Greetings. I wanted to provide some background information on a Final Fantasy music covers project I’m working on.
My thing is combining genres and styles like IDM, drum & bass and electronic ‘producer’ music with rock, jazz and various ‘band-music’ styles, styles such as Metalcore, Jazz Fusion, Math-Rock, Hip-Hop, Classical, Acoustic Folk music all inspire what I do, to name a few.
I also have pretty extensive gigging experience with my band Luo, having had some amazing opportunities to support a number of varied artists whose music I love, such as Death Grips, Venetian Snares, Battles, Lite, Mouse on the Keys, Shigeto, Hidden Orchestra and more.
Performing live with my band project, Luo. Photo credit: Jonathan Dadds.
I’m also a massive nerd of films and video games.
The Final Fantasy series is particularly close to my heart, as I grew up playing the Playstation 1 titles extensively.
I played each of these back when they originally released; I was around six years old when I first played FFVII, so I’ve got a lot of memories tied to these games.
Now I’ve explained that, I wanted to provide some background info and detailed context to an on-going project I’m working on currently.
What is this project?
This is basically started as an idea for a live tribute concert covering tracks from these 3 games, that in turn became a 3-album recording project.
My aim is to eventually gig these 3 albums into a live concert show with a full band.
I really, really love the music of these games. I’ve been inspired by the spooky & dreamlike melodies, sounds and moods in my own original compositions and I’ve homaged them subtly in my tracks before.
I think there’s something about the sound, style or vibe of these 3, maybe because they all belong to the PS1 era of the series, that makes them all tie nicely together with some sort of through-line that I think would work really well for a live show dedicated to them.
Additionally, because some of these old tracks are quite sparse instrumentally - for example, some lack any drums parts at all - I think there’s a lot of room for having fun, turning some of this slightly ambient Soundtrack music into full-band grooves to make things slam a bit more for a live show.
In December 2022, myself and my good pal + visuals collaborator Josh Harrison (aka Jsnazzz) finally decided to start laying the groundwork for a live FF tribute gig, with visuals, something we’ve vaguely contemplated doing for a few years since we started doing Luo shows together.
An example of Josh Harrison’s video art wizardry.
Selecting a bunch of tracks from each game with advice from my friends and followers, our dream idea is to create an almost two hour-long show, divided into two halves.
The first hour or so would consist of tracks from FFVII. The 2nd half would feature roughly 30 minutes of music each from FFVIII and FFIX:
Some early ideas for the setlists. I shared these images to my socials and asked my followers which tracks they’d most like to hear versions of. VII seemed to get the most votes of tracks and appears to be the most popular, so it gets the lion’s share of attention.
I began making some rough demos of these tracks, initially without much effort spent on them, as they were to just give myself an idea of how to start structuring a live show and how things would roughly sound with a live band.
After sharing clips of these demos on my socials got really positive reactions, I decided to spend more effort into creating a full, three-album covers project to have a listenable ‘blueprint’ of the idea and also just as a fun recording project for myself.
The Solo Album Recording side of the Project
This project provides me a way to work on things like various styles of guitar playing and recording, sequencing realistic-sounding drums, sound design & synthesis, and even exploring using my own singing and vocals, which isn’t something I usually do.
Learning parts, re-recording and producing everything in my home studio, I’ve made use of pretty much all the gear & software I have at my disposal.
My studio setup consists of a 2013 iMac, HEDD Type 07 Monitors, UA Apollo X4 audio Interface and a Mackie 1604-VLZ3 Mixer.
Some of my instruments; a 5-String Sire Bass, 6-string Fender Electric, & an Electro-Acoustic Nylon String guitar.
I also have some FX pedals, a Critter & Guitari Pocket Piano, a Korg Nanokontrol and Novation Launchpad, a USB keyboard and an EMU Proteus 2000.
I’ve also recorded a vibraphone on loan to me from my good friend Adam Znaidi, as well as various random bits like a ukulele, kalimbas, shakers, flutes and ocarinas. I also use software synths and instruments like Reaktor 6 and Addictive Drums 2; so I can pretty much be my own band with all of this.
Using all of this together, I’m recording and producing these covers from the ground up, as I’m able to essentially be my own entire band in the studio.
Cactuar Collections — Disc One (FFVII)
So far I’ve completed & released one album for this project!
I’m delighted that Cactuar Collections — Disc One (FFVII) is out in the world; a curated selection of my favourite tracks, re-created from the ground up and infused with sounds and vibes from IDM, Metalcore, Jazz Fusion, Hip-Hop and more.
Available to stream in full now on Youtube, Spotify & Bandcamp:
I’m aiming to complete the full set of three albums by the end of 2023.
What’s next?
Once I’ve completed these, I’ll be looking into the viability of turning this all into a real band.
I’ve completed recording Disc Two (FFVIII), leaving just the final FFIX portion for me to finish. I should have some news about these & release dates quite soon.
I’ll be using my Youtube channel to cover behind-the-scenes and breakdown content for my process creating these albums soon, as well as writing more articles here covering my process for individual tracks in more detail.
If you enjoy the sound of my work on this project, keep up to date by following my Instagram or consider subscribing to my Youtube channel.