http://www.gmronline.com/info.asp?CatNumber=KDSD-10017

Glad to see this one come around...Part of me was expecting it, since Atelier Iris 2 has a lot of the same style of synth rock from the first game and were prime for arranging (though I have no complaints about their original versions). Hopefully now it will be a yearly thing, since the Atelier composers have also hammered out Ar Tonelico OST and Atelier Iris: Grand Fantasm OST (my early favorite of the year thus far).

So if this album follows the same pattern as the first Atelier Iris arrange (and knowing SSH's arrangement choices and overall style, it will) we'll probably be seeing:

Shining Sword
Terrestrial
Carmaine
Mandible of the Abyss (wishful thinking)
Emperor Fangs
Marduk
Seething Fighting Spirit
The Legacy
Slasher Blue (!)
Red Lucifer Rising
Danger Zone

Glad to see Gust and SSH coming to such good terms...Hopefully other known arrangers will have similar luck with bigger companies, since (official) arranges seem to be something of a dying breed (Mintjam, meet Falcom*...Falcom, meet Mintjam...Have fun!)

Also interesting: The Black Mages 3 is supposed to come out sometime this year. Head to head rock-arrange battle? I hope so...

*feel free to alternate with Square-Enix, Capcom, Konami, Sega, etc.

Although I thought BMII and Atelier Iris Arrange were fairly average rock albums, I'm optimistically pumped for the AI2 arrange. Any news of what might be on BM3 yet?

Dunno the specifics, but I've heard more than once from sources that have Uematsu as a source he's planning on getting the album out this year. We'll see...Normally, it's been announced with just 1-2 months to wait for the release. Gives people a chance to drool over the tracklists.

Overall, I'm much more excited for the Atelier 2 one, because I'm a fan of the original music and there aren't many arrangements for the stuff (and outside of the "Phantom Wings" arrangement, the whole of "Deceitful Wings" works wonders for me...Be curious to see if they dub in live guitars again. I'd rather they just give Hiramatsu a couple tracks of his own to work on.) BM3 will need to be a standout because of all the amazing doujin FF-related albums I have (most of which I think are significantly better than either BM album).

Of course...There's always the looming threat of a Mr. Goo comeback as well. The thought of him belting out words to the tune of "Clash on the Big Bridge" has me scared for my life. Or worse: OWA.

>_> I care not for both of those. But it would be interesting to see what SSH does if he doesn't have Hiramatsu to back him up. It might not restrict him as much then.

Eh, I'd like to find out about the SSH-Hiramatsu relationship and see who asked who to do what. I'm thinking maybe SSH wanted live guitars for the main album and called in a favor. Or Hiramatsu begged and pleaded to get some action on a non-doujin project in familiar territory. Or both were PMing each other one night and the topic of Atelier's synth rock came and the two made a blood pact to badger Gust to let them create official arranged albums based on them. All seem plausible. Normally, Hiramatsu just works with the arrangers from Woodsoft (SSH is pretty much on his own normally).

I think Hiramatsu is a much more effective arranger than a guitar-dubber though. I hope he returns, but solely to do a couple of arrangements on his own. I found relatively little difference between the original arrangements and the Ver-0 ones, quality-wise.

Actually I meant that if Hiramatsu isn't there then SSH could have more of his style added in. While Hiramatsu's guitar was cool, and my favorite part, the album still crapped out. So maybe it would be better if SSH used just his style. It would actually merit play time for those who didn't like the first arrange album.

Yeah, that was kind of what I meant(your edited part nailed it on the head). Sorry if my post are very hard to understand.

Maybe, maybe not...I don't think Hiramatsu's involvement would restrict SSH to that extent. I'd be confident enough to say he can handle most anything SSH can program. I think it probably had more to do with wanting to stay closer to the originals than anything else, which is something I liked about it, since the originals worked for me to begin with.

SSH's feedback for "Huge Game Table Ver-2" (the only HUGE departure from the original) could determine how the album turns out in the end. Hell, adding the best part of the "Deceitful Wings" melody would automatically improve just about any song out there...I got a kick out of that.

I'm really hoping for a more "arranged" type of album than just taking the tracks and rockify'ing them and extending them. I thought the Ver.2 of HGT was awesome, and was my favorite cut from the first arrange. I'm not too familiar with the original source material as much from AE2 yet, but I'm sure there's just a ton of potential for the arrange album. I'm getting back on my SSH kick (just ordered Lost Child Side-Z), so I'm betting that I'll at least enjoy this album enough to give it a few spins and keep it in my collection for the occasional listen.

Is SSH the first fan-arranger to really get involved with professional and official arranged album releases? I'm trying to think of another situation where a regular Joe escalated to the level SSH is at right now, but I'm drawing a blank.

Can't say for sure, but he's definitely the highest profile example as far as Japan goes. What generally happens is the doujin arrangers work on painfully niche OST's (Lost Child and Sixty Nine would fit that description pretty well). Mintjam is another example...They release their own material alongside their arranged albums and apparently got contracted to score a couple of hentai-ish games that had soundtrack releases (Poteneko Academy 1 and 2, Ryouki 1 and 2). Don't know the backstory on that one and I don't have release dates for the OST's (GMR has Ryouki 1 as a 2004 release...LC Side A was 2003).

As far as I know, SSH is the only one contracted to do official arrangements. I think most doujin groups only have their game arrangements on their sites as side projects, as their original stuff is normally the first thing you see. The line between official and fan arranged is very thin though from a quality standpoint, as some of the ones I've gathered can pass for official releases with zero doubt...I'm just hoping companies other than Gust see this and take advantage of it. Falcom is basically losing money by NOT licensing "The Legend of Xanadu -Kleene- " from the Woodsoft guys and adding it to their main catalogue for 2500-3000 yen per copy.

Oddly enough, the folks from PMM would fit that description, since technically most of their albums were fully licensed and would count as "official" releases (and they were doing free fan arrangements prior to that, I believe). PMM was the first I had heard of anything like that and they definitely predated "Deceitful Wings".

I'm massively excited for the AI2 arranged album.

Question: listed for a release just one week after the AI2 arranged is another "Hymmnos" album for Ar Tonelico. Is there a possibility that this could ALSO be an SSH project?

Also, I met Arata Hanyuda (Black Mage drummer) during an FFXI interview at E3. He said that BM3 has been in the works for some time now, so I'm pretty sure it'll come before '07.

Ramza

As long as it has SSH-arranged versions of "Valkyria" and "Loki", I'll be happy. I'm not holding my breath though, given what was on the first 2 Hymmnos albums.

I do think we could see the same type of SSH arrangement down the line for ARRR!, given the apparent working relation and the synth rock originals in the OST.

...It's like SSH saw this post and chose to arrange those tracks...

(aka check GMR)

Bah...I screwed up on getting the track order right. I fail.

And no Mandible of the Abyss...But one more "arrangement" of Slasher Blue than I was expecting is pretty awesome.

Can't wait for it.