A few small music contributions

[NetHead]

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.
Available songs:

• 3-06 - The Nightmare's Beginning (YouTube video with session footage)
• 3-16 - Interrupted by Fireworks
• 3-20 - Buried in the Snow
• 4-18 - Staff Roll/End Credits (YouTube video with screencaps of the project file)

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.

[Covarr]

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:

• finalfantim's remastered soundtrack. This one is complete, the entire soundtrack redone to a much higher standard than what comes with the game.
• SymphoniC's Soundtrack Project. This one is just getting started, and aims to redo the soundtrack with his own twist. The songs so far are fairly true to the originals, but more guitar heavy.
• My own FF7Music installer. This one is less of a music effort, and more about packing. The idea is to install FF7Music such that the user does not need to worry about configuration, and it just works out of the box. Right now, it includes the original PSF soundtrack and finalfantim's soundtrack, and I am willing (even hoping and asking permission) to add any other project as long as it's complete (with full credit, of course).

titeguy3's Remix patch 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.

[NetHead]

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?

[Vegadawg2]

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!

[Vgr]

^ Agreed

And any extension handled by Winamp is by FF7Music.

Less-than-30-seconds-edit : Let me loop these, if you want

[Auraplatonic]

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   

[Covarr]

.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.

[Timber]

Very nice work NetHead, would definitely love to hear this project

[NetHead]

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?

[NetHead]

I've now finished a version of The Nightmare's Beginning. MP3s and loopable OGGs are available at the usual place, and you can check out the YouTube video as well (one of my real-life friends requested I make one, haha).

[pyrozen]

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

[Prince Lex]

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.

[BloodShot]

Woah, these are pretty awesome. It's nice to hear ones that don't actually sound like they are instrument samples for once

[NetHead]

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.

• YouTube link
• MP3 Download available at the usual place

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.

[cirellio]

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.

[NetHead]

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.

[cirellio]

/swoon
Thank you!!!