Sound teams and in-house bands

[CHz]

I've been thinking about this since the Shinsekai Gakkyoku Zatsugidan/Neo Geo Music Performance Group fixup.

A few game companies have a collective term for their sound staff that's used instead of individual composers for games: Konami Kukeiha Club, etc. Some of these companies also have in-house bands that perform arrangements of their music: Kukeiha Club, etc.

I am going to make a list of these for two reasons. The first is that I think it'd just be nice to have, since I don't think there's a list like this anywhere else. The second will be presented in a minute.

• Capcom
  Composers: Capcom Sound Team Alph Lyla
  Band: Capcom Sound Team Alph Lyla (is there any distinction between Capcom Sound Team Alph Lyla and Alph Lyla?)
• Data East
  Composers: Gamadelic
  Band: Gamadelic
• Falcom
  Composers: Falcom Sound Team jdk
  Band: dunno if there were actually any in-house groups, but there are a bunch of performance groups on their fifty trillion arrangement albums: J.D.K. Band, Pre-Project, etc.
• Konami
  Composers: Konami Kukeiha Club
  Band: Kukeiha Club
• Sega
  Composers: we have a Sega Sound Team (S.S.T.) entry, but I don't know the extent to which that was officially used
  Bands: S.S.T. Band, H.
• SNK
  Composers: Shinsekai Gakkyoku Zatsugidan
  Band: none; all performance was done by outside people, AFAIK
• Square
  Composers: no group name
  Band: The Black Mages, Star Onions
• Taito
  Composers: Zuntata
  Band: Zuntata

I'm definitely up for corrections and additions to this.

The important bits are Taito and Data East (and Capcom, assuming those names are currect, because I'm not 100% on them): the sound teams and bands have the same name. I think this distinction should be annotated somehow, because they are two fundamentally different entities: a collective composition group and a performance group with mostly members from the composition group (as well as members who aren't). However, having two groups with the same names and very similar members could lead to big time confusion. Here's my proposal, using Zuntata as an example:

1. Make two artist entries: "Zuntata (composition)" and "Zuntata (performance)," or something along those lines. The current Zuntata artist could just be renamed to one of them.
2. Sort out the associations to the right groups, and link all of them with aliases of "Zuntata." If there are any albums out there credited to something like "Taito Sound Team," then obviously that should be used as an alias to the composition group instead.
3. We now have a conflict for "Zuntata," but this is a good thing. Whenever a new album is added or linked to "Zuntata," the linker will have to choose between "Zuntata (composition)" and "Zuntata (performance)" from the dropdown box, making it very clear which Zuntata is being linked to.

Thoughts on this?

[Secret Squirrel]

Well, I think you're definitely right that we need to differentiate between the composition team and the performance group, particularly in those cases where they have the same name (Zuntata etc.) I'm not sure I want to see a (composition) or (performance) tag after their names when they are listed on an album though, because it seems a little disruptive. However, I think the distinction is definitely needed when they artists are being linked.

Does Ambassadors of Funk featuring M.C. Mario count as Nintendo's in-house band? I can't say I know much about them.

[CHz]

Originally Posted by Secret Squirrel

I'm not sure I want to see a (composition) or (performance) tag after their names when they are listed on an album though, because it seems a little disruptive.

I definitely agree that having "Zuntata (composition)" in an artist field on an album display page would look pretty ugly. That's why my suggestion was for just the artist entry to be named "Zuntata (composition)," and for all links to that entry to have an alias name of "Zuntata," so that on the album pages just "Zuntata" will show up.

A problem with that is that the artist page will look ugly, because each album will have "(as Zuntata)" after it. That could be solved by making both artist entries "Zuntata," but then it won't be immediately obvious why there are two Zuntata entries, both while linking to them and just viewing them on their own.

Originally Posted by Secret Squirrel

Does Ambassadors of Funk featuring M.C. Mario count as Nintendo's in-house band? I can't say I know much about them.

Doesn't seem like it. Ambassadors of Funk was a project or stage name or something of some guy named Simon Harris.

[Gigablah]

Composition takes precedence to performance, so have two entries as such:

(Composition group)
Display Name: Zuntata
Last Name: Zuntata

(Performance group)
Display Name: Zuntata (performance)
Last Name: Zuntata


I'm going to edit the artist profile pages such that aliases that match the combination of Last Name + First Name (which may be different from the display name) will be dropped from the alias list. So you can have "Zuntata" as an alias for Zuntata (performance) without the redundancy in the alias list and discography credits. This will also be handy for artists with stylized names such as Halko Momoi, since it'll be silly to have "(as Haruko Momoi)" displayed when that's her proper name.

[isdapi]

There's a related issue that I'd like to comment on.

In some albums (most of them from Falcom) the composer credits aren't completely correct. I'll explain this with an example. In "Ys V Orchestra Version" the composers credited are Satoshi Arai, Mieko Ishikawa, Naoki Kaneda, Atsushi Shirakawa and Masaru Nakajima; which is uncertain or not quite certain.

The problem takes root in that we don't know which composer composed which track, that is to say, we don't have a composer breakdown for the original soundtrack (Music from Ys V ~ Kefin, Lost Capital of Sand). And, having account that the orchestra album has ten tracks, for which don't know who composed them, imho, it is to go too far to give composition credits for that album to all these composers (above all because it's very improbable that all of them have at least one original composition between the ten tracks)

You don't misunderstand me, I'm in favor of full credits, but in cases as the above-mentioned where we don't know with certainty if all these composers composed something for that concrete album, imho it's better to put just "Falcom Sound Team jdk". In other words, for me, it's incorrect to transfer the composer field from an soundtrack to an arranged album (based in the same soundtrack).

For example, in "Ys V Orchestra Version" I'd changed "list of composers" for "Falcom Sound Team jdk" and I'd add a comment in the notes field where I'd mention to all the composers.

Other album with the same conflict is Symphony Sorcerian, but there will be some more.

[seanne]

Originally Posted by CHz

(is there any distinction between Capcom Sound Team Alph Lyla and Alph Lyla?)

There's no distinction apart from Capcom Sound Team Alph Lyla being the last 'variation' of the original name (Alph Lyra wa Lyra) that was used by capcom on their cd released before specific composer credits took over. It was used from about 1994.

The important bits are Taito and Data East (and Capcom, assuming those names are currect, because I'm not 100% on them): the sound teams and bands have the same name. I think this distinction should be annotated somehow, because they are two fundamentally different entities: a collective composition group and a performance group with mostly members from the composition group (as well as members who aren't). However, having two groups with the same names and very similar members could lead to big time confusion. Here's my proposal, using Zuntata as an example:

But can it be made certain that certain members of (e.g) Zuntata (live instrument performance version) were never actually involved in any composition efforts for games produced by Taito? And that they were in fact never full-time employees at the Taito sound department, but were just hired for specific recordings/live shows? Unless that's a fact I don't see why we should make a distinction which the company in question themselves never choose to make.

If the distinction is made (e.g S.S.T. vs. S.S.T. Band) then that's one thing, but if not, I think the system whereby album-specific "role" distinction is noted in the artist profile is sufficient.

And if we were to opt for a distinction I would rather see it being within the existing entries. "Members (sound team)" and "Members (live performance)", something. And further notes could always go in the Biography and Notes fields once they go online.

My 2 cents