Interviews
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Harumi Fujita
Harumi Fujita is the main composer for the soundtrack of Tomba!.
She is active on Soundcloud, Twitter.
25 November 2020
An interview conducted via Twitter DMs. As the questions were asked in English, Fujita seems to have used a machine translator in order to communicate. A "retranslation" of her responses is provided.
| How have you been during the COVID-19 situation? Are you still working from home? | |
|---|---|
| ★COVID-19 had little impact. It's still going strong. I still compose music from home. I also do video editing and design work. |
COVID-19 had little impact on me. I'm still going strong, composing music at home. I also do video editing and design work. |
| How did you first come into contact with Whoopee Camp? Did Tokuro Fujiwara reach out to you, or vice versa? | |
| ★I contacted Fujiwara when I learned that he had started a Whoopee Camp company. Let me write a song for you," he said, and went to sell himself. Without hesitation, Mr. Fujiwara agreed to let me be the composer of the game music |
I contacted Fujiwara-san when I found out that he'd started Whoopee Camp. I offered to write music for him, and without hesitation, he agreed to let me be the composer for his games' music. |
| What was it like to work with Tokuro over the years? Did he mellow out as he got older, or was he always strict? Did he give you freedom as far as the music, or did he have a clear idea of how he wanted it to sound? Did you direct your own music, or work under someone else? What was Nao Hatsutani's specific role in the music production process? | |
| ★Fujiwara-san let me write the songs freely. I had been writing music for Fujiwara-san's games since I was at Capcom, so we had a trusting relationship. It was very tight on the deadline. But I think Fujiwara-san was just starting his own company and was in a situation where he had to ★Nao Hatsuya was in charge of Whoopee Cam affairs. But she wanted to try to make a song. Ms. Fujiwara asked me to make her wish come true He asked me to teach Mr. Hatsuya how to compose music. And Mr. Hatsuya came to my house and learned to compose from me Put her song into TOMBA |
Fujiwara-san let me write the songs freely. I'd been writing music for his games ever since we were at Capcom, so he trusted me. Deadlines were very tight, but I think that was just because Fujiwara-san had just started his own company and needed to do it that way. Nao Hatsutani was in charge of corporate affairs at Whoopee Camp, but she wanted to try writing a song or two. Fujiwara-san asked me to make her wish come true and teach her how to compose music. And so Hatsutani-san came to my house and learned how to compose from me. We put her compositions into Tomba. |
| What was it like to work at Whoopee Camp? Were you under pressure to meet certain deadlines? | |
| ★I was working from home at Whoopee Camp. At the time I was pregnant with my second child and composing in a very challenging environment. I went to the office right after the baby was born, had a meeting, and kept working. ★Fujiwara-san called me and said, "We need the song right away. Have passed the song after 2 hours The time limit was two hours. That's the shortest so far! |
I was working from home at Whoopee Camp. At the time, I was pregnant with my second child and in a difficult environment to get composing work done in, so as soon as my baby was born, I went back to the office, had a meeting, and kept right on working. Fujiwara-san would call me and say something like "we need this song right away" and I would have it done in just two hours. That's the fastest I've ever written a song! |
| Did you make any tracks that never got used in the game, tracks that have never been publicly released to this day? If so, do you still have them, and would it be possible to upload them for others to enjoy? | |
| ★There are three or four tracks that are not used in the game. It is possible to upload |
There are three or four tracks that didn't get used in the game. I might be able to post them. |
| Do you still have the master recordings, or do you know someone else who does? If they are in your possession, do you have any intentions of making them publicly available? Would you have to get permission from someone else, such as Tokuro? | |
| ★I still keep the original recordings before converting them to the PlayStation sound source. I'm hoping to release them for you to hear in the near future! Mr. Fujiwara's permission is required. |
I still have the original recordings from before we converted them for the PlayStation's sound chip. I'd like to release them for you sometime in the near future, but I'd need Fujiwara-san's permission beforehand. |
| Do you think Tomba could have been a more successful series than it was? If you could go back in time, would you change anything about how Tomba was produced and/or marketed? | |
| ★Since the game is made by Mr. Fujiwara, I think it should have been more successful. I was only composing the music, so I don't know much about the rest of it. |
Since it was a game made by Fujiwara-san, I feel like it should have been more successful. I was only composing the music for it, though, so I don't know about any other parts of it. |
| Are there tracks in the final official release that did not live up to your standards or expectations? Are there songs that you feel could have been better? | |
| ★There is no song that did not live up to my standards and expectations Its criteria are very strict This is because Fujiwara-san did not compromise. I love all of TOMBA's songs! |
There isn't a single song that didn't live up to my standards and expectations. Fujiwara-san had very high standards and did not compromise. I love all of the songs in Tomba! |
| What equipment was used to create the soundtrack? Do you still have any of the equipment you used at the time? | |
| ★Roland JV-1080 korg01RW Akai Sampler S2800i Used to be Those equipment has been disposed of |
Equipment I used at the time includes: Roland JV-1080 Korg 01R/W AKAI S2800i Sampler I got rid of all of them by now, though. |
| When you were working on Tomba back in the day, did you ever expect it would have the following it has today? | |
| ★I thought it would be a hot topic in Japan I didn't expect the whole world to know about TOMBA! |
I figured it would be a big deal in Japan, but I didn't expect the whole world to know about it! |
| Do you still keep in touch with Tokuro? | |
| ★Contacted at the beginning of the year | I last contacted him at the beginning of the year. |
| Were you ever asked to work on Tomba 2? | |
| ★No | No. |
| If you were asked to work on a Tomba 3, would you still be interested? | |
| ★Very interesting | I would be very interested. |
| What are your current projects? | |
| ★Windjammers 2 will be released soon! | Windjammers 2, which will be released soon!1 |
| Do you have a message for all the Tomba fans? | |
| From those who have loved the song TOMBA Sometimes we get messages I'm very happy about it! The song has become a memory for people from different countries I'm so glad May it stay in your heart forever. |
I sometimes get messages from people who loved Tomba's soundtrack, and it makes me very happy to read them! I'm so glad people from all over the world have such strong memories of the music. May it stay in your hearts forever. |
Notes
- 1. Windjammers 2 was released on Steam in January 2022.
30 November 2020
| どの曲が初谷さんによって書かれたか覚えますか？または、どのゲームのエリアでこの曲が聞こえますか？ | Do you remember which songs were written by Hatsutani-san, and in which areas of the game they can be heard? |
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| 私の持っているオリジナルバージョンを聞きました 初谷さんの作ったのは おそらく ●屋敷 というタイトル なのでどこかのお屋敷の曲と思われます 次に ●人魚の歌岩 人魚のテーマソングです この２曲は確かです ただ 初谷さんは曲を作るのが初めてで最初に彼女がメロディーを作って その後は私が教えながら アレンジを加えてます 完全に初谷さんのオリジナルではないのです |
I took a listen to the original versions I have. I believe the tracks written by Hatsutani-san were... A track with the title of "Mansion", so you'd probably hear it somewhere that has a mansion. And also "The Mermaid's Singing Rock", which is the mermaid's theme. Those are the only two I'm sure of, though. However, since it was Hatsutani-san's first time composing music, there are instances where she wrote melodies that I then ended up arranging and building upon while I was teaching her. So they're not entirely made by just Hatsutani-san. |
| もし藤原さんが許可して、トンバのオリジナル・サウンドトラックをアップロードするのが可能になったら、教えてくれますか？ トンバクラブの私達はもっと素晴らしい曲を聞けるのを楽しみにしています！特に未発表の曲を。 |
Would you let us know if Fujiwara-san gives you the go-ahead to upload the original soundtrack? We at Tomba Club are looking forward to hearing even more amazing compositions from you! Especially the unused tracks. |
| トンバのオリジナルサウンドトラックは私も今すぐにでもUPしたいのですが 事情があり、私が決められない状態になってます でも必ずトンバファンの皆さんに聞いていただきたいと思っています |
I'd love to upload the OST right away if I could, but due to various circumstances, that's not my call to make. Still, I'd love to let the fans hear them someday. |
16 March 2022
| 藤田さんと一緒に行ったインタビューを公開しても宜しいですか？ | May we publish the interview we conducted with you? |
|---|---|
| インタビューは公開しても大丈夫です。 | Yes, that's alright. |
| 藤原得郎氏に、ゲームのオリジナルサウンドトラックの公開について訊く機会はありましたか？ | Have you had the opportunity to ask Tokuro Fujiwara about releasing the game's original soundtrack yet? |
| オリジナルサウンドトラックの公開は今はまだ難しいです | Unfortunately that's still a difficult situation. |
| 藤原氏と連絡を取る方法を教えて頂けませんか、または連絡を取るのを手伝って頂けませんか？ 藤原氏しか誰も答えられない質問が沢山あると思いまして・・・ | Could you tell us how to get in touch with Fujiwara, or could you yourself help us get in touch with him? There are so many questions we feel that only he can answer... |
| 藤原さんの連絡を取る方法は 私からは教えることはできません。ごめんなさい。 |
I myself can't tell you how to get in touch with Fujiwara-san. I'm sorry. |
Ashif Hakik
Ashif Hakik is the main composer for the soundtrack of Tomba! 2: The Evil Swine Return.
He was active on Soundcloud, Twitter, Youtube.
27 June 2020
You can watch our interview with Ashif here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xp9P7-t51cg
| Hello Ash! Thanks for reaching out. My name is AtanoK Si, we (The Tomba Club) are a group of fans dedicated to get the most of both games. We also love your work. When we saw your comment in our video, the hype was so big. Love your song, "Safe". It's so good. We would like to know everything you can tell us about Tomba and your relation with it. Here are some questions that we have wondered for a long time. |
|---|
| Hey Atanok. Sorry it took me so long to reply. Thanks for the compliments on "Safe" it's a really important song for me. I'll see if I can answer your questions here. |
| How was it working with whoopee camp? |
| I didn't get to work directly with Whoopee Camp much. SCEA had decided they wanted to localize the music for western markets and began searching or people to do the work. When I got the gig, I only had one small interaction with them, and that was mostly secondhand. It was just to see if I was right for the job, and they liked what I was up to and we moved forward. |
| Do you still have uncompressed files of the ost? |
| I just today found a large CD are full of old backups and I believe there is a disc full of 44.1k versions of the music (the game audio was 32k I believe). It's not really much different. Though I'm hoping once I go through it I can find an unused track that i used to like. |
| Did you meet Tokuro Fujiwara? |
| I did not. i really REALLY wanted to, but we couldn't work out the logistics for something like that, |
| Any info on what you used in terms of synths, DAWS, etc? |
| Tomba 2 was my first game soundtrack. so at the time I didn't know MIDI all that well. i'd been a recording engineer for a few years and mostly worked with live audio. The game was trial by fire. I had to learn sequencing, samples, synths and romplers romplers VERY fast while working on that game. The gear was mostly sounds from my Roland XP-80 with the Pop, Orchestral, ad World expansion boards installed. I just installed Cubase VST 3 on a Umax Power Pc/mac clone, and just started learning. This was before I got into Giga Sampler, so I'm pretty sure everything in the game was from the XP-80/JV sound set and some live instruments and voice. I believe i even sequenced the intro's drums on the keyboard itself. |
| Where do you get inspiration from to compose? |
| It's really different for different music. Early on i just wanted to make music for the sake of making music. I used to play in bands because it was fun. Then working it became a challenge to meet deadlines and also learn a new style of music and mimic it. Then it became about finding something personal to invest in and sing about |
| How much direction were you given in composing the the soundtrack? Were you told to achieve a certain sound or feel? Or they gave you creative control to do what you saw fit? |
| The first question was "could I do calypso music"? That's really all the direction i was given, and i forged through trying to make something that would give a sense of calypso, but also pull from platformer music we've heard before. Mario, Crash, Spyro, NES disney games...etc...and you can never really get rid of early Final Fantasy influence with me. |
| Do you know why the decision of a different ost for outside of Japan was made? |
| I'm not entirely sure. I believe they were feeling that the Japan OST still had too cutesy of a sound and it's fidelity wasn't taking advantage of what US audiences expected from CD based games. |
| The relaxed conversation song, we love it, definitely a classic. Tell us about that song please, I mean, it has a risky time signature which I personally adore, how did you get that idea? Did whoopeecamp liked it when they heard it? |
| oh man... that cue. "I'd really prefer if you'd be quiet" :) There's a story behind it actually. I originally wrote it for a whole different soundset. The lead flute was a different sample, but being my first game I was VERY scared of being sued by roland if they learned I used their sound source as the base of the internal sound chip's music. So near the end of production i replaced the soundset with another that was far inferior. One of the problems that arose was with the replacement something made that cue far louder than it originally was. It ended up being the only thing in the game I was really disappointed in, with regards to implementation. With the original sample set the cue was the same melodically but "felt" better and less annoying :) |
| Do you like Tomba? 🤔 |
| Love it. interestingly enough, I was working at SONY as a game tester when Tomba 1 was in for test. |
| Did they give you any tomba merch? Plush, keyring, pamphlet, calendar, poster... Anything? We are veeery loving with merch :D |
| I did not get any tomba merch. I used to, but don't anymore, have some early design artwork of levels before they were finished, but that was it. |
| What are your present and future projects? Plug whatever you want here :) |
| I'm actually not doing much right now with regards to music. I spent a long time doing audio editing for composers and sound designers, as well as helping build sampling tools or doing orchestral arrangements for bands. While, for myself, I worked on music for the sole reason of expressing myself singing live. then a few years ago life got in the way in a pretty bad way. I lost quite a bit of my stuff, so i am currently without musical instrument or composing rig at all. I've been mostly spending time regrouping lately with my theory, and may get back into doing some orchestral work again. I miss it a bit, so i just have to figure out a way to build a new rig and get back to it. Trying to salvage one of the broken laptops to grab some custom samples I made with Thomas Bergesson right now.
anyhow, I hope I got to your questions and you got answers you needed -Ash |
7 July 2020
| Hello Ash! AtanoK from Tomba Club here again :D Thanks a lot for the answers, we loved each one of them, but we forgot asking you something! Hope you don't mind giving us a bit more of your words, we would be very thankful. First of all: Would you agree if we made the questions public in a video or post as an interview? We would like to share details with Tomba fans. |
|---|
| Sure you can make it public. MAybe leave out the "what are you up to now? question. |
| That CD you found and the unused track... Will you share it with us please? We are so interested in having the 44.1k version even if it's not a lot of difference, and wow, unused songs are our dream. |
| Ill be going through the archives over the next week or two, so I'll let you know what I find. I'm not sure the lost song will be there. It was a precursor to the Kujira Ranch song, but I remember liking it a bit, it just didn't fit. it's the only one I kept on the side, but It still may be lost since it has to be on a data disc and those may be corrupt. I did happen to find an audio CD of tomba music and I'm pretty sure it's The audio tracks before they went to the game. It wont include any of the conversation music, nor will it contain any of the stream that were reused from the JP version. |
| A lot of the boys got curious about the early level design artworks you got and about how you were a beta tester for the first game, do you remember any curiosity about them? |
| The truth is I barely got to play the game when i worked on the music. I was mostly working from physical artwork I had hanging up for inspiration or videos of gameplay. I can't tell you what was ultimately used or unused during development. |
| About your music... Did you ever recorded "Safe" like a studio version? Can we have the lyrics? |
| Safe as more of a "ritual" song I performed locally in the San Francisco bay area. It was meant to be a song that I was to play only one night, but the reason for it was lost, so I'd sing it weekly or monthly as it would build up in me like an echo, and I'd sing it like a call in hopes they'd reach their intended destination. I thought of doing a studio version and I'm sure I could arrange something large with strings and such, but it's original intent was for live performance, like a forlorn call into the wind.
|
| What are some of your most preferred songs by you? |
| I really do like Safe. I've also written a song called "Friends + Lovers for the Lonely" That I love. I've written some music for other composers that I can't point out due to selling them outright and non disclosure agreements. Out of the game music. I was really happy with how the Crash Nitro Kart Theme song turned out. It's one of my faves. I'm also pretty proud of the Sly Cooper 1 soundtrack, because it required a unique way of composing due to it's interactive MIDI engine. It was a lot of work for one person to do. |
| You said you don't have any instruments, we hope you can get some soon, if you made a gofundme or something it would be great to put it in the post! I would donate :) |
| About the help. That's very VERY kind of you. For now, I'm looking at trying to salvage some archives I've been able to uncover and try to get back into composing. Possibly in the future if I can't seem to get any traction, I'll reach out. |
Yasutaka Taga
Yasutaka Taga is the creator of the clay models used for the jewel case cover and various promotional material for Tomba!.
25 April 2020
This interview was conducted via e-mail, talking about the clay models Taga had been commissioned to craft.
| 作ったモデルは、少年と豚だけですか。他のを作る計画やアイデアがありましたか。 | Did you make models only of Tomba and the pig, or were there plans/ideas for other models, too? |
|---|---|
| 作ったのはトンバとブタだけです。他のキャラクターを作る計画はありません。 | Tomba and the pig were the only models I created. There weren't any plans for other characters. |
| 多賀さんはまだモデルを持っていますか。 | Do you still have the models? |
| モデルはウーピーキャンプの藤原さんに渡しました。 | I'd handed them over to Fujiwara-san of Whoopee Camp. |
| 私たちはゲームのいろいろな画像を集まって、消えないためにプレスアーカイブにセーブしています。モデルの高精細画像がまだどこかで見られますか。 | We're collecting various imagery for preservation purposes. Are there still any high-resolution photos of the models for us to see? |
| モデルの写真はTAGAWORLD facebookpageにupしたものだけです。 (Link 1) (Link 2) 遊びで作った画像があったので添付します。残念ですが高精細では無いです。 |
The only images I have are the ones put up on the TAGAWORLD Facebook page. (Link 1) (Link 2) Also, here's one other picture I took for fun. Unfortunately, its resolution isn't the highest. |
| |
| いつぐらいウーピーキャンプからモデルを作ることを依頼されましたか。 | Around what timeframe were you commissioned to create the models? |
| 明確に覚えていませんが1997年の9月頃だったと思います。 | I don't remember exactly, but I believe it was around September 1997. |
| ウーピーキャンプとの仕事上の関係はどうでしたか。楽しいプロジェクトでしたか。 | How was your working relationship with Whoopee Camp? Was it a fun project to work on? |
| とても良い仕事をさせていもらいました。たのしいプロジェクトでした。 | It was a really great freelance project. I had lots of fun with it. |
