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

Veq:
I agree wholeheartedly. The music just doesn't strike me like previous FF OSTs. Umatsue's themes always stick, and further Hamauzu's brilliant work in FFX really made the serie's music come to life. I really enjoyed just about every track that Hamauzu wrote in FFX. I am sad to see that he hasn't returned in FF12. I'm not saying FF12's music is bad, it just isn't that great. Don't get me wrong, SOME of the tracks are good. But thats just some though and as entire work the OST failes where FFxs succeeded. It works in the game, it works ok for listening, but like most movie soundtracks (not saying that it is one, I am contrasting between the two genres) today, it just doesn't strike me as being interesting enough to be memorable.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

For me its not the memorable melodies that get me, though I do like a nice melody, it does not define greatness in a soundtrack. Rather it is interesting texture and interesting tonalities/instrumentation. All of which I do not think is present in FF12. The writing is very good, but I think it's too safe and too stock. I really like Hamauzu's writing because of these "textures". In FFX he stepped out of the FF norm as far as sounds go, but somehow it still retained an FF feel. I really liked that. Hamauzu's work never dissapoints me just listen to Dirge of Cerberous, Brave Fencer 2, and FFX. His writing is fresh, tonally, melodically, and the sound quality is always a step above the rest. I was kind of hoping for this in FF12 however what is there will do, I was just a little miffed at the overall staticness of the general sound in the OST. The sound quality of the samples are dissapointing too, me being an orchestral musician.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

I think the opening movie track is very well done, the fact that it is done with a real orchestra doesn't hurt it either

As I listen to this OST more I find some use of real instruments or very good samples mixed in with the so-so samples, I just wish they were all that high quality.

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

You know, I really do like Sakimoto's composition however, I think the reason it sometimes does not sound that interesting is because it is being held back by synth instruments. His style of writing does not shine unless performed with a real symphony orchestra. Just listen to the track "abyss" and imagine it with real instruments, and then just think about how much the midi instruments, or synth or whatever they are using is holding the composition back. It is too intricate and requires individual performers nuance to make his writing sound "right". This is where I think Hamauzu shines in FFX, he can manipulate synth and midi and write for it so that it sounds natural.

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

Quote:

Abyss wasn't written by Sakimoto, it's by Hayato Masuto

Yea I guess you're right. I didn't check the ID3 tags Either way this soundtrack would have benefitted from more real players. There's just no substitute for it. You can take pretty much every track and find places where it sounds dull because the composition doesn't shine on synth instruments. Imagine listening to a Mahler symphony on midi. You know what I mean? This is why I really was captivated by the FF12 opening cut scene music (which was played by a live orchestra), but when the next track came up I felt compelled to press the skip button.

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Yes and it's often places where mulitple articulations sucjh as staccato combined with lagato on one instrument, or marcato and so forth that the ugliness comes out the most as this is the shortcommings of most samples, that they cannot correctly combine or even emulate these articulations acurately. In this case the strings are unable to do fast articulate lines well, they wash way too much.
I do have to admit, much of the OST is growing on me more, but I still stand on most of my initial judgement.

This is in regards to Veq's comment as I got beaten by spatula (no double meaning intended)

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?