Oh wow, he did Priconne?! I honest to god thought it was Tanaka without a doubt from the gameplay. He has serious chops!!!!
IMAGINE continues to find talented composers for the next generation. It would be a good idea to keep an eye on their latest hire Kenta Higashiohji (http://imagine-music.co.jp/artist/higashiohji/). A young multi-instrumentalist who, according to his bio, was recruited by Keiji Inai.

Agree with Tango here. I can never listen to the Miku orchestral albums, if we can even call them that.

I didn't mind the 2016 album but the 2017 album doesn't do anything for me. Lots of repeats and a terrible audience that has no manners. I'm honestly not sure why they bothered making a CD of it.

For me its the opposite, Souhei Kano's Fury piece and Shapless Song and Rain of Cherry Blossoms are quite good. I just know the players couldn't care less in 2016 and this time I don't get that feeling. At the time we shared 2016 these kinds of concerts were still just a novelty, but considering now its just the tip of the iceberg and with 2017 I feel like everything that can be done with the pop material has now been done, I'll refrain from tormenting fellow poor souls next time :D (and "love" is not the word I would describe this album with Tango, its still leagues below something like Tales 2017 or Kirby ;))

For being the lowest of the low of the concert scene, there's stuff to enjoy (and even appreciate) and the orchestra gets a good workout, its worth posting to establish the bottom and with this one I'm not trying to pull my ears out like I did with Bleeding Fingers but instead have some smiles, that's a good thing in my book. Not to mention I still think Souhei Kano will bless us once more eventually (his first film score should not be too far off now). And look, if perhaps the next Asakawa got his career started because of Miku Symphony, wouldn't that be a redeeming point... time will tell.

And for the record, the audience is not to blame for the clapping this time, infact its the conductor's fault from what I could gather from the preview (always the happiest of the orchestra). But I at least got a chuckle out of it.

And look, if perhaps the next Asakawa got his career started because of Miku Symphony, wouldn't that be a redeeming point... time will tell.The sad irony of this situation is that Asakawa already did or eventually will participate in the Miku Symphony... as a harpist.

Shingo Nishimura's piece posted on the previous page is okay, but nothing near the level of an Asakawa piece. It uses a handful of similar orchestration techniques, but the core of the music is not much different than the generic kids show schlock that Hattori pumped out for Doraemon. Asakawa, even without using his typical Golden Age tropes, still manages to write original music of exceptional quality:

http://picosong.com/wY9cv/

This isn't an imitation of the older styles, it's his own identity that he would have no shame submitting as a concert piece. Unless a composer can have this level of confidence in their own music, they will never be capable of being a "next Asakawa" or "next John Williams" or any one of the other symphonic masters.

Geez No Game No Life Zero I tell ya.

Well, truth be told, Williams wasn't a master from day one, he got there by the right environment, discipline and training every day. Only in the 70s in his 40s did he achieve a level only a couple could match at the time. Asakawa is one in a million, like Korngold (for christ sake even Mahler thought he was a prodigy!).

It's a hyperbolic possibilty anyway. So far he only contributed 15 minutes of score to a naff little kids movie (which we haven't even heard in full yet) and contributed music to a mobile game by the IMAGINE brigade (which should get an anime eventually). I wouldn't even call that "starting out" yet. I'll look forward seeing his name on something substantial in the future. I meant "next Asakawa" more in "keeping the Golden Age sound alive". There are still a couple of composers out there who get a chance to write in that idiom and if there's even one more and he can make a succesful career out of it, the better.

Speaking of IMAGINE and new faces, there's also Yasunori Nishiki (32) who worked together with Tanaka (I guess he is his mentor) on Endride and Gravity Daze 2 (his influence shows) and who now has his solo debut: Ex1 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d_vqF7XHoJY) / Ex2 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XsdsEDRxp9I) / Ex3 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oDTcqPacRRg) (if nothing else he's a good tunesmith)

Aside from IMAGINE there's also Umitaro ABE who scores this anime film in august: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2t96hYc5C24
He studied in Tokyo and Paris and you certainly hear it, it's very pleasant: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kf0jgT1GMzI

silvestris ready player one main theme is 100% 90s silvestri mixed with 90s williams.now i am seriously hyped.maybe its a good influence for infinity war, too.seems to include themes by max steiner and akira ifukube, too.i guess its for king kong and mechagodzilla.

There's also Horner in there ;)

But don't get your hopes up too high, I also hear an armada of modern drums, a theme that won't be remembered by anyone in 20 years I feel, no classical structure at all aside from the main title and end credits, and plenty of "I MEMBER" moments. I had some hopes too...

Be the judge yourself: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RG-_56ZfqQk (if the whole score is like that I'm in but...) / https://www.twitch.tv/videos/237704920 (90's? I'm afraid not :( also I MEMBER!!!!!!!)

Also hilarious to me that Keiji Inai now sounds more 80s Silvestri than the real one (there's also Williams in there, just like RPO, funny): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Qb46_aVBDQ

If it were not for Japan I would have cried tears of joy hearing the main theme but since there exists another world that is full of such themes, this doesn't excite me all that much.
If I want an ORIGINAL 80s homage score with drums, guitars and synthezisers that are actually "80's" with a theme I can actually whistle, I listen to Kyuranger and Gokaiger. RPO got the occasional sound right but not the music. This is NOT 80's. The people who made this and who made Silvestri sound like this don't understand a thing about what made the 80s great. Not even Spielberg himself remembers apparently.

Oh well, I'll give it a shot regardless. Maybe it will be a last hurrah of Silvestri against my first impressions but from what I've heard so far this is not it.

I'm divided. I kinda LIKE the sound of it, and I believe it does its purpose, which is sound nostalgic and like the scores of yonder that you don't get to hear anymore. It sounds like it should, and has some of the Classic sound. I'm hoping the full thing will be this good. Honestly, it's just like The Orville, even if it's a copycat or not, in 2018 this kind of music is a pleasure to hear, in one way or another.

the difference between the track in the video at the beginning and at the end makes me think: OASIS Classic Silvestri, Real World Modern Silvestri.since the most exciting stuff happens in the OASIS the good stuff might be classic.

Silvestri's "last hurrah" was Judge Dredd (1995), with The Mummy Returns (2001) a pretty close second; a time in Hollywood that feels so long ago, when Basil Poledouris, Jerry Goldsmith, James Horner, Elliot Goldenthal, Michael Kamen, and John Williams were all regularly writing new scores and when James Newton Howard was allowed to do what he's good at;

All signs suggest that this movie is going to be "WOW OMFG 1980s I REMEMBER THE 80s THE 80s WERE COOL!" - and once you've moved from "I want a make a good movie" to "I want to make a movie that reminds people of good movies" you know you're screwed. This is Spielberg's Super 8; the man who defined cinema in the 1970s and 1980s and who formed a 45 year-long relationship with one of the finest composers in history, now follows a track established by JJ Abrams, seven damn years ago. How the mighty fall.

The theme is maybe the blandest thing Silvestri has ever written and Vinphonic's right - thirty years from now nobody will even remember this theme existed, but they'll still be able to whistle Back To The Future.

It's nice to hear this sound again, but at the same time it's depressing as it reminds us how much we've lost; this movie provided the best possible environment in modern Hollywood - a Spielberg sci-fi movie that was going to be scored by Williams but couldn't due to a scheduling conflict, and which was designed from the ground up to evoke a better time - to get the kind of score that would remind us all what film music could be... And the main title is Alan Silvestri phoning in some of the most anonymous and generic music of his career.

As ever, making judgments about the score itself are fruitless until we've actually heard it; but I don't think it's inappropriate to say that it's probably not going to be Silvestri's best, or even Silvestri playing his A game - and let's never forget that Silvestri, even when he was at the top of his game, was the guy you went to if Jerry Goldsmith or John Williams couldn't do it or wanted too much money.

The reviews are telling; even people who mention the score and use surface-superlatives are saying things like "It's Silvestri's best in years" - which may well turn out to be true... but will it stand with BTTF, Predator, The Abyss, or Roger Rabbit?

I'm looking forward to hearing it, and I'm going to see the movie - but let's not get ahead of ourselves and pretend based on two minutes of music that's not outright offensive, that this is going to be a great score.

Check out John Debney's page on Kraft-Engel Management for a really beautiful orchestral suite from THE GREATEST SHOWMAN.

http://kraft-engel.com/clients/john-debney/

Ah... Lair, the last highpoint of western orchestral video game music (2007). After that it was just an occasional twitching corpse (Star Wars Kinect, Killzone 2+3, BoUT, Half-Blood Prince, World of Warcraft and whenever Grant Kirkhope, Austin Wintory or Jeremy Soule do something... and that's all there is... and there are only nice throwbacks for the most part).

Thankfully this year is a little bit less gloom and doom because of Kingdom Come (the first one since 2007 I rank very high) and the upcoming Conan Exiles and Anno 1800 (which are pleasant goodold throwbacks).


In brigther news, this spring gets even more ridicolous with Toshiyuki Watanabe now also joining in:



Good old Eric Miyashiro :D He didn't specify yet what this is for, only a "program in april" (Space Battleship Tiramisu?). I'm also slowly turning bi-polar on the Japanese recording dilemma because I actually kind of like how intimate these tincan studios are at times.

Silvestri's theme, while not his best, is still a master class in theme writing. Here's a quick analysis:

0:00 - A Theme (key: Ab major)
Starts off feeling like a theme you would hear in Forrest Gump, but the harmony hits those Goldsmith-like alternating major minor chords (Ab+ and Eb- in this case) that you hear a lot in fantasy or sci-fi films (Star Treks 1-3, Stargate, Warriors of Virtue, etc.)

0:10 - A' Theme (key: B major)
Already Silvestri modulates to B major from Ab major. What?? The sudden upward shift in harmony is a neat technique to give the music a feeling that things are progressing and getting better. It's an optimistic shift, something you'd probably hear in Broadway musicals.

0:15 - Motif 1
There is a little march-like motif to end the A theme, echoed in the winds. It's very Williams-like, and exactly something you'd hear in Indiana Jones.

0:18 - B theme (key: B major)
A nice interjection from a brass chorale then repeated by the strings: also something you'd hear from Williams, but the harmonies are more Back to the Future-like. The problem here is that it really wants to cadence on an F# major chord which is the dominant of B major (where the A' theme left off). Silvestri instead gives the finger to classical harmony and shifts from E major to Bb major (an interval also known as the devil's tritone.)

0:38 A theme (key: Bb major)
Back to the beginning

0:47 A' theme (key: Bb major)
Instead of modulating he keeps the same key because now it's a victory march with a walking bassline (Superman?)

0:51 - Motif 1
Motif 1 is now a victory motif, repeated 3 times for good measure, and the fourth time really hangs on that Eb major chord before finally resolving to Bb major. This part really reminds me of Turn A Gundam, I don't know why.

1:06 - C Theme (key: Bb major)
A very Americana-sounding theme, also reminiscent of Forrest Gump.

1:28 - C' Theme (key: Db major)
Remember when Silvestri suddenly jumped from Ab major to B major? That was an interval of a minor third. What does he do here? Suddenly jumps from Bb major to Db major, which is also a minor third. As many have pointed out he uses the statement-bass hit, statement bass-hit pattern we are familiar with from Horner's scores (The Rocketeer, Apollo 13). The key here is that because we are in Db major the dominant chord is Ab major. That means we've come full circle as this is the chord we started with.

1:50 - B theme (key: B major)
It kind of sounds like the track was edited to put the B theme here. It works well, because we are already familiar with the shift from Ab to B major (an interval of a minor third) but I don't think it was performed this way.

2:04 - A' theme (key: Bb major)
This is a repeat of the A' theme and victory motif from earlier, but instead of moving to the C theme it resolves on Bb major and stays there. Since there was little change in this resolution, it feels unfinished and perhaps there will be a more final-sounding ending later on.

Been watching walkthroughs of Ni No Kuni 2, a game I'm very excited for; and the music sounds magnificent. Even more so than the first, kinda. I can't wait for a gamerip..

Game comes out March 23.

Despite my misgivings about the drop in orchestra standard, I cannot wait to hear Ninokuni 2 - nobody sensible really thinks there will be hours and hours and hours of orchestral score; there will be about 45 minutes to an hour of the "A score" and a bunch of synth or small-ensemble filler cues - but what's there is bound to be magnificent.

Thankfully this year is a little bit less gloom and doom because of Kingdom Come (the first one since 2007 I rank very high) and the upcoming Conan Exiles and Anno 1800 (which are pleasant goodold throwbacks).

I have to say I am really excited for Anno 1800. Dynamedion has done a good job with this series, and I'm liking what I'm hearing on Youtube. Do we know when it will be released?

My guess is that it will be bundled with the game release, so late fall/early winter.

And me and Tango both excited for something... what are the odds :D
Hisaishi with orchestra and choir...

amazon has updated the ready player one page and confirmed its a 2cd album with 11 tracks on each.nice!

I do not know if this is the place to ask but it is kinda related, is there any thread with all the mcu scores with all the music we see on the theatrical cuts? I am so happy this site was resurrected by the way, it is one of the best sites on the internet

I do not know if this is the place to ask but it is kinda related, is there any thread with all the mcu scores with all the music we see on the theatrical cuts? I am so happy this site was resurrected by the way, it is one of the best sites on the internet
i think its called the mcu master post or something

And me and Tango both excited for something... what are the odds :D

It happens occasionally. ;)

ready player one is 85mins says soundtrack.net

LOL, and it's a two-CD set?

LOL, and it's a two-CD set?

Yeah, that's what Warner has been doing since 2013 for a lot of their "big blockbuster" soundtrack releases to have a excuse to ask more money for it

Except 80 minutes is the maximum length for a standard CD-R. It literally isn't possible for them to put 85 minutes on a single disc.

I hope the album isn't going to be released on CD-R.

Pressed CDs regularly go over the 80 minute mark; I've got CDs in my collection that run for 83-84 minutes and I'm aware of at least one which goes up to 89 minutes: https://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00KLOFOZG/musicwebuk
Any film score album that's 85 minutes long is going to be full to the brim of repetition. Don't tell me that in almost an hour and a half of music, they couldn't have made the sensible editorial decision to chop out three or four minutes of superfluous fluff - the way they routinely did over the past decades when film soundtracks regularly trimmed down nicely to 35-45 minutes to make a good LP release.

The 2 CD release is a waste of space; it's a cynical cash grab (so what else is new) to justify jacking up the price for absolutely no good reason.

There are CD-Rs that can store over 80 minutes but they don't follow Orange Book CD-R standards and they aren't supported by all CD drives.

There's also hybrid discs like SA-CD which can store a little over 100 minutes, but those aren't common either.

Nobody is talking about CD-R and it is the Red Book, not the Orange Book, which defines the specification of pressed CDs.

Proper, pressed CDs that exceed 80 minutes have been commonplace for the better part of twenty years - and the first I'm aware of (at 83 minutes) was released in 1983. Creators typically sign a waiver which excuses the pressing plant from responsibility should people be unable to play the disk, but in practice the disks are perfectly playable. If the big classical labels are doing it, obviously the disks are fine.

I repeat; pressing an 85 minute CD or trimming off two or three minutes of fluff were both completely plausible options; but they decided instead to press two half-empty CDs so that, even though the actual manufacturing cost of a single CD is a couple of pennies at most, they get to charge for a double-CD set.

First: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rainbow_Books#Orange_Book_(1990)

Second: I'm not going to bicker with you back and forth about this. I've edited countless CDs at vgmdb over the years and I could probably count the number of 80+ minute CDs I've seen on one hand. The data does not lie.

Maybe some classical labels have started to experiment with it in recent years but that does not make it commonplace.

Once again, the Orange Book refers to CD-R, NOT TO PRESSED CDS.

The RED BOOK refers to pressed CDs and it is pressed CDs I've been talking about, and have clarified now three times that I am talking about.


I could probably count the number of 80+ minute CDs I've seen on one hand

Well, I just counted thirty on my shelf alone and I didn't look very hard. Clearly your "work" at VGMDB hasn't exposed you to a wide variety of CDs. I'm not interested in arguing what "commonplace" means or exactly what percentage of CDs have to have over 80 minutes in order for them to qualify as commonplace. The fact that a reasonable number DO exist and have done virtually since the beginning of CD is more than sufficient for my point to remain valid; they exist, and if they didn't work they wouldn't be making the damn things. You just don't get to make stuff up and package it up neatly by telling us that you're an editor at VGMDB. I don't care. Your limited experience in a certain niche field does not represent the whole industry.

I'm not bickering; I'm pointing out where you're wrong.

If you don't want to hear it, that's fine - but don't pretend it's anything other than that.

My point, as it has been from the beginning, is that CDs over 80 minutes (and as high as 85, 86, 87 minutes) CAN BE and regularly ARE pressed, and even if they didn't want to do that, they could've just cut a few minutes off this score and fit it comfortably within 80 minutes.


started to experiment with it in recent years

1983 is "recent years"? Wow. (And it wasn't a classical album, it was a rock album.)

I will not engage with you any further, on this topic or any other.

I will not engage with you any further, on this topic or any other.
I must have really hit a soft spot to trigger such an immature response from you.

Oh, piss off...

:rolleyes:

Maybe try to find out why I might be responding like this instead of trying to score points like a six year-old?

On second thoughts, don't bother, please - I'm done. Don't talk to me any more, I won't talk to you. Deal?

This is what tango posted before editing it:

Well, try this one. Fuck off, you stupid, raving cunt.

YOU ARE A CUNT.

FUCK YOU.
:(

That you chose to quote that, in public, even knowing I'd thought better of it and written a more moderate response, presumably to show me up, speaks volumes.

I was sorry.

Good night, formerly great, now utter hellhole thread in virus-infested shit forum.

If you didn't want anyone to see your hateful words, then you shouldn't have posted them to begin with. Actions have consequences.

Whatever. Granted, you can't see it... but this is the face of a man who is beyond caring.

Well, this is amusing to say the least.

well this is dissapointing to say the least.time for an apology tango.that went too far.didn�t expect something this rude from you and for a trivial arguement at that.btw i have/had over 1000 original cds.not a SINGLE one is over 79mins.

Nobody's ever said sorry to me for anything. Nonetheless, I regret my words, even though I already took back and thought better of, and which nextday nonetheless decided to quote - which was a dick move, to coin a phrase.

I personally don't see how this could be "amusing" to any reasonable person; seriously,what reasonable, rounded human laughs at an argument that ends in harsh words, unwarranted insults, and the destruction of a friendship?

Tango, I know you can get critical of certain things, but outright name-calling people should be below you. You can edit it out, but telling him to shut up because you don't want to hear what he has to say is just childish. Someone did the same thing to you a few months ago for a far more valid reason (musical tastes) than something as petty as whether a CD can contain 80 or 85 minutes of music. But back then, you took it like a gentleman and didn't resort to this level of pettiness. Now? You sound like you're picking fights in a pub. Nextday has been in these threads for years, and has always been one of the more laid-back contributors. Why would you pick a fight with him, of all people?

From the last post, I think you understand the error of your ways, so for your benefit, I'm going to pretend that you are having a bad week and the Tango we all know will be back with us in a couple days.

The funniest part is that he personally feels offended that nextday publicly showed his "mistake" that he deleted quickly. Now I don't believe there's anything wrong with showing what he did wrong. Mistakes are mistakes, and you can't get away with such stuff easily.

By the way, when I said "this is amusing" I meant in a matter of speech, to say something. I wasn't laughing at the matter.. I'm not that much of a dick, no.

I refer to my original point; finding humour in any part of this situation is completely beyond my comprehension. And I would appreciate if you didn't talk about me as if I wasn't here. You don't have to refer to me as "he" - you can address me directly if you have something you'd like to contribute. Thank you.

I refer to my original point; finding humour in any part of this situation is completely beyond my comprehension. And I would appreciate if you didn't talk about me as if I wasn't here. You don't have to refer to me as "he" - you can address me directly if you have something you'd like to contribute. Thank you.

I didn't find any humour in the situation, I repeat. It's a matter of speech. I'm not as much of a dick as you think I am. Then again you brought the situation upon yourself, and not ourselves, and you made it a public thing, so, don't be bothered if people discuss it.

I'm not bothered, and I appreciate your clarification. Believe it or not, I don't think you're a dick - you proved that before, and I respect you a great deal.

I don't mean to detract from the parts of this situation which I created, when I say I refuse to take the rap for ALL of this situation. I chose an extremely poor way to react to provocation, for which I apologise - but I do not apologise for reacting to the provocation.

I did not create this situation, but in contrast to my usual behaviour ("withdraw to keep the peace") I went in with all guns blazing. It's a technique I will employ more in the future, as I am sick to the back teeth of withdrawing from arguments whenever people get testy; I will now get testy right back.

That said, because I'm aware that I've only given fluffy politician's apologies so far:

Nextday, I'm sorry. I'd had the shittiest day on this planet yesterday and I 100% took it out on you. You absolutely didn't deserve any of that, and in my heart it wasn't meant for you.

I still think you've been argumentative, combative, and aggressive. Not only on this occasion, but on numerous others. (And I've got more to say on this matter, folks - mark my words...)

But I had absolutely no right to lash out. I was exactly what I called you. I humbly ask your forgiveness.

I'll just say Ni no Kuni 2 comes out in two days and I'm hoping gamerips and rips of the Sound Selection come out as quick as possible, I loved what I heard.

I'll drink to that.

Will we need the game rip? The CD is coming out on the same day, isn't it?

Will we need the game rip? The CD is coming out on the same day, isn't it?The CD might not have all the cues in the game. I think the game rip for the original NNK came with more music than the first soundtrack release.

I made this orchestral soundtrack for the ending theme of the third (and last) album of "The Stranger Boss" serie,

This track was hugely inspired by Skyrim OST - Streets of Whiterun (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_34gUVqLkAo)

Here is the track: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8MTHQCNPuhY if you can give some feedback, I appreciate.

Also when the album is done (I did 12 out of 15 tracks), I will share the full album FLAC here in the forum.

Yeah, there's a "Sound Selection" coming out with the super expensive ass limited edition of the game - but, there's no word if we're getting a rip of that, and, since it's a selection, lots of music will be missing.

Thankfully it's coming out in PC (and I'll be getting it even if my wallet will hurt epically) and maybe we can get a good gamerip out of it.

I'm not a gamer so I can't justify that level of expense just for a CD... but I really hope some nice person can provide a good quality upload... :)

Likely I won't be able to play it til tomorrow but here's hoping they let me acess the music files at least to hear the fantastic music..

---------- Post added at 05:13 PM ---------- Previous post was at 04:41 PM ----------

Files are encrypted, sadly. Will have to wait til tomorrow. But a kind soul has uploaded some of the OST in Youtube <3

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PR8vewgPvJU&list=PL0JUbdF--Lfhbs3z_GERMk5NQ3FbjeIHj

MAG-FUCKIN-NIFECENT.

More Mamoru Fujisawa than Hisaishi, and very reminiscent of Arion so far :D

Also, more samples from Masotan... It really is Taisei Iwasaki. Pardon my ignorance but isn't this his first full orchestral score? BBB had like 5 minutes tops. To me it sounds like a young Yugo Kanno on his best day. Also love the opening, backed by a full orchestra: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eHdeaxvdrFc

And Space Battleship Tiramisu is not Toshiyuki Watanabe but Shihei Ishige (leaving me to wonder what is left that could be it?), I first thought its Rika Ishige (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_bz5drki6U8) since they are both 35 but Shihei is a serious composer in his own right with some impressive credentials. He studied classical, modern French and American jazz in the US.


And I'm in a happy mood right now... as usual what remained interesting on my seasonal watchlist dwindled down to a couple of shows (like every season)... the best one for me being of course Violet Everga.... nah, just kidding, the one with Jackson 5 ;) The respective soundtrack is my favorite accoustic score since Aria. Yes, it's that good! Love it to pieces (and hope to god there's a recording session bonus feature, you just can't perform that without smiling).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DoIYSzr9m1I&t=9m46s

But I can at least appreciate Evergarden, eventhough it is not for me, especially the last couple of episodes are really well made. It remains a score I find very lovely and anticipate on the soundtrack, in hindsight Evan Calls style that would bloom in this show was present and is definitely noticable in Mouretsu Pirates (especially in the movie). Antarctica turned a bit into a light version of the emotional parts of NGNL Zero at the end and the show was very well put together. Koi wa Ameagari also stayed very lovely, there even was something relatable in it, and some episodes certainly had Ayumu Watanabe's Space Brothers charm.

Fate Last Encore was a return to form for MONACA, there was not much since Tenkai Knights but this one is a step up again. I still hear Mina's (intoxicating) Theme from Dracula in this piece: http://picosong.com/wYtKC


I would like to give NNKII a try but only so much time, and I'm in the mood for Tactical RPGs so it will be FFT and Valkyria Chronicles 4 (Basiscape sound but good old Sakimoto): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NZSo_QZVYCI

More Mamoru Fujisawa than Hisaishi, and very reminiscent of Arion so far :DSo I wasn't the only one who noticed. Ni no Kuni has always reminded me of Arion, even from the first game. That's why I decided to give Arion a relisten a few posts back to prep for the NNK II. This entire piece is like a condensed version of NNK, and from 30 years ago to boot.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z0Ldh2Ngv40

I will reserve my comments and judgement until the whole of NNK II is out. So far, all I will say is that the tincan recording studio really rears its ugly face (or is that just the sound quality of the upload?) We'll see.

I keep coming back to No Game No Life Zero.

I keep coming back to No Game No Life Zero.

Link sent!

This is the main thread: Thread 223070

Thanks but what I meant to say over this past month the thing I have come back to almost everyday is No Game No Life Zero.
No matter else I have got, or has come out, I just keep coming back to it. Especially the last fight song I mean Jesus that's good.

As far as studio recordings from Japan go, NNKII sounds good enough to me, the brass sounds like it should and the sound at least works with Fujisawa's minimalism. I'm egaer to find out just how much score there is.

@ladatree: I for one really love the film and I never would have expected it in a million years. I've seen a lot of films but few managed to actually move me in recent times. It certainly influences my opinion of the score and I sure hope the film concert version (which is the entire score performed by a symphony orchestra according to Fujisawa) gets a CD release.


EDIT: Oh baby! Kohei Tanaka, back in business, on a mecha anime: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3vlwdP99g7U

Of course always the love for Britain. Then again Girls und Panzer is enough to satisfy my German soul with Beethoven (and I still think it has the best version of the Panzerlied on the Planet)... Das Finale should drop soon and it sounds lovely from what I could hear so far. A shame it will take 6 years for the project to finish. Hopefully a soundtrack makes it out sooner.

I'm still waiting for a NNKII rip, doesn't matter if lossless or not but I want one already :laugh:

I'll be getting NNKII but I don't know when I will actually get around to playing it. I am interested in the music for sure.

I'm trying to do a gamerip but I have no knowledge about how to rip the music files. I'm trying

Okay so thanks to someone's help I was able to do a gamerip.. and let me just say.. and forgive me for the reaction.. IT'S FUCKING FANTASTIC. EAR-GASMIC. IT SURPASSES THE FIRST ONE. IT DOESN'T DISSAPOINT EVERY TRACK IS AMAZING TO HEAR. Even tangotreat won't be able to say anything bad about it perhaps, hopefully.

I hope there's a complete CD release in Japan soon because it deserves it. For now, if you've got foobar2000.. here's the gamerip for you to enjoy. 6ch and lossless. Untagged. Worth the effort. You won't regret the listen.


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OrophinCalmcacil did a Flac version of your HCA files. You'll find it at the end of your post.

OrophinCalmcacil did a Flac version of your HCA files. You'll find it at the end of your post.

HCA is lossless?
Thanks in advance

No it isn't. It seems to be a high compress format.

In a way, it's a compressed type of file, yeah, but there's no game on which the music isn't compressed (at least in this current generation) however, I don't think it's a compression, sonic wise. It's more like, compress the file, but then you could probably extract it out.. maybe? I mean. The game itself is encoded in both Dolby Audio and DTS-HD as credited, so.. the sound should have lossless, besides, foobar2000 says that the kbps are beyond 700kbps, that kinda qualifies as FLAC, somehow. But I'll have to take a sonic look at it with Spek. Nonetheless it still sounds good, so.. what I find dissapointing is the overbloat of the file size.. we might have to compress a bit, on a different level. Because as much as I LOVE this music, 2 and a half GBs is just too much. If it was 24bits 96khz I'd understand, but it's basic, so..

While someone works on an edit or tag of the rip I suggest you then grab the big 2.10 GB FLAC file from here. https://mega.nz/#!N1UwQCLT!fcYCK0B38baq6BQS2O99viS5eWwyU6sSdM3VF44ph10 I insist, because the music is good and I'd love to have your opinions on it :)

Since I have not played the game, does your rip include the cutscene music, or is this only "location and battle"? I notice the announcement trailer piece is missing (but thankfully makes it into the score).

Really grateful to you for your effort btw :)

There is well over an hour so far and in many ways "Hisaishi" returns to his roots with this one. Especially the synth parts are reminiscent of his early works and there are parts that remind me of Shostakovich.
You really can't fault him for simple repeating the first score, while the Main Theme stays of course (and certain pieces from the first score rearranged), the music around it is stylistically different. Does it top the first score?... nope, and not only because of the sound. Is it still a wonderful time listening through?... yes! But which one you prefer depends if you prefer bold over complex (by Hisaishi standards!). Similar to FMA vs Zetsuen no Tempest. Overall, I very much love it.

I sure hope the pieces aren't looped on the eventual soundtrack. And didn't Hisaishi want to record a symphonic suite for Ni No Kuni? I believe he said so in an interview.

It was not only arranged by Yamashita but also by Chad Cannon, thanks to a great fellow:

"Fluent in Japanese, Chad works closely with Studio Ghibli legendary composer Joe Hisaishi, acting in 2017 as chief arranger and orchestrator for the world premiere of Joe Hisaishi Symphonic Concert: Music from the Films of Hayao Miyazaki, which opened in Paris, France, in June. They also traveled together to Hiroshima with the World Dream Orchestra for the premiere of Chad's arrangement from Miyazaki's 1986 classic, Castle in the Sky. Chad also works frequently with orchestrators Tim Williams and Conrad Pope."

The world is a small place.

Well, the rip isn't lossless - not "in a way" but factually, absolutely not lossless. Bear in mind that it's ~700kbps but there are SIX CHANNELS. It's lossy, and pretty heavily-compressed lossy at that, but...

...WHO CARES??? It sounds fantastic - the sound quality of those HCA files is superb whichever way you look at it, and I'm incredibly grateful to you for your efforts - I had contemplated buying the thing on Steam myself last night to try to do the same thing, but you were already beavering away at it. Your work is HIGHLY appreciated!

As for the score... There's a drive in NNK2 that definitely feels more like Minima Rhythm; Hisaishi's concert hall persona is in play here more than previously. It makes me even sadder that Hisaishi has almost retired, as his merging of his two most recognisable styles has produced some genuinely fascinating music; I first really noticed this happening in NHK Shinkai Project in 2013, and that turned out to be his last substantial symphonic score to date- two Ghibli movies also in 2013 excepted.

The recording isn't bad for a Japanese studio-ensemble score, but it doesn't compare favourably to the orchestral recordings in NNK; that said, I've got nothing to complain about as regards (most of) the music!

It's vintage Hisaishi. I am very happy with this. I even enjoy the synthy percussive stuff; it's reminiscent of 80s Hisaishi.

(Wow, the double bass part in 00010! Woody, gravelly, REAL...)

I'll have some more comments later once I've had a chance to listen properly and in more detail - but for now, unreserved gratitude!

I guess it's up to personal tastes and opinions, but what I've listened, I really, really, REALLY enjoyed, like I feel it's wonderfully orchestrated, arranged, beautiful melodies. I feel like this game's score is much more cinematic than the first, if you ask me so I kinda like this one more. It's beautiful and almost moving, and, in the game, works magnificent as it amplifies the beauty of the art and the story. I don't think this game would've been the same without the work of ex-Ghibli art designer and Joe Hisaishi, and I'm very glad he came back for this one. And he managed, in my opinion, to surpass himself.

I am glad you two got to listen and enjoy to the score - that was my main goal and what I wanted, in working on sharing this score as fast as possible for everyone else to enjoy. Right now a friend of mine is working on downmixing the gamerip to stereo properly, and once it's done I'll share it with you all. As for the technical aspect - we've given a look to the spectres and it does look lossless. I feel like, technically wise, the .hca is like some sort of compressor like if it was a .zip and once you change that to an audio file, you get the original lossless audio, again, also, the output has to be lossless because the game's audio is mastered in DTS-HD, enphasis on the HD part which usually means lossless. Regardless even if were lossy I don't think it matters because it sounds pretty good.

I've only had a quick look to it, Vinphonic, but I'd dare to say it's pretty complete, if you ask me. If by "announcement trailer" you mean this one (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0AkY9a7DQUE) which I was also very fond of, it's in the gamerip, I've listened to it, and it's "bgm.awb.00001".. however, I think I know what you mean, there's some parts of the announcement trailer missing;but I think that's either in another part of the game score, or perhaps just exclusive to the trailer arrangement, since the music for the game was recorded in 2017 I believe, and the trailer is from 2015 so it might be just a trailer arrangement of the music, maybe? As for cutscene music, yeah, I believe it should be there, too. Since most of the cutscenes are silent or text-based, and the movie cutscenes tend to have music that's heard elsewhere.. nonetheless I have the certain that this gamerip should be most complete, if not, almost all possible. I'll try to give a look at everything in the game to see if I find more music but I believe this should be everything, if you ask me. As much as I love working on this gamerip and how quick it'd be obsolete, I personally would too, love a complete official release of the score in Japan, hopefully soon enough, because it deserves it!

But really, I am glad you all enjoy, that's what I wanted it, and glad I bought the gamerip to you all, it's an inmense pleasure, and I hope to be bringing to you a stereo, tagged gamerip asap. As soon as I find someone who can name and order the tracks. I'm playing the game myself, but I'm a bit slow, so.. :P

I'm a little technically challenged. I downloaded the FLAC files but I don't have any appropriate software to convert or listen to them. The 6 channel thing is a problem.

I'm a little technically challenged. I downloaded the FLAC files but I don't have any appropriate software to convert or listen to them. The 6 channel thing is a problem.

You're gonna have to wait then for the Stereo mix, once it's done. But if you don't wanna wait, I recommend VLC, or MPC-HC, or foobar2000 itself.

Thanks for the suggestion, Ponyo. I do have VLC and I am now happily listening.

It is IMPOSSIBLE to compress six channels to 700kbps losslessly. It is LOSSY. I do not mean to make an argument, but that's the case.

I hope your friend has good luck with the Stereo downmix... I'm trying to figure out what the hell is going on with the channel order - I can't make head nor tail of what order they're actually in inside. The only one I'm relatively sure of is that Channel 4 is the LFE channel. But 1+2 are not FL and FR. Foobar2000 seems to get it right but when I export the channels separately for a proper mix, I get extremely confused... :O

Edit: Tracks 5 and 6 seem to be SL and SR... Getting there...

Edit: 1 and 3 seem to be FL and FR respectively. I think 2 is C.

Eh, whatever, it doesn't matter, it sounds good, and for archival purposes, the final output is gonna be FLAC. As for my friend's work, it's doing fine. Because it's being done in Audacity, I think, which is better for this kind of thing and not Foobar2000. Fortunately since this is a game surround and not a movie surround, the work is much simpler, and downmixing doesn't lose anything. In fact my friend thinks the 6ch was probably done by an algorithm of some sort and not too real.

It's a normal 6 channel mix (two fronts, a center, lfe, two rears/sides) but it's done rather shoddily. The LFE channel doesn't have what you would normally consider LFE; it seems to be just matrixed with a lowpass filter, as opposed to bearing the subtle BOOMs and THOOMs you would hear in a proper LFE track. You can even make out instruments in this LFE, which is just silly.
I've passed on a stereo mix to Ponyo for him to tag with track titles. I removed the LFE channel, and reduced the volume of the center (which I believe should always be lowered regardless of circumstance) & of the rears/sides in relation to the fronts. I think this gives the music a better stereo quality than the Foobar downfold, which had the center channel overpowering things a bit too much.
Videos like this (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LljQQlf3BQg) were used as a guide for how the music "should" sound, but it's not like there's drastic difference between that and the normal downmix anyway. The goal was just to give the music a nice stereo presence which the straight downmix didn't quite give.

Well, it does matter, in matters of accuracy and fact.

I didn't say I was using Foobar2000. Foobar2000 is a player, not an audio editor. I am not using freeware; that said, it is excellent for this kind of work.

Absolutely, the final output should be FLAC after editing a lossy source, to prevent further loss.

I have a sneaky feeling your friend is right; this isn't entirely a genuine six channel recording; BL + BR sound an awful lot like FL + FR with added reverb. The LFE channel is BONE DRY. It's really interesting to play it in isolation.

Edit after reading TheSkeletonMan939's appraisal: Ah, I see! The LFE is odd... It doesn't just sound like a lowpass to me, but it also clearly not a genuine LFE.

I'm thinking the best downmix might come from FL+C+FR with a bit of the LFE channel mixed in the centre, discarding the back surround channels entirely.

Can somebody listen to this and tell if if they think the channels are the right way around? My ears are getting fatigued and I don't think I can trust myself any more. [No, I think I've fucked it up. I think I transposed C and FR. BOLLOCKS...]

[REMOVED because I did make a stupid mistake and the downmix posted by Ponyo / done by SkeletonMan is IMPECCABLE.]

Thank you for your work. Here's the stereo mix, in case anyone wants to listen to it and save some space. Now all that's left to do is give some final checking.. and well.. try to play the game and get acquainted with the music, the order and the names, because someone's gotta tag it and it seems that I'm the only one who owns the game and wants to play so.. but until then.. for anyone who doesn't mind about tags, it's there.

https://mega.nz/#!coNR3ZJK!Nvc3PTq8qNMwEzQvhwIZKgwjWJAyUvEFC7ufWPOWTxI

Ponyo; what do you think of the game? I haven't really played anything properly for years. Do you think it's worth giving it a go? I can see me getting into it, if just to experience the score in the context it was written for. I've got some time coming up next week...

Ponyo; what do you think of the game? I haven't really played anything properly for years. Do you think it's worth giving it a go? I can see me getting into it, if just to experience the score in the context it was written for. I've got some time coming up next week...

Since I'm kinda slow and I get distracted by other stuff easily, I've only played like 2 hours (according to Steam) and have barely started Chapter 2, but so far, I loved what I'm playing. The music is even more enjoyable in the context of the game because it marries perfectly with the amazing art inspired by Ghibli. These things combined with the nice gameplay, the graphics, the dialogues and story, makes me enjoy it an awful lot. Compared to the first game, the gameplay changes a bit, now the battles are real time and more action than the original turn based battles. There's no Pok�mon-like gameplay either; it's you battling enemies along with your other characters in the party. Aside from that, there's a very entertaning kingdom building gameplay that's really good. Aside from that, it's kind of an easy game (at least judging by the thousands of complains of it) so there's a chance if you play it, even with the rustyness you might still be good with it and might enjoy it on the long term.

Would I recommend it to you? Perhaps. I think it's a really good game if you ask me. Possibly not a masterpiece, and there may be flaws if I look into it hard; but there's a lot of amazingness to be found in it. It's all up to personal opinions.. but, I'm certain you should give it a try, maybe? Look, to help you, I'm going to give you one trailer that perfectly sums up the whole game and sells it to you amazingly; presents you to the story and characters and also talks to you about the gameplay styles; I think this will help you a lot on your decision.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uxrO9yahtFA

Aside from that, I give you a link to buy the game in PC with a bit of a discount, see if perhaps that also gets you to do it. I will say the game is a bit expensive, my wallet hurt a lot when I bought it, but when I started playing it, the pain went away quickly because I was so happy and enjoying the game. https://uk.gamesplanet.com/game/ni-no-kuni-ii-revenant-kingdom-steam-key--3373-1?ref=itad and https://www.gamebillet.com/ni-no-kuni-ii-revenant-kingdom?affiliate=1c8adfeb-78f3-4d89-9a91-5b697ec73e37.

So, let me know what you think and the decision you come up with. I'm hoping that you might enjoy the game due to it being more of an easy breeze if I am to judge people's complains about difficulty; the story, the fantastic art design and the music might help, too. And the music is even more enjoyable in context. :)

Can somebody listen to this and tell if if they think the channels are the right way around? My ears are getting fatigued and I don't think I can trust myself any more. [No, I think I've fucked it up. I think I transposed C and FR. BOLLOCKS...]

http://picosong.com/wYapT/

I think you did get them mixed up, yeah. The strings aren't as discernible on the right as they are on the left.

The beloved childerns book/puppet tvshowclassic jim knopf got a classic orchestral familyadventure score for its live-action debut by ralf wengenmayr.and its complete with 48 tracks and 92min.its on spotify.i love that they took the classic opening song and made an orchestra theme out of it.even after not hearing it for around 30 years or so i immediately remembered.nice score.

The beloved childerns book/puppet tvshowclassic jim knopf got a classic orchestral familyadventure score for its live-action debut by ralf wengenmayr.and its complete with 48 tracks and 92min.its on spotify.i love that they took the classic opening song and made an orchestra theme out of it.even after not hearing it for around 30 years or so i immediately remembered.nice score.

I can't find it, could you be able to share a link to it?

I appreciate your guys' efforts, but the music itself still sounds like it was recorded in a tincan no matter how many extract attempts you pull off. I'm going to wait for the official OST to be posted, hopefully that's mastered differently than the game.

I also have much less favorable things to say than everyone else so far regarding the music itself. Let's just say that while the original NNK was music adapted for a video game, the music in NNK II is nothing more than music meant to be looped. In that sense, it works better as a game score, but the quality of the music suffers from it.

Maybe I have a higher tolerance for these tincan scores... I know how awful they can sound, and this doesn't sound awful. It's a smaller orchestra in a smaller space, and it could've been an utter disaster. As it stands, it's noticeable, but it's not a deal-breaker. It's a little dry and a little close, but by and large it sounds like an orchestra within a space.

The extraction attempts don't make any attempt to hide the nature of the recording; merely to fold down the six-channel audio in the game into something that's more compatible with standard stereo playback. Until a CD rip of the official release turns up (and assuming that the CD features all of, or the bulk of, Hisaishi's score) it's as good as it's physically possible to get.

I have a feeling that the CD won't sound substantially different, although obviously it will be a professional mixdown and it will be genuinely lossless, and if it loops I will personally go to Japan and yell at Hisaishi - but it's going to be a similar sound. I'm OK with that. I hope it doesn't become the norm for Hisaishi - but for his first substantial orchestral score in five years, this will do very nicely.

I'm curious to know why you find the music lacking. I actually find myself enjoying NNK2 more as pure music than NNK; although I can't tell if that's because I actually find the music superior or because I'm really feeling Hisaishi's recent attempts to unite the brands of Mamoru Fujisawa and Joe Hisaishi - NNK2 feels like it's something new, something different, something exciting - NNK was, of course, EXCELLENT in every respect, but it sounded like a textbook Ghibli score. (And there's more of the dangerous, brutal, unpredictable Hisaishi from NHK Shinkai Project that I really liked; the lush, Miyazaki grandeur is simply gorgeous, but sometimes a gritty, dissonant suspsnese cue like 00008 is just the kind of palate cleanser you need.)

What do you feel is missing?

As for the looping, well, all you have to do to make something loop is finish it off in a key that's compatible with the beginning. Each cue has a beginning, a middle, and an end - and each cue feels like it tells a complete story - it just so happens that the end is constructed so that it can wrap around back to the beginning and that story can repeat. I don't get that "Establish mood, hold, repeat" feeling that you sometimes get in looping cues. To my ears, it sounds mature and specifically like no concessions have been made. I feel like Hisaishi didn't try to write a game score; he tried to write good music. That's my honest feeling about the score, and I'm fascinated that you get a completely different impression.

Really glad to hear your thoughts on the score and that you're liking it a bit more than expected. But what I really want to know is, have I convinced you to play the game? :P The more people in, the better!

You know... I think you have. ;)

Thank you very much for the link to the voucher. That kinda just edged me in the direction of "buy it"... :D

You know... I think you have. ;)

Thank you very much for the link to the voucher. That kinda just edged me in the direction of "buy it"... :D

It's a pleasure! I hope you enjoy it. You might as well! Let me know how it goes.

I can't find it, could you be able to share a link to it?

this might be a regional thing.exclusive to germany maybe.at this time at least.

this might be a regional thing.exclusive to germany maybe.at this time at least.

The movie hasn't come out in Germany yet, apparently til March 29, so maybe then it goes worldwide. If it's as good as you say, let's hope so.

Nothing on Spotify in the UK either. I like Wengenmayr. I hope we get the chance to hear this one. :)

Ah, its been so long since Wickie...


In other news, Das Finale is everything I wanted and more. Among score cues from the Film and TV series there's a huge chunk of new material. And it's delicious, almost 90s Hamaguchi. Even the Panzer march never sounded better.

Here is everything new from the OVA, neatly arranged, have a listen: https://vimeo.com/261665951

The major action setpiece starts at 12:13, well over two minutes, and far better than the film action. I also get the feeling all of the new stuff was scored to picture (storyboards). The piece starting at 4:20 is the biggest indicator, also a lovely detail that the music becomes contextualized in the scene.

My guess is there must be up to 60 minutes of new score and they will drop onto the six hours of OVAs among the old stuff or they record it per OVA (unlikely). The next one should be released sometime in fall/winter. It wouldn't hurt them to release a soundtrack before its all finished. I hope we won't have to wait until 2020.

Who would have guessed a little passion project from 2012 would evolve into a major franchise/cultural phenomenon, with live screening of the film with the Tokyo Philharmonic providing the score LIVE: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H4ViYifbZaw

Oh and here is Hamaguchi's march from the film performed by the Tokyo Philharmonic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=53YdnXFE45o


I hope "Das Finale" is just the typical Japanese fashion of random foreign words and it's actually not really the end of the project. By the way things are developing, the music matures and moves closer to a real war score with every new installment. Love it.

GoP is incredibly promising; I just hope the new score gets released. I always thought the British military march pastiche stuff was the weakest parts of the score - it's all fun and everything, but it's there taking up space that could be filled with original score. It's great for getting people in concert halls, but it's no artistic marvel.

The mature, symphonic, meticulously orchestrated score is the sort of stuff Hamaguchi can do in his sleep, and yet he barely ever does - the Ah My Goddess movie was nearly twenty years ago and it remains his high point, and the only time (to my recollection) that he ever got to record with a full symphony orchestra.

This is nice; even though it took the unexpected runaway success of a franchise that, on paper, should've died a death on release (in other words; chance) to finally get Hamaguchi back to doing what he's good at.

The symphonic OP is rare and quite wonderful. :)

He had a symphony orchestra for Me-gumi no Daigo but we still have yet to hear that one.
I bet my money Das Finale will also get a concert performance in the future. Right now everything with GuP prints money.

I've also played a little Valkyria Chronicles 4 recently and the music is definitely in RXJ and Zodiac Age territory at times. There's an incredibly catchy tune in there but I expect as much from Sakimoto. There is even an operatic piece. Unfortunately its all Basiscape (the game is charming but doesn't show any serious budget, so that leaves my only hope with a concert announcement.

Maybe this other little news amounts to nothing but Hiroshi Takaki scores "The Thousand Noble Musketeers" Anime in Summer. The subject matter at least gives me hope for his regal sound.

Hiroshi Takaki scoring anything is good news. :)

A little technical information I dug up about the HCA (High Compression Audio) format used in the Revenant Kingdom gamerip. If you're interested in such stuff it's very interesting. It was designed an an MP3-alike codec but tuned to be lighter on CPU and technically less intensive to skip to specific sections of the track (a necessity for looping) - as well as to work well on mobile devices, consoles, and PCs alike:

http://blog.criware.com/index.php/2016/04/11/meet-adx2s-powerful-proprietary-codecs/

PS... I gave up and bought the game. ;)

PS... I gave up and bought the game. ;)

Sucess! ;)

I really want to reply to you Tango, but at the same I need to hear the official release first, to further solidify my opinions.

Tanaka back is great news, and this project looks like it would be right up his alley, in the same vein as his work on 90s mecha shows.


And just in case you weren't tired enough of me talking about Asakawa, I recently found a trailer for his 1981 debut film work, Station, written back when he was only 20.

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

Granted, his official credit for it was merely the orchestrator, with the named composer being an old famous guitarist. I guess what happened was that the the guitarist provided the main themes, and Asakawa wrote the score around that. As you can hear from the trailer, every note of the music sounds like Asakawa. It's astounding how early he matured as a composer. I can't think of any other living media composer that gained their own orchestral voice at such a young age.

I don't know what you typically like to play Tango but I think you should check out the game from what I read. It sounds like the three main complaints the IGN review had was somewhat lacking character development, lack of difficulty, and less high end presentation because a lot of dialog is just text while people stand around. But it sounds like the game has a good flow, making it easy to get into and I'm actually looking forward to the easier difficulty after some of the high difficulty in the first game. It is also somewhat easier to get into by nature of being real-time combat. I won't be playing for another two weeks, nothing I want to try to explain as for why, but I am looking forward to it.

I'm not really a gamer, although I like GTA and stuff like that. What I'd be hoping for in NNK2 is a playable Ghibli movie with elements of Final Fantasy.

I played a little last night, and the dialogue thing was driving me nuts. The characters are standing there perfectly motionless, the voice acting says "Urgh! What?!" - and the subtitles reveal a deep and profound speech is being made.

LAAAZZZZZZZYYYYYYY.

Nonetheless, it's visually gorgeous and I think the story is going to appeal to me. I think I'm going to enjoy it.


And just in case you weren't tired enough of me talking about Asakawa, I recently found a trailer for his 1981 debut film work, Station, written back when he was only 20

I'm sure I speak for everyone when I say there's no such thing as too much talk about Asakawa. :)


I really want to reply to you Tango, but at the same I need to hear the official release first, to further solidify my opinions.

No worries, take your time - but I do look forward to hearing your thoughts.

I definitely want to hear what the official release sounds like; once you take out the loops, there's about an hour of actual score... It's reasonable to think that the CD will include most, if not all, of it.

I'm sure, again, that I speak for everyone when I say I want a release of this thing; not a bonus CD, or a stupid vinyl record with four tracks on it, but a full, mainstream CD release that I can actually buy.

@Tango: The first game was more classic Ghibli-esque with animated cutscenes and everything and the music playing it straight, but I imagine its quite a tedious game if you are not into RPGs. The new one seems to be more experimental and far easier to get into and have fun, but I believe the first one was also not fully voiced. Which is funny, considering Valkyria Chronilces 4 does not seem to have even a tenth of its budget, and is a very long game, yet everything is fully voiced (by A-list veteran actors, although most is in Visual novel style). Priorities I guess, maybe they want to invoke Dragon Quest.

In regards to Takaki in summer and to reply to Zipper, Tanaka announced his mecha anime Planet With will also be broadcasted in summer, much earlier than expected. He also mentioned it was very easy for him to write (I expect nothing less from the King of Mecha). That makes two major projects in a close-by timeframe (World Seeker and Planet With), in addition to directing a stage musical for One Piece, flying around the globe for business relations of the Japanese government, writing new music for One Piece TV on the sidelines, and appearing and performing on numerous concerts and little festivals. How does he do it?!

I was a bit worried a when he "would refrain from announcing anything this year" on his blog but it seems like he was just trolling. Just that HE won't announce it ;)

I welcome getting two seasons of veterans in a row.

Speaking of which, less than a week until spring begins: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vQuNJ06_1GI&t=38s (it really is Fantasy Macross)

i HIGHLY recommend playing nier automata to everyone.especially if your into deep sci fi and anime.this game has layers upon layers in every possible way.and watch exmachina and westworld,too.

Let's hope he actually gets an orchestra this time, and not the penny-pinching Endride ensemble.

When you say "World Seeker" do you refer to the One Piece game score? When's that happening anyway? It's not going to be a symphonic extravaganza, but it might be a nice opportunity for Tanaka to expand on his earlier One Piece ideas with a decent-sized ensemble...

If they announce it with freaking Elgar (with the visual in sync with the music), and they specifically ask for Tanaka, something tells me someone on the production cares about music ;)

As for World Seeker, no release date yet but I expect sometime in Summer/Fall. And pardon my optimism, but the piece from the trailer sounds like a massive studio orchestra (by Japanese standards) and it's obviously an excerpt: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jKAly6teEK0&t=53s
The only thing that would destroy it is if that piece (Main Theme/Overture/whatever) is the only real piece and the rest is synth (like Unlimited World Red) but if Tanaka said "he has a raw orchestra to work with" I hope he meant the same ensemble or even a symphony-size ensemble. Something like End of Eternity in One Piece style would be my dream. Even if its not recorded in a hall.

For Tanaka, even if he writes for a pennywhistle ensemble, I can only be excited. I listened to GaoGaiGar recently and he is easily among my top three media composers these days, nobody does the synth-orchestra fusion (or orchestra-fusion in general) better than he does. Not to mention the excellent and exhubertant symphonic music and his operatic sensibilities and KILLER melodies. From Sakura Wars to Gravity Daze 2, he embodies everything I love about (Japanese) (orchestral) music. I couldn't be happier that he now is the musical face of the anime industry and represents it domestically and internationally for business and culture affairs. Even if nothing comes out of it, I can not help but be a llittle excited everytime he has a new major project (for me Salesman and Samurai Jazz don't count as major projects, although they are very nice) :D

My friend, your enthusiasm knows no boundaries.

Mine knows all the boundaries. ;)

Sounds like your average Tanaka studio ensemble to me - not to say that's bad, but it's not a Warsaw score.

As usual, fifty seconds of music does not provide ANYWHERE near enough for us to saw what sort of score we'll get, but since Takana hasn't made a concentrated effort to write a coherent, symphonic score for over twenty years, I'm not holding my breath. I'm sure there will be a handful of competent symphonic cues, as is usually the case in a Tanaka score - but for those who see Tanaka's recent inability (or unwillingness) to fix on a genre and write a grown-up score in a single, unified, consistent style as a weakness rather than a strength, it's not going to give us much. Maybe a pirate-themed version of Gravity Daze.

I am more interested to hear Tanaka on a completely new project; writing music for the 194th entry in a franchise that's about fifteen years past its sell-by date doesn't really interest me - the new mecha anime could be good news; if he gets the budget (a pre-recorded piece of classical music turning up on an announcement trailer tells us nothing about what the score is going to be like - it just tells us that the person who directed the trailer liked the Elgar and cut the trailer to fit the pre-recorded music) and feels inclined to write a serious score... and then we have the small matter of the soundtrack probably not getting a release; we'll see...

I am not going to go nuts with anticipation until we've got some solid to go on. It *could* be very good.

:awsm:

By the way, I totted up all of NNK2's orchestral cues and minus the loops and the synth-only stuff, it's about 55 minutes.

It seems like the majority of the music is filled with electric guitars, meaning the likelihood of another unfocussed, everything-but-the-kitchen-sink multiple-personalities-disorder score are increased.

Which wouldn't be such a bad thing in my book ;)

As for synth: He used his trademark synth on a symphonic ensemble in Sakura Wars: The Motion Picture and End of Eternity and on the freaking Moscow International Philharmonic, so its not just to "to fill in the gaps" ;) Goldsmith tried to merge synth and orchestra with mixed success but I unreservingly adore Tanaka's fusion:

http://picosong.com/wYiND/

This piece not only evokes a warm and fuzzy feeling of nostalgia for me but also includes many of Tanaka's favorite devices. He obviously listened to a lot of Vangelis, not to mention Chariots of Fire in Gunbuster. He has been a synth fusionist since day one and thrown in everything but the kitchensink since the early days of his career as a SEGA composer: Here's him 30 years ago https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C7WVXYuvS-I

I've yet to hear a better fusion of synth and symphony orchestra than Sakura Wars: The Motion Picture.

And throughout his entire career he is no stranger to electronics and drums: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T0x3H1nauEA (10 years ago)

I can't change what you percieve and I won't even try but to me his everything but the kitchensink is not "pandering to the lowest common denominator". Gravity Daze 2, for example, is among the best things he has ever done and he went into it with all guns blazing, and I stand by that each time I listen to it again. After Naotora its my most repeated listen from last year and both are my new benchmarks of symphonic NHK score and orchestra fusion/orchestral rock/neoclassical/callitwhatyouwant in video games. Others may see weaknesses in "everything but the kitchensink" but I absolutely adore his excellent music across all genres.

His pure symphonic output is admirable and full of excellence but also very conventional. Its not why I keep returning to his music so much and evaluate him so highly. Hisaishi and Kanno eat him for breakfast as far as technicality of pure orchestra is concerned and Oshima provides a better romantic/emotional ride. But they all pale in comparison to his ability to be a showmaster. He absolutely embodies the joy of music, from operatic stageplay to killer opening to smashing guitar solo to orchestal extravaganza, Tanaka's music always steals the spotlight and overpowers every scene. Each piece, no matter the genre has his voice and there's always a piece on occasion that is just so geniously crafted. Many people on this planet can write a conventional symphonic score, some who have him beaten, but there's only one who can compose Gravity Daze 2 and if there's another who can do what Tanaka does and just hypercharge Goodwin on a whim and write with excellence in a million styles, so full of notes and incorperating a dozen catchy motives and themes in under a minute, it becomes an absolute nightmare to transcribe (in a good way), I would be dying to discover him.


@NNK2: Good thing the quality of a score is not measured in minutes, otherwise I would be screwed :laugh: I know I speculated it could be hours and was proven wrong. Then again, I speculated GuP Finale would move in the direction I wanted it to go and it did, so we're even...

Hisaishi and Kanno eat him for breakfast as far as technicality of pure orchestra is concernedHisaishi? I mean I think he's a wonderful composer but on a technical level I don't see how he is better than Tanaka. There are so many parts of Gravity Daze that I can't imagine Hisaishi coming up with in a million years. Tanaka never falls below the bar when it comes to pure orchestral works and he's been going at pure orchestra for longer than Hisaishi, and it shows. If we're comparing his more playful synth side, then Mamoru Fujisawa is a better point of comparison.

I don't mean that in "writing an orchestral piece", believe me, certain moments in Gravity Days are so full of notes to make even Hirano jealous. I mean that in "writing a coherent symphonic story". If I take Hisaishi's output from this decade and compare it to Tanaka's, as far as pure symphonic score goes, Hisaishi has him beaten. Hisaishi/Mamoru Fujisawa is an absolute master of evoking and writing concertgrade music these days.

Granted Tanaka is no stranger to this practice, even arranging famous classical pieces for violin and orchestra in the 90s, writing a 30 minute symphonic poem with a piano concerto as well as a full-fleshed symphony and he certainly has vast knowledge of the concert world, in addition to being geniously talented who can pull up anyone on the fly and play around with his music, (in addition to being a great human being) but he wrote no 50 minute concert piece like Ni no Kuni recently. Only End of Eternity is comparable. Granted, a two minute piece by Tanaka or Hisaishi? Tanaka everytime: http://picosong.com/wYiU4

At a certain level of craft it all becomes just personal preferences anyway. Both are great composers, among the best we have :)

Here we encounter variety versus quality.

Tanaka wins with variety, Hisaishi wins with sheer quality and standard of composition. Not to suggest that Tanaka is a slouch when it comes to quality and standard of composition, but Hisaishi is light years ahead from a technical perspective.

I mean that in "writing a coherent symphonic story".Okay, I can agree with this. Tanaka isn't usually a symphonic composer like Hisaishi is, but Hisaishi didn't really take that "fully symphonic" mantle until sometime in the 2000s.


Hisaishi is light years ahead from a technical perspective. This, I don't agree with one bit, but I am curious as to why you think so.

Whether Mr Tanaka has a full symphonic score or not, there is no denying that the compositions he writes have memorable melodies and harmonies that stand the test of time, at least to me. I instantly memorized his scores without having to hear them the second time. He is a genius. This is why he's one of my all time favorite composers.

It's somewhat difficult to articulate, but when I hear Hisaishi - even when he's at his most "filmic" I still hear a heart that beats 100% for the concert hall. Even in the midst of his synthy phase in the 80s, I hear synths and drum machines, but I feel the mind of a Beethoven or a Mozart in the driver's seat. (I'm sorry about that scarily mixed metaphor... but somehow, it works...)

Tanaka... he's FANTASTIC, but I feel the mind of a film composer - albeit one of the best who ever lived, but a film composer nonetheless - in the driver's seat. Perhaps I reveal my bias (but it's a good bias, I think) towards classical music as "proper" music; but as far as I'm concerned, the closer to classical music (in terms of construction, not necessarily instrumentation) a film score gets, the better it's going to be. Classical music represents techniques created by some of the most prodigious geniuses the human species has ever produced, polished off with over three hundred years of constant evolution and improvement. Tanaka is definitely inspired by the classical past and present, but I don't think he can match Hisaishi's ease; this classical sensibility is his native language, so to speak; to continue the metaphor, Tanaka may speak a dozen more languages than Hisaishi does, but Hisaishi's music speaks to me with the eloquence of Shakespeare - and Tanaka's just doesn't. (It speaks to me in a thousand different ways, but I don't think he reaches Hisaishi's level of purity, poise, and fluency.)

Tanaka writes more notes, but Hisaishi's notes have more to say. Tanaka lives in the right now, Hisaishi lives in every note of the score simultaneously. Tanaka is a jack of every trade, Hisaishi is the absolute master of Hisaishi's own, personal trade.

I am reminded of a comment made by Maurice Ravel following a stint as Ralph Vaughan Williams' teacher - "He [RVW] is the only one of my students who doesn't write my music!"

As ever, as Vinphonic observed, once you get to a certain point of skill, the "who's better" question becomes gradually less important.

It's like arguing over whether �20,000,000 or �20,001,000 is more money; yes, one of them is more money... but in real terms, who cares? Would you turn down either?

Just a little something I want to add to that. There's still numerous incorpotations of classical music in his work, some you notice right away (Prokofiev in King Gainer), others you don't even notice because its buried under a cascade of notes. It is not presented upfront with absolute confidence like Hisaishi, but its there.

His "pop" songs are also full of classical techniques, mostly baroque and his operatic stagemusicals are a fusion of Broadway and Opera. Seeing him sing his own incredible pop compositions live with such passion and vigor, smiling and laughing, and then right after conduct a symphony orchestra with a stonecold serious face like Beethoven, tells me he is the living embodiment of what music is.

I would also not use the term "film music", Tanaka himself prefers "Anime and Game music", that's what he was always wanting to write music for and what he wants to be its own genre. He is at the very heart of an industry that somehow ended up providing me with incredible orchestral film and classical works but also is a playground for pure atristic expression (Iwasaki/Tanaka/Sahashi). Even among the 20something newcomers recently (we have yet to hear), most have a classical background. The term "Film Music" didn't even exist until well into the 20th Century, so maybe the term "Anime and Game Music" will one day be commonplace among those that love classical inspired/operatic orchestral music. Well... if they truely want to aim for that... its not like they have much competition...

Also quite the coincidence but Tanaka and Hisaishi share a common history, both worked together on various syntheziser and anime albums in the 80s and early 90s. And both are an absolute joy to see performing and conducting. One became the most popular Japanese composer of all time and the master of the concert hall, the other became the master of anime music and the face of an industry. Could you have guessed that in 1986?

For some levity and laughs, here's Tanaka's most infamous instance of his career. You know Hisaishi' Orbis is nice and all but Tanaka just smashes that Beethoven with no survivors:

But be warned, your abillity to listen to Beethoven's 7th might be forever tainted (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oAdr94fzNPA)

I used the term "film music" as a catch-all, something to differentiate music written for the concert hall and music written to accompany some other visual medium.


There's still numerous incorpotations of classical music in his work, some you notice right away (Prokofiev in King Gainer), others you don't even notice because its buried under a cascade of notes. It is not presented upfront with absolute confidence like Hisaishi, but its there.

Any idiot can quote classical music; sometimes to crack a musical joke, sometimes just because a composer thinks the thing they're quoting just fits, sometimes because they're lacking inspiration of their own and need a quick fix.

Tanaka and Hisaishi have both done it; Hisaishi modelled parts of NHK Shinkai Project after Janacek, and poked fun at Wagner in Ponyo.


so maybe the term "Anime and Game Music" will one day be commonplace among those that love classical inspired/operatic orchestral music. Well... if they truely want to aim for that... its not like they have much competition...

I strongly doubt it.


But be warned, your abillity to listen to Beethoven's 7th might be forever tainted

*shudders*

Poor Beethoven's 5th and 9th as well...

This is a very interesting conversation and I love all the replies so far. Before I get back to everyone, I have one more question to lay out: whom is the better composer, Korngold or Herrmann? Symphonic master or film master?

Isn't it a fact that, although the trade has evolved over the years to many genres and different kinds of sounds, that film music per se owes a lot to classical music, and somehow started from there? Lots of scores of the classic era are almost classical.

I find it very hard to say who is 'better' between the two as they had such different styles and were so marvelous at their respective method (I haven't heard a great deal from either of them, so that impairs my judgment). Both were of course geniuses though who started in music first and film later, so I think both were at least very capable men in being able to write for a wide variety of occasions instead of just cues for a movie.

It's like the "Williams vs. Goldsmith" argument: the former leans more towards writing effusive, ever-active orchestral scores and the latter always had an eye turned towards the weird and the untapped potential for variety. Now Williams can be weird too, and Goldsmith could write stellar music for orchestra better than most of Hollywood, but their inclinations are different. Herrmann loved being able to indulge in the strange and unexpected but that didn't stop him from doing things like conduct classical works. I imagine Korngold was born too early and no doubt too set in his ways at older age to dabble in the more experimental stuff, but I think he could have been capable, if he really wanted to, to be sort of innovative in his writing like Herrmann.

That's my wishy-washy way of saying "I don't know!" :-P They both approached music differently but I don't think they were incapable of being able to go to the other side and succeeding.

Well, "film music" was, at the beginning, a gradual and consistent development that started with Wagner's use of leitmotif in his operas. Wagner didn't create leitmotif, but he pretty much wrote the book on how to use it to tell a story musically. The early pioneers - Steiner, Korngold, Rozsa, Newman, and others - all used grand opera as a template for creating their new art form. For over 100 years, it's stood the test of time as a technique that can be used to create very cerebral, intellectually satisfying scores which are ALSO insanely good fun. When you listen to something like, say, Korngold's The Adventures Of Robin Hood, it's so approachable and so evocative that you forget that you're listening to something that is as meticulously constructed as Wagner's Ring. (Ever wonder where John Williams got the inspiration behind Hook? Right here, folks...)

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

The Korngold vs Herrmann question is fascinating - and I think it ties quite well to the Williams vs Goldsmith; it's a contest between two composers who were about as different as can be, but were both at the top of their games. One slavishly traditional - who was stupidly brilliant, and one who lived for experimentation - who was also stupidly brilliant. In both questions, if pushed, I would side with Korngold and Williams as "better" than Herrmann and Goldsmith, and yet I feel like Herrmann and Goldsmith gave more uniqueness to the medium - and if you told me I had to get rid of every composer in my film score collection except one, my decision would be to keep Goldsmith, and it wouldn't be a hard decision.

As an aside, Herrmann never quite made a convincing argument when he conducted other people's music - he always seemed to be uncomfortable interpreting rather than creating. I found his recording of Holst's The Planets to be utterly disastrous; the musical equivalent of the backseat driver who won't simply shut up and enjoy the ride, but feels the need to constantly critique the driver. It reminds me of when my Grandad taught me to put up wallpaper; for years he wouldn't let me near it. Then, he finally decided I was ready - and within thirty seconds of me starting I hear nothing but quiet grumbling about how I wasn't doing it the way he would.

That's Bernard Herrmann at the conductor's podium - he is fighting with the person who wrote the music; entirely consistent with his personality as recorded; an arch egomaniac and a career complainer. He was brilliant; he had that right, of course... but I don't think it's a useful attitude for one to adopt if one intends to conduct somebody else's music.

These "who would win" questions, man...I couldn't begin to compare Tanaka and Hisaishi's strengths wo a lengthy and comprehensive deep dive of both their oeuvres, as it's been too long since I've really listened to either. I don't really get the point. They're both phenomenal talents(and Yoko Kanno still handily spanks em both anyway, don't @ me)...there's room for ALL the pretty girls at the ball. What I'd find more interesting, and telling, is people analyzing and sharing their fave pieces from either. People fall easily into the trap of discussing musical artists entirely in the macro, and rarely breakdown their fave pieces or explore why they like the lesser-heard, more underrated tracks from a musician's career.

Korngold, no question to me. He was the true wunderkind. But Herrmann wrote the more interesting music and the better action. I would take Williams over Goldsmith... but only Williams from the 1970s-2005. Prisoner of Azkaban was his last great score in my book.

Goldsmith, evalutating everything, from his first works to his last works, wins overall. I could even get behind that he was the most concistently excellent prolific film composer and its no wonder Tanaka, Sahashi and other were inspired by his work and he still holds the top honorary position of the Japanese Composer and Arranger Association. He also had the luxury of never having to see his craft in Hollywood dying, starting with Horner, Silvestri and JNH chained to a wall. Keep saying your prophecies of doom about Japan, but Hisaishi, Tanaka, Oshima, Kanno and others are not only at the top of their game but are sounding better than ever. Oshima had the opportunity that Amano had this decade and had multiple overseas recordings and became more and more sophisticated, starting with Zetsuen no Tempest, Tanaka became even more eager in his vortex of merging styles, of which Gravity Daze is the very pinnacle, Hisaishi absorbed his concert persona and merged the very best of both worlds, and Kanno soared to new heights. I'm very eager to hear their next works.



Kohei Tanaka
90s Works



An extention of my Legacy post about Tanaka. There is much goodness in his 90s works, of course the best are Eternal Fantasy and the Praha Symphony. But his anime and game scores from that decade are also something special. He demonstrated early on that he has command over the orchestra, even on old video game soundchips. This is of course his work with a live ensemble. It's not yet the period when he really becomes one of my favorites (Sakura Wars/One Piece/GaoGaiGar Final/Chikyu Boei Kigyo Dai-Guard/Diebuster/King Gainer) but he would later expand on many ideas he had during this period: http://picosong.com/wYvw3



Download (https://mega.nz/#!GFBkjapA!Ob9jpY-XTsfs7rlRuDvPtWq0Htj-uCzzJ6gQ0UMrgDY)

The 20th Anniversary Night is all about his 90s works performed by the Tokyo Philharmonic and Tanaka himself (excluding Gunbuster of course). Also, take notice track 5 will one day evolve into Kat's Theme. What I find noteworthy, even on his very first works you can hear the tendency for "screaming brass" that would find its pinnacle in Gravity Daze 30 years later. Among his 90s work there's also everything from O Fortuna, Opera and Thunderbirds (he really has a thing for British scores). At this point, every little trademark he ever had flowed into Gravity Daze.

Maybe sometime soon we can finally hear his work on the Tamagochi films. And I highly anticipate World Seeker and Planet With, even the One Piece Stage musical could be something if it gets a release.



EDIT:

To differentiate a little what Tanaka does with his "Anime and Game" music, here's two anime scores that for all intents and purposes are "Film scores" in all but name. I've taken out the "filler" and rearranged them proper. Both by (relative) newcomers.



Evan Call
Violet Evergarden



Download (https://mega.nz/#!uI5wGL6R!GufcNXAXbeqRdjdFy2iITPaP20132KCmHcpI51pG4ds)

SAMPLE (http://picosong.com/wesgY/)

For the first major orchestral score by a foreign composer for anime... pretty damn good if you ask me. He might one day turn out to be another Sakimoto, he certainly has the ability to write catchy tunes. The uniqueness of the scores comes in incorporating the typewriter, and it never feels out of place or like a "gimmick". This is a film score first, and everything else second. Its stellar in the show but if it holds the same power on album, that's for you to decide. I think it does. The songs are nothing to throw away either, on the contrary they are quite wonderful: http://picosong.com/wesXi/
The only major thing I find fault in, the Aria is not five minutes long: http://picosong.com/wesjn/
It's not the last we will hear of Evergarden, so I hope he can expand that piece into something more than a tease in the future.
Who knows, considering Yuri on Ice got an orchestral concert, and Evergarden has similar popularity, perhaps that opportunity arrives in the form of a concert.





Yoshiaki Fujisawa
A Place Further than the Universe



Download (https://mega.nz/#!aJpkUDID!ivrrANJwpD2K9uQPtQAExPv-hEgfmAT7W55ryFlFTyA)

SAMPLE (http://picosong.com/wewee/)

Much more film score than I remember. He knew he had no brass and writes around it and employs it effectivly this time, so that it becomes no issue for me. If you like/love the relaxing/emotional parts of NGNL Zero, then this score is very much that. A very pleasant listen with some moments that further convince me Fujisawa needs those real ensembles in the future.

This is a very interesting conversation and I love all the replies so far. Before I get back to everyone, I have one more question to lay out: whom is the better composer, Korngold or Herrmann? Symphonic master or film master?
Herrmann overall. Herrmann was the more original and innovative figure. Korngold wrote some concert works I rank higher than Herrmann's concert works though, but Herrmann clearly wrote the better film music as a whole and more innovative and original music. Korngold was great, but he was also derivative of the romantics that Herrmann in his distinct minimalist mode wasn't.

I would say Goldsmith overall for the Williams vs Goldsmith battle even if Williams might be my personal favourite of the two. Goldsmith was the more creative and inventive figure. Williams could probably never have written a score like Chinatown which I would take over the vast majority of Williams's output, maybe aside from 10 or so scores that I put on around the same level even if they aren't as original. He also brought in various modernist devices into film music.

So what is the deal with Evan Call’s Violet Evergarden? Is it a purely synth score?

Vinphonic, you need to stop sneaking extra goodies into your old posts. If you have something to post, just post it. ;)

Cornblitz: Have you listened to it? Almost every track is a full TV-sized orchestra. I don't like the score, on the whole (though I enjoyed it more than I thought I would) but the one thing it isn't is synth. (Though I do have to ask why "The Songstress Aria I" is not an aria and instead sounds like an orchestral version of Caro Emerald's "Liquid Lunch"!!!!)

Tango, I hadn't listened to it until today, and yes, it is indeed a nice live orchestra. I quite liked it!

ready player one is very thematic, has a lot of motifs, great orchestrations,cool references and is wonderfully emotional.good stuff.

I made this last orchestral album about the world of Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri: The Stranger Boss "Paradisum"

Here is the Thread: Link (Thread 223687)

So, Ready Player One is out... some nice moments, but overall it's the textbook definition of indistinct and uninteresting. Underwhelming orchestrations, bland themes, haphazardly blended with anonymous ostinato-driven action music that goes nowhere, and all polished over with Silvestri 80s tropes. It's trying to say "Remember the 80s? LET'S PARTY LIKE IT'S 1985!" but ends up saying instead "Remember the 80s? Well, the 80s aren't here any more, but here's the odd flash of nostalgia that serves only to remind you what's been lost and how we really can never go back."

Every single note of it makes you think "Oh, that reminds me of vintage Silvestri..." and then you realise it's because Silvestri just made a gesture you remember from BTTF, Roger Rabbit, The Mummy Returns, Judge Dredd, Predator, or The Abyss... and then you want to listen to those scores, which do exactly what Ready Player One does, only ten times better.

Nice to hear in the context of modern Hollwood...

UTTERLY DEPRESSING to hear in the context of a Steven Spielberg sci-fi movie scored by a Hollywood veteran who replaced John Williams. This movie represented the best possible climate in modern Hollywood for an instant-classic score... and look what we got.

Don't be shocked but I'm 100% behind Tango. Listen to "My First Bus Ride" and then compare it to the "End Titles" cue. It's an hour of bland trash and an hour of solid Silvestri, but nothing more. I also can't stand hearing that BTTF motif and various other scores in this one. It reminds me of the worst traits of Horner's average scores but at least those had proper structure and were never this obtuse. It's not clever, it's just there for "I MEMBER". I'm reminded of Zippers comments about Last Jedi and I have to agree. Only Williams mastery saved it from ending up like RPO. "Remember Yoda, remember Tie-Fighter"... that's ultimately what all halfway decent Hollywood scores fall into these days. Justice League for example: "Remember Superman, remember Batman?". Even the Orville: "Remember Star Trek? Remember Galaxy Quest?". Ask yourself, when did you hear the last great orchestral score from a Hollywood film that has nothing to do with or does not pay homage to any pre-established trademark or franchise... Much joy and good times to others who (still) like Hollywood music, but as far as I'm concerned, I'm done.

I'll still grab any new works from the once great film composers and anything mentioned here, but their age has been over since sometime after 2005 and although I'm a huge optimist and very easy to excite, I don't see this as just being a phase like Disco. It's dead Jim.

I agree the End Titles cue is the best because it kinda sums up in 8 minutes all of the best cues of the whole score. The rest of it. It's not bad per se, I've heard worse, but it's just.. there, with some exceptions. I personally don't hate Ready Player One.. nor find it as dissapointing (I was gearing up for one) just.. eeeh. It does what it wants, which you guys have mentioned.

https://vgmdb.net/album/70541

PLEASE tell me this isn't serious - TWELVE MINUTES of music from Revenant Kingdom on the bonus CD?!

Surely this has to mean somebody is planning a real release at some point. Don't get me wrong, I'm eternally grateful for the gamerip... but the prospect of Hisaishi's first substantial score in nearly five years not getting a proper release makes my blood run cold.

Yeah I'm as dissapointed as you - but such a limited amount of music for such an expensive collector's edition, must be indeed that a CD is in the works in the future, hopefully.. I want my gamerip properly tagged.

BTW, Staff Roll (according to someone) also credits Kenichiro Saigo for additional music.

I'm just relieved that I didn't buy the thing!

They know how important Hisaishi's music is to the game; if they didn't they wouldn't be pressing picture-vinyl and CDs...

It has to be planned for later on down the line. I just wish they'd get a shuffle on... :D

Among the more prolific of my darlings, how did they sound when they started out? How do they sound now? How did they end up? Did they start with Battle Beyond the Stars but ended up (or will end up) with Southpaw? I think not ;)
Also interesting for many reasons. Sometimes (most prominent in Tanaka's case) you can hear an almost seemless transition from their first works to their latest. At least I find it fascinating:


Masamichi Amano 1992 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pejrfrCblK4)
Masamichi Amano 2016 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=80Isy-5OP28)

Shiro Hamaguchi 1997 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vB7rlPu9sIA)
Shiro Hamaguchi 2018 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SlEmkqQ2S7A)

Takayuki Hattori 1995 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S6dT24DH7Gc)
Takayuki Hattori 2018 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wqe9tMWtU-I)

Yoshihisa Hirano 2001 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W6flN_iE-9Y)
Yoshihisa Hirano 2017 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XsfsTOj0Fyo&feature=youtu.be)

Joe Hisaishi 1981 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EXp7TZaxDvA)
Joe Hisaishi 2018 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P5te_E7wZd8)

Yoshihiro Ike 2000 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OVbnEvJT__k)
Yoshihiro Ike 2018 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7HZhjTwSMc)

Taku Iwasaki 1999 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2k8WS8a7S9o&t=31m39s)
Taku Iwasaki 2018 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EWHiObbYKwY&t=30m)

Taro Iwashiro 1997 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ebfun1YuxHY)
Taro Iwashiro 2017 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XYIpi_BPJBk&feature=youtu.be)

Yoko Kanno 1989 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O6Xqt0v41Ao)
Yoko Kanno 2017 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xs9EHPZ4hfs)

Kenji Kawai 1986 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lua6QLb_7wU)
Kenji Kawai 2018 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qjrEiFsXje0)

Hayato Matsuo 1994 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pcLefjfTM_w)
Hayato Matsuo 2017 (https://vimeo.com/220013734)

Yasunori Mitsuda 1996 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BA6HpFfsFxY&list=PLCB5EC0C5E1947BF4)
Yasunori Mitsuda 2017 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qb8kf-X-Nok&index=29&list=PL51-dx-CgzyYOyMM70-UkDFKn4E06G_gO)

Michiru Oshima 1992 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gTff5xR8fAA)
Michiru Oshima 2017 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N80R-ogEiBg&list=PLAY2aAj333CqEPz7NIqxFutC-2jQc_f9a)

Toshihiko Sahashi 1994 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e6-ShwTKPHs)
Toshihiko Sahashi 2017 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DctWQoKSmM4&feature=youtu.be)

Hitoshi Sakimoto 1993 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-DugQCA2W00)
Hitoshi Sakimoto 2018 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NZSo_QZVYCI)

Naoki Sato 2001 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gdk34K96xA4)
Naoki Sato 2018 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sCf5sF0k9kU)

Akira Senju 1993 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MjlgM5Pu4SA)
Akira Senju 2016 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g5IjAXzQoc8)

Hiroshi Takaki 2005 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mY6ikEtupm8&list=PLmVfXuhmOSpeRSq7kTr4zm1jrw1TGhXeM&index=4)
Hiroshi Takaki 2016 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ocTwN_SqF3k&feature=youtu.be)

Kohei Tanaka 1986 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=92qP6KwWFqE&t=8s)
Kohei Tanaka 2017 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3xD7clCBf0Q)

Kaoru Wada 1991 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tm1gkSSviBA)
Kaoru Wada 2017 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gbknqf6pnSs&index=2&list=PLAY2aAj333Crjpt8yLZeWAvxib-aASIyW)

Toshiyuki Watanabe 1987 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UTEvkXQv2d4)
Toshiyuki Watanabe 2018 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=92sKNjSEtoY&t=44m42s)

Kosuke Yamashita 2005 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lvI1-pkIidY&t=25m19s)
Kosuke Yamashita 2018 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fn0GKuOdZro)

[Never mind, I figured it out.] :)

Junichi Matsumoto
The Ancient Magus Bride



Download (https://mega.nz/#!LEBgyCjD!ISAQbobYEvP9flSZfN94Fo6DIlSpeDbVe7KVR0V9cGQ)

I love OST covers like these :)
Anyway, nice pastoral music but some is not easy listening at all. I would even say it goes well into Hirano territory at times. In fact, it's also a good case for scanning scores that you may find underwhelming at first, because there's still a chance to dig up gold, like this piece:

Symphonic Chimera No. 1 (Hirano would approve) (http://picosong.com/wek7Y/)

And after the second OST, taking it all in, I would say I now "get" what they were going for with the minimalistic, textural approach. Still, it's night and day from the OVA series "Those who await a star" but I'm happy in the end since it finally gets a soundtrack in May. It's grand film music with a much bigger orchestra. It's a completely different approach in the TV series, but I think it also has much value as an artistic work. And at least the show was absolutely gorgeous to look at. One of those shows I watched for the art of it (like Evergarden).

Also a good point to make you all aware of a little surprise regarding who also scored for the OVA, because its not only Junichi Matsumoto. There's another. A mysterious person. A woman... with a love for aliases :D

So much to talk about... I guess that's what happens when I'm busy for a whole week.

Tanaka vs. Hisaishi:

What I do agree with you guys is that Hisaishi knows how to say more with less. He doesn't need a trillion notes like Tanaka or Kanno or Asakawa; the man has such a profound understanding of melody and harmony that he could compose an entire score using just a piano and it would still be a great listen. I guess that comes from his minimalist background, and it's why I always associate him with Ryuichi Sakamoto. However, similar to what Vinphonic has said, I don't think Hisaishi has ever had as many succinct orchestral showcase pieces as Tanaka. For me, that is personally what I regard as orchestral skill- to control the orchestra and have all the instruments each do your bidding without missing a single note, classical structure be damned. Hisaishi's music (nowadays) is certainly more classical in structure than Tanaka, who typically swings more towards media mixing jazz and pop. But does that mean we should disregard people like Henry Mancini's enormous skill with an orchestra just because he writes in a jazzier style and occasionally uses synth sounds like Tanaka? I don't see how classical structure has anything to do with the skill required to wield an orchestra. Any truly great piece of music can be played on any single instrument and still be amazing. The orchestra is just another musical instrument.

Herrmann vs. Korngold:

Korngold was a master of symphonic structure and using the orchestra to express that was merely an extension of his compositional skills. What I find interesting about him is that he's had plenty of different people orchestrate and arrange his music throughout his life, whether they're the old Vienna masters when he was 12 or the local Golden Age Hollywood guys like Hugo Friedhofer when he was in his 30s/40s- and yet not once does his music sound like it was written or orchestrated by anyone other than him. Korngold is THE orchestral composer, and in a concert hall I don't think many people would be able to come close to his abilities, living or dead. Herrmann is certainly a brilliant composer, but I don't think he has a tenth of the orchestral prowess of Korngold. But unlike Korngold, Herrmann understood the dramatic structure of film so well that he didn't need to rely on every grand operatic concert technique like Korngold to write a film score. And like Korngold, he knew exactly what techniques to use to make the orchestra do his bidding, even if they were not technically on the same level. It's like comparing a mathematician (Korngold) to an engineer (Herrmann). Supposedly Einsten wasn't very good at math. But did that ever make anyone question his genius?

In both of these cases, it all boils down to preferences on stylistic choices rather than skill, and I think you guys came to that conclusion as well. This was an interesting discussion, and as a side effect it's further enhanced my appreciation for Iwasaki. He's not only capable of writing or blending any musical genre, he can also switch between pop and symphonic and dramatic mindsets of scoring at will, from melodic to motivic to harmonic and even outright operatic, or any mixture of them altogether- and still create a score that is coherent and gives each one of his works its own identity, all while sounding distinctly written in his own personal melodic/harmonic language. It's not perfect, and sometimes I wish he would just stick to one thing instead of going overboard. But when anyone has that much talent, they have the right to flex (If anything, I wish he flexed more in his last two scores, which are limp compared to his usual works even if they are more coherent in their scoring technique and musical landscape). This isn't even mentioning his own very impressive orchestral abilities. Even if you don't agree with the direction of his music or his overdramatic caustic personality, I think he's earned every right to be that way. He has the talent to back it up. In this regard, the only other person comparable is Kanno, and even then I never felt all her music was as cohesive to her personal idiom as Iwasaki's, nevermind the plagiarisms.

RPO:
Never been a big Silvestri fan, but from the way you guys describe it, it's about what I expected. An entire film that revolves around "REMEMBER THIS?!" has music that yells out the same thing. It's not allowed to be original or compelling because that would defeat the point of a work whose sole purpose is to homage other franchises rather than be its own thing. Even more than RC, I feel that this style of film music is the most dangerous type- the ultimate culmination of the dreaded temp track. Silvestri is a competent composer even if he isn't my favorite, but to see him and Elfman and even Williams brought down to this level of writing nothing but "homage music" is just depressing. No wonder those who have no idea how to wield an orchestra like Giacchino are brought into big orchestral projects- they have enough knowledge of what the original music for the franchise they're working on is like (mainly certain themes) and know how and where to cut them up to place in a movie. And of course, they leave the hard work of HOW to do this to the orchestrators. No voice, no talent, just a music-spitting machine that won't upset the producers. It's sad and ironic how despite the Hollywood studio system collapsed in the 60s, it's rebuilt itself to be even more powerful than ever before, made by the same hands who originally disowned it like Spielberg and Lucas.

NNK II:
12 minutes? Seriously? Depressing. If there is no other release announced in the future, then I am very concerned, especially since this is Joe Hisaishi, the most popular orchestral composer in all of Japan we're talking about here.

Evergarden:
Have not listened to it, will eventually.

Magus Bride:
I'm not at all impressed with that one serial piece that was posted. Serial music is usually only used for two purposes: to be some avante garde concert piece or to work as death/horror/danger music. It's used for the latter case 90% of the time in media. The same goes for this piece- I can't imagine it being used as anything other than suspense music. Hirano is on a whole other level when it comes to writing this type of music because for him, he can use it to express literally ANYTHING- hero themes, love themes, etc. Could you believe that Break Blade is actually a swashbuckler score? Even some of the most dissonant pieces have an adventurous tone to them. I've never seen any other composer accomplish this feat, not even Goldsmith and Goldenthal. And it's certainly something no modern concert-exclusive hack would ever dare put in his music unless he wants to be laughed at by his fellow snobs.

Okay, I'm done. It's late and I'm tired so maybe some of the stuff I wrote here doesn't seem very coherent, but I still had to write it down.

Happy April Fool's day everyone. =)



Speaking of Iwasaki, he's working on something that requires 4 hours of music... a game perhaps?

https://twitter.com/taque68/status/980375661406601216

More to come, but briefly...

I'm not enamoured with the Matsumoto piece, either. It's devastatingly well orchestrated, but in the end it's very little more than "listen to the amazing sounds I can get out of an orchestra" - Hirano, most emphatically, would not approve. It's nearly four minutes of noise; a visceral, uncompromising piece of suspense/action music but ultimately orchestral masturbation; a painting with every colour splashed upon the canvas, but there's no picture. It's all style and absolutely no substance. Hirano was substance and style in perfect harmony; and he knew how to use one to enhance the other. This is just a racket held together with some cliched chord progressions; a stupidly boring score - and, sadly, the best so far of 2018.

Additionally, a small point - it's not a serial piece. It's (mostly) atonal. Serialism describes a different series of techniques. This thing is nowhere near that clever. (I bloody hate serialism to listen to, but it IS clever.)

Korngold; Indeed; but the term "orchestrator" has come to mean something vastly different nowadays than it did, then. Back in the "good old days" the composer wrote the music and the orchestrator was basically a copyist; every note was there, every bit of structure was there, and the composer's short score left no confusion as to what it should sound like and what instrument should be playing what. It was simply written in a form of extreme shorthand that wasn't suitable to place in front of an orchestra. Three different people could each orchestrate the same cue and there would be no substantial difference in the finished product. Even if the orchestrator was called upon to "fill in gaps" in a cue, or ghost-write it all together, the composer's own styles and techniques were usually so established and so stable that the orchestrator would be able to do a pretty good impression of them, to the extent that nobody would really notice.

Nowadays, "orchestrator" increasingly means somebody with musical skill trying to turn a sow's ear into a silk purse; and they are usually engaged because the "composer" cannot orchestrate at all, or does so in a slow and amateurish way that would be laughed off of the platform if given to an orchestra. An orchestrator will get some ideas, some themes (if you can say that modern scores even have them) and some basic thoughts about structure, and they'll go off and try to turn it into a piece of music that's, at the very least, playable and basically functional.

This Youtube channel is fascinating; it has orchestral reductions of popular classic film score cues. It's fascinating to see how much of the full score can be stripped away whilst still leaving enough information to know what's going on inside the piece and to be able to reconstruct the full orchestration - all in two or three lines. It's a masterclass both in brevity and in how a composer can drastically reduce the amount of writing he has to do but can still communicate clearly and concisely to an orchestrator.

Here's a look at Princess Leia's Theme

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n_vC4xN2_U0

Iwasaki 4 Hours

I read the post through a translator, and it feels more like he's just doing his usual moan about working too hard; he talks about four recent albums released in close proximity stressing him out; at least, that's what I infer from the "wonky translation" from Google...

Here's a look at Princess Leia's Theme

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n_vC4xN2_U0

Why didn't he mention the counterpoint in the horns when doing the breakdown at at 3:15? It's a great example of Williams using classical-style appoggiaturas.

Thanks.

I read the post through a translator, and it feels more like he's just doing his usual moan about working too hard; he talks about four recent albums released in close proximity stressing him out; at least, that's what I infer from the "wonky translation" from Google...He was complaining about having to make 4 CD albums worth of music all by himself, which equated to over 4 hours of music, and he was given 6 months to do it. Apparently he's been working 5 months on it nonstop so far.

He worked on Lord of Vermillion IV for Square Enix, it wouldn't be surprising if they asked him for another project.

Does anyone else have fun experiences of hearing film music randomly while family members watch movies? My dad somewhat recently got a movie channel that he didn't have before and watches movies almost every day and sometimes I hear a theme that sounds familiar and try to guess what it is. Today I walked in while he was watching Basic Instinct right as the theme was playing. Quite fun to watch little snippets of movies that way.

2017 in Brass
Anime and Game Jazz





With a little delay... Thanks a bunch Vinphonic. That selection of yours totally made my day !!

April season early thoughts:

Uchuu Senkan Tiramisu (Shunpei Ishige) - INTERESTING! Episodes only seven minutes, it seems (WTF?) but the score is a fairly large orchestra and there's enough potential in episode one to make me think this might be worth listening to eventually.
Die Neue These (can't remember, who cares) - Urgh, basically hopeless, as pretty much everybody here predicted based on the composer and the samples. A cookie-cutter modern Hollywood space score.
Pretty Derby (Taro Iwashiro) - a really weird choice for Iwashiro, and we're obviously not going to get some big symphonic glorious score - this is slice-of-life schoolgirls with horses - but there seems to be an orchestra; there's a rather good brass fanfare in episode one so there might be something to enjoy, but invariably not much - it's Iwashiro, after all.
Lost Song (Yusuke Shirato) - hmm, not quite sure what to make of this... the score so far is terrible, but the show is shamelessly musical... still got some a little optimism, here.

@zeugma440

You're very welcome :)

@Sirusjr: Sometimes it happens. I only need to hear a few notes and know instantly if the movie they are watching stars Stallone, Schwarzenegger or Connery :D (only from movies before the 2000s of course)

@Tango: AH... no 24 minutes for Tiramisu :( Some good old SciFi in parts (and that Star Wars opening crawl was a nice touch). Would have made up for the unbelievable travesty that is Die Neue These. In parts it sounds like SciFi music but then it devolves into incredibly boring music. Makes me appreciate remakes/reboots like Yamato 2199/2202, Haikara-san and Mazinger Z tenfold.

@Iwashiro: I don't know, I adore the first scene and remain optimistic that there is more where that came from (I enjoy Iwashiro usually): https://vimeo.com/262847599

Iwashiro can actually smile (musically) which is unexpected, and episode two has more orchestral pieces, but they are buried under noise. In general its weird, you have a real orchestra that does sound like Iwashiro but then there's "filler" and synth pieces that don't sound like Iwashiro at all. Maybe it's Ryuichi Takada. He said on Twitter he was involved with composing and arranging for the show. Regardless, I feel like I will have a good time listening to this. Who knows, perhaps he has a suite ready like he did for Arslan and Kado (unreleased).

Lost Song: I wait for the Japanese broadcast because any audio track that is not Japanese puts the music far down in the mix. A slow and steady trend on our side. So far I quite enjoy the symphony orchestra pieces (for which I was right on the money that they are pop underscore).

EDIT: Oh, Oshima leaves this season (Haikara Part II delayed to Fall) but Kaoru Wada joins in. Yamashita passed the baton for Puzzle X Dragon.

Hiroshi Takaki
Tokyo Studio Orchestra and PreCure Voice Cast
PreCure 15th Anniversary



There are certain constellations that happen at the right time and at the right place. There are two types of longrunning Japanese TV franchises. Those that (usually) ask for a new composer for every new entry in the franchise and those that employ a composer for a certain period and then swich sides. Taiga Dramas and Sentai fall into the former category while franchises like Ultraman fall into the later. The first has constant ups and downs, the second has periods of rise and fall. With Ultraman, the last time it peaked was with Sahashi and then it fell to its death shortly after (if it can be resurrected again is up to chance). But there's another new major longrunning franchise on the horizon that nobody expected to turn into a megafranchise, back in 2004. Granted it had some serious pannache and a genuinely catchy song and score by Naoki Sato but that now, fifteen years later I would sing songs of praises for the franchise, nobody could have predicted. Sato's scores for the first installments were nice and dandy but ultimately little more than a little breather from his serious scores. It was not anything special by his standards. Well, except from our perspective of hearing Tom&Jerry style scoring for a TV series from 2004-2008 with full orchestral openings.

After that came an instant change in tone. With Takanashi, the franchise was home to something entirely different. In the end, from 2008-2013, just with the change of composer, it ended up a series with speedmetal, Blues Brothers and Gospel... among them, Smile Precure stands out for being the most enjoyable.

And then... in 2013, it happened... another major shift in composer style, only this time a match made in heaven, eventhough it needed a season of settling down and getting comfortable.



Hiroshi Takaki (36 at the time), who launched on the scene with a phenomenal classical debut with Tytania and follow-up Shinkenger, was contracted for four years, from 2013-2016. Under his baton, during the period of his command over various studio-orchestra ensembles, the franchise had up to this point, its most glorious years.

It turned full on classical and Broadway, with Takaki writing in the end over four hours of classical score and three hours of incredibly diverse fusion of orchestra with funk, rock and pop. His new style that would finds it utmost perfection in the last series employed a small ensemble of female singers that would provide some distinct personality to his music. But aside from his experiments, at its core its good old classical tradition unleashed on a major media franchise for four years straight, by a ridicolously talented composer. We must treasure such occasions, recently Hamaguchi landing a hit with Girls und Panzer.

What he left us with from his period of PreCure is worth celebrating the franchise's fifteenth anniversary and should an orchestra concert be announced in the future, I hope it features music from Takaki-san.

I. Royal Elegant Sinfonietta



Download (https://mega.nz/#!GYojVKxA!odwrSN1ZqUpr3NhOifWRjEqFIDzfTFRhOCJnNQ8n6NY)

Sample (http://picosong.com/we9GG/)

This is an arranged album of the orchestral score from DokiDoki to Princess. It stays consitent in style and orchestra size that it could easily be one massive TV score. An album full of classical waltzes, marches, Strauss and Tchaikovsky. Just what one needs after Ancient Magus Bride ;)
For classical styles, Princess Precure reigns supreme and towers above DokiDoki and Happiness Charge. Even Mahou Tsukai doesn't come close, as it trades the pure classical for film score. It also has to be said that Rei Ishizuka (who I adore) wrote one of the greatest songs ever written for TV anime.


II. Magical Miracle Serenata



Download (https://mega.nz/#!uJxCRaBC!ooyGW5sp5hCEZXoscJkFlIEHD0LfpWRsPGJ39CMJ514)

Sample (http://picosong.com/we9pD/)


This is a relevant album for many reasons. Not only is it two hours of pure excellence (pure whimsical and swashbuckling film score and broadway) and the last hurrah of Takaki for this franchise, it also ties in into the Hisaishi vs. Tanaka debate. From the angle of prefering Hisaishi, Tytania must stand as his Magnum Opus. But from the Tanaka angle, this is the real deal. This is the "Anime and Game" music he envisions. Infact among the two young(er) great ones, Yamashita and Takaki, Takaki leans more on Tanaka than the other. With Mahou Tsukai, Takaki achieves a level of confidence and absolute control over the orchestra that in combination with his excellent hybrid pieces, that never sounded better, make this my favorite score of his, and him a strong contender for the next Tanaka. Most of these fusion cues I cannot, and will not separate from the orchestral score, they are just too damn good. Right now he is in his 40s and if he lands another major franchise/hit in the future, then he will be able to soar onto new hights.


III. Vortex Giocoso



Download (https://mega.nz/#!6cJwHRiJ!ZUaLHoK-bVzU-LmHmgcBHobcjKkvbyuv9iQ4VrxqLp8)

Sample (http://picosong.com/we4yy/)

To not downplay his hybrid efforts before Mahou Tsukai, here's everything from the previous series, over two hours of bouncy, jazzy fun. I adore his style that blossomed with Happiness Charge, for which he kind of took inspiration from Takanashi. In parts it even comes close to the glorious fun of Sahashi and Tanaka.
Though it can get a bit too much magikaru wonderfuru at times :awsm:

As for the franchises future... its uncertain. Considering we already had a major shift in style by change of composer, I can accept it. At this point nobody knows who will be contracted after Hayashi. Maybe Sawano, maybe Yamashita. Everything is possible with a franchise that went from Tom&Jerry to speedmetal to classical to EDM.




Takaki's future looks a little brighter now, scoring for Sentai again and more importantly, an anime in summer that should be right up his alley.



Musketeers, Imperial Age, French Revolution, Royal Courts... all looking like a perfect fit for the composer of Tytania and Princess PreCure. I have now a huge boost of optimism after it was announced that Kenichi Kasai, director of Nodame Cantabile, is working on it. I have a good feeling :)

Not sure why - Kasai has not directed a single anime which got a decent score, and Nodame Cantabile was pretty-much all needle-dropped classical music interspersed with a drab string ensemble score that did nothing at all except stay out of the way of the classical music.

Incidentally, Takaki isn't quite out of Precure. He still arranges (some of) the songs in the series and movies, and usually contributes a handful of cues to the scores. Not even good cues. Why on earth would they do this?

"YOU'RE FIRED! But please stay and arrange some J-pop for us and come back to contribute three or four minutes of score, while all the credit goes to the moron who replaced you and can't hold a candle to you."

EDIT: In other news, to be filed in "Well, I wasn't expecting that!" - Kosuke Yamashita is off Puzzle & Dragons, replaced by... KAORU WADA?! Nextday reported it on the VGMDB forums but it doesn't seem to have made it over here yet. Episode 89 is the end of Season 1, and is where Yamashita bows out. Season 2 aired today; whilst the episode isn't wall-to-wall orchestral score, there's enough there to make me very enthusiastic. Wada... SOUNDS CHEERFUL; there are happy themes, and some of them are in the major key! For me, Wada has always been the genius composer I utterly hate; but it's so nice to hear him doing exhuberant, colourful, and optimistic for a change - a nice contrast to the introverted gloom and suspense that's defined much of his recent work.

Listen, if you dare!

http://picosong.com/we5YE/

This is nice.

April 2018 has not COMPLETELY disappointed me. (Whether or not it will be released, of course, is another matter - Yamashita's still hasn't been and hasn't been announced - but I suppose a combined Season 1 and Season 2 release is possible. Let's have that, please...)

Additionally, have a look at Episode 89 of Season 1... An all-score finale (the sort of finale that doesn't apologise for being a big, emotionally manipulative, musical finish) and then the most wonderful of wonderful things... credits begin to appear, as the score swells to a choral (and, I do believe, a real chorus!) climax which continues as the action fades out, and a gorgeous full-length end credits scroll begins with an extended orchestral march version of Yamashita's theme. It's just classy. I take it back; it does still happen.

I just found the infamous 12 minutes from the NNKII Music CD Collection in mp3 here: Google Drive ( https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/132-phhaoHouZkReYbJal4_UXZDMcbQCV)
NOT my link, so thanks to that guy.

Comparing with the gamerip Ponyo uploaded:
01.Theme from Ni no Kuni II = bgm.awb.00000
02.The Boundless Skies = bgm.awb.00006 [without the loop]
03.Evan's Kingdom = bgm.awb.00012 [without the loop]
04.There is Hope = bgm.awb.00027 [without the loop]

Judging just from the 1st track they have a tiny bit better sound than the rip game even being mp3. But still a huge dissapointment when you go back and give another listen to the Wrath of the White Witch main theme.

Fingers crossed to get a proper release in the near future!

Your link doesn't seem to work for me, I have to type it manually for it to work.

As for the gamerip track titles, someone in my thread played the game and got some official titles from a "Jukebox" mode in the game. Here it is the original post:


Here are the official track names for the first 30 tracks: (minus track 7 since I seem to have not gotten the sheet music item for it)


bgm.awb.00000 = Theme from Ni no Kuni II
bgm.awb.00001 = The Toppled Throne
bgm.awb.00002 = Leavetaking
bgm.awb.00003 = Dark Rite
bgm.awb.00004 = The Great Outdoors
bgm.awb.00005 = The High Seas
bgm.awb.00006 = The Boundless Skies
bgm.awb.00007 = The Escape
bgm.awb.00008 = Treacherous Valley
bgm.awb.00009 = Forest of Mysteries
bgm.awb.00010 = Deep Sea Cave
bgm.awb.00011 = The Factory Floor
bgm.awb.00012 = Evan's Kingdom
bgm.awb.00013 = City of Hunger
bgm.awb.00014 = City of the Future
bgm.awb.00015 = Kingdom by the Sea
bgm.awb.00016 = In the Kingdom of the Mice
bgm.awb.00017 = The Lost Kingdom
bgm.awb.00018 = Let Battle Commence
bgm.awb.00019 = Into the Fray
bgm.awb.00020 = Boss Battle
bgm.awb.00021 = Fateful Encounter
bgm.awb.00022 = Kingmaker's Theme
bgm.awb.00023 = The Final Showdown
bgm.awb.00024 = The Curious Boy
bgm.awb.00025 = Carefree Days
bgm.awb.00026 = To Arms!
bgm.awb.00027 = There is Hope
bgm.awb.00028 = Painful Memories
bgm.awb.00029 = Here Come the Higgledies!
bgm.awb.00030 = Happily Ever After


The rest below are unofficial names:


bgm.awb.00031 = Game Over theme
bgm.awb.00032 = Blank Track
bgm.awb.00033 = ???
bgm.awb.00034 = Quest Complete
bgm.awb.00035 = Quest Accepted
bgm.awb.00036 = ???
bgm.awb.00037 = Character Joins Party
bgm.awb.00038 = ???
bgm.awb.00039 = Correct Answer Jingle
bgm.awb.00040 = ???
bgm.awb.00041 = ???
bgm.awb.00042 = Important Item Received
bgm.awb.00043 = Item Received
bgm.awb.00044 = Tainted Boss Defeated
bgm.awb.00045 = ??? (Plays during some cutscene)
bgm.awb.00046 = ???
bgm.awb.00047 = ???
bgm.awb.00048 = ???
bgm.awb.00049 = Skirmish Won
bgm.awb.00050 = After Skirmish Cutscene
bgm.awb.00051 = ???
bgm.awb.00052 = ???
bgm.awb.00053 = ???
bgm.awb.00054 = Battle Won
bgm.awb.00055 = Cutscene
bgm.awb.00056 = Cutscene
bgm.awb.00057 = ???
bgm.awb.00058 = Kingmaker Maze
bgm.awb.00059 = Sky Pirates' Base
bgm.awb.00060 = Chapter Screen
bgm.awb.00061 = Cutscene

If you weren't enthused by Ready Player One it looks like Silvestri won't be able to let his light shine in the upcoming Avengers movie either (www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/ready-player-one-what-is-james-hallidays-motivation-1098908) (which I suppose won't surprise anyone):


I wrapped Infinity War yesterday, and it was a really different experience than anything I�d done before, especially in regard to the approach and balancing quick shifts in tone.

I can't infer anything particularly positive from "quick shifts in tone".

I just found the infamous 12 minutes from the NNKII Music CD Collection in mp3 here!

Thank you very much! The gamerip is very lossy and sourced from a codec that's very inferior to MP3. A professional stereo mix, and a straight lossless to high-bitrate MP3 was always going to sound better. I hope it turns up in FLAC; yes it's only twelve minutes but it's a splendid mini-suite from the score. PLEASE for GOD'S SAKE JAPAN, release every note of this score.

This is not a "very lossy and inferior" to me, but ok

Thanks for sharing that with us, jacksbrain. You're right, those mp3s definitely have a nicer sound to them than the gamerip. It's only a subtle difference but it feels like there's more breathing room. I echo everyone's desire for a more thorough release of course!

I want it as much as everyone else, even more if it's complete (that I doubt) but the gamerip is what we have to live with until someone decides to pull a release.

Slightly off-topic tech stuff in the spoilers...

Well, this has been discussed at great length already, but again, you cannot encode six channels of 48khz sound in ~700kbps losslessly. This gives each channel around 120kbps of data which, as I'm sure you are aware, is about the same bitrate of an above-average MP3. Additionally, the codec used is not MP3 - as also discussed at length before; it is a type of lossy encoding which was designed principally to be a) easier (less CPU-intensive) to decode, b) less "spiky" in terms of VBR bitrate and computational decode complexity, and c) more suited to looping playback which is necessary for use in a game engine.

If you're saying something else, I'm sorry to be blunt but a) you're wrong, b) you need to learn more about digital audio, and c) you are spreading misinformation.

Furthermore, a spectrograph is, at best, a guide and is not and never has been a 100% reliable way to determine if something is lossy or lossless. Lowpass is ONE method used by SOME lossy encoders (MP3 being the one we're most familiar with) - and is a sign that the encoder is doing its job correctly. (A good lossy encoder that's interested in squeezing as much sound quality as possible out of a given bitrate will filter out frequencies that human ears aren't particularly sensitive to and use the data it saved to increase the encoding quality within the range within the audible range. That's why (most) MP3 encoders apply adaptive lowpass filters and how we came to be able to recognise an MP3 under a spectrograph scan; because the results of the adaptive lowpass filters were easy to see. Not every codec type does it, and not every codec type does it in the same way. (And the mechanics of lossy audio encoding is INFINITELY more complex than a lowpass filter.)

The moment some idiot said "A spectrograph scan can 100% determine if some audio is lossless or lossy!" the entire community of people who actually understood digital audio collectively facepalmed.

What they should've said is "A spectrograph scan can sometimes determine if some audio is encoded by a particular type of lossy encoder but not in all cases; use your brain and use your ears to fill in the blanks that a frequency chart cannot."

But that's not as flashy, so they didn't say it.

It's a fascinating (if occasionally dry) subject for analysis and research if you're interested, but otherwise please just take it from somebody who did the reading, understood it, and works with it every day - the gamerip is NOT lossless, and physically CANNOT BE lossless at that bitrate.

(That doesn't mean it doesn't sound any good, but it is factually not lossless.)

If you still don't believe me, read again the document provided by CRI Middleware (the makers of the HCA codec) http://blog.criware.com/index.php/2016/04/11/meet-adx2s-powerful-proprietary-codecs/ and if that's not doing it for you, write to CRI Middleware themselves and ask them. :)

Now, folks, don't have heart attacks... but I'm going to post something shortly. :D

In the meantime, here's the utterly glorious finale of Puzzle X Dragon (for those who haven't got a chance to listen), it tops Kyuranger's with ease (and even that was glorious 80s SciFi towards the end):

Puzzles X Dragon Finale + End Credits (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tjrDryOp2o4)

And here's a short sweet little scene too, another showcase of class:

Love is like After the Rain (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQqHmMQKz-U)

I just recently got around to watch it. From the music, to the soundmix (music always upfront), to the directing, PxD and After the Rain are just so wonderfully old-fashioned. After a minute there's barely any other sound and the climax is almost music only. They are out there and working... directors who value music so much they sacrifice every other aspect of production or scene composition (not to say that Ayumu Watanabe is not great with his visual language either, he is from the classic film school and it shows, from Nobita's Dinosaur to After the Rain).

Similarly, Girls und Panzer Finale has some of the creme de la creme of the anime industry working on it, by people who are well into their 50s and 60s. They know their craft to the utmost... and good music.

You still have these classic directors popping up from time to time, even on PreCure. And if they meet an equally classy composer, wonderful things can happen. I love the music for Maho Tsukai so much, I looked a bit more into it. Turned out it was the directorial debut of Masato Mitsuka (he worked on a couple of PreCure episodes from prior series), who asked Takaki for a more "film/operatic" approach. He was also soley responsible for the final episode (and the score sounded tailor-made for it). Here's how it all ends:

Mahou Tsukai: Finale (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z_MUmAwt73g)

You can't put any more gravitas in a little kids show if you tried. The ending has perfect scene composition and dramatic structure. With Princess and Mahou Tsukai they really put in effort. I hope it was not the last time this franchise was at its highest high. Then again, you need a good orchestral composer (= dramatist) meeting an equally classy director, who understands film/operatic score. At least someone at Level 5 seems to have an ear for it ;)

Your link doesn't seem to work for me, I have to type it manually for it to work.

As for the gamerip track titles, someone in my thread played the game and got some official titles from a "Jukebox" mode in the game. Here it is the original post:

Ups! I must had done something wrong with that link. Fixed!
Thanks for the names, I wasn't up to date with your thread. Good to know that we are moving forward!
And btw! THANKS for your rip!

Someone should tell the original poster of that NNKII bit that they should not be using Google Drive to share things like this. It is more likely to point back to their identity.

Further April score thoughts:

Major 2nd (Nakagawa) - no orchestra, boring.
Gurazeni (Tada) - no orchestra, boring.
Magical Girl Site - small ensemble so far, show does not lend itself to a big orchestral score, sounds fairly classy but not my cup of tea.
Captain Tsubasa (Matsuo) - orchestra, but drowned in noise in episode 1. Has potential, with suitably lowered expectations - will almost certainly join Keijo in the ever-growing list of "scores that are never released" while Die Neue These gets not one, not two, but THREE soundtracks - albeit in enclosures.

What about Valkyria Revolution 2 aka Ares ;)

Captain Tsubasa - Some classical style, some pure 80s synth homage and some pieces straight out of Keijo. No pure orchestra/showpiece yet but we haven't even gotten to the first game/tournament, so things might get quite good. Full orchestra seems present from the little snippets. I have faith in Matsuo.

Mahou Shoujo Site - Too soon to tell. The opening sounded very Keiji Inai but the rest is his Btoom style.
Gurazeni - Too soon to tell. But it sounds like a show from the 70s so far and there's real brass.
Hinamatsuri - Wind and string pieces, but considering the 80s movie references and how much it reminds me of Manabi straight, an orchestra should appear me thinks.
Lupin France - "Quite anachronistic" indeed: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h1ZYvXnVUyw
Comic Girls - Too soon to tell but Suheiro at least has a small little orchestra, he also commented on his historical fantasy show Golden Kamuy and how they asked for a "western sound" so he not only sneaked in some western war films but sneaked in bits from literal Morricone western. Also some classical marches. But there's rock and celtic elements as well so it won't be entirely orchestral.

We're only about 1/3 done now. Too many shows.

I found the music in "Call Me by Your Name" quite effective using just solo piano. Was a nice way to do intimate scoring. I especially liked the scene where one of the characters plays three versions of the same theme in the styles of 3 different classical composers. Though sadly they don't nerd out over music much more later in the film.

Tatsuya Kato in 2018: http://picosong.com/webW8/

Hello everyone. Been a while since I last posted - yet again...

Just swinging by to say I'm glad to see this thread still alive and kicking after all these years!

Hi, Akashi! Good to see you again. :)

So, Tatsuya Kato has moved from "completely incompetent across the board" to "occasional flashes of decent" - stop the presses, we've got our next Kosuke Yamashita!


What about Valkyria Revolution 2 aka Ares

If there's one thing we don't need more of, it's Inazuma Eleven. Particularly after the score's saving grace, Kameoka, left Procyon.

The score's fun enough, but Mitsuda is the ultimate one-trick-pony. If you're getting regularly upstaged by your assistants, there's something badly wrong.

@Akashi: I'm glad seeing you around too :) Hope all is well on your end.

@Tango:

Nonetheless, nice of him (and unexpected) ;) And he (38) is not that much younger than Yamashita (44) who is very close to Takaki (42). Hardly a generation behind, surprisingly.

Yamashita is not only a genius, but working in the industry since he was 23, scoring for some of the most prestigeous projects Japan can offer, wrote some genuine symphonic film masterpieces as he entered his 30s, is chief arranger of Japan's greatest composer, is chief arranger of the most prestigeous projects of the Game industry and just recenty graced us with some of the best music ever written for a kids show. Not to mention his part-time occupation at the Senzoku Gakuen College of Music. Who can match that, really?!

Only Takaki can sort of catch-up, entering the business with 25 and writing Sinfonia Tytania and Shinkenger in his early 30s and making himself a master of the orchestra when he turned 40.

For reference Tanaka and Sahashi entered the business in their 30s and didn't write a true symphonic score until they were almost 40.

Then you look at Kato, who started when he was almost 30 and scored almost exclusivly for lowbrow shows (some would say porn) and only recently landed some semi-popular projects. He's not exactly up for the challenge :D
It's nice Kato has shown signs of improving, so last year was no fluke afterall. Yoshihiro Ike was hardly a favorite of mine in the last decade, being most of the time full-on modern Hollywood or just electronics, and then Bahamut happened. Give him a few years, maybe he needs a classic SciFi like Ike needed a classic Fantasy. He has the credentials, maybe he can put them to use for once.


Regarding Ares, even ignoring your preferences (I don't agree with your evaluation, I'm not that harsh on Mitsuda and admire his journey and the good standard he upholds), its still nice of Level 5/Mitsuda to employ a stupendously big studio orchestra (almost symphony-size) for pretty much the entire 45 minute runtime of the pilot.

Here it is for some frame of reference what we're talking about. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_l15F8YQIGY)

The music is more symphonic than usual, more Valkyria Revolution than Black Butler, has big moments and even a nice Trumpet solo. So far the weakest bits are the "game" parts but a fully orchestral action piece was in the trailer and I would very much enjoy that. Mariam Abounnasr also said she composed a few pieces so who knows how they will turn out.
Another Level 5 show, Miss Layton, is quite lovely as well, a small ensemble seems present and if someone is a fan of the game scores then there should be something to enjoy here.


EDIT: Some news... Evergarden gets a new project that is either a film or a new series, which is welcome news to me, so I dearly hope Evan Call expands on that Aria. It's not only getting a sequel project but doing exceptionally well in sales too (all my favorite shows from last season did which is rare) which can only be good news for Evan. Of course GuP printing money hopefully means they are milking it a little longer and keep Hamaguchi employed ;)

Die Neue These 2 gives me a tiny bit of hope there's something worthwhile on the soundtrack, starting with the brass chorale of what I assume is the FPA anthem and everything after that: http://picosong.com/weAQ5/

Captain Tsubasa really is Keijo 2.0 (http://picosong.com/weAfX/) This is 52 episodes so lots of score, lots of possibilities. Keijo's orchestra was just as much bathed in 80s synth & guitars + modern percussion (I loved those pieces) and even then, just for 12 episodes, we got some nice pure orchestra pieces. If this gets a release it should more than make up for Keijo. It's basically the exact same approach, just with different melodies.

Die Neue These 2 gives me a tiny bit of hope there's something worthwhile on the soundtrack, starting with the brass chorale of what I assume is the FPA anthem and everything after that: http://picosong.com/weAQ5/

Pity it's synth.

So other than playing the harp, Asakawa's other modern profession is... tap-dancing?

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

And a live performance of one his J-drama themes posted a few months ago, though I don't know when it was recorded:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9u6L5iL84mc

Also the only classical arrangement of his I could find online, Ave Maria for piano and sax:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G9Cy9VFgQwM


Tatsuya Kato continues to surprise me in how his music keeps getting better arranged but still just as bland and hollow as before at its very core. But I suppose that makes sense since he keeps getting better orchestrators, and the man himself is not really improving.

I also have a confession to make about Kousuke Yamashita: he's technically excellent but his music does nothing for me. I know many people here adore him, but for me, he represents all the light saccharine qualities typically associated with Japanese orchestral music that you would hear in a Nintendo game or a J-pop orchestral concert arrangement (and apparently he's worked on both of those). His music comes across as being shallow and decorative rather than making its own dramatic statement. It's a funny criticism to have, and maybe I'm being unfair to the guy because he has an enormous discography that I've only listened to part of, but at the same time everything I have heard from him only reinforces this view. Even his arrangement of some of Hisaishi's pieces for NNK has this quality to it. Is there something I'm missing here about his work?

2 disc release of Ni no Kuni II on June 6th - https://vgmdb.net/album/76900

^Excellent! Now we'll finally have the definitive version.

Great to hear!

Very good news, I hope in June someone shares a good lossless rip.

Phew! That was kinda painless, as well - no wait, no enclosure, just a nice two disc release. Thank you for the notification! If it loops though, I'm going postal.

Phew! That was kinda painless, as well - no wait, no enclosure, just a nice two disc release. Thank you for the notification! If it loops though, I'm going postal.

What's wrong with looping? Some cues are short

if it loops we can edit it

If it does... guess that means another night without sleep :D

Am I reading this right? Gabriel Prokofiev?... so in a way Sergei's lineage is now directly involved with Maestro Hisaishi... the world's a funny place.

@Zipper: Now I'm baffled. But I guess I can see it if you're not loving Silvestri. For me he is an orchestral master and melodist par excellence. He wrote Nobunaga no Yabou: Soutenroku when he was 28, Tenka Sousei when he was 29, Xenosaga when he was 30, Magiranger and Kakushin when he was 31, Glass Fleet and Reign of Revolution when he was 32. Glass Fleet in particular is a score of over 90 minutes in length and every note is gold. No other Japanese composer I know off accomplished scores of such magnitude with this level of excellence you would expect from someone in his 60s without any trace of lifting, at such a young age. If they also had Warsaw it would have been the most astonishing thing ever. Just my two cents.

Yamashita is very well-trained, and I'm not questioning his skills. I just don't like his sound. I don't really see much of a connection between him and Silvestri either. Maybe I need to listen to more of his works.

But as far as young geniuses are concerned, Yamashita is no Asakawa or Higuchi. Asakawa made his large orchestra debut when he was only 20 and had already gained his own musical voice. Higuchi's Phoenix (which is a work I respect more than I like) was written when the man was only 27. I don't want to turn this into a composer dick-waving competition, but compared to the technical excellence of those two, I don't hear anything from Yamashita that comes even close to the level exhibited at their most advanced works. He also has the blessing of being given the chance to work with a large ensemble at an early age, something most composers could only dream of. Would Iwasaki and Oshima and so many others have created lesser music in their debut scores if they were given a full orchestra to work with? I doubt it.

Gabriel Prokofiev... I do remember he once endorsed Hisaishi in an interview. But what is he doing in Japan, and why is his work limited to being only one rhythm arranger in a vocal theme?

Oooh, interesting... Here I am, all set to write a response... and then I think to myself...

What do I like about Yamashita, if you take away the technical competence?

I'm forced to admit... there's not really much there - at least, not much that I can really articulate.

Yamashita's skills aren't just orchestration - he's a really good orchestrator, but I can think of twenty people who are better orchestrators... the music is also expertly constructed, and there is a classical sensibility going through every note that really appeals to me... but is it all smoke and mirrors? Is there anything really amazing about Yamashita that isn't connected to being amazingly good at form and a very competent orchestrator?

I never thought I'd hear myself say this stuff... but The Zipper's comments cut through me like a hot knife through butter...

By the way, I don't get the Silvestri connection either, not at all - as I don't get almost all of Vinphonic's odd comparisons. The two are about as far apart as it's possible for two orchestrally-oriented composers to be.

At least the Silvestri thing can be quickly dismantled. I meant that an universally beloved (or at least positivly recieved by many people) orchestral composer with much going for him, with some killer themes in his repertoire, with much goodness, solid structure and "every note is gold" in his scores to me, falls on cold ears. It has nothing to do with their styles.

My opinion of him didn't change after I've given it some thought, but since we already have different opinions on Kyuranger (for me its a success), it's difficult for me to see it all as fluff. He remains one of my favorites.

I don't love Yamashita to the same amount that some do here but I have been quite deeply touched with his Chihayafuru soundtracks and enjoy his other music on occasion.

I meant that an universally beloved (or at least always positivly recieved) orchestral composer with much going for him, with some killer themes in his repertoire, with much goodness, structure and "every note is gold for me" scores, falls on dead ears for Zipper.That's a bit insulting, don't you think? =/

I don't really see what not liking Silvestri has to do with not liking Yamashita. Their music (from what I've heard so far) is different, and I don't like them for different reasons. Silvestri to me is like a watered down Goldsmith, which is certainly something I would never accuse Yamshita of being. I can guarantee you that some people who like Yamashita won't like Silvestri, and vice-versa. I don't need to tell you this, but there is much more to one's enjoyment of music than just how technically proficient it is.

Oh come on, you should think better of me ;) Maybe its the language barrier that prevents me from wording it more suitable (I did try again), but I didn't mean that in the sleightest way in an insulting manner.
To me he has much to offer that I love and I don't have a problem with anyone not liking or loving the music I listen to.

For example: Mozart is universally beloved, geniously crafted music, with themes that have stood the test of time for centuries, and (most of it) I love, yet for Tango and others, he's hardly a favorite... I'm not making fun of preferences here. I'm just sometimes a bit baffled that music that is not only technically excellent but also resonates with me quite strongly with many moments and great themes I'm very fond of, leaves someone else not impressed.

I understand, no hard feelings. ;)

Speaking of Mozart lovers, here's what Tchaikovsky had to say about Brahms, that very much ties into what we are talking about:


It is just impossible, when listening to a work by Brahms, to say that it is weak or utterly insignificant music. For his style is always elevated. Unlike all of us other composers who are his contemporaries, he never resorts to outward effect, he does not seek to surprise and astonish one by means of some flashy new orchestral combination. Likewise, you will never find him lapsing into banality or imitation. What he has to offer is all very serious, very noble, and evidently even original—but the point is that it all lacks the most important thing: there is no beauty!...

On one occasion, a few years ago, when I openly told Hans von B�low my opinion about Brahms, he said the following to me:

"Just wait a bit, the time will come when the depth and beauty of Brahms's music will reveal themselves even to you. For, like you, I failed to understand him for a long time, but little by little I was privileged with a revelation about Brahms's genius, and I am sure that exactly the same will happen to you."

Well, here I am, waiting and waiting—and still this revelation refuses to come. I deeply respect Brahms's artistic personality; I bow before the chaste purity of his musical aspirations; I admire his firmness and proud refusal to make any concessions to triumphant Wagnerism, or even just to Lisztian tendencies—but I do not love his music.

FMP episode 1 is out. Toshihiko Sahashi shows us, again, that only very rarely is it acceptable today for a composer to write action music without a beat or slamming percussion.

Disappointing. Granted, it's not appropriate to judge a whole score based on episode 1... but it's not a good start - particularly for the Sahashi score that's supposed to announce "HE'S BACK!"

Ha, good call :D

@FMP: Seems scored to picture so far like the rumors suggested.
The percussion doesn't bother me much since the previous scores had maybe 25 minutes of symphonic music each and the rest was drowned in (delicious) synth and beats. It very much feels like just another set of tools he likes to use here. It's still 100% Sahashi, and despite his hiatus, this doesn't sound lukewarm like Saint Seiya Omega and Soul of Gold. I would say he is not out of the game. Especially that trumpet piece at the end and the last 30 seconds in particular. And those woodwinds... love it. So far so good. I highly anticipate further episodes.

And if you want to have a video of the recording session (same room as Soen no Kantai) and one of the very rare behind the scenes footage of Sahashi... too bad, you have to buy this stupid collectors box of the tie-in cashgrab game...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s4umi0ER02o&t=11s

Anyone ever noticed how in the official OST mix of Sonic Forces the London Symphony Orchestra tracks, the orchestra is so drowned and the shitty beats are much higher. :/

What a waste of a fucking orchestra, and one of the best. An official OST should be the main listening source and the best. I'll have to keep the gamerip mixes for those, which are indeed more balanced. Like, the beats and orchestra sound the same and not one more than the other.

There is definitely a line I draw where it becomes unlistenable to me. Sonic Forces is definitely among them. For me Invisible Victory gets the balance right and it does feel like it was put there by the composer. Oshima's beat tracks on the other hand sound totally tagged on. The worst offender ever being the Main Theme of Rokka no Yuusha. Made even worse by the fact there were even no drums at all in the show!! It just feels like some stupid sound designer put them over the music without thinking, same case for Patema and Aura. I highly doubt Oshima put them there deliberately, and mixed so upfront.

I buy Hattori, Watanabe, Yamashita, Tanaka, Matsuo and Sahashi putting them on there deliberately (so far) because they are far from the "orchestra only" philosophy. Hattori did all that weird rock in his youth and puts it more upfront into his orchestral pieces these days, Watanabe was pretty much all rock, synth and beats at the beginning of his career and he got o relive that period a little with Mazinger, Sahashi pretty much absorbed various 80s bands and always loved to include a beat here and there, Tanaka was a lounge and band player and and Yamashita always loved that slamming bass drum. Matsuo is also no stranger to it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yy-NdyK1LFs&index=12&list=PLA50BB13BF2CEB690

Even Takaki loves orchestra with a beat. There are actually very few purists out there, come to think of it.

Hisaishi (since the 2000s and even he pulls out the slam a little for NNKII), Senju, Wada, Oshima and Amano... and I would definitely raise an eyebrow and worry when suddenly slamming percussion appears. But so far the shows scored by Wada up to this season had none, Oshima's last scores had none, Senju's last scores had none and Amano remains pure.

From the new ones only Harumi Fuuki is a purist Suehiro, Fujisawa and MICHIRU love to experiment (with success).

Interesting you should bring up the issue of beats with an orchestra because after seeing the mention of Gabriel Prokofiev, I looked him up and checked out some of his music. It is an interesting approach to have beats played live with an orchestra.

Also, I am interested to see how Bear McCreary's score for God of War turns out. The game is coming out shortly and while I am not the biggest Bear fan, I think it could turn out interesting if they gave him enough freedom.

As for NNK2, I finally started playing yesterday and so far I am quite happy with how the music works in the game. It is not as complex as the first game's score but it all seems quite fitting and nothing stood out to me so far as not a good fit. So I like that the music has the right amount of energy for the battles.

Harumi Fuuki is a purist

Dear God, it's worse than even I thought possible.

Vinphonic, do you really want my response to your message? If you don't, I'll respect your opinion and leave it alone.

Edit: Piano No Mori has dropped... It's Harumi Fuuki. It's a train wreck. Your typical "romance/angst" score; drab, barely any theme, anemic ensemble, absolutely no risks, absolutely nothing interesting; like almost every recent score, it's there then it's gone. It's completely what you'd expect, every single note. Harumi Fuuki disappoints again.

What a difference a decade makes; Keisuke Shinohara's (RIP) sublime score to 2007's Piano No Mori:

http://picosong.com/weTBA/

Interesting you should bring up the issue of beats with an orchestra because after seeing the mention of Gabriel Prokofiev, I looked him up and checked out some of his music. It is an interesting approach to have beats played live with an orchestra.

Also, I am interested to see how Bear McCreary's score for God of War turns out. The game is coming out shortly and while I am not the biggest Bear fan, I think it could turn out interesting if they gave him enough freedom.

As for NNK2, I finally started playing yesterday and so far I am quite happy with how the music works in the game. It is not as complex as the first game's score but it all seems quite fitting and nothing stood out to me so far as not a good fit. So I like that the music has the right amount of energy for the battles.

god of war is already on spotify.very choral and solo voice heavy and quite emotional and dramatic.

@Tango: I know what you want to say, but I'll admit I have to make a correction, after I've given it some thought she' not a really a purist either, while she doesn't use "electronics" (at least her Drama/Film scores before Segodon didn't have them), she does heavily abuse the Taiko and other percussive instruments. It's not to my liking.

Unfortunately, I have to also agree about Piano no Mori. I had some expectations... but since I made it clear if Piano no Mori falls short, I would lose interest in Harumi Fuuki I can now say that her name doesn't fill me with much to hope for. I still think the core of Segodon is nice Horner pastiche, but that's not exactly praiseworthy now, is it.


EDIT: What's your opinion of Masotan? Turned out every piece from the trailers is part of the score. It's bonedry and not exactly groundbreaking, but it's there the whole episode and I find it very nice.

That's not even where I was going to concentrate my ire. ;)

Slightly off-topic... For shits and giggles, I bought one of those shitty plastic Chinese turntables today - they're going for �20 a pop in Argos and I always wanted one to review on YouTube, so I took the plunge.

Anybody want to guess how f*****g awful it is?

I mean, I knew they were bad - but... I have NO WORDS. These are the things that kids are buying these days because they want to be a hipster and everybody knows hipsters only listen to MUH VINYLZ because they sound SOOOOOOOOOOO much better... Search Youtube for ten thousand different unboxing videos (seriously; what the hell - UNBOXING? you people want me to watch a video of you opening a GODDAMNED BOX) by gabby teenagers who think they are some kind of miracle device... but they sound like... well, they sound bad. Turn it on, before you've even started playing a record, BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ, put on a record, BZZZZZZZZZZZ gets louder, and a vaguely musical sound emits. It squeaks, it buzzes, it whines, it makes electrical interference, the speakers are piss-poor, the tracking weight is too high. I am not exaggerating, here; I get better sound quality out of my crappy radio alarm clock I bought in 1991. (I repeat; I am not exaggerating. The bloody cardboard box it came in is built better than the turntable.)

Everything is made out of cardboard with a crap wood veneer, and the turntable is made out of the kind of plastic you'd expect your takeaway dinner to come in; just sprayed black.

I despair.

EDIT: Hisone to Masotan

I seem to remember being very enthusiastic about Taisei Iwasaki based on the usual six seconds (I under-exaggerate; only slightly, though!) of orchestra in Blood Blockade. It seemed to be genuinely interesting music, suggesting a potentially very original, exciting voice was making a debut. So, imagine my disappointment when Masotan starts with the most conventional, bland cue you could ever imagine. It's like Girls und Panzer without ANY FLAIR WHATSOEVER. The rest of the episode score is better; but it all comes off sounding so safe and so timid. I want to like it. Despite everything I just moaned about, I think I do - it's one of those "it is what it is" scores; it's not trying to be anything smart. It's a really, really conventional, vanilla-to-a-fault, small orchestra television anime score. I don't think there's been enough of those lately. And it deserves praise for the fact that there IS an orchestra and though the recording isn't going to set the world on fire, it's a real orchestra and it feels like it's going to try to be a proper orchestral score, not just some psychotic mixture of styles that happens to have an orchestra playing somewhere in the "look at me and the ease with which I juggle styles but never settle on one style long enough to make any impact other than variety" genre soup. I feel like there's a decent bit of score. (Unless they blew their orchestal score in episode 1, and the rest is going to suck...)

Unfortunately, it's one of those scores that's just SCREAMING OUT to not get released.

I could be wrong. But I don't expect anything now...

Well, Invisible Victory gets a 2CD release in June (thank god its not Soul of Gold again) and Netflix has aquired the IP (and so far every Anime exclusive to Netflix got/gets a soundtack), so there's hope.

Here's the orchestral opening (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MVwnNz7e5Fs) for Hisone to Masotan, composed by Taisei Iwasaki as well. He also arranged music by Patrice Maurice Gall for the ending.

And here's Invisible Victory: http://picosong.com/weaPe/


Important news:

Even more Tanaka... FINALLY... they are going to revive the Sakura Wars franchise.

The recently released soundtrack for the Pachislot also has a little orchestral score with songs by Tanaka arranged by the IMAGINE brigade (Keiji Inai etc.). Samples here (http://picosong.com/wea2B)

Thanks for that review Tango. Funny to read it though I'm sad for humanity to think of teens buying one of those for home use and thinking it sounds good.

Hi, everyone! I hope y'all are doing well! This is the first post I've done in some time, mainly because I finally bothered to get round to installing some Chrome extensions to make browsing the forum less perilous (thanks for the recommendations, Vinphonic), and it looks like there's been a good bit of interesting discussion as usual. Unfortunately, I haven't been listening to too much orchestral music lately, so I don't have a lot to contribute. But I do have some more questions, for anyone who likes them. Some of these are about orchestral music, while others are just broad music questions that I've been curious to hear about.

1. What are your favourite keys when listening to music, and why? Are there any songs that to you demonstrate why you love songs in those particular keys?

2. If you compose music, which keys do you like to compose in the most? (If you don't, feel free to skip this question)

3. What is the best orchestral soundtrack you've been listening to lately?

4. Name your favourite instruments from the traditional orchestra family, and if you can, describe why.

5. Do you play any games with a custom playlist of orchestral music? If so, which playlists work best with which games?

6. Name an unexpectedly good orchestral piece in a soundtrack that otherwise doesn't feature any orchestral music (synthesized/faux-orchestras can count, too).

---

I'll get round to answering these myself soon enough, but I look forward to reading your answers. Thank you, and have a good day! :)

Interesting, I try to answer :)

1. The reality is that I never known the name of the key that I like in music, if you can tell me I will be glad. An example is this: https://youtu.be/sBX2nPLVnXw?t=0m39s / https://youtu.be/pRdiJ46Sh4w?t=41s
I think I just like almost in a sad, emotional, overwhelming key. I don't like happy music in major key

2. I compose music but I don't know the exact name of the key (but it is just as the example of before)

3. The best orchestral soundtrack of all time was and will be always: Skyrim OST. I can't never find anything better.

4. If choirs is considered part of the orchestra I would choose it. But I don't like only choirs without any background instruments, I don't know why.

5. When I play games, I use in game soundtrack. When I was playing Lineage 2 mmo many years ago, since it was always the same OST, I was using celtic music in background but nothing orchestral

6. I can't think of any piece in particular sorry.

Not the best answer but I answered :)

I buy Hattori, Watanabe, Yamashita, Tanaka, Matsuo and Sahashi putting them on there deliberately (so far) because they are far from the "orchestra only" philosophy.I'm a bit surprised Iwasaki didn't make your list. As far as combining orchestra and electronic beats, he's the most ambitious of them all. The others, no offense to them, aren't going much further than what Goldsmith did in his later scores like Total Recall, and most of it is in that funk style that unfortunately never really aged well after the 90s.

FMPIV: I'm just glad Sahashi is back and writing new music for a series again. Remember the fears of there being a new composer or just the old soundtrack being reused?

Taisei Iwasaki: I'm not sure why anyone expected any serious orchestral music from him. He's not even classically trained. The guy is another Sagisu, and his jazz/pop pieces are delightful. I expect nothing more from him than that.

Taisei Iwasaki: I'm not sure why anyone expected any serious orchestral music from him.

Because, as I said previously, the fragments of orchestral music in his debut score, Black Blood Blockade, were very interesting. I know he's not classically trained - but the music suggested that he had a little bit of a symphonic heart beating. The score in Masotan isn't going to win any prizes for originality, but so far it's a really good attempt from someone who you can tell isn't completely comfortable writing in this genre.


1. What are your favourite keys when listening to music, and why? Are there any songs that to you demonstrate why you love songs in those particular keys?

I don't really have a specifically favourite key, but in general I'm a minor key kinda guy; I'm more interested in bi-tonality, chromaticism. Sticking in a single key is just boring to me.


2. If you compose music, which keys do you like to compose in the most? (If you don't, feel free to skip this question)

I shift around keys, and play around with dissonance so much I've given up trying to define a key in the first place.


3. What is the best orchestral soundtrack you've been listening to lately?

The best? Star Wars.


4. Name your favourite instruments from the traditional orchestra family, and if you can, describe why.

I'm a brass man, with a particular love of the solo trumpet - and, don't laugh, the euphonium; a massively underrated instrument, capable of so much - but often used either to provide oompah accompaniment or to thicken bass textures. The euphonium is an instrument of lyricism and love. https://youtu.be/_amjWVGUQCA?t=10m35s


5. Do you play any games with a custom playlist of orchestral music? If so, which playlists work best with which games?

I'm not much of a gamer, but when I am, I always play with the music that was written for, or supplied with the game.


6. Name an unexpectedly good orchestral piece in a soundtrack that otherwise doesn't feature any orchestral music (synthesized/faux-orchestras can count, too).

David Shire's 2010 score was, by design, low-key and electronic, right up to the finale - when a gloriously lush, orchestra with some light synthesiser colour appears out of nowhere and carries a gorgeous lyrical theme that closes the film. It was engineered that way from the start; and it works so gorgeously - and Shire's score is . Skip to 2:55 for the start of the one and only orchestral cue in the entire movie: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H5fNepfOkMs

---------- Post added at 08:48 PM ---------- Previous post was at 07:53 PM ----------

OK, I guess it's time to post something. I've thought long and hard over how to handle this one. I don't like sharing new classical releases openly, because the classical music industry needs all the help it can get right now - on the other hand, I know that pretty much nobody would have even knew this existed if I hadn't posted it; so I arrive at a compromise. I'll upload it, openly, for a period of two weeks after which I will delete the FLAC upload and replace it with a poor quality MP3 version; so the music is still available and can be used as a good sampler, but there is still a good reason to go out and buy it.

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you...





LIONEL SAINSBURY - Time Of The Comet (Op. 25)
CLIVE MUNCASTER - Reflective Thought Patterns
PATRICIA JULIEN - Among The Hidden
J. A. KAWARSKY - Fastidious Notes

Moravian Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Petr Vronsky (Sainsbury and Julien)
Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra conducted by Robert Ian Winstin (Muncaster)
Jonathan Helton, alto saxophone, with Chicaco Arts Orchestra conducted by Javier Mendoza (Kawarsky)

https://mega.nz/#!dCxFhapD!Iev_3Bjky5_CJLOzhhLT8XoVEaSz4x5AvikAPxZLdQc

My rip. FLAC at Level 8. Scans included. LIMITED SHARE - on April 28th the FLAC upload will be withdrawn and replaced with an MP3 upload; get it while you can!

This is an album of very recent orchestral classical works by four different composers; two British, two American. Every piece is completely tonal, lyrical, approachable, and should be immensely enjoyable to people who are attuned to film music.

It is worth noting that the Sainsbury and Julien pieces were recorded by the Moravian Philharmonic Orchestra; which is where you go if you can't afford the City of Prague Philharmonic. These performances sound like playthroughs made with little to no rehearsal time. Ensemble is patchy at best, with unclear rhythms, scrappy strings, bum notes, occasional blasts of noise that patently aren't in the score, and lumbering brass playing that borders on the ugly - all of which adds up to a recording clearly made on the quick and on the cheap. It's a shame, because the music is glorious - but whenever it becomes a little complex, the standard of playing drops through the floor and there's no avoiding the elephant in the room; it hurts your enjoyment of the music. Sainsbury's piece comes off the worse of the two - it's written like a showpiece for a virtuoso orchestra. A well-rehearsed LSO would knock this out of the park, but the Moravian Philharmonic just knock it over into the mud. Julien's piece is slower and a lot less showy, so the shortcomings of the orchestra aren't anywhere near as pronounced - but again, I'm left wondering how much more impact it would have in the hands of a better orchestra.

Oh, well. In this day and age, I'll take it - but it's nonetheless frustrating to note that music of this calibre is getting written but never played, except in low-budget one-off recordings made with budget Eastern-European orchestras; meanwhile the major concert halls are putting on the same pieces again and again because it's really the only way of putting bums on seats and paying the bills. Our great ensembles are wasting away playing crap film music by composers who can't read a single note of music, and making the 100th recording of workhorse repertoire, meanwhile great composers who are alive and working RIGHT NOW end up in crummy Czech studios with the Lidl Philharmonic and often funding recordings out of their own pocket, knowing that this is the first and last time the piece will ever be played, and if they're lucky a thousand people in the world will get to hear it.

The headline piece, "Time Of The Comet" is a dynamic, brassy, grand tone-poem that conjures up a sci-fi atmosphere.

"Reflective Through Patterns" is tuneful, and light.

"Among The Hidden" is a little darker and more mysterious, distantly modelled on Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata, but going off in fascinating new directions.

"Fastidious Notes" is a mini-concerto for saxophone and orchestra, a bit of a showpiece and a sense of pageantry in the middle section.

It's been a while since I've uploaded anything, so if I've forgotten something or made some kind of cock-up please let me know and I'll fix it quickly.

Enjoy! :)
TT

@Tango: Thank you very much! I take it with gratitude since I can not even remember the last time it happened :)

@Zipper: I didn't include him for obvious reasons, he hardly ever was your usual media composer. As for their style... I like my music anachronistic ;)

@FrDougal9000:

1. I couldn't choose a key I value the most. It depends on the composition. In general, for drama minor (B-Minor), for glory major (G-Major)
2. F major
3. If you are talking new stuff:

Pure Orchestra: NNKII (special mention of Kingdom Come for being the first quality western symphonic game score in ages)
Orchestra-Fusion: Kyuranger
Accoustic: Yuru Camp
Pop: SHINY DAYS (Yuru Camp)

Individual pieces: "Back in Business" from Violet Evergarden, "The Minstrel Boy" from Valkyria Chronicles 4


If you are talking best in general lately:

Hunchback of Notre Dame / First Knight (Latin choirs... remember those?)

4. Solo: Piano / In an ensemble: Trumpet / In an orchestra: Oboe, in particular in answering a call, if you do it right you can melt my heart

5. Sure I do, only when I feel the original music is getting on my nerves and I can change it easily with what I feel is appropiate, for example: Dark Souls 1 - Classic western fantasy rollplay ala D&D = Ultima X Odyssey + classic Hollywood Fantasy bombast for bosses / Dark Souls 2 - Convergence of a thousand worlds with a chaotic nature = Hirano / Dark Souls 3 = Wojciech Kilar for the theme of fading fire + Christopher Young for the theme of darkness + Some choral bombast by Sagisu/Amano for bosses

6. ANY recent Shiro Sagisu soundtrack were Amano can sneak in a little concert piece: Berserk TV - "The Foundation" / Black Bullet - "Aldebaran" / Outtakes from Evangelion - "Auld Lang Syne"

1. The reality is that I never known the name of the key that I like in music, if you can tell me I will be glad. An example is this: https://youtu.be/sBX2nPLVnXw?t=0m39s / https://youtu.be/pRdiJ46Sh4w?t=41s
I think I just like almost in a sad, emotional, overwhelming key. I don't like happy music in major key

From what I can hear (and I'll happily admit that I'm terrible at telling the difference between major keys and their relative minor keys, so I'll use both terms), the first piece seems to be in C minor/Eb Major, while the second piece is in B minor/D Major. If anyone feels I've gotten the key wrong, please correct me.


Not the best answer but I answered :)

There's no objectively right way to answer any question that concerns opinions. If you have any thoughts or anything you want to say, just answering the question is enough.

From what I can hear (and I'll happily admit that I'm terrible at telling the difference between major keys and their relative minor keys, so I'll use both terms), the first piece seems to be in C minor/Eb Major, while the second piece is in B minor/D Major. If anyone feels I've gotten the key wrong, please correct me.


Thanks!

And a little more... Another piece by a living British composer; again tonal, but nowhere near as conventional as the pieces I posted yesterday. If you like taut, minor-key, dark music, give this a try - but if you're in the mood for something really tuneful and major-key, this won't be for you at all.


PHILIP SAWYERS
Four Poems for Flute and Strings (1971)

Jill Whitehead, flute
Bexley Pro Musica
conducted by Graham Nash

https://mega.nz/#!saJiwYwY!nq48pjPIq4z3Kfvkzf-0xb2bCNVFjg2kic-Q0BGwiDU

My transfer from vinyl. No scans of anything as it's just a type-written sheet of paper glued to a generic sleeve. FLAC at Level 8.

This is a rarity. Philip Sawyers is undergoing a bit of a resurgence at the moment, with a delicious symphony cycle on Nimbus Alliance - but in his early twenties, Sawyers was mainly writing chamber music. This is, as far as I'm aware, the only known recording of this work. It's on a vinyl LP pressed by "Rare Recorded Editions" - a one-man-band limited-release (so limited that some of its released, including this one, have partially hand-written sleeves) record label set up in 1972, which released dreadful recordings of rare pieces, and also other slightly more popular repertoire pieces in unique recordings; usually made by local, amateur ensembles. This Sawyers piece shares a disc with Saint-Saens' Symphony No. 2 in a workmanlike concert performance given by the Beckenham Orchestra; that recording is not of any interest these days, although this one most certainly is.

The record isn't in great condition. Normally, I'd have thrown it out - but the rarity of both record and music made it well worth the extra effort in restoring. The chances of me finding another copy of it are close to nil. I found this in the "bargain bin" at a record shop in London where it had apparently sat for some years before I finally bought it a few weeks ago. The record was scratched to buggery, and with careful and completely manual restoration work, you really wouldn't know. Whilst the results are not perfect, they fully surpass my expectations and allow us to enjoy this mysterious, introverted piece. The recording; a live amateur concert recording made in the early 1970s, is surprisingly good although there's a bit of distortion in louder parts - but it's not a deal-breaker.

Enjoy this rarity. :)
TT

Does anyone know if Naoki Sato has ever held a live concert before or contributed to one? I can't find anything, which is strange given how prolific he is.

Now that I think about, is there any orchestral composer in Japan who hasn't been a part of some kind of live concert before? Even Iwasaki has had a live piano recital.

Intriguing. I don't think I've ever seen Naoki Sato give a concert, appear at a concert, or arrange for a concert.

Come to think of it, has he ever even been interviewed?

Sato does pop up in interviews, but they're all in Japanese.

http://www.miroc.co.jp/antenna/antenna-headline/170517-buildup-naoki-sato/

That's a nice studio...

Maybe he is too humble to activly appear in one, he doesn't even feel fit to conduct (at least I've never seen him conducting), something the old guard usually does.

Speaking about Sato, I have a feeling "High"-Evolution 2 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NdQlbJMWcwk) will be even more of a clusterfuck (I was right, this cue was not part of the first score)
You often joke about people in production being high when they make certain things but I honestly think that's the case here... Mecha soccer Magical girl Idol parade...


EDIT: Tanaka confirmed on his blog that "Shin Sakura Taisen" is in the works. I think he's trolling again: "Am I involved? Or am I not? I will avoid mentioning it until the forthcoming release... please look forward to it!"
Best possible case for me is actually not only Tanaka but the whole IMAGINE Brigade again. It depends if it will be a massive game that calls for much music (they at least made a big deal about announcing it). Imagine Hayato Matsuo, Shiro Hamaguchi or Shingo Nishimura showing a bit more of their orchestral talent. I'm at least happy seeing the IMAGINE composers getting more and more projects recently. I hope they can sustain their recent momentum.

RE favorite keys of music, I have no clue whatsoever. I couldn't tell you the key unless it is mentioned in the name of a track.

RE Tango's PRISMA share, these days it is pretty easy to encounter new releases like this on Spotify, Amazon music, etc, so if you don't want to share it but want to let people know about it, just posting the cover art and info can push people to search it out. These days if I have a chance to listen before downloading, that is my preference so I am listening to this on Spotify first.

Yeah, I guess I'm just an old fart who hasn't embraced streaming.

I don't like the idea of listening to music from a lending library, where the librarians could at any time and for any reason simply throw out the things I want to listen to.

Spotify is great to sample, but for longevity nothing (except buying the CD yourself, of course) beats a download.

Spotify suits this throwaway, instant gratification, easy-come, easy-go generation.

spotify is perfect for music i like enough to listen to it but not enough to own it.and for a first listen.i own a lot of stuff i discovered through spotify.for me its netflix for filmscores and such.

Right, but what I like about Spotify is I can decide if it is worth it before buying/downloading something. Saves me having to go through music and delete stuff I didn't like when I just don't download it in the first place. I pay for Spotify premium and since most new film scores are boring I don't bother buying anything before I listen to it first regardless of the composer. So if it is good I will end up buying it and if it is not good then I listen to something else. Of course I can't stream most Japanese scores so I download them when posted.

Absolutely though I buy anything I really like because you never know when things could be removed from the service. Plus I don't get to stream in lossless.

On another note, Varese just released Rachel Portman's 3 disc score to The Storyteller (disc 3 contains the music to Storyteller Greek Myths). I'm excited to see how I enjoy it. Based on the samples it should be something I enjoy.

Maybe he is too humble to activly appear in one, he doesn't even feel fit to conduct (at least I've never seen him conducting), something the old guard usually does. Interestingly enough, in the interview he says his original goal as a musician was to just become and arranger, in order to "work with top musicians abroad". But in order to enter the industry and make a living, he had no choice but to become an actual composer. Sounds like he could use some more self-esteem. :(

I also noticed that Sato uses digital synths and professional sound libraries, like most modern composers. Iwasaki seems to be the odd duck out in that he still uses analog synths and the ancient GIGA sampler, which baffles me how he is able to accomplish half of what he does with that kind of equipment.

Iwasaki knows what he likes. I've got to give him points for that. His music - even the parts of it I despise - mainly "sounds" handwritten.

When I listen to Sato - even the parts of it I love - I can almost see the piano roll view of his sampler rolling by.

Well, the most important part of any musician's studio (in my book) is still present in the room ;)
I only had this hunch that he likes to avoids the spotlight.

The fact remains I was highly touched by Pocket of Rainbows AND Kenshin when I first heard them, so in the end, both approaches can result in great music. In fact, Shirayuki was largly "written" in a computer, granted, by a musician/composer who has done it by hand for decades so she is in command of the tools and not vice versa but that further proves that as long as you have education/skill/experience/talent, ultimately, pen&paper and piano roll should be just means to an end (I believe Streich once said something along those lines).



And since I believe everything has aired now:


Seasonal guide through the Anime spring season 2018



I hope I'm being a misery guts and in a month we're all saying "Fuck, April '17 was the best year for the orchestral anime score in over a decade!!!" but I somehow doubt it'll come to that...

Turned out we had to wait a year for it to happen ;) But after a (in my opinion) very strong winter season, rivaling Winter 2015 and Winter 2007, Spring 2018 is, in terms of quantity of quality (for me at least) indeed the strongest spring season since April, 2008. It's also a MASSIVE season with nearly 80!!! projects. But from little short ones to OVAs and Films, the orchestra makes up a huge chunk of it. In fact, from 80 shows, only a quarter is Modern Hollywood/Electronics/Ambient. To balance it out we have a quarter of delicious orchestral scores. The majority is (as ever) small ensembles (Piano/Strings/Winds/Occasional Brass). This season also has quality Jazz by Yuji Ohno for Lupin 5 and accoustic goodness by GONTITTI's for Amanchu Advance.

In regards to budget, from 80 shows only a handful have none for real players: Last Period being the most pominent (that stupid song won't leave my head), but most important of all, that dreaded fake brass is mostly gone, ironically present in Die Neue These.

We also have a promising newcomer, Shunpei Ishige and a good one, Taisei Iwasaki. As bonus we have an at least good orchestral pop composer with Yusuke Shirato.

Even if your conservative (figure of speech), there's no denying 2018 has a drastic spike in output of orchestral scores (especially compared to last few years) that are aside from containing a few modern elements, as anachronistic and as welcome to me, full of personality, as they come. Whether they are any good is of course up to your judgement. For me, 2018 has something only one year achieved, and that year was 2007, a strong winter AND spring season. And no matter how bad things get, can't get worse than Spring 2001/2002 (But the 2000s had one hell of a spring run after a sloppy start, from 2005-2009, masterpiece after masterpiece.) Before or since, there has nothing happened quite like it. A rather sad development of course is no overseas recordings for a spring season in five years now. Thankfully they still appear in Winter.


It also turned out Toshiyuki Watanabe's orchestral score was not for an anime project but for an NHK history program: ～Walking through Modern History～

Without further ado, here is the guide.


Scores I anticipate:

Fullmetal Panic: Invisible Victory (Toshihiko Sahashi) (http://picosong.com/weaPe/)

Inazuma Eleven: Ares (Yasunori Mitsuda, Mariam Abounnasr) (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_l15F8YQIGY)

Puzzle and Dragon (Kaoru Wada) (http://picosong.com/weMZL/)

Girls und Panzer: Das Finale (Shiro Hamaguchi) (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SlEmkqQ2S7A) (Technically still winter but minor details)

Hisone to Masotan (Taisei Iwasaski) (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hQn3gD5_ULk)

Captain Tsuabasa 2018 (Hayato Matsuo) (http://picosong.com/weAfX/)

Mahoutsukai no Yome ~Hoshi Matsu Hito~ (Junichi Matsumoto, Yoko Kanno) (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EfmsfcvkWDA)

Uchuu Senkan Tiramisu (Shunpei Ishige) (http://picosong.com/weMZN/)

Liz to Aoi Tori (Akito Matsuda) (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQxwNaoFdQQ&t=35s)

Wakaokami wa Shougakusei! (Takeshi Hama) (http://picosong.com/we7mJ)... the series also gets a film

Godzilla: Monster Planet 2 (Takayuki Hattori) (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j4dzGJri4OA&t=5s)

Gundam Origin V&VI (Takayuki Hattori) (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ewO6_IPkEDA)


Scores I'm not yet sure / too early to tell but I should like them regardless:

Umamusume (Taro Iwashiro) (http://picosong.com/weMgE/)

Lost Song (Yusuke Shirato) (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5-l_zzjXVng)...A show of symphonic songs is at least fine by me.

High School DxD Hero (Ryosuke Nakanishi) (http://picosong.com/weMmi) Funny, I swear I heard Empire Strikes Back in the episode somewhere.

San no Sara 2 (Tatsuya Kato) (http://picosong.com/webW8/) (more and more "decent" pieces appear)

Die Neue These (Shin Hashimoto, Yasuhisa Inoue) (http://picosong.com/weAQ5/)

Miss Layton (Tomohito Nishiura) (http://picosong.com/weMxn)


Scores I'll scan in the hope for some goodies:

Golden Kamuy
Pandora
Piano no Mori
Ninja Batman


Special mention of Lupin 5 for being smooth Jazz I dig and Amanchu Advance for accoustic goodness

Things I like this season: Retro/orchestral openings: Masotan (Taisei Iwasaki) (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MVwnNz7e5Fs) / Gegege (Kaoru Wada) (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lOCq2OG2y5c) / Piano no Mori (Fr�d�ric Chopin, arranged by Harumi Fuuki) (http://picosong.com/weixm/)

Things I hate: I take everything back about Legend of the Galactic Heroes, it's alright. But Cute Honey Universe on the other hand is the real travesty of the season, the 2000s remake got it right (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dwxs8apgfMU). To think that Toshihiko Sahashi once scored it 007-style and it now devolved into electronic trash. At least the OP/ED, while lackluster and omitting the theme of the franchise that's been there for decades, are not as abysmal as the "score".

Things I watch: Invisible Victory, Masotan, Lupin 5, Wotaku ni Koi wa Muzukashii, Hinamatsuri

Best "film score" of the season (symbiosis of music and drama): Invisible Victory, aside from some minor budget concerns, is pretty damn good so far. Not only has it Sahashi back (in cinematic King of Thorn mode), it's establishing early on "forget the silly stuff of previous seasons, it's time to get a little more serious". I'm intrigued how far they are going with the drama, and if Sahashi will employ his trademark soprano sound.

[Oh, well...]

I'm not trying to convince you or get into an argument here. I pulled up your quote because its fitting for my opinion and my opinion alone that is. I know what I like/love. I really do believe its a very strong season. I list these things primarly for myself, because there's just too much music out there from all over the world, so I like it organized and can pull it up and see if a soundtrack for these appeared. I decide to share this stuff, because I've been told people appreciate it (and theres very little interest in Japanese scores to begin with), not to score points in convincing you in anything (I won't waste anymore energy and nerve for that, because I know were you stand). Everything I've done on this forum is to make people more aware of or present more of a scoring world that gets largely ignored despite its quality output by pretty much anyone. I'm primarly here and discussing and posting things because I have likeminded fellows here who have told me they appreciate my efforts. Otherwise I wouldn't even bother. Life is short. I'm not egocentrical or indulge in self-gratification. I like/love music, talk about it and share it. That's all I've done and all I'm doing here.

No, I didn't intend to make you look like an idiot or talk over your posts. I apologize if that came across as such. I'm not that rude... just misunderstood lately. I'm (usually) passionate to a fault but polite and don't impose my opinion on anyone. I've been doing this thing here for seven years, you too should think better of me ;)

His music - even the parts of it I despise - mainly "sounds" handwritten.That's because it is. (https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=403278256445868&set=pb.100002910916248.-2207520000.1523977104.&type=3&theater) ;) With some occasional MIDI involved. (https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=304016363038725&set=pb.100002910916248.-2207520000.1523977106.&type=3&theater) Though I wonder how he annotates for dubstep.

Speaking of Sahashi, what happened to that opera he's been working on?

@Zipper: Premiere is in august, nothing further announced.

In other news "Shin Sakura Taisen" will not be just one game, it will be a full revival of the series, which of course means cross-media along the road, just like I wished for. I can't get enough Tanaka, so this is welcome news to me.

On the seasonal front, after episode 3, I adore Captain Tsubasa (the horns are having fun and in parts you can hear Drifters, how nice to hear "oh, he likes to do that thing with the horns", but unlike Sahashi's Gundam Symphony this time its in reverse because he hasn't been as prolific the years prior. And that quirky synth... love it). I hope it gets a release. And once the action is absent, Die Neue These can get quite decent. Maybe this is a bait and switch like Mazinger because I didn't hear any modern elements whatsoever in it. Strange.





Mitsuo Hagita & Kaoru Wada
Record of Lodoss War
30th Anniversary




Another series has its big anniversary this year. Lodoss (the OVAs) is famous for its gorgeous art, some of the best you will ever see in the anime medium, but the music doesn't need to hide behind it. Classical, symphonic and warm. Unfortunately, even in 1990 there were budget concerns and some pieces ended up with synth but the core of it is performed by a charming little orchestra. The music is composed by Mitsuo Hagita who mostly worked/works as an arranger. He composed music for Gundam 0083 Stardust Memory among others. The song "Odyssey" is a favorite of mine, primarily for that warm nostalgia but also for being a genuinely good symphonic song.

The TV series sacrfices much of the visuals but trades it in for a classic fantasy score ala Hollywood, with some sublime choral moments, furious action and heroic marches. From 1998 to 2018, listen to Puzzle & Dragon and pretty much nothing has changed... good old Wada.

"New projects" have been announced to celebrate the 30th anniversary and I hope Kaoru Wada can get his hands on it. A symphonic suite is perhaps too much to hope for but seeing him in charge of a Princess Tutu concert and active (scoring for games and anime) in the past couple of years, making him a regular again, gives me hope he will compose new music for it.


Mitsuo Hagita
Record of Lodoss War: Symphonic Fantasy
Kaze no Orchestra



Download (https://mega.nz/#!mJ4DVL6D!DwDNm4gZKKlhKIRwahG2DttpYCclvspr65s2stX1QgY)

Sample (http://picosong.com/wCw6y)



Kaoru Wada
Record of Lodoss War: Chronicles of the Heroic Knight
Tokyo Studio Orchestra



Download (https://mega.nz/#!GdYxwTZQ!EZ0A12t_MHJ_9f-WANPzLDTaLionV38QLg9fPC-PkY8)

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

lennertz lost in space is awesome.great highlight-filled album but it needs a 4cd set.

Huh, another Iwasaki release in the horizon.

https://vgmdb.net/album/77157

I think it will be mostly electronics, but there might be a few pieces worth looking out for. I'm not very enthusiastic about it, but because it's Iwasaki, we can always expect at least a couple surprises. And at the very least, it will be more interesting than Dead Apple.

https://youtu.be/Cztl7PSpJ5g?t=2m39s

After rap opera and dubstep opera, comes new-age opera? Oh Iwasaki.

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




!!!

https://www.facebook.com/iwasaki.taku/posts/1653058651467816

And today he's recording brass and winds, according to the description:

https://www.instagram.com/p/Bhx2QMxhAsO/?taken-by=toshiya_kamada

(what a hassle it is in Japan to have to record every ensemble separately even if you have a large recording space that could house all of them at once- is it because they're freelancers and not an organized symphony orchestra?)

Iwasaki gets a concert hall recording and Hisaishi gets Sound Inn. What a strange time we live in.

A one and a half second sample. Aw, Taku... ;)

Usually when ensembles are recorded separately it's because they need a fine control over the mix - Iwasaki particularly, I can imagine, would not like having everybody playing together - I think he would want a lot of multitracks that he can mix in the comfort of the studio for just the sound he wants.

Or it could be a game that's going to have dynamic scoring. (Like strings start, brass comes in when something happens, winds come in when something else happens, etc.)

People really have to stop calling anything that has a classically trained vocalist "opera" - it's not. THIS is opera: https://youtu.be/k3SGLFTEelY?t=1h15m2s (And that's also what film music should sound like.)

Usually when ensembles are recorded separately it's because they need a fine control over the mix - Iwasaki particularly, I can imagine, would not like having everybody playing together - I think he would want a lot of multitracks that he can mix in the comfort of the studio for just the sound he wants.I don't know if it's usual for Japan, but it seems a bit redundant to have to mix separate ensembles when there is already have a large concert hall with natural acoustics to work with. Back in the days when Japan actually used their own concert halls quite often like in Asakawa or Sahashi scores, did they record ensembles separately?

I think it might be more of price or scheduling issue, since this isn't a coherent symphonic unit like the one Hisaishi typically uses, so to have a brass ensemble sit around for hours while the strings and winds do the busy work would probably be an enormous waste of money.

One thing I am sure about though is that this project is for a movie, at least according to the hashtags.

EDIT:
Reading through the description for the video again, Iwasaki says it took him 6 hours to record 2 hours of usable music with the string ensemble alone. On one hand I'm glad that this isn't just some one-off session like Stray Dogs, but at the same time those string players must have been put through hell. I can't imagine how long it would take a full symphony orchestra to play to his standards, because if even Warsaw wasn't good enough... maybe this is why he's never held a live concert?



EDIT 2:

Guess who is back for the newest Gundam:

https://twitter.com/sawano_nZk/status/987276003683610624

Hello, everyone! I hope you're all doing well! Thank you to those who answering my questions; there's plenty of interesting opinions to read, and some that got me to check out pieces of music I didn't know of beforehand! With that in mind, I'll try to actually answer my questions, for once. Hopefully, this'll go okay.


1. What are your favourite keys when listening to music, and why? Are there any songs that to you demonstrate why you love songs in those particular keys?

Like I said when trying to figure out the keys to fedex's suggested songs, I'm not very good at telling the difference between a major key and its relative minor, so I'll name both keys just in case I've gotten one wrong.

I have a form of synesthesia (a condition where a experiencing a feeling with one sense automatically results in a feeling with another sense), where musical keys have me picturing a colour. And not say "musical colour" as the term would normally be used when describing music, but literal colours - green, pink, dark blue, etc. The colours these keys sound to me are one of the biggest factors behind me enjoying these particular keys, so a lot of what I'm about to say is very subjective and abstract (and possibly pretentious, depending on how you see it). With that in mind:

C Major - The blue key. A key that invokes feelings of bright blue skies, days by the beach, relaxation, optimism, safety, encouragement, and a feeling that today's going to be a good day.

Examples include:

Cliffside Waltz III (Joe Hisaishi, A Scene at the Sea) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f6JCrDBHh9g
Forest Glade (Steve Burke, Kameo: Elements of Power) - https://youtu.be/Qsih68xMnZg
Rei II (Shiro Sagisu, Neon Genesis Evangelion) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b86PM7yV18s
In The Forest (Takahito Eguchi, Sonic 2006) - https://youtu.be/EA-68c8PgXI
Tranquil Hours (Grant Kirkhope, Viva Pinata) - https://youtu.be/Mi2gi2IMB4Q

D Major/B minor - The yellow key. A key that invokes feelings of sunsets, bittersweet goodbyes, contentment, quiet sadness, and a slight twinge of hope.

Examples include:

Shenandoah (arr. Chris Hazell, sung by Bryn Terfel) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Uu3ozQJw94
Wake Me When You Need Me (Martin O'Donnell/Michael Salvatore, Halo 3) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FdI1xBqPy5g
Labyrinth I: Cerulean Woodlands (Yuzo Koshiro, Etrian Odyssey IV: Legends of the Titan) - https://youtu.be/zn2Myb-zO7k
The Great Sea (Kenta Nagata, Zelda: Wind Waker) - https://youtu.be/--OWINmR7xA

C minor/Eb Major - The dark green key. A key that invokes feelings of introspection, rainfall, contemplation, ambience, melancholy, and a mysterious mood that implies there's more beneath the surface.

Examples include:

Glory of Cyrodill (Jeremy Soule, Oblivion) - https://youtu.be/c2EbsfqhI2k
Elektra's Theme (David Arnold, The World is Not Enough) - https://youtu.be/YxDxOXGtqSs
Labyrinth II: The Vast Primeval Grove (com. Yuzo Koshiro, arr. Norihiko Hibino; Etrian Odyseey) - https://youtu.be/9QURpQtVGFY
L'Ap�tre de la Lune (Shiro Sagisu, Evangelion 3.0) - https://youtu.be/WYkATVLXviw

E Major/C# minor - The purple key. A key that invokes feelings of tragedy, moonlit nights, confessions, watching the stars spread out into infinity, and love.

Examples include:

Witek & Alina (Wojciech Kilar) - https://youtu.be/VqXN8Jbi3LU
Main Theme (com. Nobuo Uematsu, arr. Shiro Hamaguchi; Final Fantasy VII) - https://youtu.be/D_oS8zsO2nU?t=56s
Guts (Susumu Hirasawa, Berserk 1997) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w1o4O2SfQ5g


2. If you compose music, which keys do you like to compose in the most? (If you don't, feel free to skip this question)

Since I try to compose pieces with the same feelings that got me to love music and want to try my hand at composing, I tend to write in the keys listed above. Though I don't mind trying out other keys, such as this piano piece I did in A major (https://musescore.com/user/27541261/scores/5057969).


3. What is the best orchestral soundtrack you've been listening to lately?

A couple of months ago, I began replaying Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion and compiled together an orchestral playlist, largely comprised of songs I hadn't heard much of before. Because of that, I ended up becoming quite fond of Hajime Mizoguchi's work from the Please Save My Earth soundtrack. I particularly like the simpler pieces where it's just the piano and cello creating the music, though the cues that involve the orchestra are certainly no slouches in how effective they are at establishing a feeling or mood.


4. Name your favourite instruments from the traditional orchestra family, and if you can, describe why.

I'm gonna nick Vinphonic's method of picking the best instrument for different scenarios, since it actually works very well for this question:

Solo: Piano (beautiful instrument, and is able to perform all kinds of songs in all kinds of ways through its range, dynamics, etc. What other instrument can you find that can play a song as calm as this [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NCatcm5AiwI&t=6s], yet can also play something hectic and out of control like this [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6XR0BHc_1j8]?)

Ensemble: Most likely the cello - its ability to be both a compelling bassline and an evocative leading voice is rather amazing, and its range to perform different types of songs is really quite impressive

Orchestra: Oboe - I'm such a sucker for this instrument, Vinphonic already noted how good it is at answering a call, and its soft, somewhat melancholy sound can go a long way to giving a piece a more complex mood (https://youtu.be/09F_6Yl2X54?t=26s)


5. Do you play any games with a custom playlist of orchestral music? If so, which playlists work best with which games?

Yes, and quite a bit. While these choices may not seem the most appropriate, they resonated to me the most:

Dragon's Dogma - A variety of songs from Yoko Kanno's Nobunaga's Ambition games
Skyrim - A mix of the above and various songs by Sagisu/Amano from the Berserk movies, Shiro's Songbook Xpressions, Evangelion 3.0 and elsewhere
The Witcher 3 - Select pieces by Wojciech Kilar (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VqXN8Jbi3LU), Howard Goodall, Michiru Oshima, Chris Hazell (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i5ia5EYoHEc), Anne Dudley (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=puJIo6f_8FM) and others for solo albums, soundtracks or concert works
Oblivion - A selection of songs from Please Save My Earth, Masamichi Amano's Princess Nine and Battle Royale II, Wataru Hokoyama's Afrika, among others I can't currently recall


6. Name an unexpectedly good orchestral piece in a soundtrack that otherwise doesn't feature any orchestral music (synthesized/faux-orchestras can count, too).

This is a strange one, and not the best orchestral piece, but Volcano Valley from the SEGA Saturn port of Sonic 3D Blast: (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hw1NztVnWjE) honestly took me by surprise when I ran into it. 3D Blast's Saturn soundtrack (composed by Richard Jacques) is generally full of surprises, with each zone having music from different genres such as jazz, techno-pop, ambience and more, and this track actually gave me slight tingles when listening to it for the first time. It's a Sonic game, from a series that usually subscribes to more J-pop/funk inspired music, and yet this sounds like a battle theme in an RPG.

---

And that'll be it in regards to answering those questions. I hope you enjoyed reading my answers, and I look forward to reading for answers if anyone has anything to say. Thank you again for indulging me, and have a great day!

Appreciate your questions. As Tango said at some point, they really get the grey matter going. Have a great day!

Speaking about the Oboe, the upcoming Liz to Aoi Tori is primarily a score centered around Oboe and Flute: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQxwNaoFdQQ&t=35s Not expecting anything in terms of "BGM", unless Ushio outs himself as a classical composer in disguise, but I'm curious about the concert pieces, as I really enjoyed Akito Matsuda's contributions for Hibike thus far. The soundtrack even has a symphonic suite on disc 2.

Also, that Masotan ED is dope. The second episode has more genre mix that feels retro in a good way.

And finally, regarding Iwasaki, he reaffirms he has recorded hours of "film music" with a full orchestra in aforementioned hall. So wouldn't this technically mean his first full-fleshed orchestral score in twelve years?



I hope this doesn't fall into the evergrowing pit of "yet to be announced" projects.

So, unless I'm mistaken, every single noteworthy cue in FMP this week was reused from the previous series'.

Also, Masotan is mostly non-descript, re-used cues from last week, and cheap slice-of-life funk cues.


And finally, regarding Iwasaki, he reaffirms he has recorded hours of "film music" with a full orchestra in aforementioned hall. So wouldn't this technically mean his first full-fleshed orchestral score in twelve years?

It would be nice, but I really think there's more chance of hell freezing over, or Sawano getting fired off the new Gundam and replaced by Souhei Kano and the LSO.

So, unless I'm mistaken, every single noteworthy cue in FMP this week was reused from the previous series'.S2 didn't get every musical cue release, so I hope that the new series will give Sahashi an excuse to bundle in the unreleased cues with the new soundtrack, similar to what Kanno did for Aquarion EVOL.

As for Iwasaki, he would have to give 5 Dead Apples in a row for me to lose faith in him. We know at the very least that two hours of the score will have an orchestra in it, but how much electronics and Lotus Juice he will throw on top of that is yet to be heard.

Akito Matsuda
Senzoku Gakuen Freshman Wind Ensemble

Liz und ein Blauer Vogel
Concert Work for Wind Orchestra (Opus 6)




Download (https://mega.nz/#!XYxChK4L!VryhES_tKtQx2Woi_-IYO6wOuxDEWvfFKvQsaBpGPj4)

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


Where to begin. It's Matsuda's most mature composition to date. If you like his work, I guarantee you will love it. Maybe it gets a full symphony orchestra upgrade in the future. I can see the Tokyo Philharmonic performing it. I can only repeat what I wrote about him some years ago. He's come a long way. Essentially the story of a Visual Novel composer turning into a concert composer for anime. He's still very young in composer terms, only 35.




Well Akito Matsuda has come a long way since his first days as NIJINE. He did countless works of which I generally liked most, my favorites were of course the pleasant string pieces perfect for a pleasant afternoon. But in recent years I really noticed how he evolved. I think his score for the Chunibyo movie was a really good effort as far as orchestral "film" writing goes.

He is also venturing further and further into "classical/concert" territory and thankfully he works in a musical environment which encourages such tendencies. So it's no conincidence to find a whole String Quartet piece in four movements on his soundtracks these days. I've also really enjoyed his score for Euphonium for the most part. His music has that shamelessly schmaltzy drama quality I adore and his score certainly matched the beautiful visuals. But he also did some arrangements for the concert pieces as well which also feature the melody of the drama score. Akito Matsuda is really improving and as of late it won't be long now until I'm reallly looking forward to one of his scores in the future.

About the Hibike project, well, if nothing else we got little intimate moments where the instruments shined and some beautifully animated concert performances. Pretty damn neat.
On a side note I'm also enjoying the music around the Euphonium project, it's neat to hear your standard pop performed with a little more meat & Brass

A shame they didn't release it separately with the beautiful artwork. Instead he is thrown together on an album with music and presentation I resent, the postmodern kind (same as the other composer).
I will update to FLAC eventually, until I find a way to purchase Matsuda's concert work individually because, for the life of me, I don't want to indicate I support Ushio in any way whatsoever. I give my money to musicians, not sound designers. The album for the film shows the contrast between the two philosophies clearly, even neatly on two discs. The optimist in me says they can coexist together, the pessimist sees the one eventually swallowing the other. Don't know what to make of it. Ultimately Matsuda wrote a concert work for an anime film and it gets released on the same day it premieres, so I shouldn't be too gloomy over here. If I remember right, there's more Hibike Euphonium films coming and Matsuda will be doing the BGM for those again as well as new concert works, so all is forgiven (for now). Below is everything noteworthy Matsuda composed before Liz.


Chuunibyo and Other Delusions
The Film Score



Download (https://mega.nz/#!OBIFnSyS!ORI_5VYjVziAsshf3pmBWWe2nr2xG0IJ04Ds7Ecp24Q)

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

His only substantial film score (so far). Matsuda wrote it when he turned 30. This is all of the orchestral tracks. He is confident with the orchestra and writes in a style I think we could hear more of these days. There's certainly potential here. At the very least he's done his homework. His recent film score "Take on Me" (featured below) has some really good moments too, fake brass be damned: http://picosong.com/wCVDg


Sound! Matsuda
Works for String Ensemble, Brass Quartet, Wind Orchestra and Television Ensemble



Download (https://mega.nz/#!iFJCGAqI!dEQT6ugyF2yWXNtDvP-6G5wrMQl6CB86C46ARWR1bGM)

Sample (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rDiyeydXtnQ)


A compilation of all his other noteworthy stuff, from Glassip to Bahamut to Hibike, including all concert works as well as new arrangements from my side for Hibike, Zero Kara and Take on Me. He thinks with the mind of a classical composer, and I hope he can gets his hands on more projects. It has to be said I love the Wind Orchestra versions of the songs for Hibike he arranged and since I like TRUE's voice they are a special treat. She and the Orchestra seem to be extra passionate when they perform it for the Movies so I've picked the Movie versions.


That's all for now. Please Enjoy.

Thanks for all this, vinphonic :)

Thank you! Loving Liz and the Bluebird!

avengers infinity war had zero modern elements.no synth, no beats.massiv epic and emotional and choral score.the digital release tonight has the complete 116mins score.

avengers infinity war had zero modern elements.no synth, no beats.massiv epic and emotional and choral score.the digital release tonight has the complete 116mins score.

My cinicism and pessimism with Hollywood music is so big and I have low standards than I'm fine if it just has a orchestra that sounds like it's there..

Maybe it just caught me in an unusually optimistic mood, but I enjoyed Infinity War more than Ready Player One. Silvestri sounds a little more like himself.

Of course, it's still themeless in comparison to Silvestri's previous works, and it's stupefyingly repetitive, but it's somehow a lot less offensive than I was expecting.

Thanks for the recommendation. :)

For me, it's a mixed bag, some tracks are very boring, too much "low volume, sad violin music to build suspense".. others are a bit better, mostly action oriented or those that have to be emotional. It's not an awful piece of shit.. it's listenable. I'd take this over any RCP Zimmer or Junkie noise. This at least there's some legit orchestra/film music score music behind. Lots of Silvestri too because I can hear his signature.

I need a full listen, some are good, some aren't, I guess I'm like you.

The samples sound nice-enough that I will give it a try very soon. But the "theme" is so weak I doubt he can do much with it. Oh well, it's Silvestri, I have to listen...


Talking about Drum-Free. Gundam: The Origin VI, for the big finale, has a space battle which is good old SciFi, and good old Hattori, only at the very end appears an old cue with drums: Gundam Origin VI: Opening (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gbkRrDuo1Gw&t=5m13s)

Hopefully the rest of the new material follows suit, if I remember right, the new cues from episode V were electronic-free as well. The final soundtrack will be out on May, 30. I think, in the end, Gundam Origin will give us an hour of delicious SciFi Television score like they don't make em no more.


EDIT: Summer gets an interesting announcement. FILM SCORE (Hollywood veteran Nobuko Toda and Kazuma Jinnouchi) are scoring a new Television anime in July called "Space Bug". Not sure how accurate the translation is but according to Nobuko Toda's twitter it will either be scored with a 52-Piece Orchestra... or 52 episodes of Film music, perhaps the scoring debut of her "Film Score Philharmonic" (https://www.filmscorephil.com/85). In any case, there's more SciFi coming.

Sounds like Infinity War will be next for me to check out. In the mean time, I'm quite happy with Liz und ein Blauer Vogel. Thanks for sharing something I probably would have never known existed otherwise.

Also, keep an eye out in June for John Powell's first choral works release including his Prussian Requiem.

I almost dozed out halfway listening to those Infinity War samples on iTunes. How does one make a soundtrack blast brass nonstop for almost an hour and still remain completely boring and forgettable? No memorable themes, no memorable orchestration, no identity, just LOUD LOUD LOUD. Hollywood has mastered that art, and it doesn't matter if they use electronics or orchestra to do the job.

As for other Superhero scores, Yugo Kanno's Batman is getting a release in June:

https://vgmdb.net/album/76615

I don't know if it will be any good, but it will probably be less of a snoozefest than Infinity War even if half of it is electronics. Maybe a couple pieces like this will pop up:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IXxL6L3RMms

It's better than a kick in the head. With expectations so low that they're now in the negative (particularly after hearing Silvestri's "diplomatic" comments about how difficult it is to score such a schizophrenically-plotted multiple-personalities-disorder, no-unifying-theme movie made by a comparative film-making amateur, it's pretty inoffensive film music that, unlike Ready Player One, actually sounds like a real score for a real movie, not a ham-fisted melange of "OMFG WOW REFERENCE TO BETTER MOVIE INCOMING OH YEAH THIS IS AWESOME BECAUSE THEY SAID SOMETHING FROM MY CHILDHOOD!"

Don't get me wrong... it's still ham-fisted, it's still a shameful footnote in the history of film scoring, it's still absolutely nothing in comparison to Silvestri's best... but in 2018, a big fat blockbuster movie that wasn't a deliberate 80s throwback received a score from an 80s guy and it wasn't uniformly terrible, and at least partially, it had the kind of sound you don't hear any more. It was a hint that modern movies and modern directors could possibly find this kind of music again. I don't know who's around who can still write it - but perhaps composers will be asked for better music, albeit in baby steps. When you think about how bad things have got in recent years, you start to appreciate even the most insignificant green shoot growing out of the rubble.

It's not just that there's an orchestra; I'm sure you didn't mean to suggest that we're so simplistic and moron-minded that we'd just leap on a score and claim it's brilliant because of the instrumentation - it's that there's an orchestra, it's used in a fairly competent manner, and in terms of composition there are at least little threads of the "old school" running through it, and a real composer working behind the scenes. Hollywood is still fucked and this does nothing to change that evaluation, but it's still nice that in 2018, Alan Silvestri can still score a big movie and still keep enough of his musical personality intact to compose a score that's not a TOTAL write-off.

Don't get me wrong, I understand why you guys have a certain enthusiasm towards it, given how much of a dessert the west is in regards to modern film scores. But when you look past what it represents, the music itself is just banal. I'm glad there are no "REMEMBER THIS" moments, but merely not having that and the usual negative qualities of modern film scores doesn't give this a pass. If anything, I'm wondering how Silvestri was able to avoid the RC tropes and yet still write such wallpaper music. I don't sense any enthusiasm, just an guy who wants his paycheck. Not that I blame him, since as you say Infinity War isn't anything remotely close to a passion project by anyone involved. But I at least wish he tried. Even as someone who wasn't enamored by Silvestri's classic works like Back to the Future, I can still here the enthusiasm from that and his older scores. I'm reminded of Elfman's similarly banal Justice League (when it wasn't recycling cues from decades ago).

Today seems to be a particularly awful day for music because Asami Tachibana's Darling in the Franxx also came out. To no one's surprise, it's a Sawano clone, with zero redeeming qualities or anything to make it stand out from being a modern Sawano score. Even that old-school super robot fanfare Vinphonic highlighted a few pages back amounted to nothing more than a fifteen-second opening for a piece that immediately went back into the usual Sawano territory.

merely not having that and the usual negative qualities of modern film scores doesn't give this a pass

Agree. It's still a piece of crap; I'm just pleased that I was expecting murder and the score turned out only to be manslaughter. ;)

I've just finished watching "Who Framed Roger Rabbit?" on TV - it's easy for forget what quality there was in those older scores, but when you listen... wow, I'd rather listen to ten seconds of that than all of Infinity War put together.


Today seems to be a particularly awful day for music because Asami Tachibana's Darling in the Franxx also came out. To no one's surprise, it's a Sawano clone, with zero redeeming qualities or anything to make it stand out from being a modern Sawano score. Even that old-school super robot fanfare Vinphonic highlighted a few pages back amounted to nothing more than a fifteen-second opening for a piece that immediately went back into the usual Sawano territory

Yes, it's an utter turd. Most of us knew it would be. (Though "Dino-S", if you can get past the electronica and the noise, is more interesting than anything Sawano's done in the last ten years, and Reversal is, at least, trying.)

I remember that... certain individuals within this thread... were more enthusiastic about it... but, well, y'know... :)

Might as well comment finally before I take my flight:

I completely agree how Darling in the Franxx turn out to be, but there's something so distinct and eerie from the typical Sawano formula that I like, e,g., "CODE:002": instrumentation wise it's still Sawano, but the arrangement of the main theme with that piano chord progression followed by a solo violin section that seems to have ACTUAL melody and not just the word "improvise" written all over the sheet. Tachibana at least seems to know what she's doing, unlike Sawano, who can't seem to stop writing brass sections like they're fu**ing power chords on an electric guitar. Still, it is what it is, another Sawano clone that will pile up with the rest of the similar turds that will most likely keep appearing.



As for other Superhero scores, Yugo Kanno's Batman is getting a release in June:

https://vgmdb.net/album/76615

I don't know if it will be any good, but it will probably be less of a snoozefest than Infinity War even if half of it is electronics. Maybe a couple pieces like this will pop up:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IXxL6L3RMms

Not really looking forward to Batman Ninja at all, I'll see it in the next incoming days since it's already online, but I'm not expecting him to drop the conventions used in "NIOH" which already share the same feudal japan themes.

Grancrest Senki on the other hand seems to show alot more promise:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eL227_RODVQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zqzi6YYlfVY

Haven't heard him do waltz in a while, so it's a nice change of pace at least.

I skimmed the Batman movie. Yugo Kanno's "score" can be distilled into BANG BANG BANG SLAMMETY SLAM SLAM, BANGBANGBANGBANG, [crappy Sunday morning drama theme with electronica noise in the background], SLAM SLAM SLAM SLAM THE END.

Akira Miyagawa, Hiroshi Miyagawa
Space Battleship Yamato 2199
Project 2199 Studio Orchestra, remastered by Vinphonic



Original (https://mega.nz/#!qUZk0Jqa!mNHOgXdfuZ8dwGeAmyR5UiJ_6ili0ExMc_ctovwbeas) / Remastered (https://mega.nz/#!WI4C2DSZ!6NbLh82N-twqvK_lF0_R0aydbjbvXJzt10nZRxj4UvI)

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

This is a remastering project I had stored for quite some time but I thought I might as well share it. It's everything orchestral from all the soundtracks and the movie. I matched the accoustics more with the 70s recordings, which were more wet, as well as modern Hollywood accoustics. I hope you find it enjoyable as an alteranate listening through the score. Everything is properly tagged.

Space Battleship Yamato 2199 and 2202 are 60s and 70s Hollywood TV scoring par excellence and rock your socks off if you're in the right mood for some anachronistic joyride, like its yesteryear again. Vibraphone with rotor on, Funk and Disco strings, (alto) flute upfront and baller brass. Akira Miyagawa arranged the music of his father, a 40 year legacy, as well as composed some original material, that all together are a giant homage to the original Star Trek from the 60s. The music was arranged and mixed to sound like an old Star Trek show, just with modern accoustic and even the new material was taken from episodes of Star Trek:



Star Trek - Doomsday Machine (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lf7y1Bn4LKU&feature=youtu.be&t=1m40s) / Gamilas Dimensional Submarine (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IuqfTes7oe0)


With the sequel, things get kicked up a notch with more mature orchestral writting, even more Trek moments and full rerecordings of Miyagawa's most famous cues (http://picosong.com/wkyyQ/), including one of the most effective and memorable villain themes ever written, the Comet Empire/Gatlantis Theme. 40 years later, its effect is still shivering to hear in 2017/18:


Yamato 2202: Musical Moments (https://vimeo.com/266810547)

And sure enough, moments straight out of Star Trek appear again. The show itself is shamelessly anachronistic as all hell too and 2202 as well as 2199 are a giant homage to everything SciFi, from literature to TV Show, from Asimov to Stark Trek: TOS to Battlestar Galactica. The movie gets even more obvious with its references. I really adore the whole Yamato Project, flaws aside. It's also criminally overlooked (light spoilers ahead). (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gBiga754d5g)

Speaking of delicious SciFi and Space Battles, 2202 has its big SciFi event next month:

Yamato 2202: Purgatory Chapter (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3g6ARwJgXuo)

When all soundtracks are released (I guess by the end of the year) this will be one hell of a throwback. 60s/70s Hollywood TV scoring in 2017/18?! Where on earth can you hear that anymore?!



Enjoy... and prosper

Thank you, Vinphonic. Your releases are a great contribution to music lovers world at large.

Kohei Tanaka
Pachislot Sakura Wars ~Hot Blooded Tide~
Arranged by Kohei Tanaka, Keiji Inai, Rei Ishizuka et al



Download (https://mega.nz/#!HMQEHZRY!ug5lmvoTppagfRkgxDtCQYUbw8qTViyomwmMFbHBPDY)

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

MUSIC! FOR A SLOT MACHINE! Only in Japan...

It's been so long, so anticipated, so dearly wished for, but finally, this year, Sakura Wars gets its long overdue revival. A franchise so musical they hired VA's based on their lyrical singing ability, a franchise with a composer that was/is a match made in heaven. It's been years since I introduced Sakura Wars to this thread, and I still think its Tanaka's best franchise. And that believe has been reaffirmed last week when I got my hands on the newly released soundtrack for the slot machine that is part of the 20th anniversary of the franchise. There's not much in terms of BGM (its a slot machine afterall but its in GaoGaiGar territory) , the songs however, are as always with this franchise, Tanaka at his very best. There's even a fully orchestral 90s cutesy Tanaka march: http://picosong.com/wCNh8/

Ah, 2012 were such innocent times:


Sakura Wars is a very popular franchise in Japan and Tanaka is the main composer and it's his biggest project together with One Piece. The music is joyful, exciting, dramatic, emotional and everything else Tanaka is known best for. I would say it's even more joyful than One Piece, and that is one of the most joyful anime scores I know. Even his "songs" are something to behold. Orchestrated in best Tanaka fashion and some are more operatic in nature than you would expect. I ignore most J-Pop songs (or pop in general) but when Tanaka is involved you know you'll get something amazing.

I also included his new songs from 2017, because remember kids:

"You can't get enough of some good Tanaka."

-arthierr (I miss him, lads)

You can't imagine my excitement for the new big projects in the works. They made it very clear its no small affair and it will be "not just a game" but a full new multimedia series. Not to mention, in today's climate, the obligatory orchestral concert on the horizon. Who knows perhaps even a symphonic suite by Tanaka for next comiket, wouldn't be out of the question.



Finally someone at SEGA got a clue what they should be making. First a new Valkyria Chronicles (only the lack of budget prevents it from truely shining in the musical department) and now Sakura Wars... about damn time things are getting on the right track again. (Now a new Skies of Arcadia pls with Minobe returning with a budget, thank you).

I already made my point about Tanaka so there's nothing else to say why I absolutely love him but currently he is on an unbelievable roll. He even laments he has no free time or holidays anymore and writes music throughout the entire year for already announced or upcoming projects, from stageplays (One Piece and I guess Sakura Wars), to games (World Seeker, Shin Sakura Taisen, rumors about Gravity Daze III), to anime (Planet With).

But the whole IMAGINE brigade seems to be finally on a roll, another week goes by, another announcement, Shiro Hamaguchi on a Shirobako movie, hopefully with real horns this time and old-fashioned end credits.




Speaking about excitement, Michiru Oshima not only announced new concert works, one with the very promising title "Augustus: Concerto for Orchestra and Chorus" based on the novel by Hermann Hesse. It premieres in June, performed by the Kansai Philharmonic. She also wrote new music for upcoming, soon to be announced games and anime and flies around the globe, recently she was in Budapest again for a recording session (Haikara Part 2? New mobile game? Who knows...).

Does anyone know where I can find these rare Koichi Sugiyama albums

https://www.discogs.com/Kouichi-Sugiyama-Audio-Symphony-Check-Up-Your-Sounds-Vol-1-/master/813893

https://www.discogs.com/Kouichi-Sugiyama-Audio-Symphony-No2-Check-Up-Your-Sounds-Vol2/master/1239833

Volume 1 in particular as it's not even on YouTube

I've had so much bad luck that I'm considering getting the LPs and a USB turntable now, but that'll be the last thing i'd do.

I've no idea what those albums are, but I just bought NM copies of both on Discogs. :)

I've no idea what those albums are, but I just bought NM copies of both on Discogs. :)

Why didn't you do the same with Konaka's Tamagotchi? Been wanting them for a while. :P

You mean you'll be sharing them?

Just realized those were the ones I was planning on getting myself, guess my efforts in asking just made it actually impossible for myself to get them :/

Of course I'll share them.

They're still available - multiple copies of each one are for sale.


Why didn't you do the same with Konaka's Tamagotchi? Been wanting them for a while. :

Show me where to buy it for a reasonable sum of money, and I'll get it. :D

Of course I'll share them.

zoinks, thank you so much, made my day :'>

Show me where to buy it for a reasonable sum of money, and I'll get it. :D

Back when I asked, the first one was really cheap. Just looked now, still is. Reasonably priced in Amazon.co.jp. Shipping is a different thing though

https://www.amazon.co.jp/%E3%81%9F%E3%81%BE%E3%81%94%E3%81%A3%E3%81%A1-%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-%E3%82%B5%E3%83%B3%E3%83%88%E3%83%A9/dp/B000Y1GBZS/ref=sr_1_3?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1525262430&sr=1-3&keywords=%E3%81%9F%E3%81%BE%E3%81%94%E3%81%A3%E3%8 1%A1%21

The second is much more harder to find reasonably priced as it is even more out of stock. Here it is, cheap in Yahoo! Auctions though.

https://page.auctions.yahoo.co.jp/jp/auction/s530655896

That's the first one. I'll think about the second depending on how I like the first. ;)

I have no idea about the second, no samples. But I loved the samples of the first! Which you can listen on the page, by the way.

Thank you

THANK YOU ;)