Of course they could, but let's total the amount of money paid to all other employees working on the game, the amount needed for initial promotion and packaging, the money for additional and crisis situations, and amount of money allocated to other games Nintendo is making (which would have similar paying standards to Twilight Princess). Nintendo would not have that kind of money for orchestration that would please only a niche of people.

Also, it isn't as if the music couldn't be orchestrated for concert or cd.

While I'm honestly in the camp that says Nintendo just needs to upgrade their synth, I sort of feel like playing devil's advocate here...

You say that Nintendo wouldn't want to or be able to afford orchestrating a Zelda score.  But I say that's impossible to prove from the evidence we have!

What do you think.... of THIS!

*presents Super Smash Bros. Melee*

Nintendo could and has done live performance of a significant portion of a major release that had a LOT of music tracks in it.  There is clearly a contradiction here!

(okay, so I just finished Gyakuten Saiban 2 last night... I've honestly been thinking in these kind of patterns in every aspect of my life most of today)

I'm not too familiar with the Melee score (having not played the game), but by judging from the bonus orchestra recording release from the Nintendo subscription, I'd hardly say 15 tracks totals up to the same costs as 108+ themes from Zelda.

Then again, it is a very unlikely choice orchestrating themes from that game. Probably most likely a joint HAL + Nintendo venture.

I agree that in some instances the music falls flat when it tries to imitate orchestra.. eg boss battles. Since they were going for the orchestral sound, they might have upgraded the synth.
But upgrading just for the sake of 'orchestratizing it' is ridiculous. Synth orchestras can and often do sound better than real orchestras.

However, Kondo and co. spent a great deal of time crafting a unique sound pallette for hyrule, and I am not averse to their incorporating the synth instruments from past games into new scores. Continuity does not have to be achieved only thematically. By and large, the synth has been upgraded, but reusing some of the trademark samples is a boon, IMO.

I also agree that live instruments would have been a better option than orchestra. people always seem to forget this option. I loved the crystal chronicles soundtrack... not orchestral, but completely awesome, played on historical instruments with amazing results.

And yes, I would prefer a well-scored 8 bit score over the by and large orchestral crap that passes for game music these days, hands down. Given the choice between an average orchestral score for TP (which from previous accounts, eg hyrule syphony, would be lacking) and an 8 bit score, I would prefer the 8 bit version. No joke. Upgraded synth does not always equal better results. Case in point- ff3 ds vs famicom...

Kondo should just work with Jeremy Soule next time.  Problem solved.

You are absolutely 100% WRONG. Let's go through this shall we.

These people work for Nintendo. They are on salary.

Uh no. First off it depends on if the piece is for a full orchestra, or just a few instruments (like the piece in Castle Town). Since most of the music in Zelda is NOT for full orchestra, the cost would be significantly different from the absolutely ridiculous figures you are proposing. The average range per piece would be $400 - $1500.

Once again, your estimate is totally ridiculous. The pieces could range from a couple players to 50 or maybe 65 if you wanted a bigger sound. There are no rehearsals, they go into the studio, sight read, and record. You'd probably need 3 - 4 days. We're talking $100,000 to $200,000 including the studio.

Christ, where are you pulling these from? Mixing studios cost about $1000 a day. And once again you'll need 3 - 4 days.

This is probably the most absurd thing I've read on this forum. We're talking $350,000 MAX. Probably much cheaper.

Good thing you aren't in charge of production! Sheesh. And it's not by the number of themes. It's by the number of minutes of music with a certain number of musicians. And, as I said before, a majority of the music will not be using the full orchestra. As I'm sure you noticed, Zelda has a lot of "folk" like tunes which are only 5 to 8 players. That's chump change to record. That $350,000 figure is a very generous over-estimate on my part.

...and if anyone here ought to know about recording and contracting musicians...

A small nugget for consideration, is that Studio and Musician costs will vary slightly in each Country, if the recording is taking place in Europe, vs Japan, vs USA, vs Australia...

A fairly minor factor in large budget projects though.

Does anyone know where I can get this? This link is down.

Thanks for shedding some light on real production costs, Chris.

Automatically amazing, I said wow.

Just for some clarification, you are a composer, I work in the recording industry. Recording charges do vary from the country to country. I know for fact that recording costs are much cheaper here in Australia than in Japan, but I have no idea what they are in America.

Carl said it absolutely right, production costs vary (sometimes significantly) from each individual country.

My eyes can count 173 themes, thank you.

Of course, that's why I included them in the cost. The video game music salary (for Japanese freelancers anyway) can cost $1,000 per composition (up to $2,000 including arrangement, preliminary mixing, etc), but composers working in a company would much likely receive per-year wages.

As stated countless times before, I have not heard the full music to Twilight Princess, so I can't give reasonably accurate response. I'm only judging by complete estimation and experience, with the impression that many tracks will use orchestra. But if they are only for a few instruments, your cost would be closer. A 3 minute piece with 3 instruments will cost roughly $1000 - $1500. A 3 minute piece with a full orchestra will cost roughly $3,000 - $4,000 (and even then, you and I especially would know that the more renowned an orchestrator, the more money they'll charge. And by using someone as highly esteemed as Michiru Oshima as the arranger and orchestrator for that single live piece, Nintendo is looking at $3,000 as a bare minimum here.

This depends what they get in the deal, and how many individual musicians are hired. But on the most occasions, they will just sight-read. You'd certainly need more than 3-4 days to record over 108 (potentially nearly 200) tracks. You're probably looking at recording about 15 - 20 themes per day (though, even with a large orchestra, you'd be lucky to get that much done in one day. Also, depending on the composers, a track could be recorded up to 3 or more times before considering moving on to the next piece, which takes an awful long time; maybe even 30 - 45 minutes per piece). This was also taking in the assumption that many themes were orchestral.

I know for fact that some of the best (and biggest) recording studios in Australia (and in the world) can cost nearly $8,000 - $10,000 a day (12 + hours), including mixing and mastering sessions (use of pro-tools and the like) in the studio. Multiply that by the potential amount of days that Nintendo would use it (probably about 8 - 12 for recording -- every track accounted for -- and 2 days for mastering, post-recording mixing), and that's how I got it. Again, since I haven't heard the music to Zelda or know what kind of studios Nintendo uses, I can only give an estimation of my experience. Keep in mind that there aren't as many studios that can take a full orchestra (a complete scoring stage is required. And by full, I mean 70 performers +) compared to reasonably small space that can only take a few performers (by few, 10 - 15 performers or less). Nintendo will NEED one of these studios, and they are certainly more expensive than you think. Also, again, be aware, we are talking about 108 + themes.

Well, this is from my total figuring.

Again, that all depends solely on the musicians. If the majority of themes only need a few performers to pull off, well then fine, the cost will probably be significantly reduced, but it's not bogus pricing on my part.

Chris, please keep in mind that neither of us have worked at or with Nintendo, and we cannot by any means give a number which can be confirmed. So before you accuse me of being untrue or absurd (I have every right to accuse you of the same, but I'm not that hot headed), don't let that fact escape you. All we can do is judge from experience.

Well, we can use L.A. rates. If they are not most expensive rates in the world, they are close.

You can't include them in the cost because they would be paid no matter if the score was recorded with an orchestra or entirely synth.

First off, it depends on how many bars are in the piece, not the number of minutes it takes up. A 3 min piece at a fairly brisk tempo is about 100 bars. For 3 players, the standard orchestration rate is $22/page (a page is 4 bars). That would come out to $550.

The same piece for a full orchestra would cost about $45/page. That's $1025. A more esteemed orchestrator, which is not necessary could cost $80/page, still not even coming close to your 3K-4K range.

You can say "tracks" all you want, but what really matters is MINUTES. For example, I've recorded 40 minutes of music with a 70 piece orchestra in two 3/hr sessions in one day. Four days could get 160 minutes of music, and that is a TON. I doubt there is that much unrepeated music in Zelda, having played through it myself.

I still don't know what you mean by "themes." Do you mean pieces? Again we have to measure in minutes here.

Well that seems hardly worth it or necessary. Sony, one of the best sounding recording studios in the world, is $6000 a day. We're going to be mixing a score in full 5.1 surround sound on a brand new Protools icon tomorrow at a place for $1500 a day. This is more than adequate for mixing ANY score.

Based on my 5 1/2 years experience in writing, recording and mixing live orchestra music, you are severely overestimating the amount of time you need. Especially for the music for Zelda, all of which I have heard.

It's bogus pricing when it's clear that most of the music in Zelda:TP does not need a full orchestra.

As before, I'm basing my numbers off experience as I stated above. I'm utterly perplexed at where you got some of your numbers from. Those types of exaggerations are not furthering the game industry.

You know what, forget I said anything. Clearly, nothing I have mentioned is clicking with you.

It's gettin' hot in hurrrr...

Chris makes sense. You don't.

He's right, especially about the time issue -- I haven't played the new Zelda either, but older games tended to have lots of quite short pieces of music. I can't imagine something like "Shop" from OOT would take more than a few minutes to record.

Or how about stuff that lasts all of three seconds, like the get item fanfare? Etc etc.

-Joshua

There are a LOT of short pieces in TP... and there's also a lot of pieces that wouldn't use the full orchestra. Some of them might not even use the orchestra at all (like the ambient dungeon pieces).

I find that rather baseless.

But he would have a better idea of what kind of music is the game, since he has played it. My estimations were only based if all the tracks used a full orchestra (which, if so, would most likely come near to my thoughts). I could make a better judgement if I heard more than 5 themes from the game.

Also, to clear up, that $8,000 - $10,000 fee for recording in some of Australia's (and the world) top studios was in AUD. When converted to USD, it works out to around $6,000 anyway.

We all know Chris has lots of experience in this field.  But let's stop ganging up on Harry guys.

Shut up.  You're dumb too, Kenology. 

Just kidding. 

Edit:  Hm... would help if I spelled your name right!

^ LOL!

Here's the link to TSA's COMPLETE 236 track (!!!) Zelda Twilight Princess game rip

Easily the biggest Zelda soundtrack yet.

^

It's hard to say how complete this is. It seems to combine a partial game rip with the rips of the streamed files from the game disc.

And I STILL don't see the Ordon Village piece... unless I'm missing it.

Yeah, and some of the interactive elements are missing as well.  The Beast Ganondorf battle is missing that "Ganondorf's Theme" interlude when he disappears into the portals.  A few other omissions I've noticed too, but this is the best we have up until now, and ultimately, until a full official release is announced.

EDIT:  It's also missing the Ganondorf sword fight (unless I'm overlooking it).  How the hell do you leave *that* out?

EDIT 2:  Nevermind, found it.

Wow, if Nintendo actually DOES release a full OST, they're going to have to spread this on three discs... if, of course, they ever do decide to.  (C'mon, Nintendo.  We're waiting!)

-Jon T.

No way, man. They'll try to cram it all on two discs, tops, especially if all of the other Zelda OSTs are any indication.

Even though they crammed them all, they still found a way to fit each and every track in the game on the disks.  Wind Waker barely fit on two disks.  So the only way they can include this much music is to spread it across (or cram it into) three discs.

Has Nintendo ever even issued an OST over two discs (Fire Emblem OST's don't count)?

Probably not, but there are always first times. 

-Jon T.

3 discs doesn't impress me, look at the Okami soundtrack for crying out loud.  Nintendo should take notes.

I wonder if they'll even bother now.  I don't think the game did very well in Japan despite big success in the rest of the world.

Well, 357,000 may not exactly be an impressive number compared to WII SPORTS or WII PLAY, but that's hardly a failure.  And like I've said there have been many occasions when games haven't exactly been big hits but received soundtrack treatments anyway.

Case in point:  METROID PRIME sold over one million units in the rest of the world but barely cracked the 100,000 mark in Japan; yet it still received a soundtrack album.  Likewise, F-ZERO GX failed to zoom past the 300,000 mark in both regions and it still got a soundtrack album.  WAVE RACE 64 fared poorly in Japan and still received an album.  I don't even think the newest Sonic game on the PS3 or X360 was all that popular on either side of the Pacific and it still got an album.

All I'm saying is, don't give up just yet.  Rips are good to have for a while, but the real thing will come when and if it's announced.

-Jon T.

EDIT:  Interestingly, Koji Kondo has stated that he will be attending this March's Game Developer's Conference in LA.  I don't know if this means we'll get any confirmation over when or if an official full OST for TP will be made, but it'll be interesting to see nonetheless.

I admit that I haven't heard most of TP's music yet (yeah I know a lot of people are already done with the game five times over) but even just hearing the File Select song (sounds EXACTLY like it did back in 1998 for cryin' out loud) doesn't fill me with the greatest confidences.

Of course this game did poorly in Japan, most consumers there are smart enough to recognize a prettied-up rehash of OoT when they see one.
Nintendo has more money than god, they should be ashamed of themselves.
Or maybe I'm Just a Jaded Lion..
nope I ain't lyin'

Well the game may not be among the Top 10, but it's not doing that badly.  Compared to many other titles (PS3 games in particular), it's holding its own.  It's shown consistent prescence (albeit on the lower end) on the Top 20.  So Twilight Princess is hardly a failure in Japan, and as sales of the Wii continue, so too will this game.  It may not reach the million mark immediately, but it may get close to that eventually.

And I'm not going to give up hope that there WILL be an official OST.

-Jon T.

I seem to recall that when Falcom re-released Xanadu for the PC, they said that the original was the #1 selling computer game of all time in Japan, and it sold well under a million copies (my memory's a little hazy; I think it was either 480,000 or 800,000 copies).  I guess that a game has to be insanely popular to sell a million copies in Japan.

Which raises the question--does EVERY game have to sell a million to be considered a hit?  As mentioned previously, 350,000 is nothing to sneeze at, especially for a console which is only a month and a half old with a 1.2 million userbase.  Remember that when ZELDA came out for N64 and GC, the userbase for both consoles was much, much larger at the time, and so it was guaranteed that it would be a hit at the starting gates.  Wii, on the other hand, has just gotten started.  Had Nintendo released this game a little later into the console's lifespan (probably during the summer) instead of alongside surefire crowdpleasers such as WII PLAY and WII SPORTS, ZELDA TP probably would have sold much, much more.  Nonetheless, its reception in Japan is nothing to call foul over.  It's the third best-selling Wii game there, and its sales won't stay at 350,000 forever.  Will it topple OCARINA in Japan?  Probably not, even though it very much deserves to.  But at least its still selling, and will continue to do so as the Wii's userbase expands.  Whether it reaches the million mark is another matter, but for now, I think we should just keep on checking the Soundtrack Future Release charts for any sign of a ZELDA TP OST.  When (or IF) it is finally announced, fears over the game's sales affecting a potential album release will be put to rest.

-Jon T.