What keyboard/synth do you reckon was used for these Square games' soundtracks?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AStt8q2Juy0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gd2N0JfXVhU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aSHESDI5Uqc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4BQ6PeyzxDk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WPt-4JwwRYE

i was under the impression that most SNES music was made using midi files and then in the final development they would load a custom sample library into the game not a keyboard or other piece of midi gear.

It's the sample library I care about, really. I was assuming they get ripped from whatever wavetable-based keyboard that was being used to compose the preliminary versions of the songs before being transcribed into the games' proprietary tracker formats.

  Quote

 

Chrono Cross was scored by freelance video game music composer Yasunori Mitsuda, who previously worked on Chrono Trigger. Director Masato Kato personally commissioned Mitsuda's involvement, citing a need for the "Chrono sound".[23][24] Kato envisioned a "Southeast Asian feel, mixed with the foreign tastes and the tones of countries such as Greece"; Mitsuda centered his work around old world cultural influences, including Mediterranean, Fado, Celtic, and percussive African music.[23][27] Mitsuda cited visual inspiration for songs: "All of my subjects are taken from scenery. I love artwork."[5] To complement the theme of parallel worlds, he gave Another and Home respectively dark and bright moods, and hoped players would feel the emotions of "'burning soul,' 'lonely world,' and 'unforgettable memories'". [24] Mitsuda and Kato planned music samples and sound effects with the philosophy of "a few sounds with a lot of content".[21]

 

Xenogears contributor Tomohiko Kira played guitar on the beginning and ending themes. Noriko Mitose, as selected by Masato Kato, sang the ending song—"Radical Dreamers - The Unstolen Jewel".[24] Ryo Yamazaki, a synthesizer programmer for Square Enix, helped Mitsuda transfer his ideas to the PlayStation's sound capabilities; Mitsuda was happy to accomplish even half of what he envisioned.[27] Certain songs were ported from the score of Radical Dreamers, such as Gale, Frozen Flame, and Viper Mansion. Other entries in the soundtrack contain leitmotifs from Chrono Trigger and Radical Dreamers.[24] The melody of Far Promise ~ Dream Shore features prominently in The Dream That Time Dreams and Voyage ~ Another World.[24] Masato Kato faced internal opposition in hiring Noriko Mitose:

“ Personally, for me, the biggest pressure was coming from the ending theme song. From the start of the project, I had already planned to make the ending into a Japanese song, but the problem was now "who was going to sing the song?" There was a lot of pressure from the people in the PR division to get someone big and famous to sing it, but I was totally against the idea. And as usual, I didn't heed to the surrounding complaints, but this time, there was a pretty tough struggle.[23] ”

 

— Masato Kato

 

Production required six months of work. After wrapping, Mitsuda and Kato played Chrono Cross to record their impressions and observe how the tracks intermingled with scenes; the ending theme brought Kato to tears.[5][23][27] Players who preordered the game received a sampler disc of five songs, and Square released a three-CD official soundtrack in Japan after the game's debut. The soundtrack won the Gold Prize for the PlayStation Awards of 2000.[28] In 2005, Square Enix reissued the soundtrack due to popular demand. Earlier that year, Mitsuda announced a new arranged Chrono Cross album, scheduled for release in July 2005.[29] Mitsuda's contract with Square gave him ownership and full rights to the soundtrack of Chrono Cross.[30] It was delayed, and at a Play! A Video Game Symphony concert in May 2006, he revealed it would feature acoustic music and would be "out within the year", later backtracking and alleging a 2007 release date.[31][32] Mitsuda posted a streaming sample of a finished track on his personal website in January 2009, and has stated the album will be released to coincide with the 10th anniversary of the Japanese debut of Cross.[33] Music from Chrono Cross will be featured in September 2009 Symphonic Fantasies concerts, part of the Symphonic Game Music Concert series conducted by Arnie Roth.[34]

 

http://www.procyon-studio.com/special/mf_yamazaki.html

2001 pic of Yamazaki studio, later than Chrono Cross

Search google on Yasunori Mitsuda for music details

Search Ryo Yamazaki for studio information

if you use an emulator like Snes9x or zsnes you can isolate the individual music channels to rip specific instrument sounds. I did this with Super castlevania 4 to grab it's drums and string sounds.

since most of the instruments are using just one sample transposed across a few octaves im sure you can recreate pretty easily a specific instrument you want to use from Chrono trigger or the like