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So, how much of a genius was Yamaoka if a large portion of his songs include sampled material?

Because this happens to be the truth.

Yeah I heard that a while back, I lost a ton of respect for him.

The music in Shattered Memories was both good and bad. The vocal tracks, to me, were great, while the instrumental tracks were next to terrible considering past games. The only one I find myself listening to regularly is "Ice". Sure, they're somewhat nice, but compared to the genius of SH2, 3, and 4, the soundtrack was an absolute joke.

Makes me laugh how people go on about him leaving, yet he was the producer of The Room and Homecoming - two of the worst games in the franchise (I liked SH4, but it was a VERY lazy effort - if a new team had released that, they'd have been critisised to high hell, yet because the mighty 'Team Silent' made it, it isnt)

He was a good music producer, but a bad game producer.

There wasn't shit "lazy" about SH4. It was a great concept, and had awesome music, story, and atmosphere, the only bad thing was the gameplay. It took balls to try something new, and the guys (and Konami) wanted something new as well, so I give them props for that.

And it's not a "fact" that SH4 and Homecoming are "bad" or any bullshit like that. Just because a lot of fans hated them, means nothing. I liked SH4 for the reasons I listed, and I had a lot of fun with Homecoming.

And I don't see how sampling other music somehow makes you a terrible musician. Akira used a lot of the same tools other ambient/drone/noise/etc. artists used back then, and a lot of the time those kind of tools came with generic audio sets and sound banks, so it was inevitable that you'd hear something similar to someone else's work with certain sounds. What, does everyone think he magically made every sound effect with his guitar or something, lol? I guess anyone who samples or remixes someone else's music is now a failure? I never understood that line of thinking. That's taking a shit all over entire genres, like dub, where the whole genre is about remixing and making tracks based off other ones. I guess an influential band like Dif Juz who were far ahead of their time are now trash? Lol wow.

I thought SH4 had a great concept going as well. I love criminology so I find it fascinating that he went a different route than the originals. He also corresponded with Owaku an Ito about it.

SH4's concept and story were great which really made a lot of the pitfalls such as less focus on voice acting, the long escort mission, and recycled environments all the more disappointing. It just didn't feel like its full potential was realized.

NarooN wrote:And I don't see how sampling other music somehow makes you a terrible musician. Akira used a lot of the same tools other ambient/drone/noise/etc. artists used back then, and a lot of the time those kind of tools came with generic audio sets and sound banks, so it was inevitable that you'd hear something similar to someone else's work with certain sounds. What, does everyone think he magically made every sound effect with his guitar or something, lol? I guess anyone who samples or remixes someone else's music is now a failure? I never understood that line of thinking. That's taking a shit all over entire genres, like dub, where the whole genre is about remixing and making tracks based off other ones. I guess an influential band like Dif Juz who were far ahead of their time are now trash? Lol wow.

Don't get me wrong, I don't think sampling makes a musician terrible, or a failure. I know it's common.

However, I would not apply the term 'genius' to a musician who samples as prolifically as Yamaoka does. My standard of creative genius does not have room for creators of materially derivative works, even if the results are good.

Sampling isn't a bad thing. I mean, he had to get all of those sounds from SOMETHING. And I'm sure he heavily modified them to fit his own sound. As for guitar, notes, drums, and everything else, he wrote them himself, so the creativity is still there. It's just the instruments that he borrowed from. Kindof like what I make in FL Studio (which you all should give a listen in my thread), I use preset instruments to compose music. Sometimes I rip drum tracks and separate individual notes for use in my songs.

I don't care if someone samples or doesn't. To me, a musical genius is someone who can take a bunch of sounds, even the sound of silence, and make something that truly moves you with it. Using a two second long sound and incorporating it into a track you make won't just make me deduct 50 awesome points from the track. I don't think anyone "owns" a sound, with the only exception being your own voice since that's something unique to every individual. In terms of any form of instruments, anyone can make those sounds, so sampling doesn't bother me.

Aegophthalmos wrote:SH4's concept and story were great which really made a lot of the pitfalls such as less focus on voice acting, the long escort mission, and recycled environments all the more disappointing. It just didn't feel like its full potential was realized.

This how I feel, its like they got to the hospital level and ran out of money to make anymore levels

I actually disagree a lot with this. His music for SM fit very well imo, you have to remember that Yamaoka's music always fit that rusty, nightmarish world that SH was in, but SM was in a cold, isolated world, not to mention even the nightmare world was frozen in ice, so he obviously had to change his style a little bit.

Take this chase scene track for instance: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iKwRm4SYu68

I thought that track fit perfectly, because your always running away and looking back, and this track makes the chase much more intense just because of the laughter imo.

Or take this track, when your just wandering the snowy town in daylight: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TLkYIiWt ... re=related

It made you feel very void from everything, I loved it. But im not going to lie, it is very different from Akiras norm, but in no way do I think it didnt fit the game.

[quote="samael21walter"]And I'm sure he heavily modified them to fit his own sound. [quote]

Actually... no he didn't. That's exactly why criticism against him is so justifiable. Entire melodies have been sampled, from other artists and have been modified to the most minimal extent possible, commonly even not at all. He's also been a pretentious moron about it, claiming in various interviews that he knows some sort of secret to "MAKING IT MORE EFFECTIVE" through various methods of pseudo-psychology, and claiming that he created the sounds entirely himself. That kind of (or that lack of) integrity has been severely overlooked for the most part.

The kicker is, the fan base has no problem with totally flipping their shit when someone else samples him. Namely Bizzy Bone, even though Yamaoka has built an entire career out of it.

The track I like the most from SM is "Always On My Mind." I've always liked the song and the haunting rendition gives me cold chills every time. That song and "Hell Frozen Rain" are pretty grand.

The instrumentals just flat out suck. I mean, damn.

I can't remember the song, but the one that features the sampled "laughter" just... sucks. It's like a mechanical "HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA."

Just... no.

Q. Valintyne wrote:The track I like the most from SM is "Always On My Mind." I've always liked the song and the haunting rendition gives me cold chills every time. That song and "Hell Frozen Rain" are pretty grand.

The instrumentals just flat out suck. I mean, damn.

I can't remember the song, but the one that features the sampled "laughter" just... sucks. It's like a mechanical "HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA."

Just... no.

Lol, there are 3 of them, Devils Laughter, Angels Scream, and Blackest Friday. I liked Devils Laughter, It, I thought, made the chase scene pretty intense. Like their laughing at you cause you can't outrun them, you think ya can, but guess what? Nope -.- and if ya do, they'll be back. >:)

If I wanted Stephen Hawking to laugh at me, I'd try to learn physics.

I just find it a bit funny that "Always on my Mind" isn't an original song for this game and was a song originally done by Pet Shop Boys.

They definitely did a good job making it so haunting in their version but it kinda loses its charm due to the fact it wasn't specifically an original song made exclusively for the game like in the past for Silent Hill soundtracks.

Trauma wrote:
samael21walter wrote:And I'm sure he heavily modified them to fit his own sound.

Actually... no he didn't. That's exactly why criticism against him is so justifiable. Entire melodies have been sampled, from other artists and have been modified to the most minimal extent possible, commonly even not at all. He's also been a pretentious moron about it, claiming in various interviews that he knows some sort of secret to "MAKING IT MORE EFFECTIVE" through various methods of pseudo-psychology, and claiming that he created the sounds entirely himself. That kind of (or that lack of) integrity has been severely overlooked for the most part.

The kicker is, the fan base has no problem with totally flipping their shit when someone else samples him. Namely Bizzy Bone, even though Yamaoka has built an entire career out of it.

He hasn't sampled anyone. He may resample some of his own recordings, but he isn't sampling anyone else.

Pyramid_Heart wrote:He hasn't sampled anyone. He may resample some of his own recordings, but he isn't sampling anyone else.

Really now...?
http://www.silenthillforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=22&t=16347

Yamaoka is certainly a genius when it comes to creating an effective ambient score and as a sound designer. Maybe some of his rock songs are a bit generic and trite, but if you take his music out of Silent Hill it loses most of its impact.

I definitely do not look down on sampling either. I don't care at all for recording music in the conventional sense. That's not my thing, so it doesn't bother me if Yamaoka is essentially building sound collages out of sample libraries. It's how he uses these samples that matters most. It takes a lot more than just putting random bits and pieces together to make something work. You have to have the right sensibilities and a clear idea of what you want. It is essentially painting a picture with sound.

I have some of the samples that Akira uses and I can't create anything that sounds remotely similar to him. He has his own distinctive style, which is ultimately far more important than any of the instruments and tools that he uses. And that's all that samples are (tools and instruments) to be used in the same fashion as other instruments. Why anyone would hold that against Akira is beyond me.

Akira Yamaoka?

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