Hi.  I noticed that they are coming out with a two disc FF IV remastered version.  Does anybody have more info about this, or what remastered means in relation to the OST?

Do you think they are going to do what Hiroki Kikuta did with the release of the updated Secret of Mana?

Cheers,

David

SQEX

On the Amazon page there is a mention of looping. So probably they apply "remastering" (read: brickwall the hell out of the sound) and increase the amount of looping.

What the heck does "brickwall the hell out of the sound" mean?  I don't read japanese so I'm assuming more looping refers to how many times the track plays before fading out.

Cheers,

David

See Loudness war.

General loss of dynamics and making the music less enjoyable and more fatiguing to listen to, in exchange for a louder volume.

Most "remastered" albums do this to the originals, I tend to believe this one will do similar. Which is sad, considering all they need to do is reprint the FFIV music with loops and considering how good most SNES soundtracks already sound on CD.

Sounds serious. Let's boycott Square Enix for re-issuing an out-of-print soundtrack with bonuses.

Hmm, who's trolling now? Or trying to, anyway? I don't see anything about boycotting Square Enix.

Go back and re-read. If they brickwall it, the release is pointless. If they don't screw up the near-perfect audio from the first release and simply add loops and some extras, I'd probably bite. But brickwalling or even applying unnecessary loudness are serious problems at the moment.

Also, yes, I saw this too...

http://www.destructoid.com/final-fantas … 2586.phtml

Indeed, it is. If you call yourself "Music Editor", you should understand at least that much.

Just because SQEX puts some bonuses to it, doesn't make it the "definitive versions to get". There is this bit about sound in soundtrack. Some people seem to forget about this bit. And it's actually important, because some of us are still listening to music, and not just masturbating about having "ultimate form" of soundtrack #57124 sitting on our shelf.

As a fan of quality, I'd much rather have the original, authentic, versions of the soundtrack on the old prints than anything "remastered". Taking the original music and manipulating it, or changing it, or cranking up the decibel level to make it sound "better" does not make the old music inferior, or less than "ultimate form", or whatever buzzwords you want to put in your headlines to get more hits. Part of the charm and allure of SNES music is that it sounds like it comes from the SNES; start screwing with instrument levels, or re-sampling, or adjusting for clarity, and you have something different, not something "definitive". Further:

Dude, come on. We all know this album will not have any original sound versions. It will have remastered, and therefore unoriginal, sound versions. If you're bummed about this, you can always listen to the original prints.

What's amazing to me about this thread is how two completely non-confrontational, non-SquareEnix specific comments about brickwalling and the loudness war were made, and were rebutted by this:

As an "industry insider", it's pretty clear where your interests lie.

And you guys are basing this all off of what? You haven't even heard it yet. Sounds like a lot of fuss about nothing until we actually hear it, and even then, was the dynamic range of the FFIV soundtrack really so impressive that this is something to worry about?

And yes, it's frustrating that a re-issue of an out-of-print soundtrack with additional loops (much needed) and unreleased tracks (hopefully not the FFIV Minimum Album stuff) is being written off based on speculation about what it's going to sound like. Sounds like bitching and moaning for the sake of bitching and moaning.

I guess being honestly excited about this makes me an evil "industry insider?" I don't know, I'd rather go through life being an optimistic "insider" than wasting my energy being angry and negative about things that may or may not even be the case.

Edit:

These were made in response to somebody looking for more information about the album, and the responses are, I believe, unnecessarily negative given what we know, and would probably taint my view of the product if I didn't already know I want this album.

If this were just a chat about the album, then whatever (everyone's entitled to their opinion), but when somebody is looking for information, I don't see the point in painting a negative picture when we really have no idea what it's going to look like.

It was supposed to be clear that my interests lie in increased access to a soundtrack that belongs in everyone's collection. I guess it wasn't all that clear, so I've spelled it out for you.

Great spin there. The phrases "probably", "assuming" and "I tend to believe" don't seem to be queues that we're "bitching and moaning for the sake of bitching and moaning". It sounds like conversation and speculation between fans to me.

That's basically what this thread was. The album may not even be touched sonically, who knows? Nowhere did anyone confirm it was going to be brickwalled; it was just speculation and discussion, as "remastering" tends to mean brickwalling, not just in VGM albums but all across the board.

Actually, yes, it is. The nuances of an album like that can easily be lost or distorted (even extremely mildly) from an improper "remaster". Someone like GX is much more well-versed in this, but there's often loss of detail in exchange for loudness and decibel level in situations like this.

Point taken.

Actually his comment about DR shows that he doesn't understand what he's talking about. If the DR is low to begin with, it's even more important to not further compress it. You can always DRC / limit the signal if you want to, the reverse process is not possible if the damage is already done.

Yeah, Liquid's the expert on the subject. I just tend to go by a combination of Wavgain measurements, foobar DR measurements and my own hearing. To my ears, FFIV's original release is one of the best sounding albums I own and the same goes for the majority of 16 bit Square releases. There is nothing on those albums that needs any type of altering, remastering, retouching, normalizing, whatever. What we can definitely use are loops, but what is the point if they somehow botch the music part?

Arcubalis/Jayson, look man, I told you years ago you sound like a walking PR machine. You still sound like one and you are confusing valid concerns and discussion about an upcoming release with excessive negativity and trolling. I really want to be happy to have VGM coverage on a mainstream site, but that just kills your credibility to me.

Yes, my initial post in the Jeremy Soule thread was a legitimate troll. I also loathe the man's music (not to mention that general direction for VGM and his own outlook on the industry) and I feel like I'm entitled to take a dig at the man every once in a awhile. You know this, we've gone back and forth on it in the past. No need to "return" and act surprised.

This is an entirely different story. FFIV is one of my favorite soundtracks. Remasters though, 99% of the time, are garbage. I cannot think of one that actually improved the original material. The FFIV soundtrack does not need any type of remastering and the last thing VGM needs is for publishers to start going back and remastering their back catalogues with louder volumes so the iPod generation doesn't have to spin the wheel a few times to increase their volume going through their craptastic $3 earbuds.

The poster did not know what brickwalling meant, so Liquid and I clarified it for him. If you want to talk negativity, how about randomly popping into a thread, grabbing two random quotes from us and plopping down, "Sounds serious. Let's boycott Square Enix for re-issuing an out-of-print soundtrack with bonuses" in a sarcastic, passive-aggressive tone? I mean, I see your Destructoid post and your enthusiasm for the release, but I'm not seeing it in your post here. Congratulations on accomplishing nothing.

You're not dealing with casual newbs here like you probably are on Destructoid. You're dealing with knowledgeable longtime hobbyists here and not everything is all smiley faces and strawberries. I agree, everyone should own FFIV's soundtrack and not having looped tracks on the current release sucks. But there is a very real chance they're going to botch this (especially if they are emphasizing the remastering) and there is no way I'd ever recommend a flawed product.

Hi.  Thanks for the clarification about brick walling and the article on loudness wars.  I've actually noticed some of this in the remasterings of some of my classical music when compared with earlier albums, but didn't know what to put it down as.  Since I don't own the album and there seems to be a lot of speculation I've taken the chance and ordered the album.  I think it will be worth it for the extra loops alone (especially for my favourite song: Into the Darkness).

I hope that we can continue the discussion in this thread as new information is released.

Again, thank you for all the help.

Sincerely,

David

Loudness war is a malus.

Has Square Enix botched any of their earlier re-releases which seem to have been remastered a bit, like Vagrant Story or Valkyrie Profile (can't remember if that one was actually remastered or not). Same with other VGM-albums, has there been any botchings on remastering parts?

There were threads about the Vagrant Story and VP a while ago; one person's detail on the VS reprint get detailed here. Stephen said "I can't hear a discernable difference in the music. The music seems clearer and louder in the new one, but the instruments haven't changed." about the VP reprint.

A lot of people did not like the VS remaster, but I'm not familiar with the score. And I have the original VP, so I never bothered with the reissue. The Rockman E-can pales in comparison to the 3 CD boxset that was released earlier, I can tell you that. The arranged tracks got absolutely murdered.

Remasters are quite rare in VGM, but are common in mainstream music and usually they just amount to increasing the loudness (although in some cases, entire parts are redone). The Iron Maiden and Megadeth reissues on the market now are considered to be terrible compared to the originals, unfortunately they are the main releases for those groups at the moment.

Another example of bad "remastering", although in the domain of anime soundtrack, is the US branch of Geneon Entertainment, which usually doesn't just re-issue the albums for the US market, but also feels like they have to change the sound. See discussion on VGMdb for reference. IIRC someone also posted waveform images there, illustrated compression and clipping.

Damn, seems that I need to get some lossless copies of both original and E-can versions of those arranged tracks to see if I need to even buy the can in some distant future. But then, when I own already majority of the can's music, buying it would be probably be useless.

Yeah, on metal side they've seemed to f--- things up, but for instance Queen's remastering has apparently been pretty good. Perhaps bit louder than old ones, but clearer also in my ears. I kinda wish Metallica would remaster their Death Magnetic to quieter a bit :P

Well, that should be "was the US branch", as Geneon US has been dead for some time. And I wonder how much of that was US side f---ing things up or japanese side dictating things.

But baack to topic, I do hope that the sound quality will be stellar and not Death Magnetic-bad. Really can't wait for this and V / VI versions.

i just want the damn thing... is that ok? =p

http://www.siliconera.com/2013/05/24/de … -august-7/

The FFV Remaster OST release date has been announced.

I was wondering if the remastered soundtrack is going to be from the FF IV complete collections for psp, or if it will be just the snes score?

Any thoughts on this, or news to prove or disprove this idea?

Cheers,

David

My suspicion is that the remaster would cover only the Super Famicom version, so any additional music written for PSP version (including After Years) are unlikely to be on this disc.

I would imagine this version of FFIV would be based on the SNES/SFC version. I'm very surprised that there are no sample cuts released. Of course, we all know what it sounds like, but time will tell since the release date is a month off.

It's this exact reason why I didn't get that Rockman 25th Remastered Anniversary Version Turbo or whatever they were calling it a few months back (I think GoldfishX mentioned it earlier). I'm sorry, but I heard the Metal Man OST resample on their site and was like "I'm out".

http://vgmdb.net/forums/showthread.php?t=9834

Yeah, there's discussion on vgmdb about the E-can. I did get my hands on some mp3 samples and they really blew up the volume on the arranged tracks. Not what I wanted to see, although I haven't made any attempt to listen to anything else on it.

The more I hear the original Rockman 1-6 boxset, the more I like those recordings of it. Very warm and energetic. Just sounds perfect for NES music, which can sound harsh and very unpleasant when it's not recorded right.

I am rather curious about the content of this remastered edition. I know from the rough Google Translation of the CD Japan website, it will have the songs looped twice, however, there are only 16 tracks listed. Are these simply the highlights, or is the second disc just those songs looped twice? I would be extremely disappointed if it happens to be the latter.

Also, any idea on the bonus tracks? I imagine it would be the tracks off the "Minimum Album" but would be surprised if there are others. Even if new and "Minimum Album" tracks are on the reissue, I would like to know which scenes the tracks were composed for. I always imagined Uematsu composed "Sea of Silence" for the scene where Cecil wakes up after the Fabul ship capsized at sea. Hopefully, it will be in the linear notes.

I believe Razakin and Zane mentioning previous game music reissues in earlier posts. The only reissue I am familiar with (as far as game music) is the DS version of Chrono Trigger. I admit, too, I have not lived with these tunes as long as Final Fantasy IV, as I only played Chrono Trigger back in 2008 for the Nintendo DS.

For the most part, most of the tracks are louder than the original issue, and I can definitely agree some of these tracks are "brickwalled," as Liquid Acid remarked in an earlier post. Tracks such as the original "Chrono Trigger" and "Courage and Pride" are rather shrill compared to the original versions. It may very well be me, but the mainline synths are overpowering the rest of the instruments in these tracks. In those cases, it leads me to believe the individual synth tracks were tweaked, whereas something like "Frog's Theme" are simply louder, with none of the individual instrument tracks tweaked.

Also, while the original tracks from the game are louder in the DS reissue, the arranged versions of "Chrono Trigger," "Frog's Theme" and "Ayla's Theme" are not as loud as the rest of the album. In fact, those tracks possess a nice, expansive sound without the overpowering volume.

Now, I'm a little more familiar with Fleetwood Mac's "Rumours," than Chrono Trigger, to the point where I can tell the differences in the original 1987 CD pressing to the remastered pressings in 2004 and 2013. I feel I am more familiar with the Final Fantasy IV soundtrack more than I am with "Rumours," so I am both excited and nervous to hear the new version, as I think I can pinpoint any differences in the reissue.

The product page on the Japanese Square Enix store strongly implies that it's the original SNES version remastered.  It also mentions including the tracks from the singles as well as music that has never been released on soundtrack CD.  Not sure if we'll find out much more than that until the release of the album.

They've also announced Final Fantasy VI Remaster Version.  No date yet but given the timing of the other two releases, early September looks like a good bet.

Not that the album's tracklist and a few samples are available, what do you think?

Having never heard the original press of the album I can only go by the in-game sound (SNES/PS1 port) and only a few of the samples sound off. Ex. The percussion sounds higher up in the mix on Mysidia. At least the volume is alright. But SQEX totally trolled people on the new material. I don't see anything new beyond the full OST being present

After checking out the samples I feel that there's certainly something different about the remaster versions. It sounds like there's more high-end in the mix, and the instruments don't feel as cohesive or "together" as they do on the original OSV. Just sounds a little off to me.

Wouldn't streaming samples be compressed, and thus not truly representative of the music quality from the disc? It would be interesting if we could have someone do a blind comparison of both discs, as it seems a lot of us will have a confirmation bias.

To my unrefined ears, these tracks don't sound really different at all. That said, I don't plan on getting this; my original issue (and my SPCs) serve me well.

I agree that it's best not to judge the quality of a remaster too strictly based on samples, though I don't doubt that longtime FFIV OSV fans can spot some differences already.

As someone who's neither played the game nor owned the soundtrack I'd be up for that.   Seeing as how one version's tracks loop and another's don't it'd be hard to do a truly blind test, but I certainly don't have any bias toward the original master.

I had considered doing the same thing for Secret of Mana OSV and Genesis but the fan reaction to that particular re-synth was so subdued I gave it up.

It's be simple, just cut off the samples before the first loop.

Good call. CD Japan has a release date of September 4th