I spoke with a professional soundtrack composer recently, and he gave me some advice. He had said to take a piece of music, and try and replicate that music, to as close to the production of the original. I don't have time to do what I really want to do until I finish my honours degree in May, so I took an hour and a bit out today to transcribe, arrange and emulate the sound textures of this particular final fantasy 8 battle theme. It's not exactly like the original, but I gave it a go, and for a first try doing this in a while I did alright. Anyway, thought I'd let you guys hear it.


http://www.youtube.com/user/HyperDuckMusic?feature=mhw5


I recommend viewing it on the main page of hyperduck since the 480p function (HQ) is not appearing on the solo video (with the comments sheet), for some reason.. I hope I don't have to re-upload it, because.. that'd mean doing stuff.. and it's St. Paddy's Day so I AM DONE! AHOY GUINNESS!

rad, this ff8 battle theme is one of my very favorite versions of the theme across all the games' soundtracks.  you did a great job with the replication :)  pretty faithful.  i'd love to see what could whip up if you had the time you mention.  (i'd also love to hear what you could conjure once you're all guinness-filled :P ).

thanks for sharing!

Not bad, not bad at all.  I know the original tune very well, so it was cool to hear your variation on it (even if the goal was to replicate as close to the source as possible).  I'm quite impressed with your mix, given the short production time.  Can't wait to hear some of your original work in future projects ^_^.

A bit off topic, but when it comes to the Final Fantasy VIII soundtrack, nothing beats The Man With The Machine Gun for a battle track.  I bet I hear that song at least once every day on my playlist (I listen to VGM's and VGM remixes all day while at work).

Also, while on the subject of Final Fantasy music, Final Fantasy XIV (14) - Battle Theme (Beneath Bloody Borders) sounds awesome.

EDIT:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JycNUX78pBI&fmt=18

Just a little Youtube trick, appending &fmt=18 at the end of a link will usually pop it in 480p (HQ) mode.  Another option is &fmt=22, which I think throws it into HD mode (if available).

~Brandon

Yeah, with more time, I could develop an identical sound to that original one. I just haven't got that time yet :D I will though, It's good practice, as I said. MWTMG is an amazingggg track, I love it muchly, however I enjoy Black Mages version a lot more. FF7 and FF8 pull out some of the cream from Nobuo's composing material. Though there is parts of FF5 I love as well. And of course Mystic Quest is brilliant.

Not to sound cocky, but that FFXIV track is easier to replicate than the FF8, namely because of the ease of achieving that sound palette, reason being it's a sound palette I've been working on for a long time. I might do that at some point, actually, my favourite Battle theme at the moment is the one from FFXIII (Blind by Light) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xk6e8al-mHQ&feature=related to get the sound of the strings in the main melody of that in that style, would be incredible for me. Maybe at some point.

I was actually working from a raw midi sound that had been turned into an .mp3 ..had they have left it midi, this probably would have been up within minutes hehe. So that basically meant I wasn't really listening to the original samplings with the slight delay that's on the original tracks etc. When doing the sounds for that Battle Theme I should have really grabbed that youtube version and worked in comparison with that.

You can hear plenty of our original work on the website, we're quite a varied composing team, but we'll be releasing OSTs throughout the year and onwards into 2011. Shall be brilliant!

oh yes something does beat that one - the "maybe i'm a lion" track.
it's my very favorite ff battle theme ever :)


i agree!  i'm sure you already know this, but uematsu didn't even have anything to do with that one.  the chief composer is also responsible for the score of a japanese-only snes release that i've never even seen, but loooooove the score for:  rudra no hihou.  'tis packed with amazing tracks.

Oh yeah I knew, but it's great you know bout that too actually :D Glad to see the involved interest shared!

You know something, when I posted this, I was on a lot of guinness and I mighta referred to the FF8 tune as a SNES tune lol, so sorry, St.Paddy's Day drunkness made my brain go offline.