For those who hate the Faulconer soundtrack, are there any scenes you like better than with the JP soundtrack?

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For those who hate the Faulconer soundtrack, are there any scenes you like better than with the JP soundtrack?

Post by Asura » Thu Apr 26, 2018 3:30 am

Did you think there were any moments in the DBZ dub that you felt were better in terms of the Faulconer soundtrack as opposed to the same scene in JP?

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Re: For those who hate the Faulconer soundtrack, are there any scenes you like better than with the JP soundtrack?

Post by Kunzait_83 » Thu Apr 26, 2018 8:30 am

Nope. Not a one.

Apart from this one bluesy guitar riff (that I think was used for Grand Kaio's theme, and is about the only thing approaching a halfway decent tune in any of this fiery car wreck of a soundtrack), its just cringingly bad, cheap, chintzy, low rent, godawful shit music, even on its own divorced from DBZ. And it clearly does not belong or go with this footage and clashes glaringly with it at just about all times, generally sounding like something out of a 5th rate Power Rangers ripoff (and at times during the Boo arc, like leftover music cues from an early/mid 90s Cinemax softcore porn film).
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Zephyr wrote:And that's to say nothing of how pretty much impossible it is to capture what made the original run of the series so great. I'm in the generation of fans that started with Toonami, so I totally empathize with the feeling of having "missed the party", experiencing disappointment, and wanting to experience it myself. But I can't, that's how life is. Time is a bitch. The party is over. Kageyama, Kikuchi, and Maeda are off the sauce now; Yanami almost OD'd; Yamamoto got arrested; Toriyama's not going to light trash cans on fire and hang from the chandelier anymore. We can't get the band back together, and even if we could, everyone's either old, in poor health, or calmed way the fuck down. Best we're going to get, and are getting, is a party that's almost entirely devoid of the magic that made the original one so awesome that we even want more.
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Re: For those who hate the Faulconer soundtrack, are there any scenes you like better than with the JP soundtrack?

Post by Dbzfan94 » Thu Apr 26, 2018 12:10 pm

Goku's SSJ3 transformation

Goten meets Goku

anything with Super Buu

any time Ginyu Transformation played

The dub score was really good in the Buu saga especially in my opinion

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Re: For those who hate the Faulconer soundtrack, are there any scenes you like better than with the JP soundtrack?

Post by One_Instance » Thu Apr 26, 2018 12:28 pm

Any time when Mr. Satan makes an appearance and lots of electric guitar starts playing in the background. I don't really like the track itself, I just think it helps the humor in those scenes and it helps get a laugh out of me for sure.

Any others? Nope.

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Re: For those who hate the Faulconer soundtrack, are there any scenes you like better than with the JP soundtrack?

Post by Kamiccolo9 » Thu Apr 26, 2018 1:00 pm

I love the Garlic Junior themes. For the rest, thought, as I watch DB subbed for the first time, I'm finding less and less to like about the dub, and the score isn't an exception.
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Re: For those who hate the Faulconer soundtrack, are there any scenes you like better than with the JP soundtrack?

Post by Shiro97 » Thu Apr 26, 2018 4:31 pm

I'm not gonna act like I'm in love with the soundtrack or whatever, but there was this one scene the one where Goku has that vision about Vegeta in the Freeza arc and I really liked the song that played there. I forget what it was called, but there is another version of it too called Nail's Gift that I like. Can't think of any others though, didn't think it had a great score to be honest, sorry dude.

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Re: For those who hate the Faulconer soundtrack, are there any scenes you like better than with the JP soundtrack?

Post by Dbzfan94 » Thu Apr 26, 2018 6:16 pm

Dbzfan94 wrote:Goku's SSJ3 transformation

Goten meets Goku

anything with Super Buu

any time Ginyu Transformation played

The dub score was really good in the Buu saga especially in my opinion
Btw I dont even hate the Faulconer score these moment in particular just stood out to me as superior to the sub score.

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Re: For those who hate the Faulconer soundtrack, are there any scenes you like better than with the JP soundtrack?

Post by Asura » Thu Apr 26, 2018 10:12 pm

Dbzfan94 wrote:Goku's SSJ3 transformation

Goten meets Goku

anything with Super Buu

any time Ginyu Transformation played

The dub score was really good in the Buu saga especially in my opinion
I agree with the SSJ3 transformation, definitely beats the original by far in my opinion. Super Buu also has a great theme.

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Re: For those who hate the Faulconer soundtrack, are there any scenes you like better than with the JP soundtrack?

Post by Kataphrut » Fri Apr 27, 2018 1:58 am

I do not care for that score at all (I'm a dub man, but only Kai stuff onward thank you very much), but I feel like it deserves props for making Vegeta's Final Flash and Goku's first Super Saiyan 3 transformation more iconic in the dub that they arguably were in the sub.

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Re: For those who hate the Faulconer soundtrack, are there any scenes you like better than with the JP soundtrack?

Post by IHaveNoUserName » Fri Apr 27, 2018 10:07 am

The only thing that was probably better was when goku powered up for ginyu, M816 I believe shouldn't have played that early
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Re: For those who hate the Faulconer soundtrack, are there any scenes you like better than with the JP soundtrack?

Post by A21Fan » Fri Apr 27, 2018 10:52 am

I dont hate the music ... but i hate it when it plays when it should be quiet (my opinion)

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Re: For those who hate the Faulconer soundtrack, are there any scenes you like better than with the JP soundtrack?

Post by DragonBallKing » Wed May 02, 2018 7:23 pm

IMO Kikuchi= Yamamoto>Sumitomo>JPN GT composer>Faulconer, ignoring the Yamamoto plagerism he made better tracks for fast pased action but as for moments faulconer did it best.

Goku SSJ3

Final Flash

and Gohan killing cell.

Thats pretty much it.
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Re: For those who hate the Faulconer soundtrack, are there any scenes you like better than with the JP soundtrack?

Post by Logania » Wed May 02, 2018 8:01 pm

Any scenes I liked more with it? None.

HOWEVER, the 16-bit versions of Faulconer tracks they used in Legacy of Goku 2/Buu's Fury video games actually work really well.
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Re: For those who hate the Faulconer soundtrack, are there any scenes you like better than with the JP soundtrack?

Post by Robo4900 » Thu May 03, 2018 7:10 pm

I consider Faulconer the second-weakest soundtrack(If you're curious -- behind only Sumitomo. Surprising no one. ;) ), and honestly, a lot of that is down to its placement and overall use. So, no, I don't think there are any scenes that work better in Faulconer than Kikuchi.

However, I do often listen to a lot of the better tracks on Spotify, and -- similarly to Logania -- I consider the useage of the Faulconer music in the Legacy Of Goku games to be amazing. They didn't have to fill every second with a varied selection of tracks, so they were able to just grab the best ones, rearrange them in a way that works for the sampled tracker music of the GBA, and put together a really kick-ass soundtrack that actually really fits the style of game they were going for. It's simply ace. And honestly, I think the Kikuchi score would end up sounding disappointing synthesised by a GBA.
Logania wrote:16-bit versions
Interesting point of note; it wasn't necessarily 16-bit music in our traditional sense from what I understand, since usually when people talk about 16-bit music, they mean synthesised music using a chip similar to the one on the Mega Drive or the SNES; the way I understand it, Webfoot composed the Legacy Of Goku soundtrack using tracker formats of the type typically composed in programs like OpenMPT(In this case, they used Impulse Tracker, which is a popular freeware DOS-based one, still used to this day, even sometimes in professional contexts).
Effectively, it's MIDI data with samples loaded instead of MIDI instruments, resulting in tiny files that can sound amazing. Ideal for something like the GBA, with its massively-limited cartridge space so CD audio isn't an option, and not the most powerful processor, so full synthesis isn't a good option either.

Tracker music is quite commonly used in older PC games like Jazz Jackrabbit, Unreal Tournament, and I believe Tyrian 2000.

(Also, if you wanted to see the entire segment about the music of Legacy Of Goku, here is where it actually starts. Stretches out up to about the 19:30 mark. They go into some detail about the nature of the process of putting together the tracker music)
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Re: For those who hate the Faulconer soundtrack, are there any scenes you like better than with the JP soundtrack?

Post by Logania » Thu May 03, 2018 8:36 pm

Robo4900 wrote: Interesting point of note; it wasn't necessarily 16-bit music in our traditional sense from what I understand, since usually when people talk about 16-bit music, they mean synthesised music using a chip similar to the one on the Mega Drive or the SNES; the way I understand it, Webfoot composed the Legacy Of Goku soundtrack using tracker formats of the type typically composed in programs like OpenMPT(In this case, they used Impulse Tracker, which is a popular freeware DOS-based one, still used to this day, even sometimes in professional contexts).
Effectively, it's MIDI data with samples loaded instead of MIDI instruments, resulting in tiny files that can sound amazing. Ideal for something like the GBA, with its massively-limited cartridge space so CD audio isn't an option, and not the most powerful processor, so full synthesis isn't a good option either.

Tracker music is quite commonly used in older PC games like Jazz Jackrabbit, Unreal Tournament, and I believe Tyrian 2000.

(Also, if you wanted to see the entire segment about the music of Legacy Of Goku, here is where it actually starts. Stretches out up to about the 19:30 mark. They go into some detail about the nature of the process of putting together the tracker music)
Interesting, indeed. Thanks for that link! I'm gonna check the video out when I get back from work tonight.
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Re: For those who hate the Faulconer soundtrack, are there any scenes you like better than with the JP soundtrack?

Post by Ringworm128 » Sat May 26, 2018 1:16 am

I don't hate the Faulconer score but the only real standout placements to me now are Cells theme playing as he walks up to 16's head before crushing it and that atmospheric track that plays when Gohan is first teaching Videl about ki. Ugh what is that track? It goes all the way back to the Freeza arc, but I can never remember what it's called.
Asura wrote:
Dbzfan94 wrote:Goku's SSJ3 transformation

Goten meets Goku

anything with Super Buu

any time Ginyu Transformation played

The dub score was really good in the Buu saga especially in my opinion
I agree with the SSJ3 transformation, definitely beats the original by far in my opinion. Super Buu also has a great theme.
I often see the SSJ3 transformation scene brought up as an example of the Team Faulconer score outdoing the original, but honestly I think it's one of the worst placements in the entire series. The actual track is great and fits well with the whole idea of ascending to an unbelievable level; but it just doesn't work in the context of the scene it's used in. The whole point of SSJ3 scene is that the transformation could possibly do more harm then good. It's supposed to be suspenseful. Yet the dub has triumphant music blarring while Goku causes the ocean to go nuts and the windows on buildings to shatter.
Kunzait_83 wrote:Nope. Not a one.

Apart from this one bluesy guitar riff (that I think was used for Grand Kaio's theme, and is about the only thing approaching a halfway decent tune in any of this fiery car wreck of a soundtrack), its just cringingly bad, cheap, chintzy, low rent, godawful shit music, even on its own divorced from DBZ. And it clearly does not belong or go with this footage and clashes glaringly with it at just about all times, generally sounding like something out of a 5th rate Power Rangers ripoff (and at times during the Boo arc, like leftover music cues from an early/mid 90s Cinemax softcore porn film).
Dude, don't you think you're being a tad harsh? It undeniably has a cheap, rushed sound to it but it still has good compositions to it. I don't see how anyone could listen to Paikuhan's theme, "Gohan Angers or Piccolo's theme and say "this is bad'.

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Re: For those who hate the Faulconer soundtrack, are there any scenes you like better than with the JP soundtrack?

Post by Kunzait_83 » Sat May 26, 2018 2:09 am

ringworm128 wrote:Dude, don't you think you're being a tad harsh? It undeniably has a cheap, rushed sound to it but it still has good compositions to it. I don't see how anyone could listen to Paikuhan's theme, "Gohan Angers or Piccolo's theme and say "this is bad'.
*Cues up all three*

Yeah no, this is bad.

Gohan Angers is... unbelievably generic. "Yeah, this sure is music I guess" about sums it up. A total nothing, could come from basically any low rent action show in existence. Really I got nothing else I can say about it, because there really ISN'T anything else that even CAN be said about it.

Paikuhan's theme has a semi-decent-ish opening cue (which for Faulconer is almost downright astounding)... and then it just quickly devolves from there into utter nonsense like something out of an especially bad video game soundtrack from the 16 bit days.

Piccolo's theme is one of those Faulconer tracks that has this weird quasi-New Agey thing going on with it somewhat. Its not to quite the same degree as some of the other tracks which REALLY go overboard with this particular type of sound; but for Piccolo's theme, if it wasn't for the "dun dun!" horn-like notes punctuating it throughout and the drum beats, this would otherwise sound like something you'd hear being played in the background at a health spa where people meditate and do yoga and whatnot. And when you compare it directly to Kikuchi's Piccolo theme? Good GOD is this beyond pathetic.

Either way though, no, I wouldn't call any of these compositions "good" or anything approaching it, even on their own totally divorced from DBZ or its original Japanese soundtrack. They're just tacky and without any real musical identity to them whatsoever beyond their general low-grade cheapness. A bunch of this shit could just as easily be the score to literally any one of MILLIONS of shitty, bargain basement D-grade schlock direct to video or basic cable action films from the early 90s (or as I said earlier in a few cases circa the Boo arc, Cinemax porn from the same time period).

This shit is just background noise. It does exactly what it was commissioned to do: fill up dead air with sounds of some kind. Nothing more.

Nostalgia's a helluva drug folks.
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Journey to the West, chapter 26 wrote:The strong man will meet someone stronger still:
Come to naught at last he surely will!
Zephyr wrote:And that's to say nothing of how pretty much impossible it is to capture what made the original run of the series so great. I'm in the generation of fans that started with Toonami, so I totally empathize with the feeling of having "missed the party", experiencing disappointment, and wanting to experience it myself. But I can't, that's how life is. Time is a bitch. The party is over. Kageyama, Kikuchi, and Maeda are off the sauce now; Yanami almost OD'd; Yamamoto got arrested; Toriyama's not going to light trash cans on fire and hang from the chandelier anymore. We can't get the band back together, and even if we could, everyone's either old, in poor health, or calmed way the fuck down. Best we're going to get, and are getting, is a party that's almost entirely devoid of the magic that made the original one so awesome that we even want more.
Kamiccolo9 wrote:It grinds my gears that people get "outraged" over any of this stuff. It's a fucking cartoon. If you are that determined to be angry about something, get off the internet and make a stand for something that actually matters.
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Re: For those who hate the Faulconer soundtrack, are there any scenes you like better than with the JP soundtrack?

Post by Dbzfan94 » Sat May 26, 2018 9:40 am

Kunzait_83 wrote:
Nostalgia's a helluva drug folks.
Or someone just legitimately enjoys the tracks?

This attitude people have of "this is shit so anyone who enjoys it is because MUH NUSTALGEEIA" is baffling to me.

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Re: For those who hate the Faulconer soundtrack, are there any scenes you like better than with the JP soundtrack?

Post by Kunzait_83 » Sat May 26, 2018 1:35 pm

Dbzfan94 wrote:Or someone just legitimately enjoys the tracks?

This attitude people have of "this is shit so anyone who enjoys it is because MUH NUSTALGEEIA" is baffling to me.
To be fair here, this same idea also applies in the reverse as well:

"What?! How can you POSSIBLY think this is bad?! This shit defined my childhood man!! Sure it sounds ridiculously cheap and rushed, its wildly overused, doesn't even come close to fitting in with the series it was made for, and has almost no flavor to it at all... but c'mon, there HAS to be SOMETHING to it, right? Its still awesome music! I know cause it got me SO PUMPED when I was 10!" etc.

People who trash on the score go to the "muh nostalgia!" thing for a reason: go look throughout this whole forum in every other Faulconer thread ever made... nostalgia and childhood memories is what almost damn near EVERY other post praising this score almost ALWAYS inevitably comes back to in like 95% of most cases. Its not like I pulled "nostalgia is a helluva drug" completely out of my ass when it comes to this particular subject. This is what Faulconer fans themselves cite as one of their main reasons for liking this score in a ridiculously large number of instances.
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Journey to the West, chapter 26 wrote:The strong man will meet someone stronger still:
Come to naught at last he surely will!
Zephyr wrote:And that's to say nothing of how pretty much impossible it is to capture what made the original run of the series so great. I'm in the generation of fans that started with Toonami, so I totally empathize with the feeling of having "missed the party", experiencing disappointment, and wanting to experience it myself. But I can't, that's how life is. Time is a bitch. The party is over. Kageyama, Kikuchi, and Maeda are off the sauce now; Yanami almost OD'd; Yamamoto got arrested; Toriyama's not going to light trash cans on fire and hang from the chandelier anymore. We can't get the band back together, and even if we could, everyone's either old, in poor health, or calmed way the fuck down. Best we're going to get, and are getting, is a party that's almost entirely devoid of the magic that made the original one so awesome that we even want more.
Kamiccolo9 wrote:It grinds my gears that people get "outraged" over any of this stuff. It's a fucking cartoon. If you are that determined to be angry about something, get off the internet and make a stand for something that actually matters.
Rocketman wrote:"Shonen" basically means "stupid sentimental shit" anyway, so it's ok to be anti-shonen.

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Re: For those who hate the Faulconer soundtrack, are there any scenes you like better than with the JP soundtrack?

Post by thaman91 » Sat May 26, 2018 1:49 pm

On a purist forum like this, I get the feeling that people who want to say something positive about the Faulconer score often feel the need to frame it by acknowledging all the stuff that people who hate it tend to say. Like "I know, I know it's wall to wall and doesn't capture the tone of the Japanese version and can sound cheap at times, so don't think I'm some sort of uninformed pedestrian". It's a way to try and maintain some sort of perceived credibility in a place where the predominant viewpoint towards the score is the opposite. It's certainly not any kind of "evidence" that people only like it for nostalgia.

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