After the closing announcement earlier this month, we've been receiving stacks of questions that are lingering around. I hope clearing the air on some of these topics will help eliminate any confusion.
The most common reaction has been people wondering why we've chosen to close the project, rather than leave it open as an archive. Frankly, the site has served as an archive for the last three years, as we devoted ourselves entirely to Twilight Symphony and other projects. It's not a decision we've made lightly, but it's time to start letting go and moving on ahead into what the future holds for each of us. We aren't opposed to fans creating mirrors of our music collection, but we would really appreciate fans refraining from creating live HTML replicas of the website. Not only will this help prevent confusion, but it will make it easier for everyone to move on.
Our friends at Zelda Universe have uploaded Twilight Symphony to their servers for people who do not use torrents. They will be creating a download page sometime soon, but these are the links for the Twilight Symphony archive, and the complete ZREO archive. We greatly appreciate everyone who has sent us a donation for our efforts on Twilight Symphony. If you haven't, and would like to, you may do so here.
We will be keeping our Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and SoundCloud accounts online, albeit in a limited capacity. We will post occasional updates every few months if we have something we'd like to share that fans might be interested in. Radio Hyrule will continue to be maintained and operated, and could actually use some help if you're interested.
Many fans have expressed interest in following our future projects. You can follow each of us personally:
There is also an email newsletter sign-up form on the bottom of the front page if you would like occasional email updates whenever one of us wants to announce a new project.
We will be uploading Twilight Symphony to our YouTube channel in music video form. These videos were shown at our MAGFest panel earlier this year, and include footage from Twilight Princess that has been rendered in high-definition by our server manager, Austin Wright (@awwright). The visuals are fantastic. We've posted the first track today, along with a timelapse video detailing Houston Hanna's creation of the Twilight Symphony artwork. The rest of the album will be uploaded periodically between now and June 12.
Our mission statement has always been: "At Zelda Reorchestrated, we are committed to lush symphonic performances of the greatest songs from The Legend of Zelda™ as they would have sounded from the warm halls and intimate expression of a live philharmonic. We do not seek profit or fame. We simply love Zelda and wish to share its inspiration on all of us with all of you."
For almost 9 years, Zelda Reorchestrated has been producing Zelda arrangements explicitly out of love for the franchise and the compositions they have to offer. However, the time has come to bring the project to a close.
Twilight Symphony, in our own humble opinion, is ZREO's greatest achievement. It was a long time coming, and while not everything has panned out the way we wanted for the project, we have decided to set Twilight Symphony free into the wilds as a final thank you for all you've made possible for us to accomplish.
If you haven't already discovered, Twilight Symphony has been available via torrent since November 2012. We understand that out of loyalty and respect, many of you have avoided this as a means of obtaining the album. We sincerely appreciate that. It was our heartfelt desire to release the album through our record label, Joypad Records, via iTunes, and other digital outlets. Unfortunately, it appears that will not be happening, so we are not opposed to you finding an alternative means through which to obtain it. Ultimately, we just want you to have it for your enjoyment.
If you enjoy Twilight Symphony and would like to make a donation as a show of support for our efforts, any contribution would be greatly appreciated, though in no way expected or required.
On behalf of the team, I would like to express the deepest gratitude for all of the incredible support the community has provided us over the years. We don't see this as an end, but rather a new beginning as we follow our own paths and focus on our own careers. We will still be creating plenty of music, including arrangements from other games, as well as original compositions, and we invite you to follow us as we pave new roads. There are sure to be some overlapping interests. :)
As for the ZREO website, it will remain online until June 12, 2013 so you have some time to say goodbye. After that time, it will go dark indefinitely. No official attempts will be made for its revival. Our legend will survive on the wind's breath.
Thanks again, and we look forward to seeing you further down the road!
Eric Buchholz
Edit: To be clear and to avoid any confusion, closing ZREO is a decision we arrived at as a team. Our hearts our heavy, but this is of our own accord.
Happy Holidays from all of us at Zelda Reorchestrated. We hope your holiday isn't nearly as hectic as ours! Happy three year anniversary for Zelda Reorchestrated's grand reopening!
Kotaku, MTV Multiplayer, Zentendo, Reddit, Destructoid, Joystiq, GoNintendo, Digg, Zelda Universe, LegendOfZelda.com, Hyrule.net, ArmChairDiplomat, Escapist Magazine, CVG, GamerLimit, all of our Mirrors and seeders on the torrent, all of our affiliates, and any others we missed. Your support made this all possible!
Six years ago, an eager 14 year old had the idea of remaking all of the songs from the hit video game series "The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time" to sound like they were being played by live musicians. He took his idea, and three demo songs to a few web forums and a few music professionals. The feedback was clear: the idea was original, but quite a daunting task.
82 tracks later, Zelda Reorchestrated has finally finished its original goal. We have completed the Ocarina of Time album!
As of a month ago, we were only short a handful of songs to complete the album, however, many of the songs from Ocarina of Time were not nearly up to par with others, so we decided to go through the album, song by song, and figure out which songs needed to be remade. It started out as five, then ten, twelve. The list grew and grew till we reached a whopping 22 tracks. Today, we release those additional 22 remakes.
While we were doing so, I found that I had to keep turning down or turning up my volume during different tracks. I found that what sounded good on one set of speakers did not sound good on others, so a conclusion was made: All of these songs need to be fixed.
So, along with those 22 new tracks, we have painstakingly gone back through all of the songs, and EQ'ed, remixed to a point, trimmed silence, and fixed volumes. It's now to a point where one just has to set their volume at a decent volume, and all songs will play with the correct volume. All songs now have correct ID tags, as well as embedded album art. Final bitrate; 192kbps MP3.
We now refer to Ocarina of Time as "complete". No more reduxes will be made of Ocarina of Time songs. That said, the album art has changed on the site to reflect the completion. The main ocarina of Time page will only contain the final 82 tracks. This means that the newest redux of a song has replaced older version, however, we have set up an Ocarina of Time Archive page which has links to all versions of all Ocarina of Time songs that Zelda Reorchestrated has produced over the past six years.
Below we have a series of links to mirrors of the final album ZIP file, which we will be adding to over the next few days:
To commemorate the release of the album we are inviting all of our fans to join us in the chat. We have switched servers to BoredIRC, and have joined rooms with ZeldaUniverse.net! When you click on chat, you are given two options. One room is General chat (be aware, ANYTHING goes here), or Zelda Reorchestrated-specific chat. All ZREO staff is present in both rooms. We will be in both rooms for most of the weekend. Be sure to pop in and say hello!
We would also like to formally welcome Slur to the team as a new contributing transcriber! Welcome Slur!
We want to thank all of our fans for being so supportive, and want to wish you all an awesome Christmas, and a wonderful New Year!
~FireGS and the Zelda Reorchestrated Team
Legal Notice: The music here is non-commercial and not intended for profit. The music in this album is based on and inspired by Koji Kondo’s soundtrack for The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time.
This album falls under a Creative Commons Copyright License. You are free to share, copy, distribute, and transmit the work if you attribute the work to Zelda Reorchestrated. You may not alter, transform, or build upon this work. Any of the above conditions can be waived if you get permission. You claim to understand and agree to these terms by having ownership of this album, in whole or in part. For more details of the CC License, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/2.5/.
Just figured we'd let you know, we're about 70% done with all of the songs we're making for this update, as well as close to 90% done with the surprise.
Working night and day to get this done. We've taken on another transcriber to help, and we'll welcome him formally on the 25th.
We would like to pose a question to our fans: How can we make the distribution of the final album easier for everyone? We'll have direct links from our home server as well as our UK mirror. I plan to upload to Rapidshare.com. Any others that we should look into? If we torrent, which tracker? If you have a host, and you'd like to help mirror, please feel free to comment, and drop us an e-mail at mirrors@zreomusic.com.
Thankfully we've had the full support from our fans. Theres one fan in particular the staff would like to thank, and he knows who he is. We're not ignoring you, we're just very very busy. Feel free to contact me on AIM or e-mail me directly. Words cannot adequately describe the amount of thanks needed, but we'll sure try.
We plan to have a party X-mas eve, and x-mas day on the IRC Chat. We plan to change servers in the next few days, and will make the announcement either tomorrow or Thursday.
Be sure to tell all of your friends about this monumental occasion!
Just thought you all would be interested in knowing...
The total number of songs has now surpassed the original 15, and even the updated 18 tracks. We also have a few other surprises regarding the final release. Stay tuned. We're working almost around the clock on two different continents to deliver, and it will be worth the wait.
Hey there, everyone! Hope you're all having fun playing Spirit Tracks, I know I have. Today, to comemerate the launch of Spirit Tracks, we're puttin up two songs; as promised, the Redux of the Spirit Tracks Soundscape featured on the VGXpo'09 album, and Aboda Village Outside!
Zelda Reorchestrating will finally be COMPLETING the Ocarina of Time album!
We are proud to announce a total of Fifteen (15)Seventeen (17) Eighteen (18) NEW songs and reduxes to finally finish off the album. Once we do this, we are locking out OoT for good, meaning no more reduxes from OoT. Ever. The only loophole would be for eventual Soundscapes, but none are planned at this time. Mark your calendars, people! We're finally completing out initial goal! Three cheers!
~ZREO Team
Good morning world! This week's update comes from The Wind Waker: Dawn. This track is a great throwback to the Hyrule Field Morning Theme from Ocarina of Time, many will easily recognize it.
This is a question we get asked a lot and recently in increasing frequency. Can I use your music in a movie I'm making? A school project? A YouTube video? Etc?
The answer is still yes, but with some restrictions. The music of ZREO is protected by a Creative Commons Share-Alike license, which you you may freely use our music in projects that are not for commercial profit (you will not make any money off it), provide adequate credit (a link back to us), and preferably (although not required) you let us know about your project (a link to it would be best, but a short description is fine).
So, that said, you don't have to ask us for permission - so long as your project meets the criteria above. Using our music is free of charge, just like downloading it is. If your project does not meet criteria, please contact us via email to request special permission.
