[FULL RESTORATION] A Presentiment — Final Fantasy V
28non-youtube compressed version: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Rnxm7iPvCpfOVb6s4tZ6pPnG66PWK5Y6/view?usp=drive_link
if you want to hear the version with purely the samples the game used, check it out here: https://youtu.be/MK2xRwuSGME
@tssf already restored this along with the entire rest of the soundtrack with his Synthetic Origins series, but it's always fun to take a crack at it yourself, y'know?
some longtime viewers of the channel might remember when I did this song ages ago with the Ocarina of Time soundfont. I called it my "magnum opus" back then but... my skills have progressed a lot since then. not to mention the entire restoration side of things, which made me feel like a hacker in a 2000's movie. speaking of that, let's get into it, shall we?
all of FF5's sounds mainly come from Universe of Sounds by Optical Media International and Roland's LCD-1. there are also a couple pulls from the E-MU Proteus 1 and one from the Kurzweil K1200. this might actually be the one soundfont that is easiest to restore full stop, since the necessary sample CDs are pretty easy to find online (except the orchestra chord used at the beginning here... man, I was digging for that one for the longest time)
as for this song specifically, it was fun learning to use Kontakt to its full potential. in my old Ocarina of Time upload, all the attack and decay was done manually—look at this mess 😂: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1NottoTWM0wuyE9k90_Ubm2kq9oLP3E9E/view?usp=sharing it actually ended up reeeeeally inaccurate because I used the same timing all the way through even though the tempo was changing. but this time I actually got to assign the attack, sustain, decay, and release to different MIDI parameters and control them on the fly, which is exactly what this track needed to sound not only like the original, but semi-realistic in my opinion
related to the semi-realism is the new multi-sampling of most of the instruments. the choir you hear in this track isn't actually the sample used in the original, because while that was the soprano sample, the notes here are in the mezzo-soprano range. right away, you'll also hear that the flute and oboe sound wayyyy different, which is because they now have 10 and 6 samples respectively. the strings also have 2 new lower samples, and the horn and choir have an extra 3
the strings are a bit... controversial in terms of restoration. see, the ones used here sound exactly the same right? well, they were actually found in Roland's L-CDP-13, which was released in 1994; 2 years after FF5's release. the waveform also doesn't match perfectly with the original in the beginning, but it does later on?? idk what to make of this, you guys have a look: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1NPS0wecjOI_0uEg0PVzt0NK3MbO7h11P/view?usp=sharing it's like Uematsu spliced the attack with the later part of the sample, but like... why would he do that? my theory is because it's the only way he could get a smooth, short loop. in any case, people are still hard at work trying to track down where these strings REALLY came from
anyway, that's all from me. hope you enjoy, and stay tuned for more FF5 and other SNES restorations in the future!
credits:
• VGM & Other Instrument Sources Discord: https://discord.gg/m4qzYNGHuS
• NEWER VGM Sound Sources spreadsheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1JJBlHHDc65fhZmKUGLrDTLCm6rfUU83-kbuD8Y0zU0o/edit#gid=2047725819
• Final Fantasy Sound Sources (Detailed) spreadsheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1dBn9BG4zlEw1StR1uhNB57bRxRRnbo3hGP8Y-5iB-W4/edit#gid=669483192
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Currently, what.sf2 has 19,778 views for Final Fantasy V across 12 videos. His channel published less than an hour of Final Fantasy V content, roughly 2.11% of the content that what.sf2 has uploaded to YouTube.