just a few,

1) does anyone know who composed the music specifically for shenmue 2? i know some tracks from the first game, + music from the orchestra version, were used in part 2 - but i'm wondering about the majority of tracks you hear in the game. yuzo koshiro?

2) any one know of any good quality rips of the ambient tracks (music played while exploring yokosuka) in shenmue 1? i thought they were some of the best music, but sadly were not included in the official ost.

thanks

Shenmue and Shenmue 2 had music departments befitting the scale of the games themselves. Composers involved specifically in Shen 2 were Shinichi Goto, Fumio Ito, Ryuji Iuchi, Yuzo Koshiro, Takenobu Mitsuyoshi, Satoshi Miyashita, Osamu Murata, Masataka Nitta, Shinji Otsuki, Koji Sakurai, Megumi Takano and Takeshi Yanagawa. It's not widely known exactly how much work Koshiro contributed, but I doubt it was actually all that much.
     
Many of the more ambient location tracks from the series were likely composed by Ryuji Iuchi (their sound bears a clear resemblance to music on his solo albums). If you have any particular favourites, I can upload a few MP3s from my own recordings. If I can remember what music was used where, that is...

wow, i never imagined so many composers worked on it. thanks for the information.

it's been a while since i last played, so i'm not quite sure my self which music played at certain points.
let me see...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tl7pDxwHUCA
the piece right from the start here i really love.

thanks again.

I've uploaded a small selection of mood & location pieces from around Yamanose, Sakuragaoka and Dobuita (all heard before the game progresses to the harbour). The track you requested is the first one. The files are AAC, not MP3.

Enjoy!

http://www.veritale.com/shenambient.html

awesome! these are great. much appreciated!

Not very familiar with the Shenmue scores, but I'm pretty sure that Shenmue II reused material from Shenmue and Shenmue Orchestra Album. That's probably why Yuzo Koshiro and Hayato Matsuo are credited in the game even though their own credit lists / interviews say they didn't work on it. I'll try to ask Takenobu Mitsuyoshi about it.