Does anyone happen to have the score to the movie Red Cliff by Taro Iwashiro? I just watched the movie and I absolutely loved its music. All the links on this forum are dead unfortunately...

Does anyone happen to have the score to the movie Red Cliff by Taro Iwashiro? I just watched the movie and I absolutely loved its music. All the links on this forum are dead unfortunately...
I hope mp3 v0 is okay: https://mega.nz/#!NUNByJqC!oJ4FMYDvZxRw0tgfzJ-v5I5IObOrEGtwKwH2QTG88_E

Score composed, arranged, orchestrated by
Taro Iwashiro
RED CLIFF
Part 1+2

Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra
conducted by Taro Iwashiro
Michiko Akao, solo Japanese transverse bamboo flute
Hide Fukasawa, MIDI programming
Tang Jianping, ghuzeng


OSTs published by: Evolution Music (2008_09)

Samples OST Pt. 1 (http://www.xiami.com/song/play?ids=/song/playlist/id/2149619%2C2149620%2C2149624/object_name/default/object_id/0#open)
(4. Precious One / 5. Hill of the Refugees / 9. A Hero and a Boy)
Samples OST Pt. 2 (http://www.xiami.com/song/play?ids=/song/playlist/id/3501662%2C3501673/object_name/default/object_id/0#open)
(4. Shadow of the Evanescence / 15. Outroduction of Legend)

Sanico's share (Thread 110213), re-up:
mega.nz (https://mega.nz/#!38oFHJJZ!Z-N7AQL2E8J6nno2w5XkdXXRCY90UYVkTb3-t_nbilw) (FLAC, Booklet scans | 665 MB)

Yuka Tsujiyoko, arr. Ikuro Fujiwara

Fire Emblem Festival Love & Courage
25th Anniversary Concert

Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra
Conducted by Ikuro Fujiwara



Download (https://mega.nz/#!68JBDTKI!dVo8HaeHykUawEkL8guLNQdnjhZWU_moNE5xJy-mFRE)
DVD-Rip/ MP3 V0 / 30 Tracks / 114min

I'm of course happy that Fire Emblem got a (well-deserved) musical celebration but why must everything be so barebones: No booklet, no artbook even though the concert program had some decent art, no HQ audio and video quality and some really out of place commercials for a card game.

The concert itself, however, is glorious with a musical journey though almost all titles with a few intermissions of stage-play, song and interviews. It also has to be said that the Fire Emblem theme is just pure gold. I loved it as a child and I can never get tired of it, my favorite variation being the one from the Smash Brothers DX concert (what can I say, I like Ravel).


I've recently made an observation: The difference between Nintendo and Square Enix in regards to their music is very evident the past years. For a musical celebration of a game series Square has provided stellar album presentations and showcases great care and love for the music. Nintendo, on the other hand, doesn't seem to value it's own artistic merits in music that much. If there's no Mario then there's a high chance of no official release of an orchestral score (Skyward Sword and Star Fox Assault). There's open refusal of official concert cds like Symphonic Legends, the EXCELLENT London Concert being still unreleased. But what shocks me more is the fact that there was barely any attempt to celebrate Kirby, Metroid or Star Fox musically although there's more than enough good material and plenty of reason to do so. Even freaking Zelda didn't get an official album and it's one of the biggest video game franchises in history (the 25th cd was bundle-only and also a bit lackluster). Gems like the Smash Brothers DX concert were such a long time ago... Final Fantasy remains the gold standard of how you ought to do it.




There's still some copies left on CDJapan so if you are loving it please support more concerts being made.

Ikuro Fujiwara - Wizardry Gaiden (1&2 - 1991,1992)
Suffering of the Queen ウィザードリィ外伝I 女王の受難 - 藤原いくろう

FLAC (https://mega.nz/#!Fgw0iRqJ!ouE-OOmmtvtx05eKnPqLzFgztZbPN80iH8TwgKkMIPM)


Curse of the Ancient Emperor ウィザードリィ外伝II 古代皇帝の呪い

FLAC (https://mega.nz/#!l14kXIyL!y4F-T6IDsqYyB6C1SnIeeDp6F4vhO3c0kbS40js5li8)

3 (https://mega.nz/#!o8oGGY6Y!8aGM0_qDAT4TwMcHCu8EKFda3cKvGrjSeyIisrnHKQA)

Lost Crime: Thread 202653

Massugu Ni Ikou: Thread 202818

-

I've recently made an observation: The difference between Nintendo and Square Enix in regards to their music is very evident the past years. For a musical celebration of a game series Square has provided stellar album presentations and showcases great care and love for the music. Nintendo, on the other hand, doesn't seem to value it's own artistic merits in music that much. If there's no Mario then there's a high chance of no official release of an orchestral score (Skyward Sword and Star Fox Assault). There's open refusal of official concert cds like Symphonic Legends, the EXCELLENT London Concert being still unreleased. But what shocks me more is the fact that there was barely any attempt to celebrate Kirby, Metroid or Star Fox musically although there's more than enough good material and plenty of reason to do so. Even freaking Zelda didn't get an official album and it's one of the biggest video game franchises in history (the 25th cd was bundle-only and also a bit lackluster). Gems like the Smash Brothers DX concert were such a long time ago... Final Fantasy remains the gold standard of how you ought to do it.
Nintendo has been in pretty bad shape in recent years. I hope it stays that way so they're forced to change their business models. They're just so behind on the times.

Already on the second episode of Endride, and by god... IT'S GLORIOUS! I can't stress enough to say that Kouhei Tanaka is one of my favorite composers (possibly in my top 3) in the industry and this score here proves it, especially what can be heard when the characters are watching the world map. Tanaka's orchestral writing has always given me the right sense of enchanting wonder and adventure, that I always thrived, for a genre such as fantasy. So much, that even the short 10 second cues receive a great orchestral treatment.

Really looking forward when the this makes it's release!

Re:Zero also has an interesting orchestra score. Music by Kenichiro Suehiro, who I am not familiar with. It's one of those parallel world fantasy shows that are oh so popular right now. First episode was pretty good too.

abryus1337: Sorry, I don't retain any Iwashiro in lossless - only Red Cliff, I'm afraid... I hope somebody else can help though. :)

Pensquawk: Ah, yes! I was caustiously optimistic following episode 1, but after episode 2 I knew Endride was going to be a bit special - even by Tanaka standards. That map scene is a shining example of why I like Tanaka. They're standing around looking at a map... but this glorious, brassy cue starts up - a true prelude to adventure,with Tanaka saying "Get ready, folks - this is going to be a fun ride!"

And there's a nice prototypical Tanaka action cue for a silly dinosaur fight about midway.

Almost sod-all has happened in the show so far and we're already getting orchestral cues up there with Tanaka's finest. This is a good sign.

Ace Attorney: Wow, episode 2 strikes again! Sounds like it could be one of the biggest orchestras Wada has used. Mainly short cues this time - lovely suspense stuff, a few stingers, and the beginning of a lovely "determination" cue that both times in the episode gets cut off way before it finishes. Also, some hints at some of the slower stuff - my favourite parts of Kindaichi were the big, slow themes and it looks like Ace Attorney is going to have those too.

Nextday: I completely skipped that one, but watched the episode on your advice... Zero could be really brilliant. The orchestra sounds pretty tiny but there's some good music in there!

The Endride map cue is actually the main theme for the show, I think. It was the one that played on stage during the events.

Wada's orchestra for Ace Attorney is about the same size as the one from Kindaichi. It was the same musicians for the most part. He also recorded the score for the upcoming D.Gray-man Hallow anime with them. That one airs in July.

Ace Attorney M-1


And yeah, most of the music for Re:Zero seemed to be performed by a small ensemble, though there was definitely some brass and chorus in that action cue near the end. I quite liked that playful track that played at the beginning of the first episode.

You can add Haifuri to the list, there's a (small) real orchestra (starting at 12:35) and it sounds like it's going to be Girls und Battleship.

You can add Haifuri to the list, there's a (small) real orchestra (starting at 12:35) and it sounds like it's going to be Girls und Battleship.
Trumpet player says he performed on 30 tracks. Though I'm not sure how skilled Shigeo Komori is as an orchestrator.

The show is pretty much Aniplex trying to ride on the success of Girls und Panzer and KanColle.


Edit: Macross Delta episode 2 has much more Kubota. There's actually a glimmer of hope. The cue at the very end of the episode is wonderful (starts at 20:20).

Interesting shares with the Wizardry stuff. I wasn't sure what to expect. After listening and reading about it, some decent chamber music arrangements on those. Also very excited to check out the fire emblem concert!

Wow... I didn't even know that Hollywood was making another version of Ben-Hur, and I actually thought for the first 30 seconds from the trailer that this was meant to be a big practical joke.

Behold, ladies and gentlemen, I present you an Hollywood EPIC (lol) (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3BmeR9GYdDU)

It's like this trailer was made to exemplify everything wrong with the whole damn industry but the more I cringe about how there will most likely be a roman fist-fighting jesus I was also appalled by just how crappy the visuals and art look. The only saving grace coud be Beltrami but he is nowhere near of even a fraction of Rozsa or Davis and has probably forgotten to write something without a constant pulse of banging tribal drums, so why bother. You know some scenes from the Blu-Ray remaster in combination with the timeless music make the 1959 movie seem like a long lost cultural artifact of a high evolved civilization, found long after the decline of intelligent human life. But everything that troubles my heart can be summarized with: "Art is dead in major motion pictures and will probably never return". It is just astonishing how such a cultural melting pot of academics, intellectual composers and philosophers from the 20th century could one day turn into a conglomerate of the most banal human intellect.

I don't know what it is but the Fire Emblem concert sounds really tiny, not anything like I have grown to expect from the Tokyo Philharmonic. Not only that but all of the speaking at the beginning or end of tracks really interrupts the flow. It is nice to have recorded versions of those classic themes but I'm not all that satisfied by the concert.

Well, the main problem with this concert is that there's no separate audio track. It's also not mixed and mastered by album standards and is rather poorly recorded. But the music as written saves it from being a disaster. It's a shame it doesn't sound like the GuP concert, which was essentially just a soundtrack upgrade and not a full-fledged symphonic project like Fire Emblem. Like Tango said, it needs an official release asap BUT knowing Nintendo and their policy of not caring for their own music that's very unlikely :(

I could try to edit and remaster it but I wasn't satisfied after a few tries so I left it as is.




EDIT: Talk about missleading first impressions. First Macross and now Hundred. Out of nowhere appear two delightful orchestral pieces starting at 18:35 and 21:30 that are just about a minute long but damn... they could fit right into Endride. I hope the rest of the score is more like those two pieces and less like the typical battle harem style.

Girls und battleship

Urrrh, it's awfully amateurish. Where Natsumi Kameoka gave us a grown-up symphonic action score in Kancolle and Hamaguchi a spirited and thoroughly convincing feelgood score based on popular march music in Panzer... Haifuri manages to sound like an embarassing pastiche made on a shoestring budget. It sounds like fake brass in there too.

2 more by Michiru Oshima (lossless/flac)...

MAGIC USER'S CLUB (Mahou Tsukai Tai): Volumes 1 & 2: Thread 203193

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/WJDy6R0KqvCADeZxsxPZFbqzXqGLWOR2SZWNS5P47jYOh9Gd-Bc4lZ4EPhGJ42t0nPnVqLdQMPyh4o0bq7nslGKOE8zn_Eons8W QFMm8bMaT0j0hvTxIptQh7CLPz9sqRPWsOsywY_sgPQEzOaQDj nPjL5yKLE_jsLA5jeNFeHZ4ojGOiRFcptx5_nt2pGl8_mtrTIJ SMMyo_-wkHQQlnY7IkNLJzfSvhQjQI0RYkBkVBWUWZGp32gCbXTTqON5H s4u3S1HKRXqxYiz75j2foYF6lKavDydWhWtfc6XOaBCy39s1oU O-wple-i2sf_X3kO3tG8pq8pGM_JlArwCQc9jJJck9eCnUtrixyA19IdN tc20b9cdC57MNQR9WdTo_pFWFRwlrQRbZzEhwleSv-l5LyZceCOtGarRoab4pBSo-Qy1lJNmLW-vfPBaaEyv70kIlYpDnVe4PIqbweG1yFQ3Zn81i97tM2nIuML5q GxTl2GxdmNZJseDtl9xNl4l5cDgT1vuaC_YNNYGn_Wd0J9Jowv ppe403XdRQBEi8I-vHDnd5vK-9i7pqmejzO_WtuQSl=w506-h250-no

Anyone here interested in Hirano's contemporary piano album? It's Hirano so you know what to expect. Lots of atonality and dissonance. Not easy listening by any means.

Hirano? Absolutely!

I would be VERY interested, Nextday! I see that the album came out only 4 days ago. Have you already found it somewhere?

Seems like he also composed the soundtrack for this one Japanese drama and it's getting a release soon. Wonder if it's worth skimming?

Amazon Japan Link (http://www.amazon.co.jp/%E6%97%A5%E6%9C%AC%E3%83%86%E3%83%AC%E3%83%93%E7%B 3%BB-%E6%97%A5%E6%9B%9C%E3%83%89%E3%83%A9%E3%83%9E-%E3%83%89%E3%83%A9%E3%83%9E%E3%80%8C%E3%82%86%E3%8 1%A8%E3%82%8A%E3%81%A7%E3%81%99%E3%81%8C%E3%81%AA% E3%81%AB%E3%81%8B%E3%80%8D-%E3%82%AA%E3%83%AA%E3%82%B8%E3%83%8A%E3%83%AB%E3%8 3%BB%E3%82%B5%E3%82%A6%E3%83%B3%E3%83%89%E3%83%88% E3%83%A9%E3%83%83%E3%82%AF-%E5%B9%B3%E9%87%8E%E7%BE%A9%E4%B9%85/dp/B01D3MOAM0/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1461078310&sr=8-3&keywords=%E5%B9%B3%E9%87%8E%E7%BE%A9%E4%B9%85)

I would be VERY interested, Nextday! I see that the album came out only 4 days ago. Have you already found it somewhere?

Seems like he also composed the soundtrack for this one Japanese drama and it's getting a release soon. Wonder if it's worth skimming?

Amazon Japan Link (http://www.amazon.co.jp/%E6%97%A5%E6%9C%AC%E3%83%86%E3%83%AC%E3%83%93%E7%B 3%BB-%E6%97%A5%E6%9B%9C%E3%83%89%E3%83%A9%E3%83%9E-%E3%83%89%E3%83%A9%E3%83%9E%E3%80%8C%E3%82%86%E3%8 1%A8%E3%82%8A%E3%81%A7%E3%81%99%E3%81%8C%E3%81%AA% E3%81%AB%E3%81%8B%E3%80%8D-%E3%82%AA%E3%83%AA%E3%82%B8%E3%83%8A%E3%83%AB%E3%8 3%BB%E3%82%B5%E3%82%A6%E3%83%B3%E3%83%89%E3%83%88% E3%83%A9%E3%83%83%E3%82%AF-%E5%B9%B3%E9%87%8E%E7%BE%A9%E4%B9%85/dp/B01D3MOAM0/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1461078310&sr=8-3&keywords=%E5%B9%B3%E9%87%8E%E7%BE%A9%E4%B9%85)
Why hello there. I haven't seen you in this thread in quite some time. Yes, I received my copy of the album last night. I'll post it later, I suppose.

By the way, I skimmed that drama but didn't hear anything too interesting (like the other drama he scored). Maybe he should just stick to anime.

Some fortunate (girlfriend) and unfortunate (feud with the family and some legal issues) stuff happened in real life so I have not had any time to listen to new music. I have only been streaming classical until I realized recently that I need me my favorite Japanese composers back in the mix. Just as I thought this morning that I will have time to sit down for some new music and maybe anime tonight, I saw your post about Hirano's new album! ;D

Some fortunate (girlfriend) and unfortunate (feud with the family and some legal issues) stuff happened in real life so I have not had any time to listen to new music. I have only been streaming classical until I realized recently that I need me my favorite Japanese composers back in the mix. Just as I thought this morning that I will have time to sit down for some new music and maybe anime tonight, I saw your post about Hirano's new album! ;D
I see. I hope you're able to get all those things sorted out. It would be sad to lose a friend of this thread such as yourself.

I actually just got three more CDs in the mail today (Oshima, Senju and others) so it'll take a bit longer to post the Hirano album since I now have 4 CDs to process instead of just one. Maybe tomorrow if I'm not busy.

Edit: I'm up late so I was able to get to it today.

UNLIMITED
Yoshihisa Hirano Contemporary Piano Works Collection #1



Ripped by nextday. Translated by Yoshihisa Hirano.

Sample: Nocturne of Princess Tankaku (http://picosong.com/KnCf/) http://i.imgur.com/v9WfOyB.gif

Download: https://mega.nz/#!sRNTmKTC!r1uvgvTnaMqiaV91vPeIojzUJzrvQtU0P-6aFxk4uYc

"I often compose film music in the technique of classical music such as counterpoint, and of course, atonal harmony.
I know that few film composers compose atonally recently, but I believe that it's worth doing to help people to find contemporary music." - Yoshihisa Hirano

In 2015, Hirano decided to take a break from scoring anime to focus on an album of his contemporary piano works. Included are four new pieces written in 2015, including a 20-minute piano sonata which was written specifically for this album. Playing the piano is the young virtuoso Yusuke Sato, who only needed two days to record the entire album. It's atonal, it's dissonant, it's not easy listening by any means. Whether you like or not will depend entirely on your taste. But if this is the kind of thing you enjoy, you might also consider checking out his previous album (Thread 57893) with pianist Masako Hosoda.

This stimulates my synapses. Masterfully crafted brain food if you ask me.




On another note, DISSIDIA Arcade is out... and there's barely 12 minutes of orchestral score but this recording video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ID_59PlHPmc) suggests that there is far more material recorded. I guess a second volume is planned?

Thank you for sharing the Hirano, nextday.

Instantly Hirano. Utterly glorious. Thank you! :D

Symphonic Princess ~ "Say Yes" ~ Dreams
The Tokyo Academy Chamber Orchestra, conducted by Hiroshi Kumagai
Orchestrated by Michiru Oshima, Hajime Mizoguchi, Akira Senju, Asuka Kaneko, Keiichi Oku & Junichi Kanezaki



Ripped, translated, etc. by nextday.

Samples http://i.imgur.com/v9WfOyB.gif
Seven Years After (Keiichi Oku) (http://picosong.com/KnYP/)
One (Michiru Oshima) (http://picosong.com/Knkg/)
Eyes to me (Asuka Kaneko) (http://picosong.com/KRF6/)

Download: https://mega.nz/#F!YV9GxYha!wagFZ-ayppsiv3oplQ30og

For a brief period of time in the early 90s the Japanese music industry decided that symphonic albums were going to be the next big thing. Unfortunately this trend didn't last more than a few years but we did get a handful of symphonic albums.

These three albums come from series of albums produced by Victor Entertainment from 1991 to 1995 (you may be familiar with one (Thread 166929) or two (Thread 177162) of them already). Participating as arrangers are a few names that should be familiar to those in this thread. Oshima, Senju, Mizoguchi and Kaneko all would have been in their early 30s at the time these albums were produced. Oku was in his late 30s while Kanezaki was in his early 40s. The original music was composed by Kaori Okui (Princess), Ryo Aska ("Say Yes") and Miwa Yoshida/Masato Nakamura (Dreams).

I bought these albums because Oshima's involvement but the other orchestrators also did some wonderful work. Some of the arrangements could have benefited from a larger professional orchestra but I guess that wasn't an option at the time. Still, there's some good music so I say these albums are worth a listen.

Nextday, thank you so much for those. I am only listening through my crappy earpiece at work but these albums are really lovely. I'm looking forward to home time even more now!

About Final Fantasy Arcade... Normally I'd say "nobody is mad enough to go all the way to London to record twelve minutes of music" but this is Japan... and the Final Fantasy games have a history of doing this... Usually it's the opening, the end roll, and one battle cue. I never understood why they record long end credit suites with the full symphony orchestra. Who the hell watches the end credits? I do, always - but they must know that 99.9% of the people playing the game will have turned off the console by then, so why are they blowing more than half of their music budget scoring it?

On the other hand, though, it would seem unusual given the amount of publicity that's been surrounding the score - would they really trumpet "WE'RE RECORDING AT ABBEY ROAD!" for the best part of six months and then we discover there's less than a quarter of an hour of music?

Two more by Michiru Oshima, including her only stage musical...

I'm Type "O" Aries: Thread 203452

Roman Holiday: Thread 203454

SMAP Symphonic Pops Vol. 1 & 2
Arranged and orchestrated by Junichi Kanezaki, Yoko Kanno, Hajime Mizoguchi, Akira Senju
Czech Philharmonic Chamber Orchestra (Vol. 1), Members of the Czech Philharmonic (Vol. 2), Mario Klemens (cond.)



Recording Date: February, 1994 / January, 1995
Recording Location: Dům umělců, Rudolfinum (Prague)
Release Date: 24.08.1994 / 24.03.1995

Volume 1:
1. Can't Stop!! -Loving- (arr. Akira Senju)
2. Tengoku No Kakera (arr. Hajime Mizoguchi)
3. Sayonara No Summer Rain (arr. Akira Senju)
4. Namida Moroi Woman (arr. Hajime Mizoguchi)
5. September Rain (arr. Yoko Kanno) (http://k003.kiwi6.com/hotlink/64qfjibfgf/1-5._September_Rain_arr._Yoko_Kanno_.mp3)
6. Egao no Genki (arr. Hajime Mizoguchi)
7. Cry (arr. Akira Senju) (http://k003.kiwi6.com/hotlink/a1t19hc4oa/1-7._Cry_arr._Akira_Senju_.mp3)
8. Kimi Iro Omoi (arr. Akira Senju)
Duration: 45:48

Volume 2:
1. Ganbarimashou (arr. Junichi Kanezaki)
2. My Childhood Friend ~Kagami no Naka no Radio~ (arr. Hajime Mizoguchi)
3. Juutai no Tanoshimikata (arr. Hajime Mizoguchi) ([url=http://k003.kiwi6.com/hotlink/1se5hs1n6h/2-3._Juutai_no_Tanoshimikata_arr._Hajime_Mizoguchi_. mp3)
4. Hey Hey Ooki ni Maido Ari (arr. Junichi Kanezaki) ([url=http://k003.kiwi6.com/hotlink/ljrlqr072i/2-4._Hey_Hey_Ooki_ni_Maido_Ari_arr._Junichi_Kanezaki _.mp3)
5. Original Smile (arr. Hajime Mizoguchi)
6. Gyoukai Jigoku Ichido wa Oide (arr. Akira Senju)
7. Tanbun All Right (arr. Akira Senju)
8. $10 (arr. Junichi Kanezaki)
Duration: 43:11

FLAC + LOG + SCANS
Vol. 1 - https://anon.click/kazok26 (Mega.nz Behind Capcha)
Vol. 2 - https://anon.click/pirew97 (Mega.nz Behind Capcha)

Ripped by Herr Salat.

Thank you. Those two are from the same series as the ones I posted above.

It's pretty interesting when you see all these high profile names like Oshima, Kanno and Senju. Back then, who would have guessed that they would one day be some of the top composers in Japan.

Anyways, I have one more from this series on the way. Czech Philharmonic featuring Akira Senju, Tomoyuki Asakawa & Masatsugu Shinozaki.

I love a good Chember orchestra. ;)

For a brief period of time in the early 90s the Japanese music industry decided that symphonic albums were going to be the next big thing. Unfortunately this trend didn't last more than a few years but we did get a handful of symphonic albums.This is the period I love the most. These sentimental albums are going in my big symphonic album collection. Thanks a bunch, nextday.

Thanks for the last symphonic uploads. All sound great :)

I see Shiro Sagisu is attached to the new Godzilla movie.

I'm sad Oshima isn't coming back, but at the same time where there is a Sagisu, there is an Amano... :D

How would Anno not count with Shiro Sagisu? Sagisu is also a pretty good composer!

Well, the possibility of two Amano contributions in summer certainly sounds exciting. Sagisu also delivered with Attack on Titan as already discussed before so I'm pretty optimistic. We also have Iwashiro's return for Arslan 2, Kaoru Wada being back again and even Akira Senju back to scoring what he scores best. Juding by the trailers, Nejimaki Seirei Senki (Keiji Inai?) and 91 days (Kaida Shougo) are candidates for great stuff as well. I'm also interested how Souma 2 and Amanchu will turn out.


On the other hand I'm not super impressed by this spring season. Yes the Main Theme for Endride is lovely but I heared quite a few pieces that suggest some penny-pinching. Overall there's numerous shows with solid orchestral scores but nothing stands out that much compared to Endride and we're also back with the abysmal bonus cd practices, Re:Zero being out in December.
In detail Re:Zero, Macross Delta, Hundred, PriPara, Gyakuten Saiban and Flying Witch have some good stuff so far. Big Order started promising before the trailer brass stabs but at least there's quite a few nice jazz and string pieces.




Oh and it's fairly certain there's more music coming from Final Fantasy Arcade, the term "part 1" or "the first" being used by various sources (unless google translate fails me). Wouldn't make sense otherwise, you can hear this huge final battle piece in the recording video so why remove it from the OST?






Before I forget it, many thanks for all those lovely symphonic albums, always a treat to hear early Oshima.

Score: Orchestral Game Music Concert

The Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra

Conducted by Charles Hazlewood



Download (https://mega.nz/#!iwRUVYpS!e_Ve7e7wOMngJ7yVnAe8FzzWBr1ZPK2Br4n4xy07SWk)



Journey - I Was Born For This: 06:00
Vocals: Sabina Zweiacker

Assassins Creed IV: Black Flag - Suite: 14:05
Orchestral Arrangement: Andreas Hedlund

Amiga Medley: 19:30
Orchestral Arrangement: Andreas Hedlund

Final Fantasy IX - Suite: 28:40
Orchestral Arrangement: Nils-Petter Ankarblom

The Last Of Us - All Gone No Escape: 38:10
Orchestral Arrangement: Andreas Hedlund

Super Mario Suite - 42:15
Orchestral Arrangement: Andreas Hedlund

Bloodborne - Suite: 53:40
Vocals: Sabina Zweiacker
Orchestral Arrangement: Andreas Hedlund

Megaman - Suite: 1:02:15
Orchestral Arrangement: Andreas Hedlund

The Legend Of Zelda - Suite: 1:11:54
Orchestral Arrangement: Nils-Petter Ankarblom

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim - The Dragonborn Comes - 1:31:05
Vocals: Sabina Zweiacker
Original vocal arrangement Malukah
Orchestral Arrangement: Andreas Hedlund

Final Fantasy VI - Aria Di Mezzo Carattere: 1:37:55
Vocals: Sabina Zweiacker
Orchestral Arrangement: Andreas Hedlund




The credit goes to youtube user "ornvik481" who uploaded the concert and also shrine user "X_Player" who made a custom album version here (Thread 200311).

I have to say, this little concert completely slipped under my radar. Overall it strikes a pleasant middleground between "Spielemusikkonzerte" and Video Games Live, feeling more like a Filmmusic concert than anything. There's far more hits than misses here but I raised an eyebrow when Bloodborne was played far too slow in parts and when Skyrim sounded like an outtake from PotC, even to the point I prefered the VGL arrangement (even with the retarded sound effects). Some choices like including The Last of Us and Black Flag feel like the typical "The Greatest Video Game Music (IRONY)" nonsense and as expected TLOU leaves no impression whatsoever but at least Black Flag manages to sound convincing. The Megaman Suite is excellent, far less pop than VGL and feels almost "japanese" in it's orchestration. The Super Mario Suite reminded me how desperately I need a Mario Symphonic album orchestrated by Tanaka. His playful orchestral fireworks would fit the scores like a glove. Here we also have some really nice moments from Galaxy 1 + 2 that would fit right into any Filmmusic concert. The Zelda suite is nowhere near Symphonic Legends level but pretty damn great. I was all the more surprised to hear perhaps the first orchestral arrangement of the entire field theme from Ocarina of Time which made me imagine just how some of my favorite classic games would feel like if the music was performed by such an excellent orchestra (I'm sure some scores were written with that in mind). I know we are already oversaturated with Final Fantasy concert music but it still is fine music and especially Aria Di Mezzo Carattere is just amazing, for a few moments I even thought I was listening to Morricone. Just a beautiful rousing finisher.

I can really recommend this concert and I hope more game concerts are at least being broadcasted in the future (I don't remember if Legends/London was ever shown on TV).


Oh, it also has some of the best orchestral concert camera work I've ever seen.

Thanks a lot!

Fascinating concert! The arrangements are occasionally very good. How odd to see Charles Hazlewood there... these British conductors don't have turn up in weird places!

And here I was thinking I was the only one who thought Spark Man's theme was worth arranging...

And here I was thinking I was the only one who thought Spark Man's theme was worth arranging...

and here i was thinking no one of you liked the concert because there was no mention of it since it came out.i listened to the megaman suite a dozen times at least.its glorious, especially the badass middle part

As I said, I did not even know about the concert until a few days ago. It just appeared on my youtube playlist so I was even more surprised by its quality :)


While we're on the topic of game music, here's Star Fox Zero, tagged and with no sudden cut.



STAR FOX ZERO
Koji Kondo, Hiroshi Yamaguchi, Yukari Suita, Hitomi Kurokawa, Naofumi Harada, Rei Kondoh & Keiki Kobayashi




Download (https://mega.nz/#!v5hiyRyD!2T3klaEtz-prDz3Ro_JEFXPZb5me6_KVXGL-yv0y5QA)
Gamerip / MP3 320 kbps / 47 Tracks / 72min


Sample (http://picosong.com/K4hZ)



Credit goes to "Vector Harbor" for ripping the game. I converted the ogg files, edited out abrupt cuts and put together a sensible tracklist. I've not played the game so I have no idea how accurate they are.


They weren't lying when they said the game is inspired by Thunderbirds. Record it live and nobody would raise an eyebrow if the music was used in Thunderbirds Are Go. It's also a case were the japanese "imitation" is superior to the original (I mean the remake, not Barry Gray's music). I'm just really disappointed Nintendo didn't even spent a single cent on recording at least the Theme, the Opening and the Credits. In the past you could be certain that one or two tracks would be performed live but these days Nintendo just keeps messing things up. Some of the tracks would certainly throw a far bigger punch or two if they were recorded by a Hollywood orchestra but synth can only go so far, especially if it's not even half of what samples can sound like these days.

Nonetheless I enjoyed it, now I'm crossing fingers that the End Credits Suite will be performed live at a concert in the future.

Thanks a lot!

Agreed. Star Fox was ALWAYS meant to be a space opera based on Hollywood flicks, Thunderbirds and all of that, and SHOULD have orchestra music. Just like Assault was simply fantastic.. and fitted perfectly and you could close your eyes and imagine perfectly that you were in a Space Armada..

So the new Starfox has zero live music and 100% synth?

So the new Starfox has zero live music and 100% synth?

Yep.

...And not even remotely impressive synth...

Not that I think the music itself is really worth an orchestra, but y'know... I'm a miserable shit. ;)

Coming soon: Two pieces of splendid vinyl from Herr Salat; one brand new transfer of an old favourite, one that perhaps holds the oldest and rarest Yasuo Higuchi on file. :)

http://www.hans-zimmer.com/index.php?rub=disco&id=1441

Well the first preview of Captain America Civil War by Henry Jackman is up. Thoughts anyone? I was really hoping to hear Silvestri's theme somewhere and I think I heard woodwinds in this! Is it bad when I hear a modern Hollywood score and I get excited when I hear the most neglected section in recent Hollywood scores?

There are moments which are surprisingly competent... Particularly at 5:50 in the suite; very old fashioned - a four note descending motif that goes through some modulations I don't think we've heard from a mainstream Hollywood score in twenty years.

It's highly depressing to think that the same medium that produced Ben Hur, Star Wars, Superman, and Chinatown is now being praised for simply using the instruments of the symphony orchestra.

A genre which has taken a thousand steps backwards, has edged one step ahead. It's all about proportion. In the world of vinyl sales, it's often said that they're increasing and heralding the return of vinyl and the triumph of analogue over digital, but if you sell one record this year and three next year, your sales have "surged" by 300%. The CEO of a company that plans to make 100,000 people redundant but eventually only loses 50,000 can make a rousing speech saying "our careful management and diligence helped keep 50,000 in work".

Depressing moaning post (c) Tangotreats. ;)

Lately, I'm in love with the saxophone.


Debussy
Beau Soir (arr. Yasuo Higuchi) [4:41] ♫ (http://k003.kiwi6.com/hotlink/te7n94mrjh/15._Debussy-_Beau_Soir_arr._Yasuo_Higuchi_.mp3)
Nobuya Sugawa (sax), Minako Koyanagi (piano), et al. // Arrangement for sax, piano and orchestra*

From the 2002 album "Sugar: Nobuya Sugiwa Best Selection" (EMI Music Japan)
This arrangement was first released on the album "Beau Soir: Ballade Collection" (1997, EMI Music Japan)

AAC (from iTunes Japan)
mega.nz (https://mega.nz/#!OwxiRJRS!Wr4nzQT4cd-zCA3OMP7C0hejEA-sPzTfM7KJTe2ysmI)

Thought I might post this since Higuchi will come up... This art song (lyrics by Bourget) has been arranged for saxopone before (Eugene Rousseau, tenor sax (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FD0cnpESvL8)). Yasuo Higuchi's arrangement adds an orchestra into the mix (previously he added an orchestra to Debussy's Clair de lune here: Instant Classics, 1983 album (Thread 57893)). Yoko Kanno's track Moon Whale (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=92pJmq6pCfs&feature=youtu.be&t=85) from Turn A Gundam has a section similar to Beau Soir.

*Having read Sugawa's official website and other sites, I not sure whether the other credits are the Philharmonia Orchestra of London with David Parry conducting, or a studio orchestra with Yasuo Higuchi conducting.


Vers Demain
Shinichiro Hikosaka (alto sax), et al.



Release Date: 2009
Publisher: Florestan

AAC (from iTunes Germany)
mega.nz (https://mega.nz/#!W0RynDTI!ipuKH15vghbmcxNzaQmVABnsexwGqCWAtRD09XhghdU)

1. to 4. Toshihiko Sahashi - Your Precious Days (1st movt. A Province of Children ♫ (http://k003.kiwi6.com/hotlink/e5wn7s40tq/01._Your_Precious_Days_Sahashi_-_I._A_Province_of_Children.mp3) / 2nd movt. A Present for You / 3rd movt. The Opposition / 4th movt. To the Future ♫ (http://k003.kiwi6.com/hotlink/9b5kwitj5c/04._Your_Precious_Days_Sahashi_-_IV._To_the_Future.mp3))
5. Toshiyuki Honda - Niramekko
6. William Walton - Touch Her Soft Lips and Part (from Henry V, arr. Miho Hazama for sax and piano)
7. Toshiyuki Honda - Kaerimichi
8. Phil Woods - The Morning Walk (from Children's Suite, arr. for sax and piano) ♫ (http://k003.kiwi6.com/hotlink/oy3omn8l2t/08._The_Morning_Walk_Woods_from_Children_s_Suite_a rr._for_sax_and_piano_.mp3)
9. to 13. Jun Nagao - Vers Demain (1st movt. Le Matin / 2nd movt. Le Jour / 3rd movt. Le Soir / 4th movt. La Nuit / 5th movt. Vers Demain)
14. Gustav Mahler - Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen (from Ruckert-Lieder, arr. for sax and piano)
15. Milton Nascimento - Travessia (arr. for sax and piano)

It isn't orchestral but here is what I am working on lately and this will release this summer. It is all 100% acoustic performance and the album is called The Travelers. This styling is something new to me but I had a lot of fun studying European Folk music.

https://soundcloud.com/josh-barron/dissipating-sorrow-the-travelers

Herr Salat - those are glorious, thank you!!! That album is crazy... what a list of names, and glorious music too!

I've updated the links to the Instant Classics album - thank you for pointing it out. Stupid Mega seems to have "forgotten" how to parse old links that point to mega.co.nz/blahblah... Bugger. That means I've got three years of posts to trek through...

:)

Well listening to Captain America: Civil War and I so far it has some strong thematic material (and I hear some of Silvestri's themes). It is certainly better than Winter Soldier! Still wish Jackman would stop with the synth garbage, but at least it doesn't feature as much as in Winter Soldier.

Those are indeed fantastic, thank you very much for finding and sharing this (obscure) stuff, Herr Salat, "Meister der verborgenen Sch�tze" :D

@JBarron2005 There are some really nice moments and hearing a shameless woodwind flutter in a major action track is certainly unexpected. Overall it's a step in the right direction, but "strong thematic material" is giving it too much credit. Take any Hollywood score from 20 years ago: Stargate, Indipendence Day, Cutthroat Island etc... all scores with thematic material I would label "strong". But compared to the average Blockbuster of today I guess it's reasonable enough. Hopefully this trend will continue for the next Marvel movies.






Akito Matsuda

Sound! Euphonium ~The Movie~

Remastered




Download (https://mega.nz/#!voABHDKb!tiGLp__c7Y-_NB_ALz6I-cUQ6G4l0MG93BFtPR818Xc)
Sample (http://picosong.com/KS9J)


It's been a while since I last did one of these. This time it serves as an alternative listening to the dry, intimate, almost "in-the-studio" sound of the original. I made this one with the old-fashioned mindeset of "This is the Movie!!". It now sounds bigger, lusher and more Hollywood. Think of all the old schmalzy Big-Screen romance scenes and you get my intention. The score is the usual nice afternoon score but with a few standouts appearing in the second half that convince me that Matsuda certainly can write BIG music when asked for. I hope a big-budget project gets into his hands someday. The album itself is worth it just for the new arrangement of DREAM SOLISTER. It sits right alongside the Girls und Panzer concert songs and makes me think time and time again if one day the majority of people will notice that artificial electronic sounds might not be the best choice to go with the human voice all the time.



Enjoy

Yoko Kanno's track Moon Whale (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=92pJmq6pCfs&feature=youtu.be&t=85) from Turn A Gundam has a section similar to Beau Soir.

That part always reminds me of this section from Lennie Moore's Outcast: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L2S5w86wxCk&t=4m10s

That part always reminds me of this section from Lennie Moore's Outcast: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L2S5w86wxCk&t=4m10s

It's been nine years since that thread and STILL I am learning just how deep Kanno's rabbit hole descends...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mpqQVgjHmKo

New soundtrack by Neal Acree called Revelation. I like the theme and the performance is nice :).

Could someone reupload: Yasuo Higuchi - Orientation "A Thousand Calabashes" / Violin Concerto "KOMA"

I thought I had it but I don't.


Edit: Yugo Kanno wrote a symphony.



I wonder if it will be released on CD. Same with Oshima's symphony from last year.

I often see these classical works from Japanese composers but it seems like 99% of the time they're just performed once and then never heard again. I don't get it.

Fascinating!!! Recently Kanno's media project were very much low-key and unexciting so I hope it was because of all his efforts going into his symphony.

To be honest, when "Media" composers aproach the classical world, what we end up with is most of the time just a more sophisticated mosaic of film score segments. Prime example being Horner who had numerous opportunities to show what talent he really pocesses but ultimately delievered Battle beyond the Stars and Star Trek II with less character.

On the other hand you have composers who write for a media project but end up writing something very close to a real symphony. Katsuro Tajima's Katamari and Lennie Moore's Outcast spring to mind. In general my favorite composers all have at least tried to write a symphony or something very close to it. I'm of course dying to hear what Oshima has composed and it would be a travesty to not release it. But this year continues to be about the revivial of symphonic concerts and albums, Granblue Fantasy being another project to get one so I hope that the symphonic album will be profitable again in Japan.

It's strange that modern-day composers feel the need to call their first symphony "No. 1". What if they never write a second?

Could someone reupload: Yasuo Higuchi - Orientation "A Thousand Calabashes" / Violin Concerto "KOMA"

OK, that's spooky. That was the "other" Higuchi I mentioned a few days ago, in a brand new transfer!

It should be up in about an hour. :)


Edit: Yugo Kanno wrote a symphony.

That's a very, very thin symphony... ;)

OK, that's spooky. That was the "other" Higuchi I mentioned a few days ago, in a brand new transfer!

It should be up in about an hour. :)
Ooh, thank you.


That's a very, very thin symphony... ;)
He said it's around 50 minutes, I think.

A Herr Salat / Tangotreats Co-Production

YASUO HIGUCHI
Orientation "A Thousand Calabashes" (1978)
Violin Concerto "KOMA"
The Philharmonia Virtuosi Of New York
Mamoru Takahara, Conductor
Oscar Ravina, Solo violin
Richard Kapp, Musical Director



My transfer from Herr Salat's vinyl. Scans (brand new 2016 HQ scans, as well as original 2013 scans) are included. Track titles in English. Requests for LOGs and CUEs will be mailed to North Korea for the personal attention of Kim Jong Fun.

NEW April 2016 Transfer (213mb) https://mega.nz/#!x84hSQwK!6o862tvli42mH3ydw1iAhykeU90j3D8ZGM93svg6tQw

OLD January 2013 Transfer (you don't want this, but you might, I don't know, it's there so you may as well have it) (153mb) https://mega.nz/#!N9Yj1QTT!G535PWicx3iFtgPvy0kfHiyxQU9WPAVcqejok4A8dNs

This is a brand new transfer made on my new turntable in April 2016, replacing my January 2013 transfer made on inferior equipment.

Edited 2013 notes follow.

Herr Salat (a kind, generous man with impeccable taste) is the man to thank for making this wonderful music available. He jumped through some hoops and paid dizzing fees to Japanese middleman agencies to obtain this old and very rare LP. From Japan to Germany, the record finally ended up in my care, here in England - and I transferred it to the digital domain. I can say without doubt that the time I spent doing so gave me my happiest hours for I-don't-know-how-many months. After tumultiuous years, listening to this glorious album, gave me back peace and joy.

Yasuo Higuchi is a name that should be foremost in the mind of any music lover. He wrote what is probably my favourite score of all time; for Suguru Sugiyama's breathtaking Phoenix 2772 - both film and score immeasurably ahead of their time in 1980. As irony would have it, he is perhaps the least prolific genius the world has ever known - at 62 years of age he has scored only a handful of film and television projects and a similar number of concert hall classical works, two of which are on this album.

Osamu Tezuka came to hear one of these works - the sublime Violin Concerto - and immediately fell in love with it, leading to Higuchi's engagement as composer for Phoenix 2772. Tezuka initially asked permission to simply use the violin concerto in the film, but Higuchi finished up completely re-orchestrating and substantially revising his concerto - it is played almost in full and completely uninterrupted by sound effects and dialogue - and writing a full score based around it. Here, you will be able to hear the original concerto, in its original form for small chamber orchestra.

This is not an album of symphonic acrobatics or virtuosity; it is an album of sublime beauty and intimacy. For those who may worry that Higuchi's foray into "serious" classical music would turn out to be some monstrously pretentious piece of avant garde squeaky-gate nonsense, please let me dispel your worries. Classical Higuchi is warm, romantic, eloquent, approachable, and lyrical.

I simply adore every note of this album. It is an expression of pure joy. This is music that lives and breathes, and is plainly happy to be alive. I'm now considerably happier to be alive for hearing it - and eternally grateful to Herr Salat for his efforts, without which my life wouldn't have been thus enriched.

The performance is, likewise, absolutely first rate.

BONUS TRACK: I have included two cues from Phoenix 2772 which, when stitched together, present a reasonably complete version of the violin concerto in its full orchestral version. Orchestra 2772 is conducted by The Composer, with Mariko Senju (Akira Senju's younger sister) playing the solo part.

If you enjoy this album and you're not familiar with Phoenix 2772... it can be found here: Thread 88354

A few technical notes in the spoiler...

Despite being pressed in 1979 and now rarer than a Firebird's tooth (har har) Herr Salat managed to locate a copy of this album that appears to have been never played - this must be the easiest vinyl transfer I have ever made. I have manually edited out the handful of light clicks that were present, and lowered rumble. That's all - what you hear is simply what's on this beautiful record. There are a handful of jumps here and there which are the result of poor editing in the studio; they are NOT vinyl artifacts or groove skips.

Additional; no matter what a certain subset of the audiophile community will tell you, vinyl is not the perfect audio reproduction means, though it can reach an almost miraculous level of quality bearing in mind the crudity of the technology itself. Since a record rotates at 33.3rpm at all times, the absolute rotation speed (ie, how much vinyl is passing under the stylus in a given unit of time) decreases as the tonearm moves toward the centre of the record. This means that high frequencies and loud passages sometimes attract distortion or roll-off near the end of the record. Side A contains 17 minutes of music, and finishes with a comfortable area of dead wax. However, Side B is stuffed - 24 minutes of music, which is just pushing the limits of what can be comfortably accommodated on a 12 inch disk. Accordingly there is some minor distortion and high frequency drop-off towards the end of the violin concerto. It's the sound of vinyl, folks - like it, or lump it, that's what it is. (And it's a great deal better on the 2016 transfer, benefitting from an audiophile cartridge, a Vital-tipped stylus, and a professionally calibrated tonearm.) :)

Please enjoy this gorgeous album; 45 minutes of some of the most magnificent music ever written... and please put your hands together and applaud Herr Salat; truly one in a million. Thank you, friend. :)



---------- Post added at 11:57 PM ---------- Previous post was at 11:32 PM ----------


He said it's around 50 minutes, I think.

If there's 50 minutes of completed symphony (even in short score) on what looks like about a dozen sheets of A4 paper held together in a flimsy plastic binder, I pity the poor conductor who premiers it because he's going to need the Hubble telescope to read it, or it's going to make "Adagio" sound like Flight Of The Bumblebee.

Then again, the pencil on top of the "manuscript" makes it look like a (not particularly carefully) choreographed "I'm an overworked genius and this is my magnum-opus" shot instead of anything substantial. Yugo Kanno writes a smashing afternoon drama theme, but he's the last composer on this planet (with the possible exception of Hiroyuki Sawano) I would ever expect a symphony from.

Brahms was so intimiated by the mere term "symphony" (and more specifically, Beethoven's legacy) that he spent over twenty years writing his first. Now we've got every Tom, Dick, and Yugo coming in writing symphonies.

I'll be FASCINATED to hear it, of course... but I'm not going to hold out much hope that this is going to be anywhere near a masterpiece. If it's anything like his Trombone Concerto...

Wow... this makes my synapses as well as my heart dance with joy which happens very rarely. It has a quality to it that is almost out of this world. In my mind "A Thousand Calabashes" evoked classic Disney for a while before drifing towards a 1920 documentary of a metropolis until it ends with a Fantasia scene of a Tchaikovskian dance. Higushi's Violin melody is perhaps the most delicate thing I've ever heard from a japanese composer, even Oshima has not quite nailed it as perfect as Higuchi. Your collaboration unearthed another miracolous treasure, restored with utmost care and presented with great love. The hightest praise to you two gentlemen. Carry on!

:D

Did you miss this the first time around?

I somehow did not get around listening to "A Thousand Calabashes" before, I just don't know why... The Violin Concerto I've heared before but upon revisting it I just had to comment :D

I have made a better transfer of the 1977 Electone Festival, on which 16 year-old Michiru Oshima contributes two pieces. Please download it from here: Thread 202154

Winds of God (1995 movie with music by Michiru Oshima) and Winds of God: Kamikaze (2006 TV re-make with music by Sojiro Nomura): Thread 204191

So it seems Spotify released rare recordings from composer Ralph Vaughan Williams... I am presently listening to them and they are quite good, but am I surprised? Not at all :).

Oh and here is my official website for all things regarding my projects and music schtuff :).

https://joshbarronmusic.wordpress.com/

I actually thought Captain America Civil War was more impressive musically than the original Captain America film by Silvestri at least as far as the themes used in the film go. Silvestri's march for Captain America was quite good but got relegated to the credits and rarely got proper treatment on screen. At least this new film had some good use of the new theme, even if it isn't particularly strong, at least it sticks with you a bit. Considering I left Winter Soldier not remembering a note of that music they certainly went in the right direction here.

I've been more impressed by the music for the new Jungle Book film though. John Debney really knocked this one out of the park. The new themes are lovely and he wrote some great arrangements of the classic themes as well. I have become seriously impressed by the music over time both on the album and as heard in the film. This is the kind of music we don't hear enough these days.

I actually thought Captain America Civil War was more impressive musically than the original Captain America film by Silvestri at least as far as the themes used in the film go. Silvestri's march for Captain America was quite good but got relegated to the credits and rarely got proper treatment on screen. At least this new film had some good use of the new theme, even if it isn't particularly strong, at least it sticks with you a bit. Considering I left Winter Soldier not remembering a note of that music they certainly went in the right direction here.

I really didn't think Jackman would take a more orchestral approach after his Winter Soldier disaster. Figured we'd get the same synthetic garbage, but this was quite a surprise. I even thought I heard a slight nod to the Avenger's theme in a couple of places. I really like the end of the track Closure.

A thirsty man walked for days through the desert, his tiny bottle of water long since exhausted. The light began to dim. He felt his lifeforce begin to ebb away. Just as he felt all was lost, he found in the sand... a thimble of luke-warn stagnant tea.

Better than no water at all... but, y'know... ;)

A thirsty man walked for days through the desert, his tiny bottle of water long since exhausted. The light began to dim. He felt his lifeforce begin to ebb away. Just as he felt all was lost, he found in the sand... a thimble of luke-warn stagnant tea.

Better than no water at all... but, y'know... ;)

thankfully much better than grannys peach tea

I love peach tea! ;)

Look at that Tango, MacFarlane is actually doing a SciFi TV-series next year, what are the odds (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RFdTgHBnlxM&t=1m05s) :D

FASCINATING! Even if you're the kind of person who doesn't get Seth MacFarlane or just hates his guts... you have to admit that if he's involved in this show to any realistic extent, the odds of it having a good score have improved dramatically.

Merely the *possibility* of Ron Jones returning to episodic television sci-fi has to be celebrated; even if it comes to nothing.

http://kancolle-orchestra.com/

It was only a matter of time. The concert actually took place yesterday.

Daisuke Ehara is the lead orchestrator. The other arrangers are Souhei Kano (3 tracks), Shingo Nishimura (3 tracks), Kayoko Naoe (5 tracks) and Ayana Tsujita (2 tracks).

A CD release is in the works. Appears to be only music from the game, not the anime.

More Souhei Kano? Ah, that almost makes up for the pisshole DAY FROM HELL I had. :D

Well it happened, Varese finally released the expanded Starship Troopers, a whole 2 discs worth. I have never seen the film so I can't say if the missing material is worth the release but this is such a lovely score by Poledouris that I will gladly partake of. Also in this batch is the expanded score to Silvestri's Volcano which sounds from the samples to be much more entertaining action score than his recent Marvel efforts.

Well it happened, Varese finally released the expanded Starship Troopers, a whole 2 discs worth. I have never seen the film so I can't say if the missing material is worth the release but this is such a lovely score by Poledouris that I will gladly partake of. Also in this batch is the expanded score to Silvestri's Volcano which sounds from the samples to be much more entertaining action score than his recent Marvel efforts.

starship troopers is pure awesomeness through and through.but volcano, while a lot of fun is too long now.get the original album.only a few minutes of interesting material added to the new release.not worth it imho.(all i listen to from it are building the wall and march of the lava, anyway.)

Well too late now ;) Ordered both of them already.

Took long enough if you ask me, now how about Prince of Thieves, anyone? ;)


The score is certainly among Poledouris best. It's not Conan but a classic SciFi score with much militaristic bravado, greatly enhancing the film. I have it on Blu-Ray and it's amazing how great the special effects still hold up. Verhoeven also hits all the right notes with this one for me, just be mindful that it's all satire and not straightforward.



@nextday: I hope just one piece will deal with Kameoka's material. In my mind I can sort of conjure a ten minute symphonic suite that covers everything essential. Regardless, I'm excited.

I prefer the more straightforward traditional style in Starship Troopers over the more ethnic inspired Conan scores so to me it rates much higher. But I see how many people rank Conan higher musically.

Chris Huelsbeck has started a second kickstarter project to record the music of Turrican II with the FILMharmonic Orchestra Prague, arranged by Roger Wanamo and Jonne Valtonen.

Turrican II � The Orchestral Album (https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/chris-huelsbeck/turrican-ii-live-orchestra-album-by-chris-huelsbec/)

Chris Huelsbeck has started a second kickstarter project to record the music of Turrican II with the FILMharmonic Orchestra Prague, arranged by Roger Wanamo and Jonne Valtonen.

Turrican II – The Orchestral Album (https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/chris-huelsbeck/turrican-ii-live-orchestra-album-by-chris-huelsbec/)
Roger Wanamo and Jonne Valtonen do some great work. Will definitely back this. Thanks for the heads up.

LOL, what a crock of marketing horseshit. Have you read the Kickstarter page?


We’re very lucky to have secured the hugely talented FILMharmonic Orchestra Prague to perform the music. They are one of the most sought after recording orchestras in Europe

How on earth are you "lucky" to have "secured" an orchestra who will literally work for any idiot on the planet as long as they pay? (And, how can you say you've "secured" anything until you've paid your deposit and signed your contract? Basically, somebody said to the orchestra "Hey, can you do this?", the orchestra said "Sure, it'll cost this amount of money", and they said "OK, cool, we'll call you when we get paid."

They're not one of the most "sought after" recording orchestras in Europe... they're one of the CHEAPEST.

I'm all for this project, but I wish people wouldn't make up bullshit and lies to extract money out of gullible people.

Why wouldn't they just be honest and say "We plan to record with the FILMHarmonic Orchestra in Prague, which is affordable and has produced some excellent work on This, That, and The Other."

I see they are after $75,000 for this... that is a high but somewhat realistic goal given the cost of recording, plus the cost of orchestration (Valtonen and Wanamo aren't likely to be cheap) plus all the inevitable marketing overspend and superfluous bonus nonsense (a limited vinyl edition? PLEASE!!!) they will inevitably create.

It's better than those idiots at ZREO trying to blag $20,000 for some shitty choral overlays to their badly orchestrated MIDI monstrosity.

Giving a quick listen to the Turrican II soundtrack on youtube I'm shocked that the original concert recording of his work ended up sounding like much of anything. This isn't a simple orchestrating of an already orchestral score but translating something that sounds like cheap 80s dance music to an orchestral album. The only thing that I noticed remotely impressive out of the part I listened to was that he managed to get the synths to fairly imitate a metal guitar solo.

I see they are after $75,000 for this... that is a high but somewhat realistic goal given the cost of recording, plus the cost of orchestration (Valtonen and Wanamo aren't likely to be cheap) plus all the inevitable marketing overspend and superfluous bonus nonsense (a limited vinyl edition? PLEASE!!!) they will inevitably create.
The orchestra, studio, orchestration, travel expenses, hotel costs, mixing, mastering, CD/vinyl printing, score preparation, etc. all for $75,000 actually seems pretty cheap to me.

I managed to price a similar recording for just under half that sum - cutting a few corners here and there, doing a fair bit of the work myself and having volunteers help with the rest, but it's doable. I tend to think that when you're spending other people's money you should forego luxuries and do strictly what is necessary to achieve a good result.

If you're on a budget, there is no such thing as hotel costs and travel expenses because nobody needs to travel anywhere. A remote record session can be set up in minutes and there's nothing you can't do in a remote session that you could do by actually being there - except that by being there you're increasing the budget by $1000 per person travelling. You can bet there will be half a dozen to a dozen people in tow - five people (Bocker, Valtonen, Wanamo, Huelsbeck, and a copyist) as an absolute barest minimum. All you need to make a remote session work is a good pair of headphones, a microphone, a computer, an internet connection.

Then there's all this hopeless flannel (fancy artwork, box sets, a vinyl edition, a collector's edition, etc, etc, etc) - all complete bollocks which just inflates the price.

There are cheaper ways to do this - none of which would have any impact at all on the quality of the final recording.

George Oldziey received $42,000 for the Wing Commander project and that's just over twenty minutes of recording. He wasted money on an unnecessarily large orchestra (94 musicians - for crying out loud that could've gone down to 74 and literally nobody would've noticed but the bill would drop by thousands of dollars) and then he paid for British conductor Allan Wilson who, in addition to his fee, has to fly to Bratislava, stay in a hotel, eat, drink, and travel between the hotel and the hall. Wilson is a good conductor, but the orchestra can provide a Czech conductor for a tenth of the price and he won't have any travel expenses at all aside from a bus fare or two. We are not talking about a classical masterpiece here which needs *just* the right conductor to bring out the inherent heavenly glory in the score. It's an album of unimaginatively orchestrated cues from a twenty year-old computer game. If the orchestra has a click track (they are all wearing headphones at the recording session so there's no reason why they shouldn't have had) you don't even NEED a conductor. This is not hard music.

Oldziey himself orchestrated the music, and admitted in the interview that due to the way the original scores were written, it was little more than copyist work. No orchestrators needed to be paid.

Then, you've got Christ-knows how many other people travelling to the sessions - interviewers, documentary producers, assistants, etc. Assuming they're going from the USA to Bratislava, each and ever7

They spent four times more money on that project than they needed to.

This pisses me off beyond belief - wastage annoys me ANYWAY, but when it's with other people's money it makes me livid.

I'll take your word for it as far the pricing goes. I have a rough idea of how much these things cost but you seem to have an even better idea.

That said, if people are willing to spend the money is there really a problem? You get what you pay for.

They're not getting what they paid for - they're paying for a dozen people to jet off on expensive holidays.

All these things are written in marketing bullshit speak (the FILMharmonic orchestra being virtually impossible to obtain and one of Europe's finest orchestras - WHAAAT?!) and are explicitly budgeted to allow extravagances that don't do anything for anyone except the team putting it together.

What it boils down to is that a composer would rather fly off to a big European city and prance around in a famous concert hall in front of a big orchestra acting like Very Important People, than sit in their bedroom in their boxer shorts watching the session over Skype.

If a company wants to pay somebody to do that and then try to make money back by selling CDs, fine, their loss...

If a company is asking YOU to fund the project (ie, buy the thing before it's even been created) then that is just immoral.

IMHO, of course. :)

I agree with tangotreats. Is that score even good material for orchestration?

This suite (https://youtu.be/0V0bN-xoTys) should approximate what you're getting since it's from the same production team.

I'm not a fan of the marketing speak either, but I also understand that they want to present enthusiasm to encourage donations and I can't blame them for not going with "We're assembling a competent team of professionals to create a satisfactory product." That just doesn't quite get the blood pumping. And, to be fair to Huelsbeck, he got the line about the FILMharmonic from their website (http://www.musa.cz/filmharmonic-orchestra.htm). I'm more nonplussed that of the two stretch goals, the first is for more artwork and only the second is for more music and adding chorus. Since the music is what's paramount and the art is basically fluff, this seems totally backwards to me.

Still, I backed it because I'd rather this exists than not.

Well, you can use marketing speak and still be telling the truth. Exciting, dynamic language, combined with a little bit of healthy spin, etc, is all part of the experience - but some of that stuff is just pure, undiluted horseshit: or, to put it another way, lies.

There's a difference between washing and waxing an old car you want to sell to try to get more money, and pretending the car is a brand new Mercedes in order to sell it and then quietly delivering a twenty year-old rusty Ford and hoping the buyer doesn't complain.

"This exciting album will be recorded by the very well-known FILMHarmonic Orchestra Prague, who have performed on some of the most popular orchestral game scores of recent years - if you've heard the Final Fantasy Orchestral Album, The Elder Scrolls Online, Civilization: Beyond Earth, Halo Wars, Everquest, Final Fantasy Duodecim, or Monster Hunter 3 Tri, you know what they can do - and they'll be doing it for us!"

Blah blah blah, etc - no lies, just a lot of spin.

They're asking for - at best - twice as much money as they actually need. You and I and especially Oldziey himself all know that it was possible to complete his project for half as much money, and get more music recorded - and if I'd been doing it I would've made sure to spend the extra five minutes writing proper endings for the pieces rather than just looping and fading out! I'm not talking about a "satisfactory" project - I'm talking about a final product aurally indistinguishable (perhaps even better) from what actually got made. My budgeting would have prohibited extravagant Czech holidays and the chance to stomp around world-famous concert halls and recording studios looking imporant, but the music would've got recorded, better, for less time, and with less money.

They are asking for money to fund the thing. Back in the the good old days, somebody (a record company, an executive, whatever) would take the financial hit and then they'd sell copies of their album hoping to make a tidy profit or at the very least break even. Nowadays, nobody's willing to do that with cult-interest expensive projects just in case they flop and all the money disappears... so they ask people to "donate" and budget and if they can whip up enough interest they're in a nice, risk free situation - everything's already paid for, so they can go off and have a blast. If they got $70,000 and they only really needed $30,000, weeellll... let's all fly first class, let's stay in the Hilton, let's do it in the Rudolfinum instead of the Czech Radio Studio 1 because it'll "sound better", let's put twenty more people in the orchestra just because, let's bring along my wife, my kids, my brother, my best friend, and if anybody asks I'll say they're a "documentary team", let's bring in my expensive conductor buddy from England even though any old Czech conductor would do it for $200. If I ever did a Kickstarter, I'd do the sessions by remote control, and if there was some convincing reason I couldn't do that and I had to go somewhere, I'd fly EasyJet, stay in modest accomodation, and only take myself or at least the barest minimum number of people I could get away with.


And, to be fair to Huelsbeck, he got the line about the FILMharmonic from their website...

It's still bullshit, and if you voluntarily put somebody else's bullshit on your website, you're just as guilty as if you'd formed the bullshit yourself.

I would sincerely hope Chris Huelsbeck - a composer - would have basic information about the orchestra drawn from his own experience and his own research. If he has nothing and must rely on doing a copy-and-paste from the orchestra's own website, that further fuels my suspicion that you CANNOT count on the Kickstarter organisers to spend your cash responsibly.


Still, I backed it because I'd rather this exists than not.

Quite right, and me too... It just annoys me to see money squandered like this when the proper orchestral score itself is on life support and good composers have to fight tooth and nail for nothing more extravagant than a couple of flutes and a trumpet for their score... and we've got Kickstarters springing up for EGO PROJECTS pure and simple.

I will stop moaning now. :)

I think the music will be good still when you have competent arrangers and hopefully a competent recording staff.

I don't know if you guys are familiar with this person, but seeing that you guys have been talking about Japanese composers recently, some sad news that came out about 5 days ago:

Tomita Isao dies aged 54 (http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/12/arts/music/isao-tomita-widely-considered-the-father-of-japanese-electronic-music-dies-at-84.html?_r=0).

Famous for interpreting (could not find the right word for it) Debussy's works such as "Clair de Lune" and Holst's "The Planets". Famous in Japan for composing well known pieces and soundtracks such as "Kimba the Lion (Jungle Taitei)" "Shin Nippon Kikou" and numerous taiga drama themes such as "Hana no Shougai", "Katsu Kaishu", and "Tokugawa Ieyasu". He was 84 years old. :(

I think the music will be good still when you have competent arrangers and hopefully a competent recording staff.

I reckon so. I'm hoping this is going to turn into something akin to Symphonic Shades. Huelsbeck is a good composer and his style fits with Valtonen's like a glove. I don't doubt the finished result will be good, and it could well turn out to be wonderful. I only wish they were transparent about what was happening to the money and were using it to make things better instead of to fund international ego trips.

Arrowhead: Thank you, that's really sad. I can't say I was a fan of his electronic "reimagining" of orchestral music, but as a composer he was a genius. Active right up until the end, the world has lost yet another fine musician. RIP Tomita. :(

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1371339770/dragon-quest-live/

Has anybody seen THIS monstrosity? This man should be ashamed to be alive after putting this horseshit out there. He has absolutely NO IDEA WHATSOEVER but he's still got the balls to ask for $14,000.

The project is as follows: He will "ask" music directors of two randomly selected orchestras with no prior involvement in game music to play "Kioshi Sugiyama's" (or "Kiochi Sugiyama's" - he uses both interchangeable throughout the campaign) to play Dragon Quest music in a concert hall. It contains repeated misspellings of the composer's name, factual inaccuracies, outright lies, a shocking lack of foresight, and exists completely outside of reality.

Apparently, all you have to do to get a video game concert going is to *ASK* the music director of an international-class symphony orchestra, ask "Koishi Sugiyama" and Square Enix if "it's OK" , hire a concert hall, buy some sheet music, and bang, there you go - and all this can happen for "probably a little more" than $14,000.

So, let's do a little bit of maths. $14,000 would get you one of the cheapest orchestras in the world (the City of Prague Philharmonic) for about two hours. If you're using an American orchestra, let's be conservative and double it. Let's say for the sake of complete and utter insanity you put on one concert only and somehow manage to squash your rehearsals into one day. You're going to need the orchestra for one full working day (barest minimum) for rehearsal and another working day to play on "the night" - normal practice is to do most of your rehearsing in a cheaper room before going into the concert hall to rehearse for "the night" - so you're going to need that orchestra for two full working days; that's 16 hours, at about $14,000 per hour. So, the orchestra is going to cost $224,000 - you're $210,000 over budget and and you haven't even got a venue and staff, a conductor, permission to play the music, the music itself, or anybody to promote the concert, sell tickets, etc.

In 2005, you could hire the Barbican in London for �6,600 (about $10,000) per night plus VAT - inflation pushes up the price by about $200 a year, so let's say by now it's around $12,000. I would guess a good venue in the US would cost around the same, maybe a little less if you go outside of the capital city. That price includes use of the hall, dressing rooms, three hours of rehearsal before the concert, piano, staff, stewards, programme sellers, Box Office service, accountants, lighting, and an Event Manager, so that's your "on-the-night" venue and ticket sales sorted out. We've got a venue and an orchestra, but we're $234,000 over budget and we still don't have a conductor, permission to play the music, the music itself, or a concert promoter. And you have to book this a year before the concert, pay a deposit, and comply with God-knows how many guidelines.

You have to pay to get the members of the orchestra (and some of their instruments which are too heavy to get on the train; bass drum, timpani, harp, chimes, etc, etc) to the venue. You can get a conductor for a few hundred $ an hour.

The campaign states that getting permission to play the music "shouldn't be a problem" - no, it won't be a problem but it's not going to be free. For what is being touted as a high-standard symphonic concert performed by an excellent orchestra and a world-famous counductor, we can safely say the licence to publically perform this music will run into thousands (AT LEAST).

Assume the concert will limit its scope of music to pieces which have already been orchestrated and prepared for performance, all you need is to buy the sheet music and either have a copyist produce parts (that's ninety different parts multipled by the number of pages in the score) or if you're lucky you can buy those too... I have no idea how much THAT would cost, but you would have to pay for them to be shipped (invariably from Japan) and transported to the rehearsal venue and then the concert venue. If they want to play stuff that hasn't been already performed, they will have to pay for it to be orchestrated and parts prepared. Despite being 85, Sugiyama himself would probably be willing to do it but that wouldn't be cheap!

If they want to record the performance, or stream it, that will add on money everywhere - the orchestra will charge more, the conductor will invariably charge more, the venue hire cost will go up. the licence fee will skyrocket.

Shall we talk about whether there would be enough fans of DQ outside of Japan to have a reasonable shot at filling a concert hall?

Need I go on? This man is an idiot, barking mad, or both.

It has 0 backers. You can relax.

I'm relaxed. ;)

I just can't believe people come up with this crap. :(

"Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that." -- George Carlin

That has already been orchestrated anyway. At least more than once, a stellar job it was.

Oh? It would be a performance? In the US of A? That would be the first. But still, he should be setting out to get it done correctly. As explained by tangotreats, this is one of the most stupid people alive on this earth.
No, you know what I think. It "shouldn't be a problem" to get further permission from George Carlin to continue living. :laugh:

Why would you orchestrate something twice, unless there was a fire and you lost all your scores?

Not all of Dragon Quest has been orchestrated - so the concert would have to restrict itself to playing things which have already been played (making the concert less interesting) or they will have to pay someone to orchestrate the "new" stuff. If this is basically going to be 90 minutes of hand-picked pieces from Sugiyama's Symphonic Suites, it'd be a nice concert, but who'd go? You've already got two competing recordings of the symphonic suites, one of them with the London Philharmonic. It has to offer something special and unique. Getting Sugiyama to conduct it would be a start, but he's 85, probably (in the words of Elmer Bernstein) "too old and too rich to give a shit" and he'd probably get shot in America for his nebulous politics. Having some music that's never been heard in orchestral performance before would also be a good thing... but then, as mused over above, you have to pay somebody to orchestrate it.

You *could* do a concert for less - $14,000 is fantasy talk, but you might get away with $50,000... use a low-tier orchestra or even a good amateur ensemble, put them in a church, cathedral, or synagogue instead of a big concert hall, etc... but this guy is after something large-scale and professional. Not gonna happen. Marin Alsop has better things to do than entertain this idiot and his childish vanity project. DG is a minority interest now.
It would be nice to see a Dragon Quest outside of Japan - but Dragon Quest isn't Final Fantasy. To have even a shot at making this work, you need a runaway franchise that is popular worldwide and a Fandom which is willing to pay to attend events like this. Final Fantasy has that. Dragon Quest doesn't; it's been big, and now it's just floating around. It's like The Simpsons - nobody gives a stuff any more, but there are *just* enough foreign sales to make it worthwhile, and it's a "safe" franchise, so they keep turning them out even though it hasn't been at its best for twenty years.

PILI HEROES MUSIC COLLECTION LII 59

Challenge Myself And Spread Pili Music

登武道之巔，揮灑千古音韻塵濤

精選收錄万堺塵濤第二片頭曲「烽火狼煙」、片尾曲「十年一眼」、插曲「帶我去遠方」，感動收錄風之痕201 6登場曲、劍非刀武曲、生命練習生武曲、紅塵雪角色曲、歎希奇武曲、佛門武曲，唯美加贈「九輪明珠」迷你專 輯，與您相邀揮灑千古音韻塵濤！

万堺塵濤原聲帶貳【精選59】完整曲目：

編號

曲目名稱 作者 長度

01
烽火狼煙（万堺塵濤第二片頭曲） 曲/編曲：丁天牧　
詞：廖明治
演唱：劉昱賢 04:22

02
生命練習生（生命練習生角色曲） 曲/編曲：風采輪 03:31

03

驚濤裂岸浪翻雲（生命練習生武曲） 曲/編曲：孫敬凡 03:49

04

塵鞅不記（忘瀟然角色曲） 曲/編曲：黃建秦 03:58

05

文載龍淵（文載龍淵場景曲） 曲/編曲：風采輪 03:24

06

宇宙之極（歎希奇武曲） 曲/編曲：黃建秦 03:19

07

萬魔驚座（君臨黑帝角色曲） 曲/編曲：孫敬凡 03:14

08

誇幻異獸（誇幻異獸） 曲/編曲：黃名偉 04:34

09

帶我去遠方（巧天工之歌） 曲/編曲：風采輪　
詞：太平
演唱：蔡佳瑩 04:19

10

洛神（紅塵雪角色曲） 曲/編曲：風采輪 03:49

11

雙巔再會（風之痕與憶秋年） 曲/編曲：黃建秦 03:29

12

風之痕（風之痕2016登場曲） 曲/編曲：風采輪 03:52

13

聖眾之潮（聖眾之潮場景曲） 曲/編曲：黃建秦 03:18

14

吾佛伏魔（佛門武曲） 曲/編曲：黃建秦 03:42

15

刀劍由來不問道（劍非刀武曲） 曲/編曲：黃建秦 03:14

16

恩義兩清（鬼方赤命情境曲） 曲/編曲：風采輪 03:22

17

優律琴韻（優律山城豎琴曲） 曲/編曲：孫敬凡 03:51

18

古原征伐（万堺塵濤總收幕曲） 曲/編曲：風采輪 04:00

19

天人永隔（易天玄脈之殤） 曲/編曲：黃建秦 03:31

20

十年一眼（万堺塵濤第二片尾曲） 曲/編曲：風采輪　
詞：廖明治
演唱：劉昱賢 04:46
【九輪明珠】迷你專輯曲目：

編號

曲目名稱 作者 長度

21
九輪天相（蒼羽凌霄角色曲） 曲/編曲：丁天牧　 03:48

22

烈日曠照曲（金騎帝國出征） 曲/編曲：黃建秦 03:13

23

翡翠的風鈴（冠羽翡翠抒情曲） 曲/編曲：林薇 03:39

24

夜闌獨酌（蒼羽凌霄的獨白） 曲/編曲：風采輪 03:41



https://mega.nz/#!Z9MWGLJZ!JYtjdnNTNqPRnxOX42ysWeNPtaqe0YkzF1KLtp2UdoM

Symphonic Rhapsody
The Czech Philharmony Chamber Orchestra, conducted by Mario Klemens
Arranged & Orchestrated by Akira Senju, Masatsugu Shinozaki & Tomoyuki Asakawa



Ripped, translated, etc. by nextday.

Sample: Single Again (http://picosong.com/BXm2/) http://i.imgur.com/v9WfOyB.gif

Download: https://mega.nz/#!tYdAHQaQ!-StsRFEB-3qyMKQFu8vtjnQuAc_F9an_Z_7qA9M_8Iw

Part 2 of my symphonic album (Thread 57893) purchases. The music for this one was composed by singer-songwriter Mariya Takeuchi.

Unfortunately there is not an arranger breakdown in the booklet so I'd like hear your guesses about who arranged what, especially since Tomoyuki Asakawa was involved (#7 is definitely his).

P.S. Sorry for the poor quality album cover. My scanner is acting up and there aren't any good quality ones online.

Ooh, this is hard! We haven't really got enough of Shinozaki to discern a style, so I'd be tempted to say (and I realise this is a copout) that his tracks were those that it's hard to place elsewhere.

Certain
Asakawa: 2, 3
Senju: 5, 8

Perhaps
Senju: 1, 9 (I'm leaning towards more confidence in 9 than in 1)
Asakawa: 7 would be highly likely given the harp connection, but then it has a very substantial solo violin part - more substantial than the harp part - which is Shinozaki's instrument, so... Stylistically it's not very familiar, but I'm going to go with gut and say Asakawa probably. (Edit: That chord at 4:54 makes me think of Asakawa even more...)

Some more observations that may help... 4 and 6 are the same person and don't fit with the orchestral mannerisms of anybody I'm familar with. Those must be Shinozaki.

Thank you so much for this...

I have just the companion piece for it... which I will hopefully post in a couple of hours if I can stay awake! :D

Tomoyuki Asakawa, eh? I wish the Shin Chan TV BGM got released already.. loved his movie cues.

That was Toshiyuki Arakawa... ;)

But I agree, I wish Shin Chan would get more soundtrack releases - particularly for the movies. The last one was thirteen bloody years ago!

Those are pretty close to what I was thinking, tango, if not exactly the same. I was definitely thinking Asakawa was 2,3,7 (like you said, 7 because the prominent harp).

A buddy of mine has shared some rare Asakawa scores with me recently. I can't share them here but I just want to say that there are some great unheard Asakawa CDs out there.

Hopefully it's okay to share a sample with streaming only (no download): http://kiwi6.com/file/g2e02hqbqk

That was Toshiyuki Arakawa... ;)

But I agree, I wish Shin Chan would get more soundtrack releases - particularly for the movies. The last one was thirteen bloody years ago!

I want both. Movies and TV. Lots of awesome BGM that was left out of the old movies, too.

YOSHIKI presents ETERNAL MELODY
London Philharmonic Orchestra
orchestrated and conducted by Sir George Martin, Gavin Greenaway, and Graham Preskett



https://mega.nz/#!B4ZFzKAS!gjQk6V3-YPW90xh2sXFM4iclvCi_NyX1nz4-MZbjKz4

My rip in FLAC at compression level 8. Track titles in English. Full scans included.

Recently, there has been a run of posts from the Japanese "golden age" in which there appeared to be a new "symphony" album of popular rock music every other day. Some of the albums are really, really good - I think this one is the best.

Unlike so many popular artists, Yoshiki Hayashi has a substantial music education, plays classical trumpet and piano, and dabbles in cello and harp. He has also been known to conduct once in a while. The guy knows what he's doing, and it shows in his songwriting; his work beats with a symphonic heart. This isn't some naff music given to an orchestrator with instructions to turn a sow's ear into a silk purse. It's good music that only seems to fully take flight when it is given to a symphony orchestra.

Bearing in mind his education, I expect Yoshiki could have done his own orchestrations here (or, at least, had a bloody good try) but in any case, he didn't - he enlisted three of the best in the business; Sir George Martin, Gavin Greenaway, and Graham Preskett. I'm sure just about everybody on this planet knows George Martin - but to provide some brief biographies, Greeenaway has been working away behind the scenes as conductor (and occasionally music director and orchestrator) on dozens of Western film scores and several Japanese projects; most notably as Toshihiko Sahashi's conductor on 2009's "Gundam Symphony". Graham Preskett is better known as a prolific composer of orchestral library music circles, but he also works as a multi-instrumentalist (he plays banjo, mandolin, tango violin, harmonica, piano, and more) and as an orchestrator and music director. He has also scored a number of TV series' and commercials.

For some reason (as if I need to muse - it's obviously about money!) this album has two CDs, despite their combined total duration of 75 minutes. That said, this is simply wonderful. Right from the outset, we get a taste of what's coming - the overture is a splendid 9 minute medley which wraps up themes from some of the songs into a dynamic symphonic poem. It begins quietly and explodes with Holst-inspired surging strings and stabbing brass and moves on to a melody that recalls Kaoru Wada. A gorgeous melody - from "Endless Rain" - follows on oboe against warm, romantic strings, and the piece is on its way.

Nothing less than the London Philharmonic perform, and the recording itself was made at the famed Air Lyndhurst studios, which some people like even more than Abbey Road! The performance is wonderful, except for a few brass flubs in Endless Rain that frankly should've resulted in a re-take, but we can't have everything, I guess.

Also, this isn't one of those misleading affairs where you get a lovely big orchestra in the first piece to draw you in, then suddenly they all go home leaving you in the company of a flute, a cello, and a pennywhistle! Though some pieces are imagined a little smaller and some a little larger, the orchestra is a ubiquitous presence and is never underutilised.

I think there is considerable crossover appeal here, too - this is one of those rare albums that will please fans of Yoshiki and the original songs, but will also please people who've never heard them and couldn't care less who Yoshiki is. It doesn't rely on nostalgia for famous melodies and doesn't play "spot the tune" games.

This has never been shared online losslessly before - at least not anywhere it can be easily obtained! It turns up from time to time in a poor quality Fraunhofer 128kbps rip made by "MrTopo" in 2008, and I believe there's another one floating around by "raMrus" which is at 320kbps... but this one trumps them both!

There is an "Eternal Melody 2", released in 2005, which I absolutely despise. What a difference twelve years makes - the London Philharmonic has gone and been replaced by a terrible performance by some shoddy studio orchestra, there are naff pop vocals on some tracks, and the sound quality is beyond a joke... I was going to buy it and rip it just for the sake of completeness, and then I saw how much the damn thing cost! Sorry, guys... I'm willing to go through a lot, but I draw the line there!

Enjoy :)
TT

I have a feeling that Shin Chan will probably get the Pokemon treatment of a soundtrack anthology in the coming years, it's about damn time. Speaking of Pokemon, the collection for the recent TV scores is also long overdue. There's ridiculously good stuff in XY and in general there's more love and punch in the (unreleased) TV scores than in the recent movie scores (I hope another gem like Victini gets made soon).


As always, thank you all very much for these lovely symphonic albums.

Yes ArrowHead, I know his work well and been to his concerts in Japan. I love his orchestral works more than his electronica (although Golliwog's Carewalk is fun). If there is interest or if they haven't already been posted I have these CDs I bought in Japan which I can share:
Shin-Nihon Kikō BVCD-1525
Tale of Genji Hikaru COCQ-83572
Tale of Genji Symphonic Fantasy COCQ-83482
Tomita on NHK COCQ-83613


I don't know if you guys are familiar with this person, but seeing that you guys have been talking about Japanese composers recently, some sad news that came out about 5 days ago:

Tomita Isao dies aged 54 (http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/12/arts/music/isao-tomita-widely-considered-the-father-of-japanese-electronic-music-dies-at-84.html?_r=0).

Famous for interpreting (could not find the right word for it) Debussy's works such as "Clair de Lune" and Holst's "The Planets". Famous in Japan for composing well known pieces and soundtracks such as "Kimba the Lion (Jungle Taitei)" "Shin Nippon Kikou" and numerous taiga drama themes such as "Hana no Shougai", "Katsu Kaishu", and "Tokugawa Ieyasu". He was 84 years old. :(

DOTA 2
THE 6TH INTERNATIONAL UPDATE
Jason Hayes, Tim Larkin, Chance Thomas, Jeffrey Brice, Daniel Sadowski, Youssry Askar, Jeremy and Julian Soule, deadmau5, Matt Hawken, JJ Lin, Lennie Moore
Orchestral, Electronic, Oriental | Length: 4"00'21 | 192 CBR MP3

() ()


Jason Hayes and Tim Larkin - DOTA 2 (1:36)
Jason Hayes and Tim Larkin - The Call to Battle (2:57)
Jason Hayes and Tim Larkin - The World (2:50)
Jason Hayes and Tim Larkin - Dragon Knight (2:41)
Jason Hayes and Tim Larkin - Heroes for the International (4:31)
Jason Hayes and Tim Larkin - Hero Selection (1:01)
Jason Hayes and Tim Larkin - Waiting on the Heroes (2:33)
Jason Hayes and Tim Larkin - The Field of Battle (1:41)
Jason Hayes and Tim Larkin - Fencing (1:27)
Jason Hayes and Tim Larkin - Up the Stakes (1:27)
Jason Hayes and Tim Larkin - Battle (0:46)
Jason Hayes and Tim Larkin - Might and Magic (0:52)
Jason Hayes and Tim Larkin - In the Moud (1:23)
Jason Hayes and Tim Larkin - Ganked (0:09)
Jason Hayes and Tim Larkin - Nature (1:49)
Jason Hayes and Tim Larkin - Druming Along (1:36)
Jason Hayes and Tim Larkin - March of the Champions (1:42)
Jason Hayes and Tim Larkin - End of the Line (0:48)
Jason Hayes and Tim Larkin - Smoke of Deceit (0:43)
Jason Hayes and Tim Larkin - Death (1:26)
Jason Hayes and Tim Larkin - The Victiorius Radiant (0:53)
Jason Hayes and Tim Larkin - Dire Rises (0:52)
Jason Hayes and Tim Larkin - Good Has Failed (0:24)
Jason Hayes and Tim Larkin - Evil Has Fallen (0:44)
Jason Hayes and Tim Larkin - DOTAAAAAAAA! (0:10)
Chance Thomas - The International (2:10)
Chance Thomas - Champions Rising (1:30)
Chance Thomas - A Gathering of Heroes (1:37)
Chance Thomas - Dawn on the Battlefield (2:40)
Chance Thomas - Razor's Screams (1:47)
Chance Thomas - From the Sky Unto the Void (1:49)
Chance Thomas - The Call of the Moon (1:53)
Chance Thomas - The Eye of the Storm (0:45)
Chance Thomas - Time Distorted (0:59)
Chance Thomas - The Death Push (0:43)
Chance Thomas - The Aegis (0:47)
Chance Thomas - Go Home (2:07)
Chance Thomas - Deceptive Manuevers (0:54)
Jeffrey Brice - The New Bloom (2:08)
Jeffrey Brice - The Year Beast (1:33)
Jeffrey Brice - To Tame a Monster (1:10)
Jeffrey Brice - Unleash the Beast (3:20)
Jeffrey Brice - Petals on Snow (2:15)
Jeffrey Brice - Years of Pain (1:51)
Jeffrey Brice - Retribution (1:57)
Jeffrey Brice - The Beasts Clash (0:47)
Jeffrey Brice - Force of Nature (1:00)
Jeffrey Brice - A Call of Winter (1:00)
Jeffrey Brice - The Eternal Beast (1:00)
Jeffrey Brice - A Cloud of Death (0:59)
Jeffrey Brice - A Moment of Weakness (1:53)
Jeffrey Brice - A Return to Glory (0:10)
Daniel Sadowski - Heroes Within (1:58)
Daniel Sadowski - Defenders of the Ancients (2:20)
Daniel Sadowski - One-Hundred and Twelve (0:59)
Daniel Sadowski - Preperations Are in Place (2:39)
Daniel Sadowski - Four Defend One (2:03)
Daniel Sadowski - Blinking Initiate (0:52)
Daniel Sadowski - Vision Brings Victory (1:36)
Daniel Sadowski - Battlefury (0:54)
Daniel Sadowski - Drawing Monsters for the Slaughter (2:03)
Daniel Sadowski - The Silence of the Orchid (0:46)
Daniel Sadowski - Immortality (0:47)
Daniel Sadowski - A Cloud of Deception (0:53)
Daniel Sadowski - Misstepped (1:50)
Daniel Sadowski - Gold for Life (0:08)
Youssry Askar - Dire Shred (1:19)
Youssry Askar - A Declaration of Strife (3:14)
Youssry Askar - Discordant Anthem (1:20)
Youssry Askar - Ruin (1:47)
Youssry Askar - Tens of Thousands of Decisions (0:50)
Youssry Askar - The Last Countdown (2:44)
Youssry Askar - Avenues of War (2:57)
Youssry Askar - A Bloody Brawl (0:42)
Youssry Askar - The Stakes Have Never Been Higher (1:28)
Youssry Askar - Conquest (0:51)
Youssry Askar - Dastardly Tune (1:22)
Youssry Askar - Blade and Gore (1:22)
Youssry Askar - Die and Live Again (0:58)
Youssry Askar - Trickery and Lies (0:48)
Youssry Askar - Damn Fool (1:32)
Youssry Askar - Back from the Butchers (0:08)
Jeremy and Julian Soule - The International Returns (1:35)
Jeremy and Julian Soule - Conquerors of the West (2:09)
Jeremy and Julian Soule - The Vanguard of the East (1:04)
Jeremy and Julian Soule - The Making of Champions (0:48)
Jeremy and Julian Soule - Into Position (2:10)
Jeremy and Julian Soule - Secrets and Success (2:08)
Jeremy and Julian Soule - Tusk's Big Fist (1:04)
Jeremy and Julian Soule - The Evil Geniuses (2:11)
Jeremy and Julian Soule - Zip and Zap (0:55)
Jeremy and Julian Soule - Old Man and Son (1:56)
Jeremy and Julian Soule - Break the Cord (0:47)
Jeremy and Julian Soule - Eternity (0:56)
Jeremy and Julian Soule - The Hunt (0:50)
Jeremy and Julian Soule - A Costly Mistake (2:25)
Jason Hayes - Reborn (3:19)
deadmau5 - Dieback (3:08)
deadmau5 - The Radiant Connection (1:41)
deadmau5 - A Dire Dream (3:19)
deadmau5 - Eul Overnight (2:42)
deadmau5 - 5+5 (2:21)
deadmau5 - All Random All Mid (1:21)
deadmau5 - Ninety (2:30)
deadmau5 - Sometimes Things Get, Noob (2:39)
deadmau5 - Clockblock (0:46)
deadmau5 - Deny the Creep (2:07)
deadmau5 - 30 Kills in 10 Minutes (1:14)
deadmau5 - Bane Sleeps (2:04)
deadmau5 - Mid and Feed (1:07)
deadmau5 - Report the Noob (2:53)
deadmau5 - Drop the Stick (0:47)
deadmau5 - Like Five Headless Chickens (1:29)
Matt Hawken - The Balance of Power (2:14)
Matt Hawken - Settler of the Conflict (1:44)
Matt Hawken - The Greatest Presences (1:17)
Matt Hawken - The Sun Rises (2:48)
Matt Hawken - The Scintillant Waste (2:15)
Matt Hawken - The Cunning of Qaldin (1:04)
Matt Hawken - Testaments of the Past (1:54)
Matt Hawken - Blood in the Sand (1:00)
Matt Hawken - The Desert Speaks (2:18)
Matt Hawken - Limits of Strength (1:16)
Matt Hawken - Sand Storm (1:08)
Matt Hawken - Vigil of the Desert (0:58)
Matt Hawken - The Sand Takes All (2:15)
JJ Lin - Snowfall (2:18)
JJ Lin - The Outworld (1:40)
JJ Lin - A Hundred Paths, One Destination (1:07)
JJ Lin - Gather Yourselves (2:43)
JJ Lin - Tangoes in Hand (1:42)
JJ Lin - Ravages of the Tidehunter (0:53)
JJ Lin - Fear Comes in Waves (1:45)
JJ Lin - Haunts of the Spectre (0:49)
JJ Lin - Watery Images (1:40)
JJ Lin - Roshan on Piano Op.1 (0:50)
JJ Lin - Wrap Around (1:03)
JJ Lin - Mistakes Were Made (2:11)
Lennie Moore - The Sixth International (2:03)
Lennie Moore - Mordiggian's Worth (2:07)
Lennie Moore - Quas, Wex, Exort (0:57)
Lennie Moore - Gallery of Champions (1:01)
Lennie Moore - Line in the Sand (2:33)
Lennie Moore - Enter the Field (1:46)
Lennie Moore - The Dragon Commands (0:50)
Lennie Moore - Vanguard (1:47)
Lennie Moore - The Fire of the Sun (0:52)
Lennie Moore - Chemical Injection (1:49)
Lennie Moore - Might of Arms (0:48)
Lennie Moore - Sweet Release (2:32)
Lennie Moore - The Beast Eternal (0:59)
Lennie Moore - From Behind (0:52)


https://mega.nz/#!jIAFmABB!i1ROZQrsz0L-ZHlxJWrTn7vDfPXglvthw8zu1M4FcB8

Many thanks TT for Yoshiki Presents. I like the start of disc 2 best as it has special memories for me and has great melody. Say Anything by heavy metal band X (later X Japan) was one of my wife and I's favourite romantic pop ballads and was a massive hit when I was in Japan in 1991. Yoshiki wrote the lyrics and music as well as playing the drums and piano. Its on 1991 special edition album Jealousy with an instrumental version as well.

"Time may change my life
But my heart remains the same to you
Time may change your heart
My love for you never changes"


The originals of Say Anything are here, including the orchestral versions:

X: Jealousy - Special Edition 1991
MP3-320: http://uploaded.net/file/thnujr9y

X - Symphonic Silent Jealousy (1992)
MP3-192: http://uploaded.net/file/2bv21fk8

Orchestral Percussion Compilation



Here's ShadowSong's "Orchestral Percussion Compilation" from 2010, kind of. I never got to download the original compilation, so I put in different/new performances:

1. Malcolm Arnold - Peterloo Overture (City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Arnold, 1973) | FLAC
2. Alfred Reed - Symphony for Brass & Percussion, Mvt. III (Tokyo Kosei Wind Orchestra, Reed, 1990) | iTunes M4A
3. Gustav Holst - Jupiter, the Bringer of Jollity (City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Oramo, 2000) | FLAC by tangotreats
4. Wataru Hokoyama - Afrika: Safari (Hollywood Studio Symphony, Hokoyama, 2008) | MP3 -V0 by #gamemp3s
5. John Williams - Summon the Heroes (Boston Pops Orchestra, Williams, 1996) | FLAC
6. Lennie Moore - Outcast: Daoka (Moscow Symphony Orchestra, Stromberg, 1999/2013 Release) | FLAC
7. Koichi Sugiyama - Dragon Quest VI: Flying Bed (London Philharmonic Orchestra, Sugiyama, 1995) | FLAC by ?
8. Igor Stravinsky - Rite of Spring, Excerpt (Kirov Orchestra, Gergiev, 2001) | FLAC
9. Joe Hisaishi - Princess Mononoke: Legend of Ashitaka (Czech Philharmonic Orchestra, Klemens, 1998) | FLAC by ?
10. Gustav Mahler - Symphony No. 7, Mvt. V (Cleveland Orchestra, Boulez, 1996) | FLAC


mega.nz (https://mega.nz/#F!nsJlWYJJ!N8anu6n2h_4N1ykgimT5ug)

Below, ShadowSong's original commentary:


And here it is, as I explained before these are some very interesting examples of good and sometimes very unique (Stravinsky) orchestral percussion writing. As requested, I will explain why I picked the pieces, and hopefully everyone will find it an interesting listening experience. Again these are not the only styles of good composition, but just some of my favorites that I have had experience with.

Peterloo Overture - Malcolm Arnold
This piece has everything and Arnold is often overlooked in my opinion. The intro is very subtle with just some soft timp/suspended cymbal rolls. The first part you will really notice is at 1:40 with the snares sneaking in behind the orchestra and starting the battle section of the piece. At 3:17 timpani and tenor drum take the intensity up a notch switching into 6/8 patterns. At 4:22 all hell breaks loose with very intense, sporadic patterns that eventually transform into a driving relentless pulse. When the battle segment ends, it again becomes more subtle. There is quiet mournful snare and tenor patterns overtop of the low end of the timpani range and tam-tam for color. The glorious end section is strengthened by excellent use of metallics in the chimes and bells, along with a rich bottom end produced by the low brass and timpani.

Symphony For Brass & Percussion Mvt. III - Alfred Reed
This is a great example of effective ostinati writing that doesn't loose interest. It variates and there are color, dynamic, and intrument changes throughout that keep it compelling to the very end.

Jupiter - Gustav Holst
This is here for the timpani part. Among other things, it is an example of how much the timpani can effect the fullness of sound the orchestra puts out. First thing to notice, the timpani has the melody at 0:15. The whole piece is great but the real reason I put this on here is the hymn section which starts at 3:07. Notice how most of the hymn is missing the timpani part in the beginning and how much the richness of the sound changes when the timpani enters at 4:10 quietly and then the big difference when the timp plays that full bassline at 4:30 to the end of the hymn. Great stuff

Safari (Afrika) - Wataru Hokoyama
This is an example of keeping the writing light yet still having forward momentum. The snare part never becomes opressive. Also good accessory writing (triangle, tambourine, etc).

Summon the Heroes - John Williams
All around great. I love the oddly timed powerful unison patterns in the beginning. Other key points are the chaotic middle section and the driving percussion at 4:34.

Doakas (Outcast) - Lennie Moore
Listen for the xylo throughout the piece. Great action cue, with tam-tam, xylo, and suspended cymbal bringing intensity without being terribly loud and hyperactive.

Flying Bed (Dragon Quest) - Koichi Sugiyama
Again on the lighter side. Fun little muted triangle and tambourine under a great xylo solo.

The Rite of Spring (Excerpt) - Igor Stravinsky
The section I used was Games of the Rival Tribes/Procession of the Wise Elder. The whole piece is obviously worth listening to, but the reason I chose that section is its one of the most obvious polyrhythms used toward the end with the 4:3's contrasting with the rest of the orchestra's 6/4 pattern.

Legend of Ashitaka (Princess Mononoke) - Joe Hisaishi
Sometimes its not about whats written, but what isn't written. Take careful observation of when percussion parts are written and when they aren't. At the first big build at 1:06 why is it just one quiet timpani roll when the rest of the orchestra is building up? Couldn't that build be more powerful with bass drum or suspended cymbal added? Well its a great choice not to add them there, because we have almost the same build at 2:16 but this time cymbal, bass, and timpani with a big crescendo is added. This second appearance seems much more powerful now, because of the difference. This type of great selective writing is evident throughout and 4:24 is just wonderful.

Symphony No. 7 Mvt. V - Gustav Mahler
Pretty self explanatory, uses a nice mix of alot that has been mentioned previously.


Maki ISHII
(1936-2003)
"The Star Legend" for Orchestra and Cidelo Ihos
(Ultra Q the Movie (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j2qiXTl0H0o) Soundtrack)
New Japan Philharmonic, Maki Ishii (cond.)
Cidelo Ihos soloist: uncredited



Release Date: 21.06.1990

Introduction (The Breath of Stars) | 5:37
2nd movt. Nagira's Roar | 12:24
3rd movt. Utopia / Nova | 14:14

Wonky translation.


Three Cidelo Ihos (Photo by Kazuo Harada). You can see it/listen to it in the 1994 Toru Takemitsu documentary "Music for the Movies": youtube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WhbrAgZTYHA)

mega.nz (https://mega.nz/#F!mgByjZBJ!CEHtTYOGQPYq3NwDYveXMg) (FLAC)

Ripped by Herr Salat.

So hopefully soon we will have a new John Williams score :).

Here is a little taste... I have a feeling this will be better than Star Wars. The music from BFG starts at 11:07 in the video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQ42mIwnUN4#t=665

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-dmaaqsKBLs

:D :D :D
If Takaki remains the composer for the next series I wouldn't be surprised if he finally goes into full-symphonic mode. I've recently revisited all of his precure scores and especially his movie scores have some absolutely brilliant moments. Not to say his TV-scores fall short of still being extremely good fun. I sure hope he will be working his little session orchestra to great hights with the upcoming TV score and the movie.

Until Mahou Girls arrives here's a little appetizer, to my knowledge all of the original material from the recent All Stars movie I bought from Itunes:




Hiroshi Takaki and Reijiro Koroku


Eiga Precure All Stars Minna de Utau♪Kiseki no Mahou!




Download (https://mega.nz/#!L55QGaSJ!GBN2kjxTnwL1BsKh1V5omTbxg44vKmFNprvzDj4-J_M)


I'm amazed how much more "classic" Precure has gotten under Takaki's baton. Since Princess Precure they have been moving towards a more traditional Disney/Broadway musical approach. The last film featured a Sakura Taisenesque orchestrated song and this time Hiroshi Takaki AND Reijiro Koroku of all people have arranged and composed the majority of songs here. And if "The king of darkness" is any indication of how the Mahou girls movie will most likely sound like then we're in for a real treat.




JBarron》The Force Awakens actually has grown a lot on me, also thanks to the excellent Deluxe edition (Thread 204325). Nowadays I would even consider The Jedi Steps and Finale to be the most musically satisfying conclusion to a Star Wars score since Empire. Im awaiting BFG with great expectations that will surely be met from the sounds of it.

Wow so many posts since I last checked. Great as always. And thanks for pointing out the deluxe edition of The Force Awakens since I didn't notice that one.

CHANCE!
Orchestrated & Original Score Composed by Keiichi Oku



Ripped, translated, etc. by nextday.

Sample: CHANCE! (Main Theme) (http://picosong.com/B6p4/) http://i.imgur.com/v9WfOyB.gif

Download: https://mega.nz/#!NQMGQQpK!ujDUX2dBq2OQOm0AXOtp8HvNcNpg5ZD0EoRNWnDd2r0

Keiichi Oku orchestrated the music for this 1993 drama about a forgotten star and his rise back to fame. The music was composed singer-songwriter Toshinobu Kubota aside from three original pieces (2, 10, 11).

Oku has consistently composed lengthy, grandiose main themes since the start of his career so it's no surprise that he's done the same here - listen to the sample above to hear for yourself.

The bulk of this soundtrack consists of arrangements of Kubota's songs in different styles (orchestra, jazz, piano, acoustic, etc.). Tracks 1 and 14 were not by Keiichi Oku and can be skipped/deleted.

His other works from around this time include the 1992 symphonic suite From The North Land (Thread 167345) and his full orchestra soundtrack for the 1994 drama At Seventeen (Thread 168018) - check those out if you haven't already.

Anyone listen to the soundtrack to Overwatch?

I think it has some promising themes and that Overture is really nice albeit short. Of course the WoW composers are quite capable of writing some great orchestral works.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b4ZIPXUVaz0&list=PLUyiyCkoNwG_tO2_tkt3AUReFhhyqfVXZ

It's pleasant even if it's the typical Hollywood pastiche. Could fit right onto the Two Steps from Heaven album, well, the actual 7 minutes of orchestral score.

When it comes to Blizzard soundtracks I find myself only listening to the Overtures and Cinematics these days anyway, Jeremy Soule's Serpent Riders and some tracks from Legacy of the Void being the exception, the rest is just bland which holds true for Overwatch as well. Perhaps its a good thing they go into the film business then but only if they DO NOT hire Djawadi and Jackman for yet another bland, generic or even inappropiate score ("Warcraft" for example sounds basically like a Metallica concert intro).

you should watch the star wars shortfilm ways to the rebellion on youtube.george shaws music is really good.all you want from a star wars score in 13min and does not reuse themes or music from the movies.and on spotify there are a lot of albums from him.i wholeheartedly recommend loch ness monster and flashback.

Yeah, these days you have to look for quality music in the oddest and nichest of places. Mike Verta recently scored an Asylum movie, Gordy Haab started with scoring fanfilms, Lennie Moore wrote perhaps the most mature game score ever for a rather obscure Belgian adventure game, and Benny Oschmann got famous with a pretty niche German point&click game. These days you have a better chance finding proper orchestral music in fanfilms, indiefilms, smutfilms and indie-games than in modern Hollywood blockbusters... what a world.




Oh yes!!!
Monster Hunter Stories: Ride On (http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x4cragl_monster-hunter-stories-ride-on-pv_tv)

Big studio orchestra and plenty of score with 48 episodes.



And another promising game score, hopefully not just for a cinematic.

Ys VIII -Lacrimosa of DANA- (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=93BjWhCdBZc)

It is at times very much recent Hans Zimmer blaring horns and pulsing bass but I actually like a lot of the action music in the new anime, AJIN. Yugo Kanno skillfully blends orchestra and electronics and at times brings out solid themes. It is nice to hear the complexity of the counterpoint in the action music and even though a lot of it is Inception/The Dark Knight style pounding bass it works both on the show and in the album. Sadly season 1 ends so quickly that I'm now craving much more. The anime really goes places that made the last few episodes quite gripping. I got to the end of the last episode and figured I had another six or seven episodes to go and now I'm eagerly waiting for season 2 to come out. The animation style is a bit strange but once things get going in the action department I quickly forgot it was any different, and you will see why they went that route due to certain otherworldly creatures that wouldn't make sense animated in 2D.

And another promising game score, hopefully not just for a cinematic.

Ys VIII -Lacrimosa of DANA- (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=93BjWhCdBZc)

I like that theme. It's familiar (reminds me of David Newman's score to Anastasia) and well arranged. I've always felt the best themes sound like a set of variations on itself.

I quite like Ajin too - I think Kanno's at his best writing like that. He flounders when he tries to do something coherently symphonic, but there's arguably no-one better when it comes to rocking out with balls-out big themes and electronica. (Taku Iwasaki, perhaps, years ago... but Kanno has him beat in the sheer melody department these days.)

Edit: I watched that Star Wars fan film and was MASSIVELY underwhelmed. Most of the score is terrible synth, and the music that DOES appear to be real is themeless and amateurish.

Nice to see some kind of music budget for a fan film, but this really isn't anything special.

Hanaukyo Maid Team OST 1: Music by Tamiya Terashima. 27 tracks on Pony Canyon CD #PCCG-00570 (original 2001 release)
Hanaukyo Maid Team OST 2: Music by Tamiya Terashima. 26 tracks on Pony Canyon CD #PCCG-00573 (original 2001 release)
Hanaukyo Maid Team: La Verite: Music by Michiru Oshima. 28 tracks on Geneon CD #5269-2 (released in 2004)

GO HERE: Thread 205319

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/UvuB3n0KBLULo40cePy8d_LjECIF_2bS4SFoQyq-J97_YfIivKiVWJjfSe4Me4ISC3mNarZygrj_ZPMiTlbzzgFM9d sYTRO0CtRYSpjMRu9a41i8gK13o5enye_BaXcniAKWXdYdCnD2 WPHOl6FSwBlq0fJRhVcNz7459qahulaFIUgySQxf2hWyJn7ObB lT1YMLarWovbQv6u6vPo-5D4aTDIM0Q3lT04FQDLPf9Wlsn8w6UArCo7IYTeW7XBd8bXOAp-jMVXGdyZifVSfP-AtK9kh-n9z99ifKZJyP8F1gdpArJ2REhbd2yjTsl33JjyYsXbygWUAyY5 zdaSYUDHKaiBy1KgMEeTa95cuzyHFljdSpeXxQJtDpsiDcAq2H mxEYky7J8qFMcyiZ1uPAWiEueEGwVLu6Xi2tp8-8PBMFXn8Drc7eJ2n-s1X4ZejNMTBSEeiL_GDW76iRboXH3mNBxfE28jGkeqky2IutNs KYZ6IcUy5Xj8lf5wS6ZvSKcZ5C4IGzYaBaNzQ5tUjcv4u852Bh eXzkla6o7Yin4lBbz1pwkz7a8-DKSgfoL9XI3Q6ShOAQhzR1PfxACK04y98Tt_hPCaI=w1059-h350-no

I like AJIN's main theme a lot, but not much else, whereas I loved almost all of JoJo and G-Reco. Kanno has a good balance with effective, booming brass and fun beats, but like with a lot of his writing, the beats and fanfares themselves tend to be really simplistic, and when you have a work like AJIN, that calls for a consistently dark tone, that already limits the tropes he can work with somewhat, resulting in some pretty bland, repetitive music. He reminds me a lot of Sawano these days. I'm glad he discovered a talent with electronica , and his talents happen to play extremely well to the strengths of most anime these days, but I find him much more fun the more his project allows him to have fun.

Btw it's me NaotaM, account got hacked.

Hello! What happened? Can't you get back your original account, or are you just thinking it's time to change? :)

Eh, the account was so screwed up, I just went screw it and opened another account.

[CENTER]CHANCE!
Orchestrated & Original Score Composed by Keiichi Oku

Thnak you for this! Is that unprecedented? A soundtrack album which not only credits an orchestrator on the front cover, but DOESN'T credit the composer at all!

I am a little confused about who did what here; did Oku actually compose as well as orchestrate the score and provide additional orchestrations of Kubota's music?

About Overwatch... it sure as hell won't be winning any prizes for originality - yet another piece from the Benny Oschmann school of hilariously generic themes, except not anywhere near as professionally done as Oschmann's.

As always, nice to hear something in that style - but imagine what good composers could've done with the brief that they obviously received.

It sounds like something some film score-loving kid would struggle to write if he were gifted one of those seven minute orchestra sessions.

Why do we get constant situations whereby the great composers who CAN do this kind of stuff don't work or get barged into writing like Zimmer, and meanwhile absolute idiots score projects where somebody actually wants real music?

john debney The Adventures Of Elmo in Grouchland reupload pleases !

Thnak you for this! Is that unprecedented? A soundtrack album which not only credits an orchestrator on the front cover, but DOESN'T credit the composer at all!

I am a little confused about who did what here; did Oku actually compose as well as orchestrate the score and provide additional orchestrations of Kubota's music?
Sachiko Miyano gave a rare interview recently about her work as an orchestrator and talks about how hard it is to get recognized/make a living as an orchestrator in Japan. She said that it's common for arrangers to be credited on pop songs and such but when it comes to television/film scores there's sort of a taboo against it. Even now she doesn't really get credited on TV for her work and she's been in the biz for 15 years. She recently arranged and orchestrated ALL of the music for the currently airing NHK morning drama Toto Neechan, though only the composer's name appears in the credits. This is all to say that it must be pretty rare for the orchestrator to be credited on the front of the album like that.

As for your question: The booklet credits Kubota as the composer for all the tracks except 2, 10, and 11 (composed by Oku). Oku is credited as the arranger for all the tracks except 1 and 14.

Other stuff
Preview of Mitsuda's recording in Bratislava: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6rVOpOQhaTQ
Hisaishi has a new 2 CD album coming out soon: http://vgmdb.net/album/59007

Why do we get constant situations whereby the great composers who CAN do this kind of stuff don't work or get barged into writing like Zimmer, and meanwhile absolute idiots score projects where somebody actually wants real music?

It's almost always about who you know and almost never about what you know. From my experience skill never really matters in this industry, it's all about conncections and image, never about skill. We only got so much great and timeless film scores because a director or producer or one of his friends knew the composer before hiring him. Relationships like Williams/Spielberg and Hisaishi/Miyazaki were not so much based on talent but rather made possible because of mutual friendship. Perhaps the reason why we have so much great scores made in Japan is because their business models are a bit different, with dozens of agencies and associations securing jobs for their clients/composers and since most media composers over there have a classical education, we have a much higher chance for quality.

Olivier Lliboutry Marie De Nazareth



http://dl.nicesoundtracks.com/05/Marie%20De%20Nazareth%20(1995,%20128)%20-%20Olivier%20Lliboutry%20[www.NiceSoundTrackscom].rar

Mot De Passe : www.NiceSoundTrackscom

It's almost always about who you know and almost never about what you know. From my experience skill never really matters in this industry, it's all about conncections and image, never about skill. We only got so much great and timeless film scores because a director or producer or one of his friends knew the composer before hiring him. Relationships like Williams/Spielberg and Hisaishi/Miyazaki were not so much based on talent but rather made possible because of mutual friendship. Perhaps the reason why we have so much great scores made in Japan is because their business models are a bit different, with dozens of agencies and associations securing jobs for their clients/composers and since most media composers over there have a classical education, we have a much higher chance for quality.

I just wonder why nobody ever says "Right, we want our game to have a big, old-school symphonic score - what's Bruce Broughton up to these days?"

Nothing to see here. Accidentally unsubsidized from the that so I'm posting to get back on it. Please go about your business. ☺

LOL, you have to keep posting now. Dem's da r00lz. ;)

So I just read that Joe Hisaishi was asked by Philip Glass to perform his piano Etudes. Glass and Hisaishi sounds like a good thing. Hopefully there will be a recording of it at some point.

I doubt a CD/Digital release but who knows... I'm definitely interessted. Here's the interview in question:

“I feel like some recently released music has started to lack in logic, and lose its quality,” he says adding that he wants to create music that “strictly adheres” to music theory. - Joe Hisaishi (http://www.japantimes.co.jp/culture/2016/06/02/music/composers-joe-hisaishi-philip-glass-team-special-performance/#.V1AkhfT3bCQ)


In other news, yet another symphonic concert, Grandblue Fantasy Concert, gets a CD/DVD release, August 12, performed by the Tokyo Philharmonic, but Event-only so far.

Takayuki Hattori's Sanada Maru Vol. 2 releases Jul 20, hopefully with more fantastic pieces like the Main Theme.

Naoki Sato's "Rudolf to Ippaiattena", Aug 03, should be another Priceless, based on the trailers (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8QG6783Fj0s).

And finally a new One Piece TV soundtrack from Kohei Tanaka, but if they did not upgrade all the synth stuff with a real orchestra, then I will pass on this one. I still can't understand why there's no budget for one of the biggest cashcows in the anime business.

EDIT: So that London AIR recording from a few months ago turned out to be for The Last Guardian - http://www.ign.com/videos/2016/05/30/crafting-the-last-guardians-epic-soundtrack-ign-first



In other news, yet another symphonic concert, Grandblue Fantasy Concert, gets a CD/DVD release, August 12, performed by the Tokyo Philharmonic, but Event-only so far.

[...]

And finally another One Piece soundtrack from Kohei Tanaka, but if they did not upgrade all the synth stuff with a real orchestra, then I will pass on this one. I still can't understand why there's no budget for one of the biggest cashcows in the anime business.
Granblue is event-only but there's five dates for the event (from August to January) so hopefully it will turn up. Orchestra arrangement by Tsutomu Narita. I think Souhei Kano may also be involved as an orchestrator but I'm not 100% sure.

For One Piece, I imagine it's because they don't need to spend money. 95% of the music used in the show is from the old recordings. I see posts on Shinozaki's blog for One Piece recordings and it's almost always a very small strings section and nothing else.

With old Hisaishi (experimental minimalism) and new Hisaishi (lush symphonic romanticism) continuing to merge together in a completely unique and beautiful way... this doesn't surprise me. It's an odd choice - Hisaishi known more for his composition than for his piano performance - but it's going to be very interesting all the same. That said, Glass has lost a lot of his shine in recent years, if you will pardon the pun, but Hisaishi just keeps on getting better.

As for One Piece... I don't understand why they bother recording new music at all. They've got nearly twenty years of the franchise behind them, and as you say most of what you hear in the show consists of old recordings... so what the hell could they possibly gain by bringing a tiny little ensemble into the studio every now and again? SURELY they've got enough music in the can by now! (Not that I'm complaining - I just don't understand it... but then again, it's Japan so who cares, let's just ride with it!)

The interesting thing with Hisaishi and Glass is that Glass actually asked Hisaishi to perform this, but did not tell him which pieces he would be playing until the day of the concert. Here's the article:

http://www.japantimes.co.jp/culture/2016/06/02/music/composers-joe-hisaishi-philip-glass-team-special-performance/#.V1JMML4ghEM

Eh, the account was so screwed up, I just went screw it and opened another account.

Basically this is what happened to me (I was NotSpecial). Must have been a pandemic on the forum.

This year is just full of good news: The new Super Robot Wars V has an orchestral score in full Hollywood mode: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=18otfdWJlLI.

BLOODY HELL who wrote that?!

Are you sure it's composed, in a live full orchestra? Or if it is specificaly for the trailer?

I think it's unlikely for them to fork out thousands trowling expensive orchestral music on a trailer and come out with something cheap for the finished product... At least, I bloody hope it is...

I want this NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Wildstar just got a soundtrack release. Look like it will be two volumes and honestly I really love the style of this music. You have such gorgeous and rich chords in some of the compositions. The sweeping melodies, the majesty of the main theme, the whimsical and gorgeous Menu Theme, it has a lot of really great stuff. It was odd to see such a nicely written score for an MMORPG that I have barely heard or read anything about. Now there are some pieces that aren't as good and are filler (most soundtracks have them).

Favorites so far:

Main Theme
Into the Unknown
Our Perception of Beauty
Traces of Ancient History
Hymn of the Six
Story of Hope and Healing
The Last Beacon of Hope
The Simplicity of Home
Bandits, Thieves, and Epic Loot

Wildstar just got a soundtrack release. Look like it will be two volumes and honestly I really love the style of this music. You have such gorgeous and rich chords in some of the compositions. The sweeping melodies, the majesty of the main theme, the whimsical and gorgeous Menu Theme, it has a lot of really great stuff. It was odd to see such a nicely written score for an MMORPG that I have barely heard or read anything about. Now there are some pieces that aren't as good and are filler (most soundtracks have them).

Favorites so far:

Main Theme
Into the Unknown
Our Perception of Beauty
Traces of Ancient History
Hymn of the Six
Story of Hope and Healing
The Last Beacon of Hope
The Simplicity of Home
Bandits, Thieves, and Epic Loot

a pleasent surprise.i hope a second volume will come out as is indicated.lots of fun.

Also I am working on my biggest orchestral sound yet for a project that hopefully will be announced soon! Complete with woodwinds, brass, strings, AND choir and it draws inspiration from Ralph Vaughan Williams. I'll be honest, I feel in over my head at times but this experience will be such a good thing for me to grow and learn as a composer, arranger, and orchestrator.

This year is just full of good news: The new Super Robot Wars V has an orchestral score in full Hollywood mode: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=18otfdWJlLI.

Sounds great. I think the first 3 minutes were inspired by David Newman's score to The Mighty Ducks.

Yooka-Laylee trailer released. Music is so orchestra-like, but sadly done by computer. Wish they could have fulfilled the orchestra thing..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1gxLvbX3Ow

Edit: Wait, they did fulfill the orchestra thing. The game might be live orchestrated.

Yooka-Laylee trailer released. Music is so orchestra-like, but sadly done by computer. Wish they could have fulfilled the orchestra thing..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1gxLvbX3Ow

Edit: Wait, they did fulfill the orchestra thing. The game might be live orchestrated.
Yes, they passed the stretch goal for a full orchestra recording. It just hasn't happened yet.

I liked Kirkhope's work on Nuts & Bolts so I have high hopes.

Same!

Same here. I really hope they stay true to the Kickstarter stretch goal. The only reason I'm concerned is because there was actually a huge backlash against the news that it would be orchestrated, believe it or not. So much so that Grant had a twitter rant about it. People genuinely wanted the game to use samples instead of being orchestrated because "it would sound better" and be more like the old games.

How these people could say things like that after hearing the Nuts And Bolts soundtrack is beyond me. I hope to god they didn't listen to the idiot backlash. If they did I'm sure it would have been an announcement, lest they get even more backlash for going back on a kickstarter goal that was funded with the expectation that it be fulfilled.

But I'm paranoid about these things. Dark Souls 3 going back to being synth after Bloodborne giving me hope for it has made me cynical.


Edit:

Update: Another twitter user (and myself) asked Mr. Kirkhope about it and he replied that he's "not sure" if the final version would be orchestrated.

https://twitter.com/grantkirkhope/status/740003897712869376

I'm not sure if he's talking about the specific piece used in the trailer (which would be dumb NOT to use an orchestra for, since it's obviously written for one) or the whole game, but...



The stretch goal clearly indicate that the entire game score would be orchestrated.

I'd suggest they make people have the choice of two options in the game; sample music and orchestra music. I wouldn't want it to go. It was a promised thing, the stretch goal was reached. I'd understand why some people want sampled music, to make it look like an old game, but some of us also like live orchestra, specially knowing how good Nuts and Bolts was. I suggested this to him, I hope he listens!

The music is already orchestrated. What we don't know is whether or not it will be performed by an orchestra.

Nobody *wants* a sample-based score - not anybody who deserves an opinion, anyway.

I hope they don't try to screw people out of their money - but Kickstarter campaigns are notorious for that sort of thing. The fact that they took �2,000,000 in donations to make a game that's supposed to look twenty years old is very telling.

If they really want to go for a score which is deliberately hobbled in quality in order that it fit into the desire to make a nostalgic N64 game, they need to go back further than this. N64 is 1995 hardware. Sampling technology was not up to much then... and if the music was played "live" by the console it's going to sound even worse. We're talking about early MIDI here.

We do know that it will be performed by an orchestra. Both the composers have talked about it and suggested that it will be recorded in Prague.

The game won't be out until next year so there's still plenty of time.

Is it untrue that Kirkhope himself has said it might *not* be, following backlash?

I don't know of any official statement by Grant himself other than replying to my tweet asking if the final game music would be performed by an orchestra with a "Not sure." Which flies against the kickstarter stretch goal which was fulfilled saying that the game score would be performed by an orchestra. It's only speculation on my part that the backlash has anything to do with it, and it's still not clear exactly what's going to happen. But receiving a reply that he's not sure that it'll be performed with an orchestra in the final game worries me a lot. It absolutely should as stated by the Kickstarter stretch goal.

@tangotreats To be fair to the game itself, it's quite beautiful and modern looking, which would make it a baffling decision to give into the whiners wanting it to use N64 sounds.

Grant Kirkhope is one of my favorite video game composers out there so I really hope we get a clear answer on this. I don't want his music lessened by using samples because a bunch of nostalgic idiot children who obviously never listened to Nuts And Bolts want it to sound like the old games.

I can understand why someone would legitimately want a game to have samples. Plenty of nostalgic game fans hold the sound of early soundtracks to be part of the draw.

The big issue with that is...who cares? If the game is performed by a live orchestra that's the definitive version. Anyone can make classic N64 sounding versions on Youtube. I guarantee you they will within a week of the game's release. If nostalgic fans want that it would be easy to replace the game files with those. If fans want the orchestral versions as promised, and they don't release those... Well, we don't have shit.

The game is being released with modern graphics and has promised to have modern sound as well. If they go back on their Kickstarter stretch goal because of a twitter backlash without any official announcement whatsoever, that's really scummy.

I can understand why someone would legitimately want a game to have samples. Plenty of nostalgic game fans hold the sound of early soundtracks to be part of the draw.

So do I - my nostalgia is firmly in Commodore 64 SID chip land. I even listen to that stuff in the car sometimes.

Full orchestral scores have been de-riguer in games for almost twenty years and were better in the late nineties than they are now. (Show me a western game score of the calibre of Heart of Darkness, Outcast, or Medal Of Honour released in the last five years, or even at any point in the 21st century, for that matter.)

So, there is nothing about an orchestral score in a N64-alike game that would be anachronistic.

And even if there WAS, to suggest making something deliberately sub-standard in a nod to the past (what are samples except a way to vaguely simulate the sound of a live orchestra inside a computer?) and to ask people for money to realise that dream of mediocrity... beggars belief.

I've suggested to Grant on his Facebook (I hope he listened) that he can always make the player be able to choose between live orchestra and sampled sound. Some of us DO LIKE the sound of live orchestra, so I really hope they still do that promised option. I mean. I supose if they were to actually try doing the music in a orchestra, they'd first ask backers (and not Twitter fans who probably haven't) what'd they like the most. I hope if they go with no orchestra at all that it's for very good reasons - like complications with the process or they couldn't afford it. But not because some twats said they didn't like it. Is Praga expensive? I thought you said it isn't. It might not be expensive, and they might work for anything as you said as long as they are paid, but however they still sound nice as a orchestra.

The Prague orchestra is one of the cheapest in the world - and the contractor (James Fitzpatrick) and the likely conductor/orchestrator (Nic Raine) are both based in England, making it an efficient arrangement with Kirkhope. They're not a charity - they won't work unless you pay them the going rate... but the income disparity in Eastern Europe makes them affordable and stunningly good value. (It's not like they're starved for work; they're one of the busiest recording orchestras in the world.)

What matters is if they sound nice, really, more than if they are "music whores"

One can not overstate how important an "orchestral character" is when it comes to scoring. A combination of player individuality and room accoustics. The Prague studio sound I would describe as "bold", almost "harsh" and relatively "dry". The Moscow hall sound on the other hand would be "lush", "warm" and "wet" (oh boy). It depends on what you want your music to sound like. There are dozens of orchestral characters to chose from but many times the choice is limited by budget. Nothing pains me more than a score that should be played in Air Lyndhurst but finally ends up being performed in Sound Inn. However, in general I would want a more dry recording when working on a media project so I can always work on it later if need be. But if I want something special and I know the music is already great, then I would go for a more wet and "finished" sound, ideally London.

What matters is if they sound nice, really, more than if they are "music whores"

I never said they were music whores; I said they were a cheap orchestra who aren't the best in the world but nobody cares because they're cheap.

You can get a good orchestral score written and recorded for �20,000-�30,000 if you're on a budget. There is no excuse for any reasonably well funded project to not have one, aside from a) lack of talent and b) lack of time. Kirkhope isn't there for his talent, he's there for the nostalgia factor and because he's got a pedigree scoring this type of game. Somebody who knows what they're doing (Nic Raine) will have to get involved if this music needs to go before an orchestra.

Well then let's just hope they can make the best music, whenever that happens!

One can not overstate how important an "orchestral character" is when it comes to scoring. A combination of player individuality and room accoustics. The Prague studio sound I would describe as "bold", almost "harsh" and relatively "dry". The Moscow hall sound on the other hand would be "lush", "warm" and "wet" (oh boy). It depends on what you want your music to sound like. There are dozens of orchestral characters to chose from but many times the choice is limited by budget. Nothing pains me more than a score that should be played in Air Lyndhurst but finally ends up being performed in Sound Inn. However, in general I would want a more dry recording when working on a media project so I can always work on it later if need be. But if I want something special and I know the music is already great, then I would go for a more wet and "finished" sound, ideally London.

Exactly.

The Smecky studio (used by the City Of Prague Philharmonic) is really just a big room. The engineers Fitzpatrick uses these days are also incompetent but Jan Holzner, who's the local engineer in Prague does what he can in a horrible studio, leading to a very specific and easily identifiable "Cheap Prague" sound; big, loud, wet, and bassy.

A decent engineer can work wonders, though - trouble is, in days past an engineer would get a long time to dither around placing his microphones and testing levels - now it's all about getting in there, doing it as quickly as possible, and leaving. Nobody wants to pay an 80 piece symphony orchestra to sit there twiddling their thumbs while some guy tits and farts around for hours on end deciding whether to put this particular mike an inch to the left or an inch to the right. They get a basic setup that works, they get a post-production chain that works, and they keep on doing the same thing.

i was, as others pretty pissed that david arnold didnt get to score the independence day sequel.wander and closer were pretty underwhelming so far.but, surprise...instead of going the rcp bullshit route the music in the clips channels the style of the original score.it wont be amazingly orchestrated with the lack of dodd, but i start to like what i hear.and a few of the original themes apperently also make a comeback, so thats nice.
little over a minute is nothing to judge on, but the clips sparked my interest and the film will have tons of opporunities for big orchestral action music.
ooh btw danny elfmans ballet score rabbit and rogue is on spotify and some of the best he has ever done.the finale is stuff of legend, and i like the williams influences here and there

I can understand why someone would legitimately want a game to have samples. Plenty of nostalgic game fans hold the sound of early soundtracks to be part of the draw.
If I've learned anything it's that there are more fans of non-realistic sampled game music out there than there are fans of live-orchestrated game music. But when I submit anything to ocremix these days, nooo, my recordings sound too fake. I can't afford the latest samples (and am too lazy to pirate them like everyone else does).

I know the pain. But I think it's still too early to invest in any new orchestral samples anyway. Not before a COMPLETE orchestral library (EWQLSO) with full playability is out. If you want the Air Lyndhurst sound you could get Spitfire's BML series but it's not complete and far too expensive for just a "fancy" sound upgrade. Cinesamples has come close to a complete orchestra (all sections recorded at their correct seating positions at MGM) but the sections lack Divisi (as of now) and many articulations that I think are necessary are still missing. East West's Hollywood Orchestra could be an option but far too many single patches and keyswitches for my liking. Take Sample Modeling by comparison, now that's how you sample an instrument, you can even customize the sound to the tiniest detail, from flutter to vibrato and all in one patch.

I think the future of orchestral sampling for anyone who writes traditionally lies with the Berlin series or 8Dio's century project so I would save my money for that but I imagine you would need at least 5000 Euro to buy the complete package.

I haven't yet gotten to fully digest Elfman's latest classical work but I am quite enjoying the new Alice score. I ended up buying it on 7 Digital after listening to it a while on Spotify. It might need some trimming eventually but it is an improvement in orchestration over the original with some nice new themes.

someone tell me that i am not dreaming.another independence day resurgence movie clip got released and its more classic big orchestral action music , mix between david arnold and the 90s james newton howard.it sounds much, much better than everything they have done before.the clip is the destruction of london (though its heavily edited) and the track might be "what goes up"

Just to let you know - the Psycho Pass rip is missing a track - 2.16

What sort of shares / music may be welcomed here?

What sort of shares / music may be welcomed here?

Anything that is heavily big on orchestrating.

Anything that is heavily big on orchestrating.
Or really anything interesting from composers that this thread follows.

http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2016-06-10/gen-urobuchi-puppet-tv-series-reveals-2nd-promo-additional-staff-premiere-date/.103085

Those are gonna be some epicass puppets, Ah tell ya h'what.

Full orchestral scores have been de-riguer in games for almost twenty years and were better in the late nineties than they are now. (Show me a western game score of the calibre of Heart of Darkness, Outcast, or Medal Of Honour released in the last five years, or even at any point in the 21st century, for that matter.)

I see it a little different ... the 2000s also had a pretty strong lineup.

My top "western" game scores of the 2000s:

- Sea Dogs / Age of Pirates
- Killzone Trilogy (I take all three as one score)
- LAIR
- Primal / Medieval Resurrection
- Harry Potter 5 & 6
- Quidditch World Cup
- Anno 1701
- Medal of Honor: Frontline
- Kotor II: The Sith Lords
- Secret Weapons Over Normandy

There're also numerous quality orchestral scores recorded during that period: Republic: The Revolution, Red Alert 3, Kameo, Everquest II, Medal of Honor: European Assault, Medal of Honor: Rising Sun, Brothers In Arms: Hell's Highway, Age of Empires III, Azurik - Rise of Perathia, Ultima X, Gothic 3, Viva Pinata, Nuts & Bolts, The Abbey, The Settlers: Rise of an Empire, Paraworld, Napoleon: Total War, Shaiya, Warhawk etc. They are nowhere near as great as your average film score from the 70s, 80s and 90s but they're fine scores on their own.
This decade has Star Wars Kinect (an excellent pastiche effort), The Old Republic (Lennie Moore's parts), Star Wars: Battlefront, Dark Void (One of the few McGreary scores I really enjoy), Puppeteer (Doyle in Ballet mode), Dante's Inferno (Gary Schyman's parts), Command & Conquer 4 (Hannigan's part), Kingdoms of Amalur (Kirkhope's best effort so far), Lego Universe (Brian Tyler wrote a traditional film score with minimal modern elements), The Raven: Legacy Of A Master Thief, Bioshock 2 (which I like far more than 1), Black Prophecy, Albion Online (composed by Jonne Valtonen), CityVille 2, Rayman Legends, Pillars of Eternity and The Book of Unwritten Tales 2. Yes, this decade so far is not as good as previous ones but it's not devoid of quality either.

I didn't say it was devoid of quality. I said that, as far as Western game scores were concerned, the finest works of the mid to late 1990's have yet to be bettered. I know there's a lot of good stuff coming out, and it's well worth listening to - but as I say, call me the next time you get an hour-long phenomenally orchestrated multi-movement symphonic fantasia from a composer who eats golden age masterpieces for breakfast, in an action game, a-la Lennie Moore's Outcast. Something that's not just good in the sense of "I can't believe a game score is this good!" but that actually represents a high level of artistry and creativity.

If I may cite the scores you have mentioned, my own thoughts:

Republic, and Red Alert - not heard them, no comment.
Kameo (11 years old) - some really brilliant moments, but a helluva lot of junk and a pervading sense of the orchestrator saving the day on multiple occasions.
Everquest 2 (12 years old) - point taken, a gorgeous work.
European Assault & Rising Sun (12 and 13 years old) - good moments but not a patch on Medal Of Honor.
Brothers In Arms, AoE III - not heard them, no comment.
Azurik (15 years old) - John Williams pastiche mixed in with anonymous Jeremy Soule nothingness.
Ultima X, Gothic 3 - not heard them, no comment.
Viva Pinata, Nuts & Bolts - (10 and 8 years old) - bouncy and fun but nothing without their orchestrator.
The Abbey, The Settlers, Paraworld, Napoleon - not heard them, no comment.
Shaiya (~10 years old) - barely a quarter of an hour of music, George Oldziey by his own admission threw it together by hastily orchestrating and heavily plagiarising from his Wing Commander back catalogue.
Warhawk - (9 years old) - above average effort from Lennertz but absolutely nothing I want to listen to again.

Star Wars Kinect (4 years old) - Williams pastiche all the way, overall very good but a clear case of lesser composers seeming better than they are by speaking with Williams' voice.
TOR (5 years old) - ditto, with even worse composers - Lennie Moore was the only genuine composer on that project and it shows.
Battlefront (1 year old) - Gordy Haab gets better but it's still a Williams pastiche.
Dark Void (8 years old) - nice theme, McCreary crappy drums all over the place, the rest of it boring as hell.
Puppeteer (3 years old) - pleasant, uncomplicated, nice, but not particularly noteworthy.
Dante's Inferno (6 years old) - great moments, but mainly an exercise in avant-garde orchestration techniques.
Command & Conquer (6 years old) - not heard it, but knowing James Hannigan, not enthusiastic...
Amalur (4 years old) - another orchestrator's score (Nic Raine to the rescue yet again) but good to listen to nonetheless.
Lego (6 years old) - Brian Tyler doing better than his film scores; bouncy, happy, competent, but only remarkable in the "HOLY SHIT I DIDN'T KNOW BRIAN TYLER COULD DO THAT!" sense.
Raven - not heard all of it, nice theme though.
Bioshock - see Dante's Inferno. Trying to be like Elliot Goldenthal but just doesn't convince.
Black Prophecy, Albion, Cityville, Rayman, Pillars - not heard them, no comment.
BOUT2 - absolutely no soul whatsoever; deliciously well orchestrated mineral water.

Sea Dogs / AoP - excellent scores, point well made.
Killzone - about ten mintues from all there that I'd listen to again, screw the rest.
LAIR - the Star Wars prequels re-recorded.
Primal / Medieval - nicely orchestrated nothingness.
Harry Potter 5 & 6 - Williams pastiche, and not very good Williams pastiche at that.
Quidditch - ditto.
Anno - good in parts, mainly dull as dishwater.
Kotor - see Qudditch.
SWOP - no patch on MoH.

Sorry to be so negative... I really am. :)

SWOP

Umm... what is that supposed to be? :p

One of the reasons Outcast and Sea Dogs work so well is because they don't sound like they're trying to be film scores. Game composers should stop trying to be like Williams and instead look to where Williams got his inspiration: classical music.

The Lost World: Jurassic Park was the first time a video game had a fully orchestrated soundtrack. In the years shortly after, there were fantastic game scores like that of the Medal of Honor series (mainly Giacchino), and Outcast.

We're definitely not hearing anything that good these days, at least not the last time I checked. When do you think the last time was where there was a composer trying to mimic Williams in a video game score?
I ask because I don't exactly keep up with every game that comes out. :p

We're still direly overrating Outcast around here, I see. ;)

And do not forget Giacchino's Medal of Honor scores! Those are my favorite of his. ;)

---------- Post added at 12:37 AM ---------- Previous post was at 12:21 AM ----------

Are Koichi Sugiyama and Shiro Sagisu well in the circulation of this thread?

I thought I would some of my favorite of their compositions here, if that's okay?

Sorry to be so negative... I really am. :)

Absolutely no offense taken. The three scores I think that are at least worth a listen are Ultima X, The Abbey and Gothic 3. I just disagree with Killzone as I recently revisited it (well, my 60 minutes score selection) and I would still keep it. I just wonder at what point your opinion of Hannigan changed as you were quite positive about him in the past and even drove to a concert of his if I recall correctly. I ask this because I think at least his Soviet March from Red Alert 3 and his "Saving Humanity" from Command & Conquer 4 are worth keeping and his Harry Potter scores apart from 7 are far more convincing scores than the movie versions.


@CLONEMASTER:

At least Sugiyama is unquestionably a favorite of many around here (I hope) and I check out every new Sagisu score under the sun since his collaboration with Masamichi Amano.

Many thanks, I will investigate them! :)

Hannigan... well, yeah, I went all the way to Nottingham for a "concert" - which actually turned out to be somebody playing a CD through crappy guitar amps, accompanied by ONE live violinist and a tiny live chorus.

I lost interest the moment I heard HP7 - though even THAT has moments that outshine the movie scores (I'm looking at YOU Nicholas Hooper!). I had him down as somebody who could be really great once he'd got out of the John Williams pastiche rut... but it never happened. As the Williams influence drifted away, so did everything that made me warm to his music - and when you like an artist when he's trying to be another artist but find nothing appealing about his work when he's trying to be himself... it's time to drift away. The Soviet March was fun enough, but it was yet another pisstake piece. Not in any way a serious composition - a piece of Soviet army propaganda soundalike. Mood music. Arranged by the numbers. It did what it was trying to do very well, but I want to hear music that justifies its own existence. To Save Humanity is barely two minutes long and whilst it's not at all objectionable, whenever I hear it I just get a craving to listen to some Jerry Goldsmith.

There's a helluva lot that I enjoy listening to - including some of the scores you spoke of above... but I don't consider them serious contenders to be considered truly great artistic achievements.

:)

It's been a while, quite hasty these last few months. Nevertheless, I've came back not empty-handed ;):


Gigantic Formula - Hiroyuki Sawano



Download (http://www.mediafire.com/download/edczolpcp2btrnm/Gigantic_Formula_Symphony.mp3)

Now, I know what you may be thinking: "What in god's holy name am I'm doing, by posting a work of the infamous Hiroyuki Sawano in this thread!" and to that I respond "Gigantic Formula". Many have said that Gundam Unicorn was the last work of Hiroyuki's attempt to make something coherently orchestral, which I disagree in many aspects when back then, in 2007, there was a younger Sawano who accomplished alot more with the mecha anime, Gigantic Formula. A main theme that is devoid of any electronics, drumming or singing, string and brass sections that don't sound like they came from cheap synth libraries, and even woodwinds that are not just in one track.

Yes, there's still some annoying electronic percussion on the background at times, yes, there's still some bass prevalent mixing that can annoy alot of audience of this thread. Thus, I've selected and ordered the pieces from both volumes of the OST which you can find here (http://anime.thehylia.com/soundtracks/album/gigantic-formula-original-soundtrack-vol-1)and here (http://anime.thehylia.com/soundtracks/album/gigantic-formula-original-soundtrack-vol-2)if you're interested. Arranged by me, and while it technically doesn't fit as a whole in the category of "SYMPHONY", I placed it in a way it may sound more progressive and bearable (don't worry with the electronics at the beginning, I assure you they'll be gone from the rest of this 18:29 minute track). Some important notes, this is my first attempt in making something of this format and I have not added a single reverb, delay, equalization process, just selecting and ordering tracks. Feedback would be appreciated :)

It's not a masterpiece or even perfect, but I don't consider it as bad as what Sawano does nowadays (which is why I stopped hearing him for a while now) and I guess it's at least worthy for a post of this thread. Check it out and see what you guys think! :D

Many thanks for this one, pensquawk. I think it flow pretty well together. :)

Wasn't Ryosuke Nakanishi involved (but just credited for the ED song)? because it sounds more like Nakanishi in parts than Sawano if I'm not mistaken. BUT if Sawano did everything himself I have to ask why all his other project lack the cohesion that Gigantic Formula has. Granted I enjoy him from time to time, even the recent Kabaneri, but this is so uncharacteristicly Sawano in parts that I have to wonder...

The Lost World: Jurassic Park was the first time a video game had a fully orchestrated soundtrack.
I'm pretty sure there were lots of synths supporting a small orchestra (some tracks have very fake sounding percussion and strings.) I think Broughton's Heart of Darkness deserves credit for being the first FULLY orchestrated, not to mention he originally recorded the score in 1990.

Hiroyuki Sawano, what the hell, why are you posting this sh...

*listens in preparation for making long and scathing response*

Err... what? Seriously... I mean, obviously there's an orchestrator beavering away under the surface here, but nonetheless... it's a really surprising piece of work and one I've immensely enjoyed hearing. It does indeed raise the question; if he can write to a reasonable standard, why does he never do so? A lot of this has that "orchestrated pop-song" sound to it, but some of it is pure film score. (That said, what the hell is going on 3:08 to 3:23? I can see where he was going but the ensemble is such a mess... either it's a cock-up which made the album for some reason, or it was written like that, which is just shocking...)

I am eternally grateful for this. I would never have gone seeking this out in a million years. This is what this thread does best. Thank you. :)

I'm pretty sure there were lots of synths supporting a small orchestra (some tracks have very fake sounding percussion and strings.) I think Broughton's Heart of Darkness deserves credit for being the first FULLY orchestrated, not to mention he originally recorded the score in 1990.

Well then, I wish it was more well know that this is the case.

Hiroyuki Sawano, what the hell, why are you posting this sh...

*listens in preparation for making long and scathing response*

Err... what? Seriously... I mean, obviously there's an orchestrator beavering away under the surface here, but nonetheless... it's a really surprising piece of work and one I've immensely enjoyed hearing. It does indeed raise the question; if he can write to a reasonable standard, why does he never do so? A lot of this has that "orchestrated pop-song" sound to it, but some of it is pure film score. (That said, what the hell is going on 3:08 to 3:23? I can see where he was going but the ensemble is such a mess... either it's a cock-up which made the album for some reason, or it was written like that, which is just shocking...)

I am eternally grateful for this. I would never have gone seeking this out in a million years. This is what this thread does best. Thank you. :)

On another topic, I would like a have a little rant about terminology. I know the argument "this isn't music class" / "don't be so uptight" and all the rest of it, but there is nothing wrong with getting things right:

1. COMPOSITION



This is composition - which has many similarities with orchestration. Composing is deciding what notes to play, and in what order. A composer can orchestrate as he's going, leave it to a third party (an orchestrator) or do it himself after he;s finished composing. Again, composition does not require the production of sound, though most composers will have some way to listen to what they're composing - either by traditionally composing whilst seated at a piano, or by hearing playback from a synthesiser.

2. ORCHESTRATION



This is orchestration. Orchestration is the act of deciding how to distribute the music amongst the members of the orchestra; which note should they be playing, so on, and so forth. Any piece of music, whether it has been performed by live musicians or not, that is meant for playing by a group of musicians playing different instruments, has been orchestrated. It requires the production of no sound - it can be done with nothing but a person, a pencil, and a piece of paper.

3. PERFORMANCE



This is a performance. This is what a lot of people mean when they say "orchestrated". Some music, which has already been composed and orchestrated by somebody, is now performed by a group of musicians.

Can we please stop getting these terms mixed up and particularly using the term "orchestrated" to mean "played by an orchestra"?

Rant over. Thank you, gentlemen.

Actually what I was never really sure on, was the orchestration.

I had an idea, but was never sure. :p Thanks for the lesson! ;) Now I know.

Rant listened, dully noted.

I'm sure all of you will be disappointed but recently Yuki Hayashi was confirmed to be the music composer for the new one piece film gold. Personally I'm hype (one of my many favorite music composers)

Good stuff, tango.

Another important part of the process is Arranging (or sometimes referred to as "Adapted" as in the case of William Ross with Chamber of Secrets.) That's where a composer will compose a few themes, or sometimes a suite of music, and leave it to the arranger (who might also be an orchestrator) to go one step further and compose additional music to act as the glue that binds the themes with the film. I think composers or their agents attempted to minimize "arranging" credits on their scores because it used to be seen as taboo, but with Zimmer's scores containing lots of "additional music by" credits, not so much now. Arrangers might have been seen as ghost-composers at one time (and almost always uncredited.)

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B18GQkZXWsEVaEFHTjhIWWtHYnc

I thought I would share this here. Found it while going through Forgotten Hope 2's music files.

I reallly like it, a lot, but I have no clue as to who it's composed by, so if any of you recognize it, or anything at all, please let me know!

Rant…

A tidbit about composition/orchestration: composers working with an orchestrator (which is de facto for a film produced by a major Hollywood studio) won't necessarily write to full score, instead writing for principal sections and/or specialized notation/instrumentation. The orchestrator would fill in the details under supervision by the composer.

If I see one more "I can't wait to see if Wanky Game 3 has orchestrated music!!!" one more time, I will probably have another stroke. :P

Still not as bad as that notorious review of one of Oshima's which states that "her music is also aided tremendously by the fact that Toho outsourced the orchestration work to the Moscow International Symphonic Orchestra, under conduction supervision from Konstantin Krimets."

It's here - read it and weep: http://www.tohokingdom.com/cd/gxmg_king.htm

Arranging is a hard one. To me, arranging is something in the same ballpark as orchestration, but I tend to apply it to smaller ensembles - arranged for piano quartet, and so on - though I'm aware of the usage you speak of.

I would hesitate to classify work such as William Ross's on Harry Potter as arrangement - perhaps adaptation is a better word for it as it implies a limited amount of composition going on. It is a foggy difference though - Don Davis used Williams' themes on JP3, for instance, but I would consider that composed by Davis incorporating themes by Williams - structurally, dramatically, harmonically, orchestrationally, it's Davis' score through and through with occasional blasts of familiar melodies - and even when they occur they are filtered through Davis' sensibilities... whereas William Ross on Harry Potter... really did what amounted to donkey work - he didn't contribute an original score, but did a little bit of technical acrobatics to make Williams' raw material fit in places it wasn't initially designed to fit.

Even orchestrators themselves can't decide what constitutes orchestration and what constitutes composition. Counter the non-interventionist Sachiko Miyano (essentially she does nothing but transform existing music into scores) with Yoshihisa Hirano and Masamichi Amano, who "orchestrate" something and it ends up sounding more like them than whoever the credited composer was. They are essentially ghost-writing, and frequently doing so in order to prop up a composer who isn't working in his area of skill.

It's tough! :D

---------- Post added at 09:34 PM ---------- Previous post was at 09:21 PM ----------


A tidbit about composition/orchestration: composers working with an orchestrator (which is de facto for a film produced by a major Hollywood studio) won't necessarily write to full score, instead writing for principal sections and/or specialized notation/instrumentation. The orchestrator would fill in the details under supervision by the composer.

Indeed so; it's a misunderstanding to suggest that a composer who uses an orchestrator is handing over a solo piano score, or worse still just hums a melody into a tape recording and passes it to an orchestrator. The real greats effectively did orchestrate their own music and their orchestrators filled a role that was just barely above copyist. Arthur Morton always joked that his work with Jerry Goldsmith consisted of copying the music from the yellow paper to the white paper. Of course there was more to it than that (such gentlemanly behaviour is a lost art today) but basically the composer was producing a great deal of the orchestrations, albeit in a compressed short-hand that the orchestrator fully expanded.

Seeing John Williams work with Herb Spencer is fascinating. He points to a section of score, plays it on the piano, sings a little, does a little pantomime of a bass player, and gives a brief description of the arrangement:

"Now we come to a kind-of tutti, which is this thing with strings and horns. The horn trio, strings, double-notes in cellos and basses."

Spencer nods and says "Yeah!" and then, off he goes. Knowing Williams, that's all he needs.

Do *any* Hollywood composers write to full score now? At that, could they if they needed to? I suspect the answer to both those questions will be pretty depressing.

---------- Post added at 09:38 PM ---------- Previous post was at 09:34 PM ----------


https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B18GQkZXWsEVaEFHTjhIWWtHYnc

I thought I would share this here. Found it while going through Forgotten Hope 2's music files.

I reallly like it, a lot, but I have no clue as to who it's composed by, so if any of you recognize it, or anything at all, please let me know!

It's the Entr'acte from El Cid (sometimes referred to as the El Cid March) by Miklos Rozsa. It's the 1996 re-recording by James Sedares and the New Zealand Symphony. :D

It's excellent!!!

I've always loved middle eastern sounding music, the sort of melodies and everything.

I would hesitate to classify work such as William Ross's on Harry Potter as arrangement - perhaps adaptation is a better word for it as it implies a limited amount of composition going on. It is a foggy difference though - Don Davis used Williams' themes on JP3, for instance, but I would consider that composed by Davis incorporating themes by Williams - structurally, dramatically, harmonically, orchestrationally, it's Davis' score through and through with occasional blasts of familiar melodies - and even when they occur they are filtered through Davis' sensibilities... whereas William Ross on Harry Potter... really did what amounted to donkey work - he didn't contribute an original score, but did a little bit of technical acrobatics to make Williams' raw material fit in places it wasn't initially designed to fit.
Upon reading more about CoS it appears Ross was brought in to arrange/adapt music from the first movie and combine it with Williams's new material. Perhaps it was similar to what Shiro Hamaguchi did for Uematsu in terms of going beyond the traditional duties of straight orchestration of the source material. A similar thing happened with The Legend of Zorro where Horner used a team of around 7-8 orchestrators to adapt the music from the first film. Often the line between things such as orchestration/adaptation/arranging/additional music are very blurred, which is what I originally should have pointed out.

Regrettably, in a dictionary you will find arrangement and adaption listed as synonyms of one another, even though their individual definitions are wholly dissimilar. The former a "reconceptualization" of prior existing material encompassing the gamut of melody, harmony, rhythm and orchestration, while the latter is exclusively related to instrumentation.

I definitely wouldn't call anything that involved a substantial amount of composition or re-composition to be "arrangement" - although in the end, picking the right word comes down to what kind of mood you're in and how much you respect the composer versus the arranger, adapter, or orchestrator, as much as any purely musical consideration.

Another odd one in the film music genre; Ken Thorne on Superman II. A lot of his work there took the form of making minor tweaks to existing orchestrations to accommodate the differently-proportioned orchestra, re-timing existing passages by repeating or ommitting bars, gluing together different parts of multiple cues, and occasionally writing a few bars of "connective tissue" to weave it all together. Composition? Orchestration? Arrangement? Adaptation? All of the above? None of the above?

Superman III was clearly a composition effort; a Thorne score heavily featuring Williams' melodies, but also crucially stylistically more Thorne than Williams - and Thorne even got some of his own unique melodies in there.

Superman IV - The Quest For Milton Keynes gave Alexander Courage a raw deal in terms of credits, with "Music By John Williams" followed up by "Music Adapted And Conducted By Alexander Courage" when all Williams did was write a handful of additional themes and Courage actually wrote the score. The United Nations cue is one of the finest pieces of music ever written for the cinema; every major motif of the score weaved in there, and at one point all of them playing simultaneously in counterpoint; Courage makes it sound so effortless. Blink and you'd miss it. Stylistically, not at all what Williams would've done.

Well, in the case of SUP II, III and IV, none fall under an either/or since both Thorne and Courage composed original material as well as arranged prior existing material by Williams. So, it really comes down to accurate accreditation, which has obviously never really been the standard.

For instance, should we properly see this instead:

Original Music Composed by Ken Thorne (Alexander Courage)
Original Themes and Additional Music by John Williams Arranged and Adapted by Ken Thorne (Alexander Courage).

Haha, things just keep getting more complicated. To me arrangement is what Vaughan Williams did with Tallis's Why Fum'th in Fight. I've always felt that the word "arrangement" could involve a whole spectrum of reinterpretation of the source material, from straight orchestration to genre-jumping (such as disco Star Wars). Adaptation sounds like taking a source and making it "fit", which often entails elements of both orchestration and arrangement, which often happens in classical music-based scores (V for Vendetta, Black Swan, etc.) Adaptation might also be what you would call Zimmer's process where he writes a suite and then others take it and make it fit his films.

Then there's ghost-writing which is when the lead composer just lets his assistants do whatever is necessary to complete the score, which I find most interesting, because sometimes it's painfully obvious.

Many thanks for this one, pensquawk. I think it flow pretty well together. :)

Wasn't Ryosuke Nakanishi involved (but just credited for the ED song)? because it sounds more like Nakanishi in parts than Sawano if I'm not mistaken. BUT if Sawano did everything himself I have to ask why all his other project lack the cohesion that Gigantic Formula has. Granted I enjoy him from time to time, even the recent Kabaneri, but this is so uncharacteristicly Sawano in parts that I have to wonder...

Glad to see the entire piece flowed well as I expected it to be, there were some parts that I was worried that may have sound to noticeable during the transitions. As for Nakanishi's contribution, I wouldn't doubt for a second that Sawano had alot of assistance in this if you compared it to the rest of his work, however, the main theme at least from what I can perfectly hear, sounds very typical Sawano to me. Then again, I might be wrong, and most of the pieces I merged together are Nakanishi's, either way, it's still a nicely done score.


Hiroyuki Sawano, what the hell, why are you posting this sh...

*listens in preparation for making long and scathing response*

Err... what? Seriously... I mean, obviously there's an orchestrator beavering away under the surface here, but nonetheless... it's a really surprising piece of work and one I've immensely enjoyed hearing. It does indeed raise the question; if he can write to a reasonable standard, why does he never do so? A lot of this has that "orchestrated pop-song" sound to it, but some of it is pure film score. (That said, what the hell is going on 3:08 to 3:23? I can see where he was going but the ensemble is such a mess... either it's a cock-up which made the album for some reason, or it was written like that, which is just shocking...)

I am eternally grateful for this. I would never have gone seeking this out in a million years. This is what this thread does best. Thank you. :)

I'm generally happy the nice feedback this has gotten, which means I can approach for more of these kinds of posts on the future :). As for a reason why Sawano never seems to do this sort of score? I guess the loud "epic" score format making process of his, seems to be making more profit and appealing for the general public, and it's alot more cheaper and easy to produce than something of the caliber of Gigantic Formula.

Like compare GF to something like Kill la Kill or Attack on Titan, what are the list of things you need to produce this? Your average garage rock band with a singer or two? Check! Your zany solo violinist that just improvises on the entire f*cking track? Check! Your good handful of libraries combined with a poor number of ensemble that'll probably be overwhelmed anyway with the electronics and sound incredibly fake? Check! Everything you need to produce such "zimmery" masterpieces. :D

PS: Thanks for the correction there tango, I was struggling with the term of what really "orchestration" meant for a while until you came and clarified it pretty well!

I can't wait to see if Wanky Game 3 has orchestrated music.

Well look at that, Tatsuya Kato's score for Love Live is just as traditionally Hollywood as Fujisawa's. Let's see if it is as good as the New York movie.
91 Days also continues to show that it's a mix of classic Jazz and orchestra and Keiji Inai is let loose again on an epic fantasy story that judging from the mock-up screams symphonic material. Even smut like Ange Vierge has a little glimpse of an at least decent orchestral score. What can I say, I'm really looking forward to the next season...

Oh and the Outtakes of Evangelion also includes various orchestral promotional music, including the Nihon Animator trailer piece and hopefully Amano's contributions before all the post-production.

Well look at that, Tatsuya Kato's score for Love Live is just as traditionally Hollywood as Fujisawa's. Let's see if it is as good as the New York movie.
91 Days also continues to show that it's a mix of classic Jazz and orchestra and Keiji Inai is let loose again on an epic fantasy story that judging from the mock-up screams symphonic material. Even smut like Ange Vierge has a little glimpse of an at least decent orchestral score. What can I say, I'm really looking forward to the next season...

Oh and the Outtakes of Evangelion also includes various orchestral promotional music, including the Nihon Animator trailer piece and hopefully Amano's contributions before all the post-production.
That Love Live trailer music gives me high hopes for a nice score from Kato. And yes, Aldermin sounds like it'll be Danmachi part 2.

Sagisu's Godzilla also comes out next month. Surely there will be some nice orchestral stuff from Amano on that too.

Edit: Hamauzu's World of Final Fantasy is coming along nicely too - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VrG6u-JvXNI

Macross Delta's first soundtrack has leaked 11 days early. Some nice tracks by Mina Kubota.

Classical music at Sony E3 and looks like Bear McCreary is doing the new God of War.

Clonemaster - You might not want to use google drive for sharing. It links back to you too directly. If you are just posting one track I believe there are other sites if you look back on previous pages for samples posted along with certain posts.

EDIT: Also you can watch the video with the God of War theme mentioned above at this link. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cjxfk7JNNDI)

Macross Delta's first soundtrack has leaked 11 days early. Some nice tracks by Mina Kubota.

The "Wind" tracks are indeed quite nice. #8 is my most favorite of them (I don't think I've heard it in the context of the show yet). #17 is okay too. A vocals-only version of the early minutes of this tune has been featured extensively in the show so far. It sounds a whole lot different with the instruments in the background here on album; wonder if this version is going to be used eventually. EP12 in particular looks like it could make use of something like that.

The rest of the score didn't quite work for me (not so far at least) but surprisingly I am enjoying the vocal songs. More than expected, in fact. Can't get enough of that (likely unintended) reference to Jeremy Soule's Elder's Scroll theme from 0:37 - 0:48 of the opening theme song (#2) too. lol.

The new Zelda may have a lot of live music..

I just hope it is orchestral. I hear a lot of piano and no strings

Well, I hear a small live orchestra.

Pretty interesting music, as well - loving the ehru. Who is scoring this?

Mmm... I don't think it's confirmed... yet.

The main theme sounds great. As for the whole game being orche---performed by an orchestra, I don't have high hopes. Skyward Sword only had around five or six songs in the final game that were performed by an orchestra, the rest was synth. I hope I'm wrong.

During the gameplay videos they've been showing they said that music would be sparse and that it would be mostly piano. I believe this is in reference to exploring the overworld so that's fine enough. Hopefully there are plenty of dungeon and boss themes.

lalaland brings us scores from cartoon shows like family guy,simpsons,south park, futurama, the flintstones and others.each gets at least one volume, some more.family guy is the beginning with over an hour of suites by ron jones and walter murphy,this release is freakin sweet.

I will try to find out who is scoring it. Give me a little time.

Clonemaster - You might not want to use google drive for sharing. It links back to you too directly. If you are just posting one track I believe there are other sites if you look back on previous pages for samples posted along with certain posts.

EDIT: Also you can watch the video with the God of War theme mentioned above at this link. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cjxfk7JNNDI)

Thank you, I'll look.

It's funny that I can't find any announcement. You would've thought this would be all over the place by now.

Koji Kondo has been announced as "music supervisor" but he is not writing anything for the game to my knowledge...

The music in the trailer doesn't sound like anybody I'm familar with.

This Guy/Gal from NeoGAF made an interesting point about the Zelda Trailer Music:

It feels crazy that I can't even figure it out. It has Yokota-like orchestration, but with tone colors that the modern FE composers use in spots dashed in with some progressions that remind me of Atsuko Asahi and Minegishi in some ways.

Usually it's very easy for me to figure out, but this kind of soundscape is almost unprecedented from their stable of composers.

This Guy/Gal from NeoGAF made an interesting point about the Zelda Trailer Music:

It feels crazy that I can't even figure it out. It has Yokota-like orchestration, but with tone colors that the modern FE composers use in spots dashed in with some progressions that remind me of Atsuko Asahi and Minegishi in some ways.

Usually it's very easy for me to figure out, but this kind of soundscape is almost unprecedented from their stable of composers.
Do you think I should try asking one of them? I have contact with two of them.

That would be wonderful if you can ask, MonadoLink! :)

It's funny that I can't find any announcement. You would've thought this would be all over the place by now.

Koji Kondo has been announced as "music supervisor" but he is not writing anything for the game to my knowledge...

The music in the trailer doesn't sound like anybody I'm familar with.
Not unusual. Nintendo is very protective of their big franchises so they can control all the information. I imagine the people involved signed a NDA or something so they can't talk about it.

I can't tell who it is either. I don't think Nintendo would hire a freelancer for something like Zelda but this style doesn't really match with any of their in-house composers. If anyone, I'd have to guess Yokota or Asahi.

So as usual switching the Alice Through the Looking Glass soundtrack to film order makes it flow a lot better. As much as I love the delightful suite that opens the album it makes the rest of it seem meh in comparison if they follow it. But once it is at the end, and things are in order they are much better. I'm enjoying this one much more than the first one.

Here is Michiru Oshima's 5 minute end roll for the film Kainan 1890: http://picosong.com/ZdMs/

This just saddens me. Here is an Oshima score performed by the Moscow Symphony Orchestra (cond. Alexander Polyanichko) and nominated for Outstanding Score at Japan's Academy Awards this year... and there's no soundtrack release?! Seriously Japan?

I sent Oshima a message about it today. Hopefully I'll get a reply. (edit: she said there's no plans)

(btw, the audio bitrate is low because there's only one rip of the movie floating around right now)

Hey there People ;) Few days ago I published my newest piece which happenes to be based on Theme of Aeris / Aerith from FF VII. Link to original post you can find below (post is hidden in FF VII subforum, cause it was moved by MODs).

That piece ate a huge chunk of my past... lots of months. Because of many things. While I was writing it I loved, I hated it, at times I was totally indifferent towards it. Now I feel something between "I'm so glad I did it" and "I've never should started it or at least hide it in a drawer. Forever" ;)

Anyways, if someone of you wants to hear rather different approach to that beloved theme, then be my guest: Thread 205869

So... ID4 The Senseless And Twenty-Years-Too-Late Sequel has hit... and it truly is better than it could've been. I'm sure we all wanted David Arnold's triumphant comeback to his mid-nineties action style, but instead we get a very above-average effort from Emmerich's more recent collaborators, Thomas Wanker and Harald Kloser.

It's not great. It's not anywhere near great. But it's trying to make a statement infinitely more complex than your average Hollywood action score. I don't think it succeeds, but it is TRYING to be the kind of score Arnold would've written. It's well worth a listen, I think!

Once was enough, thanks.

So... ID4 The Senseless And Twenty-Years-Too-Late Sequel has hit... and it truly is better than it could've been. I'm sure we all wanted David Arnold's triumphant comeback to his mid-nineties action style, but instead we get a very above-average effort from Emmerich's more recent collaborators, Thomas Wanker and Harald Kloser.

It's not great. It's not anywhere near great. But it's trying to make a statement infinitely more complex than your average Hollywood action score. I don't think it succeeds, but it is TRYING to be the kind of score Arnold would've written. It's well worth a listen, I think!

while i enjoy the more classic parts of it,especially the new horneresque theme, the jnh scifisuspense music, the finale and that one exciting action cue (track 6) there are some odd things going on.the modern stuff in the middle comes out of nowhere and dissapears, track 1 and 17 are garbage, the great music from the dogfight clip is not on the cd or heavily modified and the "what goes up" track and several others sounds like synth, while in the clip featuring the same music its clearly an orchestra and even the tempo is different.and the end credit thing is just lazy.not much action on the cd, propably missing with no big finale action cue.that bus chase doesnt sound like it.frustrating cd release.i have a feeling the cd is the unaltered version of the score before they rerecorded it.i think i found the dogfight music on the cd in that rcp actiontrack in the middle.it matches but is much more modern.in the clip its a lot like david arnold with mimicing dodds orchestrations.thats not whats on the release.

I wonder how much of this was temp tracked with other scores. For example, the track "What Goes Up" might have been temped with Signs. And the main theme sounds like Arnold's original ID4 theme mixed with Deep Impact.

What's with the tracks over a minute in length? Are they trying to be Willow?

Once was enough, thanks.

You win the prize for being even more of a curmudgeon than I am - thank you! :D

I can't see myself returning to this score. It's really nothing we haven't heard before. At the same time I still think it's worth smiling about the fact that a big studio allowed a major summer blockbuster to receive a substantially orchestral score that doesn't get stuck in the Zimmer rut. It's always nice when you expect something to be "a earth-shattering disappointment of galactic proportions" and it turns out to be only "kinda crap".

Baby steps; the biggest film of 2015 receives a completely traditional symphonic score from an industry veteran in his 80s... And in 2016, a hotly anticipated sequel to a twenty year-old fan favourite COULD have got a naff "wallpaper and power anthems" score by Hans Zimmer Co Ltd Plc, finished up with a score that's unremarkable, deficient, and completely hopeless in comparison to its predecessor... but did at least make an effort in a medium where even making an effort is almost never seen any more.

My latest release is out! 100% live performances but this time I do 1970s brass band with piano, drums, and bass in addition to a soulful vocalist! The arrangement is Can You Feel the Sunshine from Sonic R by Richard Jacques. This was a big experiment for me as I have not done much jazz arranging, let alone 1970s power ballads. Hope you all enjoy! Would be grateful for feedback ;).

https://soundcloud.com/josh-barron/can-you-feel-the-sunshine-70s-mix

Oh and if you like, please visit my website for purchase details. The album could use some support :).

https://joshbarronmusic.wordpress.com/

charles fox zorro ballet reuploads pleases !

I didn't even make it through a full listen of the new Independence Day soundtrack. It was clearly weak from the start. I am eagerly waiting for the new Starship Troopers release if mine ever ships after they fix a tiny blip in the first disc.

Oh and now signs point towards an expanded Rocketeer soundtrack next week from Intrada! I will be buying that one immediately if that is the case.

i was right.independence day resurgence has been improved for the movie.we got the much inferior version on cd which sucks.i hope the recording sessions will be the improved tracks from the movie.much bigger, more heroic, choir is way better, more variations of david arnolds theme,way more action and again much better versions.so it might be closers and wanders best score to date, on the second try.