Ask Sound Director Masayoshi Soken Your Questions

[Lucas_Angelini]

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?

[EorzeaHero69]

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

[Chiraii]

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?

[P0W3RK1D]

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?

[AikoNeko]

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!

[Violet_Galaxy]

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.

[MikhZaku]

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?

[Sinstrel]

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?

[Anarnee]

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!)

[Lacrimosa_Aeterna]

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.