OCRemix's "Voices of The Lifestream" has finally gone live:

http://ff7.ocremix.org/

For those who haven't been following, Voices is an extensive fan project that has been well a year in the making.  In their own words:

Final Fantasy VII: Voices of the Lifestream is an OverClocked ReMix Album featuring free fan arrangements from the soundtrack to Square's legendary Final Fantasy VII for the Sony Playstation.  From jazz to techno to rock to classical, it features over forty five tracks from over forty artists, each interpreting composer Nobuo Uematsu's works in their own unique style.  Voices of the Lifestream's 45 tracks span four discs, each themed for different releases from the Final Fantasy VII universe: "Crisis Core", "Dirge of Cerberus", "Advent Children", and "Last Order," respectively. Combined, they represent approximately three and a half hours of music.

Not for nothing, they've got to be commended for partaking in a project of this caliber.  Looking forward to the listen!

They gave Music4Games an advance copy for review.  I enjoyed it immensely, and yeah, the scope of the project is impressive:

http://www.music4games.net/Review_Display.aspx?id=97

Even tracks that I didn't remember from FFVII had great arrangements.

I just want the Birth of a God arrangement. Everything else can be terrible, just let that one track be good. Please. Please. Please.

.....

Hmm. Not bad. Too much chiptune stylings, but it's more than passable.

Still, I have the feeling that I'm going to keep lusting after an eventual rearrange on space guitar and hyper church organ by Sekito Jr when they finally remake the game in twenty years.

I thought Birth of a God was quite good.  However, it wasn't drastically different or anything.  I enjoy bLiNds work in general, though.  Good stuff.

I am looking forward to this with great trepidation.

Well-written review, Arcubalis.  I've given a few tracks a listen, and I'm mostly liking what I'm hearing.  norg & SnappleMan's Full Frontal Assault adheres pretty close to what I'd imagine a Black Mages arrangement of "Fighting" would sound.  Like TBM's Force Your Way, they nail that melodic florish at the end beautifully.  I was a tad disappointed with zircon's take in Nomura Limit, though - great idea with the weaving of basic battle theme scales and motifs, but it ends just as soon as it begins.

The vocals in Jovette Rivera's The Crossroads really surprised me in a great way, making for one hell of a soaring, grungy rock-ballad out of "Cid's Theme".  But it's Xaleph's Son of Chaos that's my current fave at the moment; what a darkly-rad take on the industrial-laden "Shinra Company."

Yeah, it was difficult picking tracks to highlight.  I had about half of the album left when I weeded out the tracks I didn't think I'd mention.  In the end, I had to make a lot of cuts in the interest of not writing a 10 page review. 

Didn't some guys over at overclocked have a similar project like this for Metroid?

^^Yeah, but I think Voices of the Lifestream is probably their most consistent album in terms of quality.  And make no mistake, folks, the quality is certainly high.  I think disc 1 is my favourite so far, but that might be because I've listened to it more than the others.

I had no expectations when checking out these tunes, and some are pretty damn good. I'm pleasantly surprised... but that 7 minute orchestral rendition of Aerith's suite has got to go.

It's for Super Metroid: Relics of the Chozo.

Funny.  I just redownloaded Relics of the Chozo today.  Shame that one arranger pretty much did the entire project (Protricity).  It still sends chills down my spine when I listen to Avien's melancholy arrangement of Meridia though.  For anyone who doesn't know, he sadly passed away a couple years ago.

Protricity did a pretty bitchin medley for Mega Man X, Brainsick Metal I think it's called.

Yeah, that's primarily where I remember his name from. Opening Stage, Storm Eagle and...something else. But Opening Stage and Storm Eagle are all you need to know!

So far, the project seems very...um, electronic. I'm giving it a casual once-over, but nothing that's jumped out thus far.

I've heard the first disc so far and the only tracks I'd be willing to hear again are the first two. I wanted to like it but there's simply too much electronica. Formless, shapeless meandering electronica. It was almost a relief to hear an electric guitar in the battle theme remix.

The second disc has been more agreeable so far (although hardly outstanding).

LuIzA always had a good handle on the axe grinds, and Materia Junkie is no exception.  Her arrangement made me discover something I never noticed before; that the opening bars for "Underneath The Rotting Pizza" is structured after the "Fighting" melody.  How I didn't catch this before is beyond me, but that's what a good musical arrangement will do - make you see the original in a whole new light.

To reference Arcubalis's review, Steffan Andrews' Jenova Returns punctuates some great dynamic orchestra, giving off an air of epic and heroic flightiness, yet still retains the waves of inherent darkness that "J-E-N-O-V-A" is known for.   Lovely minor and major drops in tone create an edgy complexity to the overall mood of this piece.  Stylistically, I'd be inclined to believe that Andrews was inspired by Elfman's works for Burton here.  The integration of "Jenova Absolute" was excellently done, too.

I think the order is Opening Stage > Storm Eagle > Spark Mandrill > Sigma Stage 1 > Demo. However, there is a simular medley by someone else called "Battles of the Past Pt.1" and it pretty much follows the same order so I could be getting my wires crossed.

Avien died? That would explain the lack of new stuff from him. How did you find out? Was he a friend of yours?

That was probably told atleast in OCremix. Atleast I remember something like that.

And this remix project is pretty awesomish, goes to the top three with Relics of the Chozo and The Dark Side of Phobos.

Smeg, it was widely noted on OCR when it happened.

But yeah, VotL is my favorite project of theirs to date.

I just took the time to read that review. Interesting.

Wow. You should probably make an effort to step outside of whatever clutter gets sent over to you for review at M4G listen to more arrange albums because there are tons of other efforts, both professional and doujin, that are more effective than this release. Yeah, from what I've heard so far this project is pretty good, but I haven't heard anything outside of a couple of tunes that stood out as being comparitively "better" than other arrange albums that I've heard.

You definitely got a hearty laugh-out-loud from me on that one. In tandem with the first quote here, it sounds like your scope of "the world of video game music" is extremely limited. Sometimes I wonder who signs your paychecks over at M4G. If you keep shamelessly promoting these over-hyped reviews your opinions are going to become even less credible than mine.

I listen to quite a bit of stuff.  I am honestly impressed with their efforts, both the scope and the execution.  It has a very professional sound that is levels beyond their previous projects.

Anyway, I like to think I listen to a lot of stuff (although I admit I don't listen to a huge amount of dojin efforts).  I particularly enjoyed that recent Magical Trick Society album of FFXII stuff.  As far as professional arrangement albums, CTBoT and Rockman X Alph Lyra are my favorites, and I can't deny the DQ Symphonic Suites or the FF Piano Collections.

The fact of the matter is I like a lot of different kinds of music, and there are tons of styles represented on Voices of the Lifestream.  I thought each style was done well, and even though their individual orchestral tracks might not be on the level of Symphonic Suite albums, the fact that there is so many styles done so well is absolutely impressive.

Of course it's not going to please everybody.  I think it should, given there is something there for everyone, but again, it's just hard to please some people.  That's fine if you don't like it, but I did.  I stand by my assertion that it is one of the most impressive and encompassing arrange albums/projects (or whatever you want to call it) based on the quality of the music and the scope of the project.  In your opinion, only a few tracks may be worth another listen, but that's just your opinion, and you shouldn't try to put me down because my opinion doesn't agree with yours.  There are lots of people who are as impressed as I am with the project.

You have to keep in mind that I am a huge fan of game music, but there is a wider audience on Music4Games.  It's an industry site, and a lot of the traffic comes from members of the game industry.  Granted, I'm not going to change the truth of what I think about something based on that, but sometimes I have to simplify things to get an idea across to people who might not be into game music or might not have as large of a knowledge base of what's out there.

Anyway, I worried about this issue when I wrote the review.  I knew some people wouldn't like it, and would not have nice things to say to me about it.  I'm sorry you didn't like it, but I'd appreciate your support, as a member of the community, in trying to get the word out about game music outside of the US on sites like M4G.  That's why I'm there.  There wouldn't be reviews of Japanese game music or a review of Voices of the Lifestream if there wasn't somebody like me there.  The reason I post links to M4G stuff here is because I've been a fan for so long, and I've been in this community for so long that I feel like I should have your support in expanding the industry view of Japanese VGM.

And for the record, I'm not paid.

I can see why. Not saying your opinions are wrong or right but some of those statements are quite bold to say the least. That being the case you're obviously going to take some heat for them.

Well, I do have strong feelings about it, so I stand by it. 

I would LOVE for some audio director or industry person somewhere to check it out based on those statements and find something he/she actually likes.  If it helps expose them to something new, I'd be quite happy.

I'll just say two things about this:

1. I don't really get that impression when you're the first person (and for the most part, the only person) to jump to the front lines when someone points out something stupid about something Tommy Tallarico or Jeremy Soule says (his comment about VGM being filed under "classical", for example). I don't mind a bit of heated debate, but you're always the one I'm dealing with and it really sounds like you're making excuses for these folks by trying to patch up what they originally say.

2. You have more patience than I do, because my impression of much of the US VGM scene is a bunch of cutthroats out to make names for themselves and discrediting (or remaining largely ignorant of) Japanese VGM means one less obstacle for them to deal with (aside from the obligatory nods to Koji Kondo and Uematsu...which is like how every metal band and their mother's bands credit Black Sabbath as an inspiration), so that's a losing battle from the start.

I don't have a huge issue with the review (though you got a cringe out of me with the "Alice in Chains" comment though. ^_^!), but certain parts do reak of "over-hype" (the ones Zane pointed out). Saying it's one of the greatest arrange albums of all time is kind of a say-nothing statement if you're targetting people who aren't familiar with game arranges to begin with and looks weird/uneducated to people well familiar with them (read: most knowledgable VGM fans). I agree the scope is impressive, but hyping it as "OMG, tEh BeSt!" probably isn't the way to go and starts to smell of infomercial.

I didn't say the best!  I said ONE of the most impressive and encompassing.  Just one of the many impressive and encompassing albums.  The only time I used the word "best" was to describe the original FFVII score.

Anyway, I think we (including myself) have a lot to learn about Western VGM, and they have a lot to learn about Eastern VGM.  Even if we aren't fans of Western VGM, I think there is a lot of material none of us have heard before, and every once in awhile, I am pleasantly surprised.  It's quite daunting trying to get a grasp on what's going on in the Western scene (I've focused on Japanese VGM for so long), that I do want to give them the benefit of the doubt.  They may be ignorant of what's going on around the world, but I don't think they intentionally are trying to discredit Japanese VGM or anything.  Don't get me wrong, I've been buying and listening to Japanese-exclusive VGM for nearly 10 years, so while I may not be too familiar with the dojin scene (besides this Magic Trick Society thing and numerous Ragnarok Online dojin albums), I keep track of what's going on as far as official releases and VGmix/OCR stuff.

And for the record, Alice in Chains is my favorite band, and I got that impression from the piece. 

That's fine and all, but just understand that you come off like a walking PR machine (not to the extent of Tallarico, thank god!) than an actual fan most of the time and it makes people take what you say with a grain of salt (especially when it comes to a review like that, which is all hype and not a single negative thing of mention...Save for the piece about people being "overwhelmed" by the project, which actually kind of annoyed me). Even this response I got doesn't address the Tallarico/Soule coverups I mentioned. There's giving them the "benefit of the doubt", then there's putting words in their mouths to soften the blow after they say something that's obviously stupid, which is when I start to smell an agenda. The only times I normally see you post are stuff are about stuff linking to M4G and normally about the concerts or US VGM composer-related material (save for the Metroid Prime 3 overview). So, uh, it's good to know you're a fan.

Saying "It doesn’t get much better than this when it comes to arrangement albums." is kind of a say-nothing statement if you're targetting people who aren't familiar with game arranges to begin with and looks weird/uneducated to people well familiar with them (read: most knowledgable VGM fans). I agree the scope is impressive, but hyping it as "OMG, one of the most impressive and encompassing albums!" probably isn't the way to go and starts to smell of infomercial.

Fixed. Original meaning retained, "best" removed, original quotes reinserted.

I take umbrage not so much with the superfluous praise of the review but with the brazenly banal diction and vapid arguments the writer employs.  I suspect he's not really a writer, but merely a (video game) music fan who fancied the chance to offer his opinion on a vaguely professional looking website.  Though to be fair, the writing in the review is little worse than the writing elsewhere on that website.

And I get the impression that some members of the soundtrack collecting scene tend to act a tad elitist at times and snub their noses at the Western VGM arrangement scene thinking it's not worth their time because the musicians aren't Japanese and/or professionals.

I don't get much involved in the fan arrangement community myself due to lack of time, but because of certain relations, I have ended up meeting many of the musicians in person, and I have never ONCE heard a single one of them discredit Japanese VGM, nor come anywhere close to being ignorant of it. In fact, time and time again I'm amazed at the sheer breadth of their knowledge. Just because they don't drop thousands of dollars to brag about the dozen of albums of music from games they've never heard of that they buy each month doesn't mean they don't know their stuff. It's not uncommon for them to download the entire NSF, SPC, PSF, etc. libraries and to slowly work their way through everything just in search of obscure, impressive music. They pull off crazy online research to dig up information on composers that easily rivals the research done by people around here. How you can suggest that they're ignorant of Japanese VGM and would even dream of discrediting it is beyond me; I can only accredit it to bias-inspired paranoia. Either that or you're blaming the ignorance of the casual fan that waltzes into OCRemix on the people that actually make the music, which would be thoroughly unfair.

My bad...That part you quoted was aimed at US VGM composers and mostly professional composers at that. I'm actually a fan of quite a few western arrangers (The Kode, Kid Overdrive, Ailsean, goat, housethegrate and Protricity immediately come to mind) and while there's a lot whose music I'm largely indifferent to, I have no problem with what they do. If anything, I'm impressed by what such a fan-driven scene has evolved into.

See what a little short circuit in communication can do? Sorry about that.

I'm not putting you down because of your opinion. You made some pretty funny and outlandish statements in your review, and that's what I was drawing attention to. I'm not saying the project is crap - I'm just saying that you, someone who comes across more as a PR vehicle from M4G than an actual poster, had some seemingly carefully manipulated things to say about the project.

It looks like there's the difference right there. Instead of catering to fans of game music that enjoy the music for what it is, it seems like you're catering to the American "game industry" over there. It's funny to me because of the audience and general fanbase that posts here; I'm under the impression that nine out of ten people don't really give a shit. I'm having trouble taking your post seriously because it seems like you're just some product representative that M4G "assigned" to post on various places on the internet to get feedback from other users or to promote the stuff that goes on at that site. Interestingly enough, like GX kinda said, you're always the very first person to jump to the frontline whenever anything negative is said about western composers or the current "style" of VGM in non-Japanese games.

Despite what you might think, you're really not "expanding the industry view of Japanese VGM". Something you should realize is that the "industry view" does not give a flying f--- about Japanese VGM. They discredit it or ignore it unless it's convenient for them to repackage it with their own "twists" (see: Best of the Best) or arrange it for a live symphony to make money and sell albums off of (see: VGL). Tallarico claims to be the first person to use live guitar in a VGM album. Jack Wall is still making music. Inon Zur... is still making music. If you want to make a difference, try reviewing some more VGM that isn't a domestic release or a fan-project. You said you liked DQ SS, or FF Piano, or CT:BOT... are you not allowed to review those types of albums? Shake those branches some more and try to back up what you said about expanding the industry's view of Japanese game music by actually doing something about it. Looking through the review archives over there I see Jeriaska reviewing a good number of Japanese VGM releases while you're acting like western VGM's lapdog here on the boards. He has some good, recent stuff, too, like Folklore and RR7 DA.

It seems like what you are doing is shamelessly promoting M4G to an audience that could mostly care less. Notice how almost every thread here that pimps an article on M4G or some shitty American "best of" release ends up with several posters on one side and you defending and giving credit to M4G and/or Tallarico and/or (insert "industry" composer here)? It's becoming increasingly hard to see you as anything but a tool for M4G's PR.

Well, the fact of the matter is that Japanese coverage is harder to come by for obvious reasons.  I get handed a lot of stuff that is from American-based composers because it's easy for them to communicate with us and mail us stuff to review.  Trust me, a lot of stuff comes in, and somebody has to cover it.  Usually that ends up being me.  I'd love to review all this Japanese VGM, and we're working on that.  I got Jeriaska on board to assist us with that.  I try my best to get Japanese material in between stuff that comes in from American composers.  We have to import most of the Japanese stuff, which you all know can get expensive.  We don't want to go back and review stuff that isn't relevant anymore, either, so we try to review items that have been released in the last year or so (sorry BoT, Alph Lyra, etc.).

As I've said, I stand by my review of VotL.  I thought it was fantastic, and really, it may overwhelm a casual fan simply because nearly ever track is 5-6 minutes long (even if the source material was 30 seconds).  It's just a lot of stuff to listen to if you want to casually browse it.

However, I apologize if I come off as some kind of PR machine.  I'm pretty excited about what the site can become.  I came on board as the only person knowing a lot about the Japanese side, and I've been trying to get coverage of it from the beginning (ask any forum members who live in Japan, I've been trying to get writeups of concerts in Japan for the site).    I've personally only reviewed a few non-American items (Ragnarok Online, Granado Espada, Secret Online) mostly due to time constraints, but I have reviews pending for Alphabet Planet and Valkyrie Profile.  Jeriaska has written reviews exclusively of Japanese releases.  We have an Akira Yamaoka interview coming up, the Metroid audio journal, and a few other interviews that I want to keep a secret until they're back to us.  We covered Destiny Reunion in Sydney.  All I can say is that I'm trying to have more balanced coverage.

I've been visting STC since about 1999, and reading the forums (despite not posting until recent years) just as long.  I only started writing for M4G in April, so I did post stuff before that time.  I actually try to post in many places as possible because I think the material will actually be interesting to the community.  It's not like I post random, irrelevant things.  Only if a specific score comes up that we've reviewed will I post about it.  I post about most of the features because I think everyone loves to read interviews and concert coverage.  That's the kind of stuff I look for when I come here, at least.  Of course I want the site to be more inclusive of what's going on around the world, and I want you guys to support that move.

Hey everyone! I dropped in to say how much I appreciate the feedback on "Voices of the Lifestream", and I'm really glad that people are enjoying it (and hey, if you're not, oh well.) A couple things caught my eye in this thread that I wanted to address.

I got a big kick out of this. The phrase "carefully manipulated" implies that people involve with the project (1) manipulated Jayson in his review in some manner, and/or (2) had something to gain from a positive review. Neither of these are true. Perhaps you don't know me (the director) very well, but I'm a 20 year old student going to Drexel University. I'm studying music, and at the moment earn a part time income from CD sales of my original music, plus songs I write for media (eg. corporate sales videos, local TV commercials, that kind of thing.) I don't earn a dime from any of this remixing stuff. It's strictly for fun. This pretty much applies to everyone else on the project too. The majority of people are in their teens or early 20s; we're largely not professional musicians, and certainly not in a position to 'influence' anyone.

In fact, OCR itself is completely non-profit (a registered non-profit LLC, as a matter of fact), so no one is gaining much of anything. The money we get from donations goes back to paying bandwidth costs, printing up t-shirts, and simply promoting the site. We really have no other goal than to promote video game music and try to advance the genre as a whole. Thus, we have nothing to gain from a positive review besides feeling a little better about ourselves for spending thousands of hours releasing free music.

Are you saying that a project like "Voices" is not making a difference in the world of VGM? Just browse through review threads on the OCR forums sometime. You will not believe how many people have been turned on to video game music because of fan arrangements. This applies to any fan arrangement site, eg. Remix64, Kwed, VGmix, Remix:ThaSauce, etc. There are just endless stories about people introducing their friends to video game music via fan remixes, and people growing a far greater appreciation for VGM as a whole as a result of what we do. So c'mon, a little credit.

If you look back, I haven't said anything negative about the project. In fact, my first post says, "I had no expectations when checking out these tunes, and some are pretty damn good. I'm pleasantly surprised..."

I'm sorry if you took my comments out of context, but the things you quoted were not directed toward OCR or the FFVII project specifically, but toward Arcubalis and his history posting stuff about M4G and the anticipated Western-VS-Eastern VGM comments that come afterward. It just so happened to be that his review for your project sparked my initial comments. Don't take it personally.

I gotta appreciate all the work that went into this project, especially for it being free and for people's enjoyment. I'm a big fan of FFVII and its music, so I got a thrill out of a number of the songs. A few were just plain beautiful. I guess I'm the type of person who likes to stick to the original melody a little more, though, because many of the tracks seemed to go on too long with the same percussion/electronic sound throughout, and I'd end up skipping ahead to find something familiar in the music. It's still pretty good listening, it just sounds more like the FFVII ingredient was more of an afterthought sometimes. Plus, too much of those beats and somewhat harsh sounds and my ears just want something a bit more organic. Back to the positive though, I liked the vocals and spoken parts ("Crossroads" really grew on me--I've always loved Cid's Theme) and certain sound effects and ambient touches were nice. Oh, and the track titles should get a nod too. I hope we see more collective efforts like this. (An acoustic or stripped down arranged album would be awesome to me, although remixers generally don't do that, I suppose.^^)