Ask Sound Director Masayoshi Soken Your Questions

Could we have the option to turn off the default music in inn rooms and hear the normal city music, like we can for residential districts?

With the FF7 remake on it's way, could we see some FF7 songs added to the game? Like the random encounter battle theme or maybe one winged angel?

Hi Soken!
Outside of the gaming industry, who is your favorite modern musical composer? (Movies, theatre, singers)

What inspired you to come up with the idea of Implementing «eternal wind» from FFIII into the Shadowbringers Theme

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Originally Posted by Vondra

What inspired you to come up with the idea of Implementing «eternal wind» from FFIII into the Shadowbringers Theme

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That's not something you need to ask Soken, actually - the song is used directly in the FFIII-inspired Crystal Tower storyline already, and plays at the end of the final cutscene. So it's carrying on the same music into the next part of that plot thread.

Can we please have the warring lanner music changed to second phase sephirot music?

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Originally Posted by HyoMinPark

Hi, Soken!

First of all, I want to say I’m a huge fan of your work—the Shadowbringers OST is amazing, and I can’t wait to see the rest of the music added in future patches!

As for my question, I apologize if it is something you may not be able to answer. Recently, with Patch 5.1, new combat sounds were added to all the voices for each race. I was wondering what prompted this decision to add in more combat sounds?

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My second question is piggybacking off of my first question.

After hearing a series of mixed opinions about the new combat sounds that came with Patch 5.1, would it be possible to ever add a toggle-feature that allows players to choose whether they would prefer to stick with just the original sounds only or have the new sounds added? Thank you!

Are there any plans to expand the size of the house orchestrion? There are too many good songs to fit in that tiny playlist :(

Mr. Soken, you do fantastic work with leitmotifs and re-stylings of other songs. I especially love "Shadows Withal." What is your favorite leitmotif? Is there any leitmotif that you found difficult to use in a particular style?

Can we get a FFXV style MP3 player?

What were the themes you tried to portray the most in ShadowBringers' expansion theme?

hi soken

what is your favorite job in FF 14 and what type theme would you had given it if you had the chance to make one for it?

Do you think we'll ever get another boss fight song that is somber in nature, and builds in suspense, similar to the Final Steps of Faith fight against Nidhogg?

Hi there soken.

If you could choose a theme that captures viera's frustration of not getting all the hairstyle and not being able to display helmets, which one would it be?

Hi Soken,

Is it possible for our player character to have a voiced monologues with dialogue wheel that is similar to fallout 4 during cut scene?

For being a special mount, The Ozma mount from Baldesion Arsenal, uses the default Heavensward flying music rather than the FF11 Track Played/Earned from the Ozma fight. Was this an accidental oversight?

Hey Soken you and your team has put together some incredible memorable music.

Would you ever consider(and not sure if this have ever been asked) but 2would you consider bringing in Naoshi Mizuta who had worked with ffxi to compose some amazing songs together.

asking because Mizuta is another favorite composers and created one of my all time favorite pieces Luck of the mog. I think that would be an incredible team up

Do you (Soken) work on any other projects outside of FFXIV?

Hi soken
Are there any plans to change the gunbreaker sound effects again? the new ones sound a little too week and blunt to lot of people myself included infact i think most people just preferred the old ones
Thanks!

Hi soken

Is there any plans to add more orchestrion rolls that are the primals versions of songs (such as Heroes, Revenge Twofold etc)?

Will you be able to put the 8bit music renditions for Magnai Fantasy you folks made last year for April Fools into the game? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UPaI3YV4GeA

That video had a ton of remixes of Stormblood songs done in 8 bit( played over references to other SE games) but the versions that were made for Doma Castle and the Peaks were absolutely fantastic.

I'm assuming you did the songs as you made the versions for Wayward Daughter and the Worm's Tail, I'd love to see it put up in the Gold Saucer as a reward since the songs are really fantastic.

Hello Soken, I love your work. I just have one question.

In 5.01, Gunbreaker sound effects were changed from nice sounding sharp swings to blunt, club-like sounds. Are there any plans to change or revert this job's sound effects, or at least is there any explanation of why they were changed in the first place?

There are some absolutely amazing songs in FFXIV 1.0, such as "Tears for Mor Dhona," which was repurposed for Palace of the Dead. I miss hearing it in Mor Dhona itself, though. I rarely go into the Palace of the Dead, so I almost never get to hear it. I was wondering, would you ever consider allowing users to choose alternate BGM for areas that used to have different songs tied to them? Or do you feel this would intrude on the area's identity?

Are there any other composers, singers or artists that Soken would like to collaborate with, either for Final Fantasy XIV music, arrangements, or his own independant projects?

There are about 6 (or maybe more) versions of Titan's theme now. Is he your favorite Primal to work with or was it hard to pick just one theme?

Is it possible to have a UI element that shows the name of the track playing now?

The game has an amazing sound track but names always elude me.

Another question, is it possible to improve the audio quality of the orchestrion music?

Thanks and keep up the amazing work!

Hi, With 5.0 we seemed to get an increase in quests that were voice acted. Is there any intention to build upon this? It seems far to many quests are only text. Also will we ever get more then a "mmhmm" from our characters?

Hi Soken! Big fan btw,

I wondered if you would consider changing the BGM for ranked feast/pvp mounts to “culling time” from feast and such, just for variety.

Thank you and keep up the good work!

Any chance we can get a Death Metal trial theme? :D

Answers! There has been various fan theories behind the lyrics, would love to hear exclusively from producers.

Firstly I would like to thank you for your amazing compositions providing what I feel like is the backbone to my experience playing this game.

My only question is: will there ever be an orchestrion roll for Order Yet Undeciphered, the Azys Lla field theme? I got super excited to get into centurio hunts when I learned you could get faded sheets for their respective field themes from them, but that one [my favourite track in the game, personally] is missing!

I really love the way calm music mixes with the battle music in Crystal Tower and Shadows of Mhach raids, and you have told previously how this is achieved with blending both music tracks together. The Dungeons have really pretty background musics and it's a shame they get cut off when you enter a mid-boss fight.

Would it be possible to have a similar music blending for Dungeon mid-bosses, as what you used in those raid battles?

There are many songs in the game that have wonderful vocals like Locus and eScape and many others, though I also wonder sometimes how these songs would like without the singing! Is there any chance of releasing instrumental/offvocal versions of songs?

Are there any samples you've worked with that you think would surprise people if we knew where they came from? Maybe some interesting foley work that would shock us?

I love the introductory sound effects in Shadows Withal, the Akademia Anyder theme, and I've actually heard those same "radio tuning" samples in other media. I was really surprised and excited to recognize them.

I love all the piano music, is there a chance we could get a ffxiv piano selections cd?

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Originally Posted by Sussis

I love all the piano music, is there a chance we could get a ffxiv piano selections cd?

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there already are piano soundtrack releases of XIV music out there.

The shadowbringers soundtrack was amazing when can we expect it on spotify?

I absolutely loved playing XIV's music in Thearhythm, is there a chance with the game's current development to have something like that as a mini game? Bard Assist Mode already feels like it and I would truly enjoy more with boss themes.

Most of the game's vocal tracks feature English vocals, with Japanese vocals being introduced in Stormblood due to it fitting the Far Eastern portions of the game.

Are there any other languages you would like to feature in the game's vocal soundtrack in the future?

I once heard an interview where it was said you were unsure we would like the simplistic theme of Amaurot, with its metronome ticking sound. Now that we are several months in, what are your current thoughts on the tune? I personally find it to be soothing.

P.S. as a jazz enthusiast, Shadows Withal (akademia Anyder theme) is absolutely amazing :D

Hello Mr Soken! And thank you for all your hard work in making the music of Eorzea!

One of my favourite songs in FFXIV is Beyond Redemption, from the Flames of Truth cinematic which also appears in Unending Coil of Bahamut as the theme of Golden Bahamut. In UCOB in particular, the song is preceeded with a verse from Answers, which sent chills down my spine when I first heard it and turned it into an instant favourite. However, that verse is not present in the official soundtrack or on the Spotify version of Beyond Redemption. I'm curious, is there any reason why it was not included?