but bad for your average fan-with-good-taste.

You seem a bit confused. First off, despite my problems with Uematsu, I generally like the guy and was poking fun at him mostly just to support my point. :p The man himself is not the point so much as that game composers, many of whom of course have no real experience or practical skill working with live orchestras, have been paired with professional orchestrators with their own musical voices and visions since game CD's have been capable of reading high-quality audio. The "vote of no confidence" bullshit was pulled from whole cloth. Everyone wants to write with live orchestras; I wish they'd focus more on just using live instruments so we'd stop getting incongrously synthy BGM and all the awesome tracks stuffed into cutscenes; so how again is it a bad thing that so many higher-profile film composers are being brought on to higher-profile works? And if the argument that the producers are hiring them to fill in for "lack of talent", how is it the original composer's fault if the orchestra "goes awry?"

Hello... anyone there willing to recommend some great orchestral based scores that are rather recent, say maybe from now to 5 years back?

Already know about John Williams and Michael Giacchino haha :p

Hello... anyone there willing to recommend some great orchestral based scores that are rather recent, say maybe from now to 5 years back?

Already know about John Williams and Michael Giacchino haha :p

Just grab anything from the thread that you haven't heard. You'll find tons of great stuff. If you look far enough back you'll find some great lists of game and movie osts that are big and orchestral. If you want a list of suggestions, give us a few scores you thought were good so we can compare.

And if the argument that the producers are hiring them to fill in for "lack of talent", how is it the original composer's fault if the orchestra "goes awry?"
You make it sound like the pairing was not the idea of the composer to begin with. If that's not the case, then I actually am confused. Wouldn't Shiina be the one hammering out bland midi tunes on an iMac and telling the producers "it only sounds like crap because it hasn't been performed by the Warsaw Philharmonic yet..." ultimately forcing the producers to run out and hire an orchestrator or two? It's like what Tango said about TRON; a bunch of non-orchestral musicians got in over their heads with an orchestral project and needed Broughton (amongst others) to advise. I don't know if that's actually the case, but I'm mainly going on the basis that a lot of non-orchestral composers have giant egos that only a giant orchestra+chorus can validate, but have probably never even seen a real symphony live.

So what I mean to say is that it is definitely up to the composer to write good music, and if it is good the orchestrator will make it sound good, and if it is bad the orchestrator will try to make it sound as good as possible, but probably fail by our high standards. Of these two possible outcomes, Uematsu is a good example of the former, while a lot of music I'm hearing these days is representative of the latter.

You make it sound like the pairing was not the idea of the composer to begin with. If that's not the case, then I actually am confused. Wouldn't Shiina be the one hammering out bland midi tunes on an iMac and telling the producers "it only sounds like crap because it hasn't been performed by the Warsaw Philharmonic yet..." ultimately forcing the producers to run out and hire an orchestrator or two? It's like what Tango said about TRON; a bunch of non-orchestral musicians got in over their heads with an orchestral project and needed Broughton (amongst others) to advise. I don't know if that's actually the case, but I'm mainly going on the basis that a lot of non-orchestral composers have giant egos that only a giant orchestra+chorus can validate, but have probably never even seen a real symphony live.

So what I mean to say is that it is definitely up to the composer to write good music, and if it is good the orchestrator will make it sound good, and if it is bad the orchestrator will try to make it sound as good as possible, but probably fail by our high standards. Of these two possible outcomes, Uematsu is a good example of the former, while a lot of music I'm hearing these days is representative of the latter.

Except I never say the pairing isn't their idea.


If I were a composer working on a big project, and they told me Wataru Hokoyama was going to be my orchestrator... if I were in a bad mood, I'd kill myself. If I were in a good mood, I'd resign from the project, tell them that they really should hire Hokoyama to score the thing full stop, give up composing, and start a new career. It's a vote of no confidence. It's a way of saying "You're not very good, so this guy who has a very definite musical personality and consummate orchestration skills, will be taking your stuff and making it sound OK."


He doesn't work with good orchestrators through choice; producers assign them because they know the idiot can't handle an orchestra on his own!



He does. I was addressing this, and how foolish it is. As for whether blame lies on Shiina for "forcing" them to find orchestrators, that just goes into personal semantics. I happen to find Shiina extremely talented, but beyond that, many composers and orchestrators choose to work together often, producers hire whoever's most convenient or is available or have proved reliable and a million other factors. And I don't really know where you're getting the ego assertions from. I don't work in the business, but neither Legendia, Ace Combat or anything else sound like big overeager OOH BIG LOUD ORCHESTRA TYME hackjobs from where I'm sitting. Arthierr has it right in that you can't really state one way or the other unless you have familiarity with the original artist, but I do, and regardless of Hokoyama's idiosyncrasies, it all sounds very clearly like Shiina's work underneath; a Shiina piece that just so happens to speak in the tones and patterns of an orchestral palette, a palette he emulates often in his normal work. Same with Hamauzu. In fact, I didn't even realize Shiina was using orchestrators until this discussion started up. This is no hackish, unskilled flailing at a medium the composer doesn't understand, and anyone who argues otherwise must be deaf, but again, personal semantics and opinions.

It is equally the job of the orchestrator and composer to fill in their share, I don't argue that, but to posit that there being an orchestrator attached to begin with indicates weakness and lack of talent is nonsensical, particularly in the medium of game music. After all, if Uematsu, among others, were so great, by this logic, he wouldn't need an orchestrator, cause that's how music works, isn't it? ;)

Whether or not it's the case for Shiina (again, I don't know his music enough to judge properly), it's indeed concerning that there is a trend in the world of media music consisting in hiring incompetent or barely competent composers that are then "advised" by genuinely competent and experienced composers / orchestrators.

Imagine if the same thing happened in other domains: how about taking a plane piloted by a guy who just started learning how to fly a month ago, but remotely helped by a veteran pilot (phew!)? Or about eating sushis (especially blowfish sushis, the ones that can be lethal) cooked by a guy who just learned how to do them in a "Sushis for dummies" book, but happily advised by a real expert of this art? Quite reassuring, isn't it?

What are the reasons behind this? One thing I greatly suspect is the dubious belief that someone "younger" and "sexier" is necessarily more creative, original and interesting that someone older with a serious look. Come on, look at Shiina, with his orange hair and faaaabulous outfits, and compare him with the intellectual, sober, nerdy, shy-looking Hokoyama; now compare the silly, clownesque, hip, youthful imagery of Daft Punk with the look of pure competence, seriousness, and maturity of Broughton. Clearly one is less appealing, sexy and marketable than the other to the masses (guess which).

Could this be another incarnation of this popular drift that undermines various parts of society? Like when a young and sexy (preferably blonde) anchor replaces the older but way more experienced and involved journalist in a news show; or when some singers with terrible voices but big boobs get to record albums, leaving aside the average looking girl with the "voice of an angel".

Ultimately, it could be asking an artist not to shine by his works, but by his look. Like in the industry of popular music, the artist becomes a brand, an icon, people must love and worship, whatever crap s/he might churn out artistically. It's the triumph of superficiality over substance, competence and talent. But unlike in most popular music, the world of media music is sometimes saved from real mediocrity thanks to the help of real experts who come to the rescue of those good-looking, marketable but not-so-good-composers in order to have some decent music produced. Perhaps, I said *PERHAPS*, it's the explanation behind the Kanno phenomenon... ;)

What is considered the best Rozsa score?

I really liked his Ben-Hur score and would like to hear more of his work.

NaotaM:
I admit I do need some more familiarity with Shiina's non-orchestral works to judge his skill if all I've heard is orchestrations by others. If I had only heard Uematsu's music in live-orchestral form, I'd be just as skeptical. Do you have any recommendations?

As for the egos thing, well, here's where I'm coming from with that: When you come across as many amateur composer sites/demos as I do and you see the demos they list there as "here's a rock song, here's an ambient song, here's a jazz song, and here's an epic orchestral song with choir..." you might think "aww, that's cute, this guy has no idea what he's doing." But then you realize hey, these people are actually getting work.

Now it's one thing to try your hand at writing some John Williams-inspired music; that's how a lot of talented composers are getting started these days - but to actually list that as one of your strengths in trying to find work when you know deep down it is your $5000 orchestral libraries doing 100% of the work, it's disingenuous, and sheer egotism.

So here we are now, trying to pull back curtains to see who actually has talent, and who's a fraud. And the orchestrators-for-hire are not making this easy, because they are often the truly talented ones who can make anyone sound great (most of the time.)

Also, a lot of these sample library creators are to blame for making the "epic orchestral genre" so easily attainable through mere button clicks.

In summary, I demand more transparency and accountability from the industry. :)


Perhaps, I said *PERHAPS*, it's the explanation behind the Kanno phenomenon... ;)
But Kanno's getting a bit on in years, so perhaps we will soon see a new, young idol in her early 20s who writes hit songs and also dabbles in Prokofiev and Ravel. :D

In summary, I demand more transparency and accountability from the industry. :)

I can certainly agree with this. I sorta question your assertion on sample libraries, however. Yeah, the amateur world is crammed with shit by its very nature, but if the strength of someone's work(provided they have any) shines through despite using a $5000 sample library, their choice of medium in no way makes them a lesser composer. Some people just can't afford or have easy access to honest-to-God live orchestras, through simple background or financial situation. And the idea that a great orchestrator can make anything sound good is utter myth. Just look at Type-0.

MIDI or sheet music, if it sounds decently orchestrated, what does it matter?

Oh, and as for Shiina recommendations, he hasn't really done that much yet, so pickings are easy. Legendia, of course, but I'd point you to God Eater, a lovely score in which he received no arrangement assistance whatsoever. Case in point, Ace Combat 3D's "Footsteps in the Night Sky", a personal fave orchestrated by Hokoyama, is still extremely similar to God Eater's "The Last Memories." Shiina's strength is variety, so don't expect wall-to-wall orchestra.


nonsense

...what

Are you high? Pretty Popular People? Really? Yes, I'm sure a film, and most rich of all, game composer's appearance and demographic appeal has everything to do with being hired and respected within the fan community of people who are 98% likely to have no working idea what any of these people look like.

I think I'm done with this topic, and not just because I'm sick of typing "orchestrator."

I remember when i realized, after many years of telling myself that Uematsu was a magnificent composer and orchestrator, that he was soooooo not the wonderfully talented man i thought he was. (even though he has the sensibility to write cute little melodies from time to time, without the help of external sentient talent.
I probably also imagined that he arranged and even conducted it all by himself aswell.
Because, at the time, i did not have any reason to believe that anyone else,other than uematsu had been responsible for the aspects of the music that i loved and that moved me. But as it turns out. It wasn't uematsu at all.
And the same goes for all the video game music i have loved.
they did not posess the skill i thought they did, and respected them for.
I always defended my love for video game music by telling people that "these people, yes the compose for video games, but it's so good! they are highly trained and skilled and i bet that in the future they will write symphonies for the pure concert hall." But i was wrong all along...it says composed by this and that on the covers. But the talent always, ALWAYS belonged to someone other then the one who gets the obvious credit.
I felt a little like a fool for a little while, but i'm glad im not as ignorant anymore.
I always thought it was a little funny that, if he can compose THIS!!! (ex. liberi fatali, one winged angel) Why the hell does he allow himself to write 70 other pieces for this game that sounds...so...well, it doesn't play on my heart strings, thats for shure. But, he didn't even compose liberi fatali, so...
I have always found it strange.
And all my friends who like vgm still talks about Shiina and uematsu and Shimmomura and bla bla.
When they should be talking about Hirano and the others. The real musicians.
I aggree, i think there is a lot of pity behind the darkness.

Are you high?

As a matter of fact, yes. This is the effect donuts and green tea have on me. :D


Pretty Popular People? Really? Yes, I'm sure a film, and most rich of all, game composer's appearance and demographic appeal has everything to do with being hired and respected within the fan community of people who are 98% likely to have no working idea what any of these people look like.

As usual, you fail to understand the nuances and subtleties of what I said. You don't read attentively enough, you get emotional too quickly, and you chuck out a rude, withering reply without enough substance. And if you deny ONE MINUTE the actual existence of the phenomenon I pointed out in the popular culture industry, then I would question your lucidity in this field.

Perhaps, though, it doesn't STRICTLY apply to VG music, but don't forget that a part of what I said is hypothetical (see the words "suspect", "could", "might"? No? Then you don't read attentively enough). So perhaps it's not 100% accurate, but I found it interesting to bring up anyway, because at some point it certainly has an influence in the hiring process. Shiina *IS* hip and fancy looking, Daft punk too, so why can't we suspect it plays a part?

I like Uematsu's music still and have since I was eleven... wow, that would be just about 14 years ago lol. Anyway I appreciate how his melodies still captivate me. I will agree with this discussion on that orchestrators do play a huge part, such as Hamaguchi in Uematsu's music or Hayato Matsuo in Hitoshi Sakimoto's score for FFXII. Speaking of that, what ever happened to Shiro Hamguchi? He hasn't arranged for Uematsu for a long time and I don't see his name on pop anywhere... Anyone know what he has been doing as of late?

Star Trek: A Journey Through The Galaxies richard hayman philharmonic rock orchestra download please ???

As a matter of fact, yes. This is the effect donuts and green tea have on me. :D



As usual, you fail to understand the nuances and subtleties of what I said. You don't read attentively enough, you get emotional too quickly, and you chuck out a rude, withering reply without enough substance. And if you deny ONE MINUTE the actual existence of the phenomenon I pointed out in the popular culture industry, then I would question your lucidity in this field.

Perhaps, though, it doesn't STRICTLY apply to VG music, but don't forget that a part of what I said is hypothetical (see the words "suspect", "could", "might"? No? Then you don't read attentively enough). So perhaps it's not 100% accurate, but I found it interesting to bring up anyway, because at some point it certainly has an influence in the hiring process. Shiina *IS* hip and fancy looking, Daft punk too, so why can't we suspect it plays a part?

Your post contained no "nuance or subtleties" to pay attention to or respond to; it was, in fact, stupefyingly...well, stupid. But here's more about why it's stupid, since the first dose wasn't good enough for your high standards.

It is honestly baffling to me that this is a conclusion you could reach as a possible ill of media music, even as a hypothetical. We're not talking about popular culture. John Williams, Yoko Kanno, Bruce Broughton; none of these people jiggle around in music videos and plaster their faces in advertisements. Film and game music composition is not a medium with any sort of public face, save for Williams, who works against your point as he's not what one would call a "totally buff hottie." The masses don't proclaim the EPICNESS of The Dark Knight because the musician behind it is "hip and fancy"; point of fact, they don't care in the least. Go ahead and do an image search for any given composer working today, especially any untalented newcomers you happen to mark as the reasons for all the evil in the world. Not exactly a modeling catalogue. While you're at it, ask any given member of "the masses" what Zimmer, Sivestri, Djawadi, Hirano, Sakimoto(guess which one. any will do), Sugiyama, Broughton even look like, what kind of people they probably are, etc. Thousand bucks you'll get nothing but blank stares and shrugs.

"Youth" could potentially have some importance in what a director and his producers look for in search of fresh, interesting new talent, but given Hollywood's track record, it could very well have more to do with just having a good word in from Hans Zimmer's Boys Club. Daft Punk is the sole example you cited that half works with your point, but not for the reasons you seem to think. They weren't hired because they're hip and weird looking, they were hired because they're a massively popular and well-regarded band, have been for over a decade, and since the film in question was Tron and not fucking 2001, it made a pretty good amount of sense.

Some artists do become an icon and brand to their fans and across the industry, but in the world of media composition, that has near fuck-all to do with appearance and persona(some of the truly eccentric out there, like Tenpei Sato and Kubota Osamu, are definitely hidden under some layers of obscurity, and carrothead Shiina is by no means a prolific or well-known talent, so your point falls apart from the beginning.) In fact, I'd argue these industries are some the last bastions left for appreciation and prestige being earned through honest artistic merit, or perceiving thereof. This question of whether someone's "look" is part of the equation is astonishing. It just isn't based in any shred of observable reality. Where are you getting this from?

endymione: your post perhaps goes a little too far to the other side. Uematsu and most others DO compose their own stuff, even if some of it is greatly enhanced by orchestrators at times. Uematsu is actually a good artist, not a great one, but a guy who knows how to skilfully craft a melody and find the right emotional tone in most of his works. When you listen to Uematsu's orchestral pieces, yes, the opulence of them are mostly attributable to orchestrators, but the actual compositions, melodically, probably harmonically, and the appropriate emotional tone is HIS own creation, not the orchestrator's one.

The guy clearly is *not* a hack or a fraud. ;)

What is considered the best Rozsa score?

I really liked his Ben-Hur score and would like to hear more of his work.

I would suggest the re-recordings first. There was a Quo Vadis re-recording posted earlier in this thread with Ben Hur re-recording. The Julius Caesar score is also quite nice and has a similarly high quality re-recording with the National Philharmonic. I would also check out the 3 choral suites Tango posted recently. You may also enjoy the 3disc re-recording of El Cid from Tadlow. The FSM release of Knights of the Round Table/The King's Thief is high quality audio and easy to digest as well.

The score for The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes (also released by Tadlow) is more on the classical side but also quite nice.

Film and game music composition is not a medium with any sort of public face, save for Williams, who works against your point as he's not what one would call a "totally buff hottie."

LOL! Sorry, but I couldn't contain my laughter with that last part heh!

I have to agree with NaotaM here. Nobody likes scores due to the image of the composers. The fact that Go Shiina is hip looking has probably zero to do with his success. Just like the film industry, I would suspect that the Japanese video game industry jobs are filled by references from people who they worked with in the past. Tales of Legendia happened to be developed by a team who had no contact with the previous Tales games and so they brought on a new composer because they probably hadn't worked with Sakuraba before. I seem to recall that the team behind Tekken developed Legendia, which is why the battle system was a bit different than other titles.

Like NaotaM mentioned, certain composers, like Tenpei Sato, have images that are the complete opposite of what you might equate with hip and cool but they are still successful because they have developed relationships with the development teams who work on the games. AFAIK Tenpei Sato has almost exclusively done work with the teams at Nippon Ichi since the beginning and so it was no surprise when he was asked to do work for Disgaea and other games after that.

Nothing like replying to a rude, silly post after dinner. :D

I can't believe I'm having this discussion with YOU. It's surrealistic, there are literally THOUSANDS of interesting things I can do, and I have to answer to this piece of crap.

Let's go, then, but it'll probably be my last reply to YOU on this subject, but not to other people (you know, those who have a functional sense of communication and a modicum of courtesy).


Your post contained no "nuance or subtleties" to pay attention to or respond to

... That you can perceive. Don't over-estimate your limited capacities. It's not the first time I see you telling nonsense and not getting the point.


We're not talking about popular culture

I could just stop there. No need to go further with someone saying that film music or game music aren't downright a part of the popular culture industry, even if they're niches. It just shows how much you don't know what you're talking about.


John Williams, Yoko Kanno, Bruce Broughton; none of these people jiggle around in music videos and plaster their faces in advertisements. Film and game music composition is not a medium with any sort of public face, save for Williams, who works against your point as he's not what one would call a "totally buff hottie." The masses don't proclaim the EPICNESS of The Dark Knight because the musician behind it is "hip and fancy"; point of fact, they don't care in the least. Go ahead and do an image search for any given composer working today, especially any untalented newcomers you happen to mark as the reasons for all the evil in the world. Not exactly a modeling catalogue.


Zimmer, Sivestri, Djawadi, Hirano, Sakimoto

I didn't talk about Williams or other composers, but about Shiina, Daft Punk, and Kanno. My reflection (because it's a REFLECTION, not some cold, hard truth, as you don't seem to understand) was only limited to these people and possibly to others having similar traits.

What are these traits? These people have an interesting look, they're easily recognizable, have a strong visual identity, an original, carefully thought appearance, a youth appealing style, and as a matter of fact, they're pretty well know by the audience of their field. They're a bit like little celebrities in their field, in short. Indeed, my point wasn't only their LOOK, but their global status as iconic personalities.

Does this FACT have an influence on them (Shiina, Daft Punk, and Kanno, remember?) being sometimes hired instead of other, let's say visually common and lesser hip and popular composers, such as Hokoyama. Well, I just express the hypothesis that YES. In fact, I find this hypothesis way more probable than the opposite hypothesis. And anyone with some basic good sense would agree that popular, iconic people have a higher chance at getting hired than "transparent", bland looking people, with equal competence. This is commonly known in recruitment stuff. *THAT* was my point (or one of my points, since my post covered other stuff). You no get it? You no get it...

One last thing: perhaps I'm wrong, I certainly am from time to time, but even if it's the case, since when do I get to be yelled at in an inacceptably rude way by a clown who learned his basic social skills in a box of Rice Krispies?

So next time you don't agree with something I said, either:

1) learn how to properly communicate with other human beings, and THEN post a reply so we can have an healthy discussion. You know, like people do.

2) or just shut the fuck up, because I'm not interested in spoiling this thread with silly quibbles with people like you. Oky doky?

shut the fuck up

No u. Respond to people calling you on your nonsense with blithely condescending bile, play victim. I'm not even going to bother going into the fallacy of linking film and game music to popular culture;ie. outside of Williams being sledgehammered into the public conciousness via Spielberg and outside our nerdy, snobby niches, we are literally the only people who give even the tiniest shit about any of this; or how anyone with a brain can claim Shiina and DP(Kanno has nothing to do with this argument as she arranges her own work, so I've no idea where you were going with that jab) are stealing jobs from other "blander" artists when one of them has a whopping three solo scores to their name and the other one or that that is at all attributable to a visual image(considering Shiina is no celebrity in any sense of the word), while Hokoyama and Hirano and those other poor underrepresented, "less interesting" types have solo discographies twice as long and perform their own concerts and how that kinda makes your hypothesis total bullshit, but I'd be wasting my breath on such a thin-skinned, ostentatious ass.


One last thing: perhaps I'm wrong, I certainly am from time to time, but even if it's the case, since when do I get to be yelled at in an inacceptably rude way

Maybe when you stop saying stupid shit. Stop saying stupid shit.

You have to stop NOW, dude. Seriously. This kind of behavior isn't acceptable here.

[...]

Edit: you know what, despite the fact that you act like a douche, I must admit that your posts are generally interesting, in a way or another. And even if you're not 100% accurate (far from there!), your posts are actually worthwhile to read and react to. So forget what I just said! :p

this might help for the next times: Debate Flow Chart ()

Haha, useful stuff indeed! But it doesn't mention the misconduct of a party, which was clearly the problem here. You have to respect people you discuss with, at least formally. Isn't this something obvious?


Now, let's get back to the regular business of this thread! ;)

Come now guys, you are both intelligent enough to discuss this without calling each other names :)

[QUOTE=arthierr;1945489]You have to stop NOW, dude. Seriously. This kind of behavior isn't acceptable here.[QUOTE]

You need to stop interpreting challenges towards whatever intelligent or ludicrous idea you speak(and don't fool yourself, what you were talking about is 100% ludicrous) as personal attack. Notice I didn't call you one thing till well after you snapped and starting slinging shit. Speaking of emotional. You strike me as an extremely touchy, overpolicing sort of person and that's something you really gotta work on, cause overreactions like yours make it very easy to lose patience with you and interest in whatever it is you're saying. "That thing you just said is stupid" is not "you are stupid." You'd do best to remember that.

I am keeping RIGHT the f**k out of this one.

Kousuke Yamashita's latest anime project started this evening - and, well, I'm sure you're getting fed up of me describing his work as consistently excellent, but, well, this one is starting out consistently excellent. So far, we're looking at a wonderful piece of orchestral sci-fi somewhere between Xenosaga (the good bits) and Garasu No Kantai, with more than a dollop of Reign Of Revolutions. The first episode of Ozuma is mainly chases, stuff blowing up, and weapons fire so it's a bit action-tension-heroism biased so far; I have no doubt that there will be more romantic material to come.

Interestingly enough, it seems to be scored to picture so far! Ozuma is six episodes of 24 minutes each; 144 minutes of show in total makes scoring to picture quite practical; it'd be nothing more complicated than scoring a particularly long motion picture. As a prestige series, the money is certainly there - the orchestra is quite well appointed.

This may well turn out to be 2012's anime score of the year.

I beeeeeeeeeggggg your pardon?!?



Kousuke Yamashita

buh?


Interestingly enough, it seems to be scored to picture so far!

kuh?

144 minutes of show in total makes scoring to picture

FUH?

I must learn what this potentially glorious new thing is and I must learn now.


Reign of Revolutions

Also never heard of this.

Daft Punk is the sole example you cited that half works with your point, but not for the reasons you seem to think. They weren't hired because they're hip and weird looking, they were hired because they're a massively popular and well-regarded band, have been for over a decade, and since the film in question was Tron and not fucking 2001, it made a pretty good amount of sense.
I'm not really following along with everything else being said, but no, Daft Punk scoring a major Disney movie, no matter the content, does NOT make any sense because they are NOT film composers. :D (obligatory smiley face means I'm not yelling in anger) Perhaps you might recall a little fiasco by the name of, wait for it... Tangerine Dream??

Also, I'm not one to comment on Shiina's popularity and its influence on his various gigs, but Kanno is definitely a celebrity whose status brings a certain excitement to a franchise. What the heck is a Brain Powerd? Who knows? But most importantly it was scored by Kanno. This is in many ways similar to Reznor on The Social Network and The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, or Jonny Greenwood on There Will Be Blood. Celebritism and pop culture are infiltrating our beloved scores again. :(