Ask Sound Director Masayoshi Soken Your Questions

We're pleased to announce that the fifty-sixth installment of the Letter from the Producer LIVE will feature Sound Director Masayoshi Soken as a guest! The show is set to take place on Friday, December 13, at 8:30 p.m. (PST) / 11:30 p.m. (EST) / Saturday, 14 December, at 4:30 (GMT).

In this thread, we'd like you to post questions you may have related to the sounds & music of FINAL FANTASY XIV, or even general questions for Soken!

When submitting a question(s), we ask that you be mindful of these points:

• Please post your question(s) as a reply to this thread. * Please note that we may remove any questions not related to the subject.
• Please limit posts to question(s) only and do not use this thread for discussion.
• If another player has already asked a question you had in mind, simply click the "Like!" button instead of re-posting the question.
• Feel free to make use of the "Search Thread" option available from the top menu which allows you to search for posts with similar questions.
• Please post only one question per reply (of course you are allowed to post several replies!)

* Details regarding the Letter from the Producer LIVE: North America/Europe
* We will be closing the thread once the show is over.

Can the default song on the Typhon mount be changed to "A Battle Decisively" from Sigmascape?

What is your favorite song that you have made?

I, like many, am a huge fan of all the music in Shadowbringers. What was the most difficult song to work on in Shadowbringers? And how did you motivate yourself to finish it?

Will the full version of "Phantoms on the Lake" ever make an appearance in-game in the future? The opening part of the song is already in the game as "Persistence" and is used for a lot of dungeon mini-boss fights nowadays, but I can't recall ever hearing the full version from 1.x used anywhere in the game.

What sound effect used in-game has been the most difficult to create?

Roughly how often do unused versions of particular songs make it back into the game later to be used in different places? For example, an early version of battle music for Nidhogg ended up becoming a secondary end-boss theme for the last dungeons of Heavensward, and I believe the theme for Lakeland used in the earliest previews for Shadowbringers was brought back as dungeon music for one of the latest patches.

Secret of Mana or Chrono Trigger Music

What would it take to get musical licensing from other Squaresoft games of the 90s, like Chrono Trigger or Secret of Mana?

is it possible to add into game a portable orchestrion? So many great songs are wasted

Can we get more variety in the future to background music during quests and boss music (before endboss bosses)? Most of the pieces are from ARR times, they got very repetitive. It saddens me to hear the great new pieces of e.g. dungeon music to be interrupted by a very well known ARR boss theme.

I remember the whispering of the Shadowbringers main theme originally from not wanting to be too loud in the office. Are there other instances like that in the soundtrack?

Aside from guest composers like Okabe or Uematsu, do you arrange/compose all the music in XIV yourself or do you have assistants, or co-composers?

Is the music of XIV recorded using live instrumentation or virtual instruments on a computer?

When will new music be made for feast and frontline maps?

What was the inspiration behind the updated Gunbreaker Sounds? Would you support giving players the option to choose between different sounds for skills in General?

Soken I love your work, one of my favorite songs being "The Stone Remembers" the Peaks Night Theme.

I was wondering how does a brainstorm session go for you when making the music and it's transition into piano for the night themes? Is it done on piano first and then translated into the normal instrumentation or do you have a specific way you write the music with the main melody in mind?

Thank you for answering our questions. <3

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Commander_Justitia

Can we get more variety in the future to background music during quests and boss music (before endboss bosses)? Most of the pieces are from ARR times, they got very repetitive. It saddens me to hear the great new pieces of e.g. dungeon music to be interrupted by a very well known ARR boss theme.

---

I wanted to add to this because I was going to ask the same question, but particularly wanted to mention the Twinning - the music there is amazing and I love how fast-paced and intense it makes the dungeon feel, but going into the mid-level boss battles feels less exciting than the rest of the dungeon because of the generic music.

Was it very difficult to implement the 'performance' function for the Bard job? Specifically fitting it into FFXIV itself, which is a huge game.

P.S. I am deeply appreciative of its addition and the capability of playing instruments loudly in public social spaces.

Most "final areas" in the games (ARR beast tribe strongholds, Azys Lla, the Tempest) have music that plays all the time and doesn't get interrupted by the normal battle theme - but this isn't the case in the Lochs, where battle music plays as normal. Was this intentional or an oversight?

I know you do music for FFXIV but Will you also be working on FFXI R2 music as well?

Are there any music genres you want to try yet in XIV that you haven't done?

I'd personally love to see you take a stab at something like Cuban or even something like Future Funk for a dungeon. I think that was be absolutely fantastic and fun to try!

Hello Soken!

Some time ago, the SE Music discord sent out a question there channel "would anyone be interested in a Primals World tour?" is there any more info about this??
Thank you for taking the time to answer questions look forward to all your music and fun!!!

Soken said on twitter to ask him everything when mentioned I had a lot so here goes ;)

1: SE music's discord asked if anyone was interested in a Primals world tour. Any more information on this?

2: Will the newest Symphony come to the EU at some point?

3: Can we persuade SE Music to release the soundtracks on vinyl?

4: Was there any piece of music created that you had to fight to make it into the game?

5: Which song is your favourite to play with on stage The Primals, and which to hear live by orchestra?

Thank you
Aelrindyl

Now that Uematsu is somewhat returned to health, will you or Yoshi P be asking him to do the theme song for 6.0 again? don't get me wrong I loved your themes for 5.0 - i'm just curious.

Big fan of your works, Soken!

1. You're obviously a man who likes to do experimental things, evidenced by eScape, Locus, Rise and other such songs. Given the opportunity, what would you also like to experiment on song-wise?

2. Many of your songs are influenced by other bands, like with eScape. What do you usually like to use for inspiration as well in coming up with songs?

3. If you think you have one in the game right now, what is your magnum opus and why?

4. Seiryu didn't have vocals in his song! Was there a reason why of the three trials that Seiryu was purely instrumental?

5. If there was one song you could have the chance to work on and put your spin on in an ideal crossover, what song would you do?

Thank you for your work and time!

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?

Thank you all for your hard work! (お疲れ様 でした!), But to the point, I and a lot of Final Fantasy 6 fans were severely broken-hearted over the Magitek Predator not having the background music from FF6 where it was originated. Would there be a chance to set it's BGM to the original roots? Thank you so much for hearing me.

P.S.
PLEASE More Chocobo Race locations! Also, can we breed a Gold Chocobo?

Gunbreaker's explosion sound effects sound great, but their non explosion sound effects such as weapon swings sound a bit off. It sounds more like a blunt weapon than a blade. Are there any consideration for adjustments?

I know typically raid mounts are given music representing the final fight of that tier, but Titan's theme on the Skyslipper doesn't feel super appropriate. Can we possibly get the mount music changed to something like Blue Fields instead?

While I understand (and appreciate) the implied concept behind the first choice of a dungeon's theme usually being a variation on its respective zone's theme, I was torn between "love and bummer" regarding Mt. Gulg's theme not being a homage to _the_ Mt. Gulg's theme from FFI, which is a song pretty much as memorable as Matoya's theme - specially taking into account your *stellar* work and care when dealing with songs from other titles. It was also featured in FFIX and it was among the best tracks there too. When I first saw Alphinaud announce the name of the mountain, I got chills just thinking how you'd interpret it. But then, while the theme is a very fitting pumped-up variation on Kholusia's motif, it wasn't as much Mt. Gulg as it could've been.

The question is, given the opportunity to give Mt. Gulg's theme a try (if, for instance, we ever get a Hard Mode version of it, or a solo instance of some kind), won't you please consider giving it a go? Or even if we don't, please consider nagging Yoshi for an in-lore way, as an orchestrion from the Dwarf beast tribe quest prize pool or something!

Hey Soken, I have a fun question for you.

If Naoki Yoshida successfully gets his dream collaboration with World of Warcraft, what favorite World of Warcraft song from a favorite World of Warcraft soundtrack would you love to make a Prelude version of?

Of all the songs in Shadowbringers, what is your favorite of all?

In Patch 5.01, Eden's Gate was added into the game. In floors 3 and 4, against Leviathan and Titan, the battle musics have an extremely distinct style, never seen before in the game, sounding very "electric".

What made you decide to remix these Primals' original battle themes that way?
What do you think of the end result?
Would you like to do more tracks in that style?

Can the Regalia mount get a "Radio" function, to allow the players (and or) anyone in the car play any music they have collected/unlocked in the game?

Whats the hardest song you ever did? And if you could do one really powerful sounding song for the game what would it be?

P.S. More Viera hair please!

What was the inspiration behind the Shadowbringers (ShB) Overworld battle theme? Compared to the rest of the ShB OST and the overall story, I felt this particular piece contrasted the most in all of your work.

Before I get ahead of myself, I would like to say thank you to the entire FFXIV team for the amazing experience I've had with the game.

I noticed that the main motif of Shadowbringers has many musical similarities and sounds similar to Answers, the main theme for A Realm Reborn (Such as Shadowbringers and the beginning part of Answers sharing the same musical key). Was this intentional? If it was, was there any reason you wanted to make it this way?

I am a big fan of your work. I often play your soundtracks on Spotify during my bike ride to school. I am also a big fan of the PvP mode of FFXIV and have played thousands of games. I wanted to ask if there were any plans to update the music catalogue for the PvP maps? For the players who primarily enjoy the PvE modes of the game, there vast variety of orchestration to keep things interesting. But for players like me who only have time for the PvP modes of the game, hearing the same song in Frontline, Rival Wings and Feast becomes hard on my ears, so I choose to play now with no music at all. Could players perhaps have the option to choose music from their orchestration rolls during the first 1 minute of the game while waiting for party members to ready?

Will you ever consider making it so that we can turn off boss battle music in dungeon? I love all the music in the game, but sometimes I feel that the default battle music takes away from the experience of the dungeon. (Like the first two bosses in Amaurot, I feel that the music there really messes up the feel of the dungeon!)

Soken, Thank you to you and your team for all the amazing music we get to hear in game.
My question for you is when composing tracks for new primal fights what sources do you draw on the most for inspiration (boss design, arena design, the lore, etc), and to build on that how do you decide when vocals are appropriate or not?
Thanks for your time.