Sauraen | Ocarina of Time - End Credits Theme - Orchestral Cover @Sauraen | Uploaded 10 years ago | Updated 3 hours ago
In honor of the 15th anniversary of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, I present an all-new fully remastered, orchestrated version of the End Credits theme, played on modern cinema-quality sounds (not a MIDI).

Download in mp3 320: soundcloud.com/sauraen/ocarina-of-time-end-credits

WIP of more fully orchestrated version: dropbox.com/s/vim7sx7946tpgst/Sauraen%20-%20Ocarina%20of%20Time%20End%20Credits%20Remix%20WIP%202.mp3

While Koji Kondo's soundtrack is one of the most memorable in game history, the N64 had two hardware limitations that affected the complexity of the music he could compose for it: a limited number of voices, and limited ROM space in which to store instrument sounds. These limitations forced the great game composers of old to make up for the lack of fancy, perfectly-mastered sounds by composing catchy and often brilliant melodies. However, now we have the best of both worlds, and redoing a classic piece in modern sounds is both a fun musical exercise and a fitting tribute to the game and the whole Zelda series.

This arrangement was created in REAPER and rendered with EastWest / Quantum Leap sound libraries. It consists of nearly thirty different virtual instrument tracks, which take 11 GB of RAM to play in real time and represent access to over 100 GB of sample data. The process of creating this arrangement consisted of transcribing the notes, precisely synchronizing the tempo (in the slow sections, the tempo is continuously changing!), and then making the "artistic decisions" of what additional parts to add to fill out the arrangement. I began with a very literal transcription, and as the piece builds, gradually enhanced the arrangement until it was a whole orchestra by the final chords.

For those who are curious, the "dinga dinga" in the Saria's Song section is a santoor, and the "goron dog bark" is a cuica (friction drum).