[Album] FINAL FANTASY XII Original Soundtrack (SVWC-7351~54)

I'm almost done listening to the soundtrack and I have to say, I really have only been looking forward to the non-Sakimoto works. It's not that I don't thoroughly enjoy his pieces, it's just that many of them have the same motivic elements that I've heard in other games like FF Tactics and let me tell you, it's getting old. Sakimoto has some good ideas in his thematic development, but they're the same ideas that they were 5 years ago. And this is speaking from a seasoned videogame music veteran and composer.
It's not that I don't really enjoy this soundtrack regardless. I would still highly recommend it to anyone. It's just that in many of the tracks, it's like I've already heard the music before! Get some new ideas Sakimoto, and for the love of all that is holy, some new string synths for the fast runs. Ew.

Edit: Now that I've finished the soundtrack, I was delighted to find that the final 6 tracks of the 4th disc are worth the purchase of the album alone. It's like a non-stop joyride that you don't want to get off of once you reach those final 6 tracks . There are other tracks that are notable throughout the soundtrack, but other people have made mention of them already. Overall, very highly recommended! (but I still stand by my Sakimoto comments!)

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Originally Posted by Tappy

~ The synth instrumentation on the FFXII sounds spectacular to my ears and all the whining about this subject by some people here really irritates me.
This is videogame music.....just listen to moviescore's or other "live" compositions if you want to hear "real" instruments!

I completely disagree here, if only because his writing lends so naturally to real instruments. If you're going to write for synth, you don't write things that sound bad on synth! As stated before, there are quite a few tracks that are adversely affected by poor synth quality, and this could be avoided if Sakimoto had the synth limitations in mind while writing. Now, I imagine he wasn't the sound engineer on the project, and that he had quite a few other people programming the music into the game after he wrote it, so some quality is lost in that process. But still, throwing out a final product that has sudden random dynamic punches and unsynchronized instruments is just dissapointing (and unappealing to the ear!).

There's nowhere I can't reach.

You guys... the string sounds in this soundtrack are of a fairly low quality IMO. The only good sounds come from the lower strings, and even those aren't that great... the high strings are painfully bad! And the oboes/clarinets are tinny-sounding... you can get better sounds from Reason! I don't know why people are so amazed at the synths.

Edit: However the BRASS and PERCUSSION are excellent! Probably the best sounds I've heard in a long time. It's too bad that the more important string and woodwind sounds are... lacking in every aspect.

Edit #2: In case you would like a comparison between the FFXII synths and MODERN-day synths (in other words, what SHOULD be used in such a high-profile game as Final Fantasy), I have uploaded a sample song from the Vienna Symphonic Library. Click here to get the file.
So, why didn't Sakimoto use these sounds? They're readily available (I have access to them and I'm a lowly college student). Thoughts?

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Originally Posted by Cobalt Katze

So, anyways, I think the debate over synth quality is silly. (Especially because they're not synths anymore, despite all the technical talk about synth operators.) As Piccolo said, what we should really be discussing is the music

You do have a point there. I was unaware that all of the work was up to Sakimoto! Given the time constraints and the sheer enormity of the task, he did an excellent job putting it all together. I was actually thinking he used those synths because it would give it more of a "Tactics" feeling, but that explains it. I guess it just makes the idea of a "symphonic" recorded album more appealing anyways!
I believe the reason we're discussing the "synth" sounds (it's easier to refer to them as synths, although we could say "samples"), was because that was the ONLY detriment to Sakimoto's music. Absolutely wonderful soundtrack except for that. Unfortunately, it's a big detriment because it is the way the music is protrayed to us. I've heard it said that 50% of the music comes from the performance (something I tend to agree with somewhat), and here it's lacking.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

I said it before but I'll say it again, I'm really enjoying this soundtrack . Sakimoto's orchestration is dense enough that after 4-5 playthroughs, you still notice things you missed the first time. And that is something that really contributes to the overall experience, because while you're playing the game you're gonna hear this music repeated several times anyways. I enjoy this technique; some composers (like the ones who contributed to the FFXI soundtrack) make tracks very long and drawn-out in order to avoid repetition. But in this case, the tracks usually repeat at around the 1:30 mark, making a whole lot of motivic ideas and developments occur during that short amount of time. I think this is why many people are turned off at first to his music, because they simply cannot understand the millions of things going on in that short amount of time. It's really a treat figuring out how all of his music works together and still finding new things in his music after so many playthroughs.
To sum it up, great soundtrack, amazing orchestrational technique (and counterpoint!), and you really need to listen to it at least 5 times in order to truly understand it.

I was speaking idiomatically.