I asked myself: what could FFXVI's battle music sound like?
I can't wait to hear snippets of the Final Fantasy XVI soundtrack, but since we haven't had news in forever... I decided to write it myself.

Here's my interpretation of I think FF16's Boss Theme could sound like, based on what we heard from the reveal trailer music.
A flurry of aggressively orchestrated notes akin to an action jRPG game!

Pierce The Heavens! (Original jRPG Battle Theme)

Lou Snider - All The Way

Lou Snider - September In The Rain

Lou Snider - Sweet Dreams

Lou Snider - You'll Never Know

Beyond the Universe

Released November 2007. Written using Cubase 4S using EWQL SoG and various tools.
One of my few oddball tracks. 
Your alarm clock fails to wake you. You have to get out the house without waking the baby, and get to work in time for the meeting with your boss, all the way from Tokyo...

Late for Work

Released January 2008. Written in Cubase 4S with EWQL SoG and various VSTs.
Another oddball track. Written as a corollary to Late for Work. You took the taxi to work - it was the only time you got to relax for a bit.
You may notice that I have been influenced a bit by Dave Drubeck's "Take Five". Nobody told me at the time though...

Late for Work - Taxi

Released June 2009. Written in Cubase 4S using EWQL SOPP and some VSL things.
This track actually took somewhere between 9 and 11 months to write. The first few minutes started as a WiP which stagnated, and then I revisited it in early 2009 to finish it off. This also explains the slight discontinuity between the beginning and the end.

The Return Home

Released July 2011. Written in Cubsae 5S using elements of EWQLSOPP and Komplete 5.
What looks like a long hiatus in composing isn't so - I tried to go pro, wrote a lot, which ultimately wasn't really used.
So, here I am at the beginning - the synths in Komplete allowed me to go back to my synthpop roots. Shame my mastering still sucks.

Escape from Asimov's Folly

The Returners
Released 22/03/2020

(Yep, I played FF6 a looong time ago, although when the rest of the FFs came out, I never really had the time or consoles to keep that up. The music has nothing else to do with FF though.)

This is the track that almost made me quit, mostly because it had a number of good ideas in it but they were all disconnected, and I tried very hard to try and link them all together. If I were a better composer, it might have come out better and not been a disconnected mess, but such is life.

I originally started writing this track in March 2018 - the name came from a Returners T-shirt that I got in one of the GDQs in years gone by, and although there was a potential wealth of associated inspiration, I basically went off the name alone, and did my own thing. I did have one aim though - write a 10 minute track.

It's a pretty shitty aim, as it's pretty arbitrary when it doesn't have a specific purpose, and as expected I ended up writing a large number of disconnected ideas, although the way it evolved the track had two natural parts.

I spent a hell of a lot of hours trying to reconcile everything, but the fact of the matter was that the first part was a confused mess, and the best idea that I had was to just drop it and concentrate on the second half. I could, in theory, revisit the first half, but I'd probably have to throw away quite a lot just to make it work, so... sod it.

Fast forward to the flustercluck that is early 2020, and I've spent a lot of time trying to figure out the mixing process. It's still a mess, but as good as I'm probably going to get with an inconsistent and dense arrangement like this. 

Either way, I'm done - time to move on with life. I'll try and get the next one out quicker. ;o)


Tools:
Cubase 9.5, Wavelab 6
8DIO Adagio & Agitato Vioins & Cellos
Cinebrass Core
VSL Woodwinds I & II
Spitfire Bones, Horns and Trumpets
Impact Soundworks Percussion
EWQLSOPP
Probably more things I've forgotten

Beyond the Universe

William Mark