Regarding the new music.

[Rimmer]

I think they should just give registered owners of the game the OST for free.

[Munba]

I bet the 3 companies music is Mizuta. If you hear the Limsa one (Maelstrom) you can recognize his style pretty well. Also the other 2 have something from him.

[Betelgeuzah]

I love the news musics too !!!
But they are not really new new : some really bad people looked into the source of the alpha version of the game and found more than 60 tracks of music composed by Uematsu, including all the 'new' tracks of 1.18.
With the 'new' music tracks of 1.18, i think we may approximatly have reached 45 tracks on 60 ... or less.

I WANT THEM TOO !!!! And to know their names !!!
I hope they are not going to wait the ps3 release to release the complete soundtrack.

The GC tracks are completely new.

[Sonic_the_Hedgehog]

Sakimoto and Uematsu collaborations would be nice.

I fixed that for you.

[Gramul]

Sakimoto

I fixed that for you.

Only if he uses an actual orchestra this time. He has some great compositions, but the midi quality of the instruments really dampens my enjoyment of them. They're orchestral pieces, they should be performed by an orchestra. Sequencers are best left to rhythmic beats and otherworldly sounds.

[Munba]

It would be awesome to have one different composer for every future expansion, depending on the "argument" in it. Like this:

'War' based expansion = H.Sakimoto
'Mistery' based expansion = Y.Mitsuda

and so on..

[Eekiki]

Only if he uses an actual orchestra this time. He has some great compositions, but the midi quality of the instruments really dampens my enjoyment of them. They're orchestral pieces, they should be performed by an orchestra. Sequencers are best left to rhythmic beats and otherworldly sounds.

I dunno. I think the SE's sound folks nailed the synthetic symphony pretty nicely in FF XII. Especially when you hear it on a high end car stereo. Mmmm...

[Lemuria]

Agreed. The new music is wonderful. One of the defining characteristics of Final Fantasy is its fantastic musical score, and FFXIV has never once disappointed in that area. It's got the sort of music that'll bring me out in nostalgic joy in ten years or so.

I still have a copy of the fan-made Ronfaure song from FFXI with lyrics. The music was beautiful in its own right, so its a real treat to see it come to life like that. The nostalgia value is off the charts for someone like me who made their home in San d'Oria.

[Catapult]

The making-of videos make it clear that Uematsu was sole composer for FFXIV, the whole point being that he hasn't done all the music for a FF game in quite some time. I'll grab the youtube link...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=35uv3oa1fx0

There are 70-80 tracks for FFXIV (implying that if you only found 60...), all composed by Uematsu in his Ping Pong Studio. It's been ten years since he did every track in an FF title.
They also go into his composition technique and discuss making the theme song, "Answers".
He would play a Keeper of the Moon and he's also out of dirt on Tanaka.

[Kowen]

The making-of videos make it clear that Uematsu was sole composer for FFXIV, the whole point being that he hasn't done all the music for a FF game in quite some time. I'll grab the youtube link...

It's true that he was initially the sole composer. However, the "Grand Companies" is a pretty new concept (I think Yoshi-P was the one who came up with the idea, but you'd have to look at the first few letters) and it's very possible they only recently commissioned someone to create the 3 new themes.

The three songs weren't in the leaked 70~80 tracks of music from the alpha version either.