GABB2301: The 7th Saga Soundtracks Composer's Edition

[Aifread]

1.Beginning of Tale
2.Esuna Busy
These two songs have been treated with orchestral music and electronica.

I was initially confused by this because everything here sounds like the original SNES soundtrack but then I realized he might be referring to a different album and yup, there it is on his bandcamp:
https://bosatsubeat.bandcamp.com/alb...-7th-saga-vol1

Removed "arrangement" from the classification field.

[Psychonotes]

Not sure I understand this comment? The first two tracks on this album are those two arranged "Legend of Ticondera" tracks you've linked to on Yamanuki's bandcamp. The original SNES versions of these two aren't included on the CD, although they are present on the digital bandcamp version.

Edit: In fact, while double checking my CD, I just realized that track 13 (Wilme Pelin) is also newly arranged and not based on the SFC source sound, while the digital OST edition does contain the original version. Very odd, as this arranged track isn't even mentioned on the bandcamp page at all, nor is it available digitally.

[Aifread]

Oh wow I didn't think to rip the CD directly because I assumed the digital version included with the purchase was identical since they're the same store page. (This guy's bandcamp is kinda janky; why does he also have every track released as a separate album?) There should be a new separate entry for the digital one then.

[Teioh]

When I bought the CD, I remember it was from a different page on this bandcamp store that was later deactivated (or changed to the current one). It contained the "Super Nintendo original ver." which was also provided in my download link. I expect the physical CD to be the composer's edition with arranged tracks.

My digital release has a different cover, so maybe just the digitial version is "SFC only":

Spoiler:

[Psychonotes]

That cover is the version I have as well, which I bought shortly after it first went up on bandcamp. To add to the strangeness of this whole 7th Saga OST release, it also includes an additional 6 jingle tracks, which seem to have been removed from the current bandcamp version, and aren't included on the CD either. Love you Yamanuki, but why would you cut tracks for something meant for dedicated fans...

This is why digital sucks. Hosting sources can change content on a whim, and the prior version (officially) vanishes into the ether for anyone who didn't acquire it in time.

[Aifread]

I think the jingle tracks just aren't shown on the page; I bought this just this past week and I have the other cover but all the jingle tracks are still there.

[Psychonotes]

Oh, good deal then! They were originally listed on the OST page, so when they disappeared from the previewable tracklist, I assumed he pulled them out of the release.

[Mac_Tear]

It only took 30 years for a soundtrack release! What a blast!! I wish more composers would publish their earlier works like this. I know it's always a matter of copyright, etc. Strangely, the "spiritual successor" of The 7th Saga, namely Mystic Ark, got a 2-disc soundtrack release back then in 1995 (which happens to be one of my favorite SNES RPG soundtracks aside from Squaresoft, and co.).

Sound quality and mastering is wonderfully done here for such an antique game soundtrack. Where's Illusion of Gaia? Was there ever a soundtrack release? I hope it sees one someday as well like this one.

[Aifread]

The soundtracks composers have the rights to are very few and far between. Honestly I wouldn't even be sure Yamanuki owns what he did on 7th Saga here or if it's just a situation where no one else is gonna claim ownership since Produce! went under years ago.

As for Illusion of Gaia, Kentaro Sato had looked into it for one of his Symphonic Tale projects and...

Today, I had a meeting with Mr. Kawasaki, the composer of Illusion of Gaia, and we have discussed about various copyright and license issues related to the game.

Well, I did know the reason why there has been no OST, and today I got more information on this matter as well. I cannot share it here, but let's just say that unfortunately I am very pessimistic about an official OST. And for the sake of fairness, neither the composer, Quintet, nor SQEX were to be responsible (or even to be blamed) for the situation.

[TerraEpon]

Originally Posted by Aifread

The soundtracks composers have the rights to are very few and far between. Honestly I wouldn't even be sure Yamanuki owns what he did on 7th Saga here or if it's just a situation where no one else is gonna claim ownership since Produce! went under years ago.

Well it's interesting, people have been getting copyright strikes on Twitch for streaming it recently (which isn't like on YT, basically it's a warning and then vods are muted). I was wondering if it was releated to the music being sold on Bandcamp.

[Psychonotes]

I wouldn’t doubt this album happened because Yamanuki decided to go rogue, and knew nobody would come after him.

Originally Posted by Aifread

As for Illusion of Gaia, Kentaro Sato had looked into it for one of his Symphonic Tale projects and...

What an utterly frustrating response. That’s worse than just not knowing why an OST never happened. I have to wonder what possible convoluted legal complication there could be that apparently both the composer and the current IP owner for an original, non-licensed game left the rights to the music on a bus somewhere, are powerless to resolve it, and the reason can’t even be spoken of in public.

[zierts]

Originally Posted by Aifread

The soundtracks composers have the rights to are very few and far between. Honestly I wouldn't even be sure Yamanuki owns what he did on 7th Saga here or if it's just a situation where no one else is gonna claim ownership since Produce! went under years ago.

As for Illusion of Gaia, Kentaro Sato had looked into it for one of his Symphonic Tale projects and...

In other words: the copyright is jointly owned by all parties and Quintet cannot be asked for permission as the company's representative director can no longer be reached.

[Aifread]

Bingo. Quintet games are notoriously difficult to work out the rights for because their philosophy after their explosive exit from Falcom was for everyone to maintain ownership of what they worked on. The art, music, and story for Illusion of Gaia all belong to different people.

The other option is to go the Yuzo Koshiro route and release "works" albums that dance around using the game titles ("The Stickman is Back" = Batman Returns) but the tricky part there is the composer has to be a big enough name that people will care to buy it without knowing what the soundtrack is.

[Despatche]

So what the heck is going on with these song titles? As far as I know, there is no other album release for this game in any form, and there's no sound test in either version of the game. The song titles seem to be made up entirely by SNESmusic. That's just not right. We already saw this happen with the Makaimura box.

[TerraEpon]

Originally Posted by Despatche

So what the heck is going on with these song titles? As far as I know, there is no other album release for this game in any form, and there's no sound test in either version of the game. The song titles seem to be made up entirely by SNESmusic. That's just not right. We already saw this happen with the Makaimura box.

Huh?

Titles are literally what they are on the Bandcamp page.

[Aifread]

Originally Posted by TerraEpon

Huh?

Titles are literally what they are on the Bandcamp page.

Yes, and those titles were copied from SNESmusic, same as the Makaimura box set did for Demon's Crest.

[Despatche]

Dang, I was afraid of that. I don't really like it when people just kinda make stuff up and it eventually becomes "canon" like this. Too much of the internet does this citogenesis thing for my taste.

[zierts]

I think it's charming when fan titles are adopted officially. Someone put some thinking into them, so if they're good in their own right why not have them used by the original composer or the company that published the game?

But I think there could be some copyright issues with that.

[Aifread]

Originally Posted by Despatche

Dang, I was afraid of that. I don't really like it when people just kinda make stuff up and it eventually becomes "canon" like this. Too much of the internet does this citogenesis thing for my taste.

For the record I can't say that's for sure where they came from, I was just clarifying what you meant to TerraEpon.

This release seems to be the composer acting alone so it's entirely possible he didn't have access to the game itself or the sound test and only had his original data with no official track titles or memory of where they played, and so just went with the titles the community came up with and has been using.

[zierts]

A semi-complete SPC set for 7th Saga was first released on Zophar's Domain by "Dan" on July 19th, 2000. It had no tags and purely descriptive titles like "battle1", "castle", "ending" etc.

The more elaborate titles used here were conceived by Matt Hobbs (YelseyKing / YK) for his own set somewhere around 2002/2003.

7th Saga's copyright situation has been discussed above but I just thought I'd add: the composer Norihiko Yamanuki is not mentioned in the game's copyright notices (unlike Koichi Sugiyama for E.V.O.: Search for Eden or Yasuhiro Kawasaki for Illusion of Gaia). So the copyright is very likely to be jointly held by Enix and Produce. Seeing how there hasn't been a soundtrack release for 7th Saga before, that would make this album a "bootleg". On the off-chance that Yamanuki's contract still granted him the sole copyright to the music he created, this would be fine, of course. But I doubt that's the case. And I doubt he contacted Square Enix and former Produce figureheads to be granted a license. Also, per his bio, it's not entirely clear whether Yamanuki used to be a freelancer or was part of a music studio back then.

I still wouldn't flag this with release type "bootleg" to give it huge red letters as the original composer was involved. I thought about some criteria when to mark albums as red, orange and the like some time ago as the way we handle doujin/indie "fan arrangement" releases is a pretty big mess. :/ Not ready to post those yet.

[Ramza]

Originally Posted by zierts

7th Saga's copyright situation has been discussed above but I just thought I'd add: the composer Norihiko Yamanuki is not mentioned in the game's copyright notices (unlike Koichi Sugiyama for E.V.O.: Search for Eden or Yasuhiro Kawasaki for Illusion of Gaia). So the copyright is very likely to be jointly held by Enix and Produce. Seeing how there hasn't been a soundtrack release for 7th Saga before, that would make this album a "bootleg". On the off-chance that Yamanuki's contract still granted him the sole copyright to the music he created, this would be fine, of course. But I doubt that's the case. And I doubt he contacted Square Enix and former Produce figureheads to be granted a license.

This seems significant. I've actually reached out to Yamanuki (via Bandcamp) in hopes of getting an answer -- whether he was granted copyright from past contract, or if he has worked out licensing in the present. If I get an answer, will share here.

[Ramza]

I received response from Yamanuki regarding this. He confirmed that he holds the rights as a composer (contracted thru Enix), but did not have the rights to reproduce the music exactly as found on the Super Famicom. Hence the "composer's edition" being a remaster of the audio running through different, less-compressed sound fonts.

The "SNE edition" on the back cover of the album seems misleading then (and I talked to zierts about this via PM). Because it's actually *not* the exact SNES soundfont at all. I think those are there to refer to the game being an SNES / SFC release.

All of that said, looks like we don't have to mark this one as doujin or bootleg. Appears to be a legitimate independent release.