Falcom Music Channel

Today marks 8 years since the Vita version of Ys VIII released in Japan. To celebrate it, I finally got around to uploading the whole soundtrack again, this time mostly sourced from the Nintendo Switch version of the game. All the tracks have been looped once and a few feature unused endings, such as in Theos-De-Endogram.

The Switch version of Ys VIII (ported and released by NIS) employs 147 kbps Opus instead of Vorbis, and sounds better than the ATRAC9 files from Falcom's PlayStation versions* -- basically equivalent to 320 kbps MP3. It's still not as good as actual lossless files and there's issues like treble compression/artifacts caused by the conversion to lossy, but all things considered, it is the closest thing currently available to the original, unaltered master. To put it in more easily understandable terms, this essentially means the music here sounds softer to the ears and has more dynamic range overall, particularly the tracks made by Sonoda and Unisuga. (Outsourced music is generally louder/busier and less dynamic vs the internal staff's, so there isn't as much improvement for these, but at least Jindo's music should also feel better now.)

The master used in all the oficial OST albums suffers from loudness war (many Falcom albums from the 21st century suffer from this, in fact), with much of the soundtrack boosed in volume and then limited down to avoid peaking, and with its low-end tweaked/improved at the cost of narrower dynamic range. This introduced a hefty number of negative effects not present in the original music pre-OST mastering, ranging from making the soundtrack more exhausting/fatiguing to the ears (so that it stands out more easily on cruddier audio gear), to outright damaging the music at times, mudding up other parts of the sound spectrum with bass (e.g. the kick and rhythm guitars in Deadly Temptation), screwing around with the mixing/EQ, etc. All in all, an unprofessional mastering job, and not very respectful towards Sonoda's and Unisuga's work.

Additionally, and unlike hi-res OST releases starting with Tokyo Xanadu eX+, the hi-res album for Ys VIII still uses the same overblown master as the CD version, which defeats the purpose of selling it as a 24-bit mix with twice the filesize and higher price. Jindo's and Unisuga's tracks also don't have frequencies over CD quality**, making the whole thing even more of a scam.

*Yes, the PS4 version really uses 128 kbps just like the Vita version.
**I don't really blame them, CD quality makes much more sense for this sort of music and is all any regular listener really needs. The issue lies more in Falcom for outright lying, pretending that hi-res actually matters and lacking integrity to do things properly.

Anyways, sorry for the rant, and have a good day/night y'all. Look forward to future music uploads with improved mastering.


www.youtube.com/playlist?list...

3 months ago (edited) | [YT] | 157

Falcom Music Channel

Uploaded Felghana's soundtrack with an improved master that sounds less harsh/fatigating and more musically dynamic than the OST, in honour to the game's 19th anniversary in Japan. I strongly loathe how many Falcom albums from the 21st century sound so stupidly loud/squashed because of them encouraging the loudness war instead of caring about integrity and quality, so I plan to follow up with other game soundtracks that deserved far better album releases.

www.youtube.com/playlist?list...

3 months ago | [YT] | 143

Falcom Music Channel

Uploaded the hi-res master of Tokyo Xanadu eX+, which actually sounds more pleasant and has more headroom/better dynamics than the CD version. (The internal tracks at least, the outsourced music doesn't fare any better...)
www.youtube.com/playlist?list...

8 months ago | [YT] | 103

Falcom Music Channel

Reuploaded the SC Evolution OST, due to the same sound quality defect previously seen with Tokyo Xanadu and Kiseki jdk Acoustics (thanks ‪@gmh50o26‬ for the reminder). The new uploads can be found here: www.youtube.com/playlist?list...

And here's the old playlist, now unlisted: www.youtube.com/playlist?list...

As usual, I tried to provide accurate guesses for all the arrangers and performers involved. I feel rather confident in these and they should be mostly correct, for the most part.

The current FC Evolution OST upload also has this same audio issue, so I intend to re-do it very shortly. Sorry for not fixing this any sooner, and my apologies for the inconvenience; thank you all for bearing with me for this long.

*Update* Now done with FC Evolution.

New: www.youtube.com/playlist?list...
Old: www.youtube.com/playlist?list...

1 year ago (edited) | [YT] | 48

Falcom Music Channel

I have received a copyright takedown notice from Toshinori Hiramatsu himself, requesting the removal of certain tracks within a period of seven days. As such, Sword of Justice's doujin arrangements have been deleted from the channel.

Depending on what follows, more tracks might be removed as well, such as his work for The Legend of Xanadu Arrange Album KLEENE. So, don't be surprised if more tracks disappear from this channel (and anywhere else in YouTube) in the near future.

My apologies for the inconvenience, and thanks to Mr. Hiramatsu for warning me first without sending any strikes.

*Update*: Hiramatsu's work for Ys Battle Special and The Legend of Xanadu Arrange Album KLEENE has now been removed.

2 years ago (edited) | [YT] | 588

Falcom Music Channel

Reuploaded the Kiseki jdk Acoustics album from 2014 with fixed/better sound quality, in preparation for its lame sequel. www.youtube.com/playlist?list...

3 years ago (edited) | [YT] | 80

Falcom Music Channel

Reuploaded the Tokyo Xanadu OST in better quality. The original upload from 2015 was made from the hi-res version of the album and I was using Camtasia Studio at the time. Camtasia Studio by itself is fine and I still use it from time to time, but it doesn't tolerate hi-res audio very well and that led to annoying reverb issues (especially noticiable in quieter tracks like "Towards Tomorrow"). This new upload was made using Sony Vegas and should fix the problem. I already switched to Sony Vegas back in 2016, so every modern album released since then should be fine.

I really should have done this sooner, and this is not the first time I reupload a soundtrack. But Tokyo Xanadu is a more modern, well-known game, and removing the videos would also remove all the existing comments/discussions in these, which is what prevented me from doing so all this time. Ultimately, fixing the sound issues was a bigger concern. Once again, this is all my fault and I apologise for any inconvenience caused.

The original upload has been unlisted and can still be found here: www.youtube.com/playlist?list...

5 years ago (edited) | [YT] | 44