# Final Fantasy IV – Theme of Love – Using BBCSO Core



## mybadmemory (Sep 22, 2020)

Theme of Love from Final Fantasy IV, from memory, using BBCSO Core. I didn't check the score so there might be mistakes here and there. And it's just the short loop from the original game, none of the extra sections from any of the orchestral arrangements added.

Everything is straight out of the box, using BBCSO Core only (apart from the grand piano which is from Berlin Inspire). All going though Valhalla and some light Logic compression / limiting. Any constructive feedback is welcomed!


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## Alex Fraser (Sep 22, 2020)

Passes the "actually, I need to listen to this through decent speakers" test.
Lovely stuff. You made it "sound like an orchestra" and I love the arrangement. Great advert for the library. My one quibble? More tempo variation would have been nice, but that said, video game stuff tends to be hard tempo anyhow so maybe that's the vibe you were going for.

👍👍


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## Henrik B. Jensen (Sep 22, 2020)

Listening on iPad, so might be mistaken, but is there a big volume difference between oboe flute in the beginning of the piece compared to when more instruments arrive on the scene?

Edit:
Around 0:31 oboe flute drops a lot in volume compared to from 0:00 to 0:31 ?
I’d lower oboe flute volume in the beginning up until 0:31

Apart from this it sounds wonderful!


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## thorwald (Sep 22, 2020)

Spitfire says this a lot, and I am not surprised why. I haven't really seen any single library being this cohesive.

My only issue with the piece is that the portamento is a bit overused, in my opinion, especially for the cello section, when the strings come in. Otherwise very well done!


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## doctoremmet (Sep 22, 2020)

Nice!!


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## Brasart (Sep 22, 2020)

Great rendition, well done!


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## brynolf (Sep 22, 2020)

hbjdk said:


> Listening on iPad, so might be mistaken, but is there a big volume difference between oboe in the beginning of the piece compared to when more instruments arrive on the scene?
> 
> Edit:
> Around 0:31 oboe drops a lot in volume compared to from 0:00 to 0:31 ?
> ...


Oboe?


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## José Herring (Sep 22, 2020)

The FLUTE sounds gorgeous. 

The whole orchestra sounds cohesive. 

Yes the port is bit overused but still convincing. 

Don't know the game or this piece but hits sounds nice. Surprisingly old school harmony and melody for such a hip game.


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## Henrik B. Jensen (Sep 22, 2020)

brynolf said:


> Oboe?


Haha! I listened just now and can hear it’s a flute


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## mybadmemory (Sep 22, 2020)

Alex Fraser said:


> Passes the "actually, I need to listen to this through decent speakers" test.
> Lovely stuff. You made it "sound like an orchestra" and I love the arrangement. Great advert for the library. My one quibble? More tempo variation would have been nice, but that said, video game stuff tends to be hard tempo anyhow so maybe that's the vibe you were going for.
> 
> 👍👍



Thanks Alex! I did a slight tempo increase for the chorus, but I should definitely do more fluid tempo changes overall. I'm still a bit unsure at how to do it properly besides very simple increases / decreases at certain segments of the song. I'll try to add some more fluid variation within segments as well, and post a new version!


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## mybadmemory (Sep 22, 2020)

hbjdk said:


> Listening on iPad, so might be mistaken, but is there a big volume difference between oboe flute in the beginning of the piece compared to when more instruments arrive on the scene?
> 
> Edit:
> Around 0:31 oboe flute drops a lot in volume compared to from 0:00 to 0:31 ?
> ...



It's actually already more quiet in the beginning, and louder when the strings come in, but I agree it kind of sounds the opposite. I guess it would have to be an even larger difference for it to actually sound like that. I'll try to exaggerate this for an update.


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## mybadmemory (Sep 22, 2020)

thorwald said:


> Spitfire says this a lot, and I am not surprised why. I haven't really seen any single library being this cohesive.
> 
> My only issue with the piece is that the portamento is a bit overused, in my opinion, especially for the cello section, when the strings come in. Otherwise very well done!



I agree, the cohesiveness is impressive. With none of my other libraries do I feel "a real orchestra playing in my computer" at arrangements this simple. To me, it starts to sound convincing even when using just two instruments together. The other libraries I own kind of needs a lot of stuff playing once, to "cover the blemishes" in terms of sounding like a real band in a real space. I'm very impressed by this aspect of it. 

And yes, I'm probably overdoing the portamento by around 800%. I'm just a bit too happy to finally have a library that can do it. :D


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## mybadmemory (Sep 22, 2020)

José Herring said:


> The FLUTE sounds gorgeous.
> 
> The whole orchestra sounds cohesive.
> 
> ...



I really like the flute and cohesiveness of this library as well! The game is quite old by now, released in 1991. But perhaps, you were thinking way older than that?


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## José Herring (Sep 22, 2020)

mybadmemory said:


> I really like the flute and cohesiveness of this library as well! The game is quite old by now, released in 1991. But perhaps, you were thinking way older than that?


No '91 sounds right. People were still using melody and harmony


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## IFM (Sep 22, 2020)

You did an excellent job!


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## mybadmemory (Sep 22, 2020)

José Herring said:


> No '91 sounds right. People were still using melody and harmony



Haha, yeah, I too wish those things were still hip. I guess they'll be back in fashion some day... Until then I'm listening to older stuff.


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## Vladimir Bulaev (Sep 24, 2020)

I love this orchestral album completely! Great music, melodies, harmony and orchestration.


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## mybadmemory (Sep 24, 2020)

Vladimir Bulaev said:


> I love this orchestral album completely! Great music, melodies, harmony and orchestration.




That's absolutely lovely, but now you made my mockup sound much worse in comparison.


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## pbobcat (Sep 24, 2020)

I'm not familiar with the original but that is just stunning! And you've convinced me that I need Core in my life. Roll on Black Friday!


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## Vladimir Bulaev (Sep 24, 2020)

mybadmemory said:


> That's absolutely lovely, but now you made my mockup sound much worse in comparison.


Don't forget this is a live performance by some of Japan's finest musicians. It's a pity that we don't have orchestral libraries from the Japanese. but they do not need them, they traditionally write everything with live musicians, and it seems they have a very stable tradition.


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## mybadmemory (Sep 24, 2020)

pbobcat said:


> I'm not familiar with the original but that is just stunning! And you've convinced me that I need Core in my life. Roll on Black Friday!



Thanks! I find it wonderfully cohesive and an absolute joy to work with for slower and more emotional pieces like this. For faster more aggressive stuff, it does have its quirks (primarily related to inconsistent timing of shorts). But overall I like it more and more, and if those timing inconsistencies are ever fixed, I might very well ditch the other libraries from my template and just use this for everything.


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## mybadmemory (Sep 24, 2020)

Vladimir Bulaev said:


> Don't forget this is a live performance by some of Japan's finest musicians. It's a pity that we don't have orchestral libraries from the Japanese. but they do not need them, they traditionally write everything with live musicians, and it seems they have a very stable tradition.



I'd be the first to jump on a library from Japan. Wouldn't expect anything less than perfection. :D


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## pbobcat (Sep 24, 2020)

mybadmemory said:


> Thanks! I find it wonderfully cohesive and an absolute joy to work with for slower and more emotional pieces like this. For faster more aggressive stuff, it does have its quirks (primarily related to inconsistent timing of shorts). But overall I like it more and more, and if those timing inconsistencies are ever fixed, I might very well ditch the other libraries from my template and just use this for everything.


I just started out getting into all this a few months ago so I'm a little unfocussed and overwhelmed with all the options available! After hearing your work, I think Core is the way to go, especially since I gravitate towards more emotional, slower paced orchestral stuff. Thanks!


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## Bluemount Score (Sep 24, 2020)

Beautiful. Once again shows how great BBCSO works as a complete orchestra.


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## thorwald (Sep 24, 2020)

Since the orchestral album was mentioned, a different take on this theme is this: 

Some of you who listen to Celtic music might be inspired to write some after this ☺️

I still have the opinion that OP's rendition is cohesive and beautiful, and it is not to be discarded, even if a real orchestra has naturally more expression.


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## mybadmemory (Sep 24, 2020)

pbobcat said:


> I just started out getting into all this a few months ago so I'm a little unfocussed and overwhelmed with all the options available! After hearing your work, I think Core is the way to go, especially since I gravitate towards more emotional, slower paced orchestral stuff. Thanks!



Easy feeling to have! I sure had the same one a few years back! If you gravitate towards slow and emotional BBCSO is probably among the most complete and cohesive packages you can get in that price range. If you'd want to do epic or aggressive I'd probably advise looking elsewhere.

The only thing I would add is that it's important to get that BBCSO does not have any ensemble patches and therefore forces you into writing for each individual instrument section, which could feel daunting if you're a beginner. If you're just up for that though, go for it! It sounds lovely!


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## mybadmemory (Sep 24, 2020)

Bluemount Score said:


> Beautiful. Once again shows how great BBCSO works as a complete orchestra.



For me, the most impressive part is that I don't need to add shitloads of stuff / bury the errors to make it sound "complete". Just two or three instruments together and it already becomes convincing. Something none of my other libraries seem to handle as well.


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## mybadmemory (Sep 29, 2020)

Added a video of the arrangement here if anyone would be interested.


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## Justin L. Franks (Aug 29, 2021)

Vladimir Bulaev said:


> Don't forget this is a live performance by some of Japan's finest musicians. It's a pity that we don't have orchestral libraries from the Japanese. but they do not need them, they traditionally write everything with live musicians, and it seems they have a very stable tradition.





mybadmemory said:


> I'd be the first to jump on a library from Japan. Wouldn't expect anything less than perfection. :D








Tokyo Scoring Strings: Patch 1.0.5 available (fixed sample offsets)


Impact Soundworks is thrilled to present our first flagship orchestral string library, Tokyo Scoring Strings - available now! THE STORY Our goal with Tokyo Scoring Strings is to give you the orchestral string sound that has been heard across innumerable world-famous Japanese productions...




vi-control.net


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## mybadmemory (Aug 29, 2021)

Justin L. Franks said:


> Tokyo Scoring Strings: Patch 1.0.5 available (fixed sample offsets)
> 
> 
> Impact Soundworks is thrilled to present our first flagship orchestral string library, Tokyo Scoring Strings - available now! THE STORY Our goal with Tokyo Scoring Strings is to give you the orchestral string sound that has been heard across innumerable world-famous Japanese productions...
> ...



I’m so eagerly awaiting it! 🥰


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## Taron (Oct 10, 2021)

Yip, here comes the problem with the reverb in BBCSO, I suppose. The harp reveals them and really suffers because of it, in my opinion. It becomes strangely overpowering and creates this almost distracting resonance in the room. I'm sure SA did their best, arriving at the conclusion that this is the most "natural" in the context of the whole, but well... eh... 
Flute feels a bit forceful to me, too, like not being quite as delicate as the theme might suggest. Kind of a tiny bit clumsy in a way, but knowing what you can do, I'm virtually certain it's the library, like the flute is meant to serve a different purpose or nature in the Core environment?! Very natural, but, well... I hope, you know what I mean.
When everything kicks in at around 1 min, the true will of Core comes out again and you're using it beautifully. I must say, though, the composition...haha... hmmm... it's a wee bit deeply in the ripe territory, hehe, hmm how to say this inoffensively...it's the sort of stuff that is incredibly about the Japanese modern culture, allowing them to be as obvious and direct about a theme as they want it to be. It provides clarity, but it can also land a bit in the cringe-world of western rebellion against tradition. let's just call it "cute"! 
But you absolutely haven't failed yet to show your understanding on how to realize such scores virtually. Marvelous stuff from one to the next! 

(Oh God, watching the Tokyo Strings teaser looks like a complete nightmare with all the masks!!!  ...I'm gasping for both air and dignity, watching this!)


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