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Final Fantasy 7 => Audio => Releases => Topic started by: NetHead on 2011-08-06 07:00:59

Title: A few small music contributions
Post by: NetHead on 2011-08-06 07:00:59
Hello from a super-long-time lurker with something to finally give back.

I recently upgraded my audio workstation to a 64-bit platform and decided I needed some real-ish projects to test stability and find its quirks. I started out with "Interrupted by Fireworks," and people seemed to like it, so I decided to do a few more.

(If someone else would like to make use of this mockups, I would be more than happy to help you adapt this for your project, e.g. create stems/help with looping/give you the project files.)

Click here for the downloads (http://bryanbilocura.com/ff7).
Available songs:

Please note that I probably will not do the entire soundtrack due to the amount of material and the fact that I'm making these mockups all from scratch.
Title: Re: Two music contributions: "Interrupted by Fireworks" and "Buried in the Snow"
Post by: Covarr on 2011-08-06 17:19:53
Wow, this is some really impressive stuff. Makes remarkable use of stereo sound, something that many other songs either overdo to the point of distraction or lack completely. I especially like your Buried in the Snow, it's easily the best version of this song I've heard.

As far as music projects, the main ones worth noting are:

titeguy3's Remix patch (http://forums.qhimm.com/index.php?topic=8915.0) also includes FF7Music and replaced songs, but I'm not really sure if it counts because the project as a whole is more about replacing EVERYTHING HE COULD THINK OF and installing a million mods, not just music. Also, the music included is finalfantim's stuff, and some stuff from ocremix, so it's not really offering a whole lot new in that regard either.
Title: Re: Two music contributions: "Interrupted by Fireworks" and "Buried in the Snow"
Post by: NetHead on 2011-08-06 23:28:09
Cool, thanks for the compliments and for taking the time to bring me up-to-speed on things. I've created looping versions of the above two songs that work in Winamp with the vgmstreaming plugin.

Unfortunately, I can't install FF7Music because I don't have FF7 PC, so I have one more question before I upload these: Should I give the files an .ogg or .logg extension? In Winamp, only .loggs are handled by vgmstreaming and loop properly. Will the file extension throw off FF7Music?
Title: Re: Two music contributions: "Interrupted by Fireworks" and "Buried in the Snow"
Post by: Vegadawg2 on 2011-08-07 00:07:40
I'm also a long time luker and I want to say that these couple tracks are amazing!  If you do the full soundtrack I would use it in the game hands down.  Keep up the good work man!
Title: Re: Two music contributions: "Interrupted by Fireworks" and "Buried in the Snow"
Post by: Vgr on 2011-08-07 01:31:58
^ Agreed

And any extension handled by Winamp is by FF7Music.

Less-than-30-seconds-edit : Let me loop these, if you want :)
Title: Re: Two music contributions: "Interrupted by Fireworks" and "Buried in the Snow"
Post by: Auraplatonic on 2011-08-07 01:35:57
Buried in the Snow is one of my favorite FF7 tracks.  You have done well on that so I have confident in anything else you may come out with as well   :D
Title: Re: Two music contributions: "Interrupted by Fireworks" and "Buried in the Snow"
Post by: Covarr on 2011-08-07 02:16:06
.ogg is recommended. When using FF7Music, unless you feed it a normal OGG plugin also, it'll have no choice but to open OGGs with vgmstream, so they'll loop anyway. But this way, they WON'T loop in winamp or other normal music players.
Title: Re: Two music contributions: "Interrupted by Fireworks" and "Buried in the Snow"
Post by: Timber on 2011-08-07 08:45:52
Very nice work NetHead, would definitely love to hear this project :)
Title: Re: Two music contributions: "Interrupted by Fireworks" and "Buried in the Snow"
Post by: NetHead on 2011-08-07 09:46:47
I've uploaded the loopable OGGs of these two songs for use with FF7Music. Again, I don't have a copy of FF7PC to test with, so let me know if there are any problems. They seem to work okay with Winamp + vgmstreaming.

I don't think that I can dedicate myself to do the whole soundtrack, mainly because of the workload involved. A lot of the other remasters will use the original MIDIs as a foundation (because it saves a load of time). However, these two renditions were recreated from scratch, using the originals for reference only. I played all the parts myself via a MIDI keyboard, paying extreme attention to musicality, and I took some liberties in tweaking things to better fit conventions for a real-life orchestra.

For example, in "Buried in the Snow," the original string parts are labeled as simply STR1, STR2, and STR3 and set to the generic String Ensemble MIDI patch. These were tweaked to better fit a real-life string texture: 1st Violin, 2nd Violin, Viola, Cello, and Bass. I also paid attention to such things as note durations when the string players would likely change bow directions, giving the wind players time to breathe, and note decay lengths for the celeste (bells).

That being said, any requests for a next attempt?
Title: Re: A few small music contributions
Post by: NetHead on 2011-08-14 19:55:45
I've now finished a version of The Nightmare's Beginning. MP3s and loopable OGGs are available  at the usual place (http://bryanbilocura.com/ff7), and you can check out the YouTube video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1CbS_DqGfc8) as well (one of my real-life friends requested I make one, haha).
Title: Re: A few small music contributions
Post by: pyrozen on 2011-08-14 20:02:30
sounds fantastic! the guitar in nightmare begins sounds totally realistic, just listening to like that made it piece of cake to pick up my guitar and pluck the song out. I hope you continue putting these out.

lee
Title: Re: A few small music contributions
Post by: Prince Lex on 2011-08-15 00:14:12
From those three tracks I can honestly say that these are the versions I would use in-game. The sounds really deliver the tracks in a way that is believably orchestrated - it's not remixed, it's updated. This is what I've always wanted to play through the game with, it's just a shame you can't redo the full soundtrack!

Amazing work.
Title: Re: A few small music contributions
Post by: BloodShot on 2011-08-24 05:46:44
Woah, these are pretty awesome. It's nice to hear ones that don't actually sound like they are instrument samples for once :)
Title: Re: A few small music contributions
Post by: NetHead on 2011-12-30 15:39:24
Got another one for you all. This time it's none other than the almighty "Staff Roll" music. Four months in the making, I hope you all enjoy. I did take a bit more liberty with this to fatten up the orchestration a bit and hide the deficiencies in my sample libraries and synthing skills.


Still have to do a bit of trimming for something that can be used in-game. I think the OST version is 6:51--mine is at 6:56 currently.
Title: Re: A few small music contributions
Post by: cirellio on 2012-08-26 03:14:07
Sorry to necropost, but these are ABSOLUTELY FANTASTIC. Do you have any plans to trim the credit roll and create an ogg?
(There's also a slight delay on just one note in Interrupted by Fireworks which could be attributed to style). Anyway, these are the best renditions of these songs I've ever heard.
Title: Re: A few small music contributions
Post by: NetHead on 2012-08-26 05:04:08
Done. Check the Loopable OGGs folder (clear your browser cache if it doesn't appear).

Did a light amount of dynamics destruction to get it closer in loudness to the rest, and shortened the amount of silence before the FF theme to get the track length to 6:51.53. These changes apply only to the .ogg.
Title: Re: A few small music contributions
Post by: cirellio on 2012-08-26 12:25:50
/swoon
Thank you!!!  ;D