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Final Fantasy 7 => Audio => Releases => Topic started by: Captain Epic on 2013-08-12 10:28:09
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What is it?
This is a complete remastering of the original Final Fantasy VII soundtrack in a symphonic style. In other words, no use of any midi or synths; this uses only orchestral or rock instruments. The original soundtrack was quite synth-heavy, so this remastered soundtrack may be a bit too far from the original for some people, but for those who want a high quality symphonic soundtrack for the game, this could be the one for you.
Why did you do it?
I LOVE Uematsu's work; I'm a huge fan. I also love the old Final Fantasy games and have been enjoying re-playing Final Fantasy VII since it was re-released on PC last year. So when I discovered how to mod the audio in the game, I went ahead and did my own remasters of the soundtrack. After all, the original midi soundtrack for the PC is a disgrace to Uematsu's fine work. I wanted to do it in a purely symphonic style rather than just simply copy the original soundtrack (after all, if I wanted the original soundtrack or something close to it, I could have just used the Anxious Heart music mod or FinalFanTim's remastered soundtrack).
On the whole, I'm pleased with how everything turned out. There are a few things I'm not 100% happy with (for example - the choirs in One Winged Angel aren't perfect, but I don't think I can get them any better, considering the limitations of my software), but I feel I've achieved what I set out to do and I believe I've done justice to Uematsu's great work.
I've started uploading my remasters on youtube, so please check them out before downloading to get an idea of what the soundtrack will be like - http://www.youtube.com/user/symphonicremasters
Download Links
Disc 1:
http://www.mediafire.com/download/p4j7rqrgs9l9ad1/disc1.part1.rar
http://www.mediafire.com/download/3dbbrch9nnmv0ow/disc1.part2.rar
Disc 2:
http://www.mediafire.com/download/0j8j87o68o9385m/disc2.part1.rar
http://www.mediafire.com/download/ysyodex55wfnk26/disc2.part2.rar
Disc 3:
http://www.mediafire.com/download/kf0xtb0oh3oc9w1/disc3.part1.rar
http://www.mediafire.com/download/0uu4wsdrg0hiiri/disc3.part2.rar
Disc 4:
http://www.mediafire.com/download/xgjh12bbbsfuub1/disc4.part1.rar
http://www.mediafire.com/download/fu743nqn29q6w9i/disc4.part2.rar
Movies: (this contains the Opening and Ending cutscenes with my new remastered music)
http://www.mediafire.com/download/zk2059fdppvlar4/movies.part1.rar
http://www.mediafire.com/download/f3jqu0l0a8b3arz/movies.part2.rar
http://uploaded.net/file/zdcs57s0/movies.part1.rar
http://uploaded.net/file/evvntgry/movies.part2.rar
How to install
Installation is very simple - simply replace the original music (and movie files, if you are using my cutscenes) with the ones in the links above.
Note: I recommend backing up your music folder, as well as the two cutscenes, just in case something goes wrong or you decide you want to go back to the original version
If you are using the 2012 version from the Square Enix store, you need to extract the ogg files from the links above into <drive letter - the drive onto which you installed the game>(for example - C:)/Program Files/Square Enix/FINAL FANTASY VII/data/music_ogg (if you are using a 32bit operating system. if you have a 64bit OS it'll be in "Program Files (x86)" instead).
If you are using the Steam version, you need to extract the ogg files into <drive letter - the drive onto which you installed the game>(for example - C:)/Program Files/Steam/SteamApps/common/FINAL FANTASY VII/data/music_ogg (again, if you have a 64bit OS it'll be in "Program Files (x86)" instead).
For the movies, you need to put opening.avi into the folder /FINAL FANTASY VII/data/movies and you need to put ending2.avi into the folder /FINAL FANTASY VII/data/lang-en/movies (I've only done the new music for the English text version)
All the ogg files should be looping perfectly fine, but if anyone does notice anything wrong please let me know.
Also, if anyone wants to upload the files to another file host (or seed it as a torrent), feel free to do so and then give me the links so I can add them to my ones above.
I hope you enjoy listening to this soundtrack as much as I've enjoyed producing it :) If you have any questions, please go ahead and ask.
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Do loop points work the same between ff7Music and the 2012/STEAM .ogg plugin?
I listened to some of these on Youtube and they are fantastic. :lol:
Looked at the two movies but the quality of the actual video is low, while the audio is superior--are they meant to just have their audio ripped from? The opening video looked stretched vertically... :|
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Do loop points work the same between ff7Music and the 2012/STEAM .ogg plugin?
I'm not sure about this; I haven't tested it (I don't have the original PC release installed anymore, so I can't test it out with FF7music. I don't remember uninstalling it though, so I have no idea what happened to it). All I know for sure is that these all work and loop fine when you put them in the music_ogg folder for the 2012/Steam versions (I've tested the soundtrack with both versions)
Looked at the two movies but the quality of the actual video is low, while the audio is superior--are they meant to just have their audio ripped from? The video looked stretched vertically... :|
That's probably thanks to my inexperience with erightsoft's SUPER ©. I put the original AVIs through that so I could work with them (for some reason, Adobe Premiere couldn't import them unless I re-encoded them), then I encoded with SUPER again with my new music and put them back in the game. I just left everything on default settings. I'm sure with some fiddling I could make it look better but I'm not sure what I'm doing with all of these settings on SUPER! If I get better with using the program, I'll redo them in higher quality. Unless someone who knows what they're doing wants to give it a shot (I'll provide my audio files).
It's annoying that the music had to be in those 2 cutscenes (opening and ending) rather than just playing during the cutscene like all the other ones in the game, because then I could have just replaced the .ogg files with my new ones and not worry about the videos.
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Have a look at ffmpeg. I really like the concept of these 2 videos, they are the first of their kind. To match the superb quality of your soundtrack, the encoded video should be swapped. Great work, thanks very much for sharing it. :)
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Great news! I've been playing around with the settings in SUPER for a while and, after a few failed attempts, I've finally got the cutscenes sorted. They are no longer stretched and the quality is the same as the originals (to my eyes, at least). The .rar is now 172mb, up from 69mb, so that's an indication of the improvement in quality. I've replaced the old download links in my first post with the newly uploaded movies.rar files.
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Cintro is wrong, there should be only one bell. But it sounds great so far.
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Cintro is wrong, there should be only one bell. But it sounds great so far.
My mistake. I just took the opening to "Those Chosen By the Planet" (which does have 2 bells in the intro) and assumed cintro just had 2 as well, without double checking first.
Thanks for pointing that out! :) I've uploaded a fixed version here - http://www.mediafire.com/listen/0waazczr3dxl5p7/cintro.ogg - which I'll add to my links in the first post.
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Siera is overmodulated maybe walz,too. I think they are all bit overmodulated. Aseri2 has strange noises (at 0:26 as example).
The drum in bat is too noticeable. Isn't it possible to use the vocals from the huge midi pack for the one winged angel theme (lib2)?
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I had considered turning the huge pats XM soundtrack to .ogg but I won't do it unless Vexacious gives permission. I think they are that good that I would take the time.
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Siera is overmodulated maybe walz,too. I think they are all bit overmodulated. Aseri2 has strange noises (at 0:26 as example).
The drum in bat is too noticeable. Isn't it possible to use the vocals from the huge midi pack for the one winged angel theme (lib2)?
When you say they are "overmodulated", what exactly are you referring to in the tracks? Because they sound fine to me.
I can't hear any "strange noises" in that track on my studio headphones, my reference monitors or my pc speakers, so I'm going to have to assume it's a problem on your end (drivers? the media player you're using?) rather than the track itself.
Maybe this is just a personal preference thing, but the drum sounds fine to me on everything I've listened to it with.
It is possible to use the original choir and I did originally use it, but it sounds completely crap in the track because the original (from the PSX OST) isn't exactly the best quality. It also only made use of 2 sopranos, 2 altos, 2 tenors and 2 basses which is a small choir. So I just did them myself with my own software to get a bigger and better sound.
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The only reason I would bother offering feedback is because these are very HQ to begin with so improvement is worthwhile:
I had to look up overmodulation to make sure we were talking about the same thing, but I think Kaldarasha is pretty much spot on about the recordings.
Overmodulation is the condition that prevails in telecommunication when the instantaneous level of the modulating signal exceeds the value necessary to produce 100% modulation of the carrier. In the sense of this definition, it is almost always considered a fault condition. In layman's terms, the signal is going "off the scale". Overmodulation results in spurious emissions by the modulated carrier, and distortion of the recovered modulating signal. This means that the envelope of the output waveform is distorted.
Although overmodulation is sometimes considered permissible, it should not occur in practice; a distorted waveform envelope will result in a distorted output signal of the receiving medium
The levels on your recordings are "spikey" as a sound guy at a club would say. It's "clipping" going in, so it's clipping going out. I'm no audio expert so I could be wrong, but I am a little bit of an audiophile so I wouldn't just toss out the criticism. Again, I want to stress that these are already very high quality. A lot of people will love them even if you don't touch them again. But for some people they might be a little too "live".
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The only reason I would bother offering feedback is because these are very HQ to begin with so improvement is worthwhile:
I had to look up overmodulation to make sure we were talking about the same thing, but I think Kaldarasha is pretty much spot on about the recordings.
The levels on your recordings are "spikey" as a sound guy at a club would say. It's "clipping" going in, so it's clipping going out. I'm no audio expert so I could be wrong, but I am a little bit of an audiophile so I wouldn't just toss out the criticism. Again, I want to stress that these are already very high quality. A lot of people will love them even if you don't touch them again. But for some people they might be a little too "live".
I technically am an audio expert, considering a lot of my income is from Audio Engineering :P I am no way amateur enough to mix these at levels high enough to distort; I mixed them all to a good level then when I mastered them I made sure it didn't push too much volume out of them which would cause them to clip (I promise you all it does not clip anywhere). I a bit of an audiophile myself (my headphones are certainly audiophile equipment, lol) and they all sound great to me on my setup. But if it's bothering people I guess I could adjust my mastering.
If the two of you are referring to the harp at the start of that siera track - I noticed that while doing it but there's not much I can do about it. I promise you it's not overmodulating though. Unfortunately, the harp sound library I use has a couple of dodgey notes (certain notes at certain velocities). That "overmodulating" you think you hear is one of the notes. There are four ways I could get around it - 1: Use a different harp sound (though I don't have any other good harp sound libraries, so that would make it sound crap). 2: Raise the part up an octave (which would get it away from the bad note, but it would just sound too wrong). 3: Lower the velocities of those notes so it doesn't trigger the bad sample (doing this puts the balance out though, because all the other harp notes are playing much louder). 4: lower the velocities of all the notes to keep balance and get away from the bad samples (maybe the best way of getting around it, but the low velocities trigger the quiet samples and boosting the volume of that would sound weird).
Anyway, like I said, there's definitely no clipping/distorting/overmodulating going on because I made sure of that. I can try re-doing the mastering, I guess (Perhaps I went a bit over the top with the multiband compression for most people's likings...)
But thanks for the feedback so far. I'll find time to re-do the mastering at some point.
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@Kaldarasha
If you have installed the K-Lite Mega Pack, it may be necessary to turn off volume boost. (ffdshow audio decoder configuration)
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I don't hear any clipping. It does sound like a live performance at a large concert hall or something, which is quite impressive. Personally I don't think the style meshes well with the game in terms of actually inserting it, but it's wonderful for listening to on its own.
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I had a thought: I think it was a bit unfair of me to base my critique from playing these off Youtube... Perhaps some/all of my listening displeasure comes from their compression. I'm going to check them out again when I get a minute. I mean... I did say they were fantastic... not like I gave them a bad review lol
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I don't hear any clipping. It does sound like a live performance at a large concert hall or something, which is quite impressive.
That's the sound I was going for, so I'm pleased to hear it worked out :) It's not easy to get that live orchestral sound without recording a live orchestra!
Personally I don't think the style meshes well with the game in terms of actually inserting it, but it's wonderful for listening to on its own.
I realise that this soundtrack is not for everyone (as I mention in my first post), because it's a big stylistic difference to the original soundtrack. But I'm a sucker for this big orchestral sound, so I prefer to use this in-game instead of a soundtrack in the original style.
I had a thought: I think it was a bit unfair of me to base my critique from playing these off Youtube... Perhaps some/all of my listening displeasure comes from their compression. I'm going to check them out again when I get a minute. I mean... I did say they were fantastic... not like I gave them a bad review lol
YouTube's compression is absolutely horrific. If you listen to the tracks (on youtube) in HD quality, it's not quite so bad though. Also, I know you weren't attacking me or my productions; if I came across as being overly defensive or offended in any way then I apologise. I appreciate that you're just trying to help improve the soundtrack by offering constructive criticism :)
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These are not bad at all :) Unlike most others, they stick to the actual game tunes. 8) There is no clipping, the quality is very good.
The bass and drums need work though. The bass is way too low and is being drowned out in most tunes. It should be a main part of the tune. Note Cosmo Canyon and the desert theme.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4AdvRE91dho
Also things like this could do with some reverb on main instruments. The main instrument for this one cuts out too abruptly.. it should be tailing off, not stopping dead.
All in all though, a really good effort.
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Would you upload a OST style version (all tracks, length)?
Also One-Winged Angel sounds bad, use the original vocals.
Edit: Didn't want to be a jerk, I was in a hurry.
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You mean like the versions I've put on youtube? Yeah, I could do that at some point. In the meantime, you could get the tracks off youtube using a youtube-mp3 converter.
Also, One-Winged Angel doesn't sound "bad", just "different". The original choir used had only 2 sopranos, 2 altos, 2 tenors and 2 basses, which is very small. This new version has a much bigger sound for the choirs because of the larger size. Actually, the original choir is the one that sounds "bad" (when you listen to the choir on its own, you'll know what I mean!). I know the one I've put in the track isn't perfect, but that's the best I can get it without hiring a full choir to come and perform it while I record them, lol. I thought it sounded weird at first while I was working on it and nearly ended up using the original choir, but eventually the new one grew on me after I got used to the different sound it had. Besides, the original choir really did sound terrible alongside the rest of the instruments in it. The original version got away with it because the entire thing was midi/synth rather than real instruments, so the choir sound fit in well.
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The point is, I don't understand a word of the chorus in your version. I also think the instruments are a bit quieter in the original version.
I personaly prefer the Horror remix: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xL1HS9CmpHg (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xL1HS9CmpHg)
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Thanks for the link. Never heard that version before; it's pretty good :)
Yes, the instruments are quieter in the original version, but I didn't want the choir to drown out the orchestra in my version (which happens because of the much bigger choir sound. The original choir wouldn't drown it out because the sound is too thin due to the smaller number of singers). To each his own though, I guess. I'm not going to get upset if no one likes my version, or prefers versions using the original choir, or whatever. I ended up with something I'm happy with (even though I can't get the choir perfect - technical limitations and such) so that's all that really matters to me :P
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You mean like the versions I've put on youtube? Yeah, I could do that at some point. In the meantime, you could get the tracks off youtube using a youtube-mp3 converter.
Also, One-Winged Angel doesn't sound "bad", just "different". The original choir used had only 2 sopranos, 2 altos, 2 tenors and 2 basses, which is very small. This new version has a much bigger sound for the choirs because of the larger size. Actually, the original choir is the one that sounds "bad" (when you listen to the choir on its own, you'll know what I mean!). I know the one I've put in the track isn't perfect, but that's the best I can get it without hiring a full choir to come and perform it while I record them, lol. I thought it sounded weird at first while I was working on it and nearly ended up using the original choir, but eventually the new one grew on me after I got used to the different sound it had. Besides, the original choir really did sound terrible alongside the rest of the instruments in it. The original version got away with it because the entire thing was midi/synth rather than real instruments, so the choir sound fit in well.
Sorry but I meant the original PSX choir. You can extract it from the 3rd disc/iso with PSound (http://www.romhacking.net/utilities/679/).
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Sorry but I meant the original PSX choir. You can extract it from the 3rd disc/iso with PSound (http://www.romhacking.net/utilities/679/).
I know what you meant; I was referring to the PSX choir in my post :)
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Well I think it definitely sounds better than your synthesized version, though...
Anyway, you've done a great job!
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Well, I take back what I said about the original choir sound, that's for sure! I revisited that track today and tried it once again with the original choir and it sounds fine. I'm not sure if it was something I did before (in terms of EQ/Effects/etc) which made it sound bad or if it's just because I'm listening to it with fresh ears. Regardless, I'll put up a link for a version of the track with the original choir instead of the virtual choir I used :) I also mixed them louder than the other instruments, to address Kaldarasha's concerns. Hope you all like this new version.
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Now is magnificent.
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I agree with DLPB, the bass are clearly too low in canyon.agg.
Normally it is a really important part of the tune, but we can't even hear them during some parts of the song.
Do you think you could correct this?
Except from this this is quite magnificent work!
Thanks a lot!
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I agree with DLPB, the bass are clearly too low in canyon.agg.
Normally it is a really important part of the tune, but we can't even hear them during some parts of the song.
Do you think you could correct this?
Except from this this is quite magnificent work!
Thanks a lot!
I've uploaded a version with a louder bass part. The link is in the first post :)
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That's better. But now I think there is clipping going on. Anyone else? I'd also make the drums more dominant.
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That's definitely better!
I would just turn up the bass volume a little bit more so that we can still hear the secondary theme clearly while the main theme is on. Now we hear it (that wasn't the case before) but it is still a little to faint for me.
Nevertheless, it is still a lot better thant before!
Thanks for the work Captain Epic!
As for the clipping I really can't tell. DLPB, can you point the tima in the song where you hear clipping?
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I think what everyone is trying to get at but nobody has hit on the head is the violent volume fluctuations. Not so much clipping since the bumps are not distorted, just out of place. There is a sudden jump in volume for apparently no reason. Its like really obvious in bat and I haven't listened to them all yet but they all seem to be doing it so far, some not as badly though. Whole sections of the song seem to be "sinking" in volume until they randomly POP up loud again. Doesn't make sense and ruins the dynamic, however all else sounds really amazing and I am sure it is a rather easy fix. I am by no means a "professional" but I have played music for 13 years and have mixed my fair share of tracks and am confident in my analysis. Other than that, bravo man this is the best mix by far, I perfer this above ALL the others but I am a symphonic NUT so I am pretty bias.
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I think what everyone is trying to get at but nobody has hit on the head is the violent volume fluctuations. Not so much clipping since the bumps are not distorted, just out of place. There is a sudden jump in volume for apparently no reason. Its like really obvious in bat and I haven't listened to them all yet but they all seem to be doing it so far, some not as badly though. Whole sections of the song seem to be "sinking" in volume until they randomly POP up loud again. Doesn't make sense and ruins the dynamic, however all else sounds really amazing and I am sure it is a rather easy fix. I am by no means a "professional" but I have played music for 13 years and have mixed my fair share of tracks and am confident in my analysis. Other than that, bravo man this is the best mix by far, I perfer this above ALL the others but I am a symphonic NUT so I am pretty bias.
That's very weird; I'm not having any problems with volume fluctuations when I listen back to them. In fact I actually put a bit of compression on the tracks during mastering specifically so there would be less drastic dynamic fluctuations. Could it be something to do with your media player?
Glad you like them. I had a feeling fellow "symphonic nuts" would enjoy this soundtrack, haha
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This is something pretty special. I can only imagine how long it took to create.
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hmm maybe VLC was messing, it still won't play them correctly. I opened them up in audacity to check the waveforms and they definitely look okay. The weird volume issue I was having seemed to just disappear in audacity. I have no idea why it was happening in VLC but its gone now. Sorry for the false positive. Good work.
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This sounds really great. I think I'll use them from now on. Unfortunately the second disc seems to be broken. I get a CRC error trying to decompress parade.ogg.
As for the movies, fortunately the PSX version has separate SFX and music for both the openning and the ending so they could be combined with your work for a more faithful result.
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This sounds really great. I think I'll use them from now on. Unfortunately the second disc seems to be broken. I get a CRC error trying to decompress parade.ogg.
As for the movies, fortunately the PSX version has separate SFX and music for both the openning and the ending so they could be combined with your work for a more faithful result.
Have you tried re-downloading the second disc? Sometimes that solves the problem. If that doesn't help, I'll re-upload!
I didn't realise the PSX version had them seperate! That's great news. I'll have to look into that :)
EDIT: Just an update - I've re-uploaded discs 1, 2 and 4 with all the fixed ogg files inside. I have also made changes to a couple of tracks - I lowered the volume of the snare in the battle music and I have made more changes to the cosmo canyon theme, with the bass and drums more prominent throughout.
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Oh, it seems it was 7Zip misshandling multipart rars. It worked when I extracted the whole disc.
Thanks Captain Epic.
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This new version of cosmo canyon is just perfect!!
Your work as a whole is just magnificet!
Thanks a lot for the share!
I think I am in love with the symphonic version. I can't play with another version anymore.
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Oh, it seems it was 7Zip misshandling multipart rars. It worked when I extracted the whole disc.
Thanks Captain Epic.
This is normal for multi-part RARs. The file was probably split between the parts.
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Wutai sounds so amazing.
I rove you rong time for this ;D
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Captain Eric, Once it's released do you intend to redo the retranslated FMV's for Reunion?
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This project is great! Thanks for all your work.
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Hope this isn't too much of a necropost, but were corruption issues in the files ever fixed? My disc 2 1 and 2 are messed up. Ill keep working on opening them
Edit: it looks like redownloading is doing the trick, sorry for the useless post!!
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I'll admit I was skeptical as soon as I opened the thread. Then I listened to a few tracks. Then a few more. Then listened to "Those Chosen by the Planet"....
I got chills. That 'heartbeat' sound.... good lord it sounded awesome. And this is on my crappy speakers, I'm jacked to hear that on a good setup. Still not entirely sure if I want to use these tracks in-game, but it's some damn fine work.
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I've been listening to the orchestra tracks on YouTube for quite some time now. Only just now getting around to augmenting my FF7 PC with it. Thank you very much for your hard work and effort. I appreciate it immensely and you have greatly improved my enjoyment of the game as well as given me a lot of good music for my MP3 player.
However, the part 2 of Disc 4 in the links above does not work. I would also greatly appreciate it if that could be fixed since, as I understand it, I can't just rip them from YouTube because they need to be looped.
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I uploaded all the tracks on mega for preservation sake in case mediafire goes down and if anyone prefers to just use mega and download all in one link which is easier/no mediafire popup ads.
https://mega.nz/#!2BNV1abT!sc12XnkmoMYz85VXmTLt73JEogTiEJ1RwtuFQjIyRdY (https://mega.nz/#!2BNV1abT!sc12XnkmoMYz85VXmTLt73JEogTiEJ1RwtuFQjIyRdY)
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Just ot mention that Captain Epic has uploaded remasters for both FF8 and FF9 as well: https://www.youtube.com/user/symphonicremasters