Battle of Gods - The Kikuchi Cut - [COMPLETE!]

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Battle of Gods - The Kikuchi Cut - [COMPLETE!]

Post by Ajay » Mon Dec 12, 2016 10:43 pm

Image

Music Placement - Kei17
Editing - TeeHallums
Direction & QC - Ajay
Heyo! I'm back with another fan-edit, and as you can tell by the credits above, I'm (very thankfully) not alone this time. Joining me in replacing Norihito Sumitomo's Battle of Gods score with the legendary Shunsuke Kikuchi compositions are Kei and Tyson. Kei very kindly sat down and meticulously selected each Kikuchi track for the corresponding Sumitomo piece, while Tyson slaved away gutting the original score, and mixing in the new tracks. I'd like to pretend I contributed a lot, but aside from actually gathering these wonderful people together, I've essentially been kicking back and yelling at Tyson to fix every little mistake I find. It's a good life!

Replacing music is a touchy subject, and as someone who wholeheartedly disagrees with the practise, I'm a big ol' hypocrite for making this thing happen. I'd like to make it clear, however, that the intention is not to improve the film, but instead to offer up a fun, nostalgia-driven alternative for fans of Kikuchi to enjoy. The experience is very different, and admittedly less grandiose than Sumitomo's truly 'epic' score, but it brings a familiar flavour to the film that I hope fans enjoy. I love both interpretations, so I hope you all do, too!

On to the nitty-gritty: we're using the theatrical cut of the film as unfortunately Kei lost all of his progress on the extended edition due to hardware failure. We're sticking with the original Japanese cast, and although there are currently no plans to produce an English-dub version, the idea hasn't been ruled out. The original 5.1 mix has been maintained, so fans with surround sound can get the most out of their systems. As there slightly different timings between regions, we will be releasing two versions (audio only, of course): one that will sync to the Japanese release, and one for the US release. I'll put together a tutorial on how to mux together the streams for those who don't know. It's pretty simple, I promise!

[spoiler]
Image
[/spoiler]

And we are go!

US Synced Tracks - Stereo // 5.1 Surround
JP Synced Tracked - Stereo // 5.1 Surround

Again, if you don't have a 5.1 system, we do recommend the stereo mixdown. Although your media player may downmix 5.1 automatically, it's probably not going to be as accurate as our manual effort.

If you notice any issues, let us know, and we'll release a v2 if necessary. Hope you enjoy!

Here's two trailers myself and Tee put together. Nothing serious or really representative of the product, but they're fun all the same!

-

Muxing Guide:

Rip your Blu-ray to PC with something like MakeMKV. You can either use the trial or find a free beta code on their forums. It's pretty self explanatory, but feel free to ask any questions.

First up, download MKVToolNix GUI. MKVMerge will also work, but it's essentially been discontinued at this point. Open it up!

[spoiler]Image[/spoiler]

Drag the MKV that MakeMKV created from your Blu-ray disc into the input section (top blank box). It'll show the components that the MKV is made up of in the bottom box. Be sure to deselect the audio tracks, leaving only your video and subtitles selected.

If you're using the US release, you may want to leave your dub audio and forced subtitles selected, but that's up to you. We'll uncheck them for this tutorial.

[spoiler]Image[/spoiler]

Next, drag in the Kikuchi audio you downloaded from us! It should automatically check itself, but it's worth double-checking (oh god, the puns!) that it's enabled.

[spoiler]Image[/spoiler]

At the bottom of the program, you can select where you want to save the file. Pick a location and hit 'Start muxing'.

All done. Easy!
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Re: Battle of Gods - The Kikuchi Cut

Post by TeeHallums » Mon Dec 12, 2016 10:58 pm

Super excited to finish this up so everyone can see it; It's pretty neat.

On the technical side of things (for those who are curious), this was put together using Adobe Premiere and Audition. The audio is from the Japanese release of BoG (including the JP version of HERO!), and the original music has been removed from it well enough that you could listen to the movie without music at all and not notice. All SFX and mixing qualities remain intact, sometimes to the point of me rebuilding an entire scene's sound effects!

For those of you who are wondering where I came from or what makes me qualified to do this:

Ajay had seen some of my previous work in the past, and when I recently did something similar to this with RoF and the Faulconer music, he contacted me to do his bidding.
Last edited by TeeHallums on Mon Dec 12, 2016 11:23 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Battle of Gods - The Kikuchi Cut

Post by MonkeyKing16 » Mon Dec 12, 2016 11:17 pm

I've always been curious about how one can isolate specific audio without affecting the other and replace it altogether.

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Re: Battle of Gods - The Kikuchi Cut

Post by phattangent » Tue Dec 13, 2016 4:28 am

I'll watch this later. Nice title though. JK. The levels for the music seem off (rather low) compared to the foreground audio. I'd be interested in seeing an embed with more indicative levels.
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Re: Battle of Gods - The Kikuchi Cut

Post by Geekdom101 » Tue Dec 13, 2016 4:54 am

WHY DIDNT YOU TELL ME ABOUT THIS!?
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Re: Battle of Gods - The Kikuchi Cut

Post by Ajay » Tue Dec 13, 2016 6:26 am

phattangent wrote:I'll watch this later. Nice title though. JK. The levels for the music seem off (rather low) compared to the foreground audio. I'd be interested in seeing an embed with more indicative levels.
I think that's just a byproduct of squashing a 5.1 track into stereo for these clips. As far as I'm aware, all of the audio has been matched to the same level as the original, and a little louder in some cases.

We've been pretty careful to avoid the usual pitfalls of these kinds of edits, where the music is mixed far too loud, as that's what people are trying to focus on.

I can edit in a 5.1 sample when I'm at my PC later, though. Definitely let us know what type of speakers you're listening through, though.
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Re: Battle of Gods - The Kikuchi Cut

Post by TeeHallums » Tue Dec 13, 2016 11:00 pm

MonkeyKing16 wrote:I've always been curious about how one can isolate specific audio without affecting the other and replace it altogether.
Battle of Gods is Mixed in 5.1 Surround Sound audio, meaning that audio is delegated out to different tracks. Usually, music is primarily (or completely) in the front left and front right channels, and the voices and SFX are in other channels. Removing those music tracks solve most of the problem of getting rid of the music, but often times there are remnants in the main vocal track. Those I fixed in Adobe Audition as well as a few other programs.
phattangent wrote:I'll watch this later. Nice title though. JK. The levels for the music seem off (rather low) compared to the foreground audio. I'd be interested in seeing an embed with more indicative levels.
Like Ajay said, the clips he embedded were exported in 2.0, which messes with stuff. Here is a clip exported in 5.1, which is more accurate to what you'll see in the final product.

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Re: Battle of Gods - The Kikuchi Cut

Post by ParkerAL » Wed Dec 14, 2016 1:58 pm

As much as I love Shunsuke Kikuchi, this replacement (as amazing as it is, I must add) does face the same underlying challenge as other fan edits, and hell, and even Dragon Ball Kai. They can't help but feel repetitive after we've heard the same pieces accompany so many scenes over and over through the years. Obviously, this is one those problems that simply doesn't have a solution. If only we could conjure new Kikuchi Dragon Ball music into existence. If only.

If I ever toyed with the idea of re-scoring a modern Dragon Ball movie or episode, I might consider incorporating music Kikuchi wrote for lesser-known shows. As long as it still fits Dragon Ball's tone, it might add some needed variety. As long as it's available in a decent quality, that is.
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Re: Battle of Gods - The Kikuchi Cut

Post by Bansho64 » Wed Dec 14, 2016 2:04 pm

ParkerAL wrote:As much as I love Shunsuke Kikuchi, this replacement (as amazing as it is, I must add) does face the same underlying challenge as other fan edits, and hell, and even Dragon Ball Kai. They can't help but feel repetitive after we've heard the same pieces accompany so many scenes over and over through the years. Obviously, this is one those problems that simply doesn't have a solution. If only we could conjure new Kikuchi Dragon Ball music into existence. If only.
I do see where you're coming from and I agree with you on the level that people keep using the same repetitive pieces. But, I feel that the issue is more of people not fully utilizing Kikuchi's wide library of music rather than new pieces being needed. Seriously, there's a lot of awesome tracks in there that tend to be glossed over a lot.

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Re: Battle of Gods - The Kikuchi Cut

Post by Ajay » Wed Dec 14, 2016 2:14 pm

Bansho64 wrote: I do see where you're coming from and I agree with you on the level that people keep using the same repetitive pieces. But, I feel that the issue is more of people not fully utilizing Kikuchi's wide library of music rather than new pieces being needed. Seriously, there's a lot of awesome tracks in there that tend to be glossed over a lot.
I think you'll be surprised and happy with Kei's picks. They're pretty solid choices, and there was even one I couldn't remember hearing before.
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Re: Battle of Gods - The Kikuchi Cut

Post by Bansho64 » Wed Dec 14, 2016 2:19 pm

Ajay wrote: I think you'll be surprised and happy with Kei's picks. They're pretty solid choices, and there was even one I couldn't remember hearing before.
I expect nothing less bro. I remember his fantastic Kikuchi placment for the Kai version of the Kaioken x20 scene. Going off of that and his other previous works, I know he'll do a great job with this

Also, I think it's really cool how you guys put in the time to
do this kinda stuff and even give the community a chance to enjoy your hard work. You guys don't have to, but you do, and I think y'all are awesome for it. :P

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Re: Battle of Gods - The Kikuchi Cut

Post by MarCas92 » Thu Dec 15, 2016 12:59 am

Wow. As soon as I saw this post I was legit about to nut. That poster? OOMPH! Also, disappointed a bit in the sound mixing but I think this is as good a job as were gonna get unless anyone ever finds the individual audio files (yeah right :roll: ) Can't wait to see it!
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Re: Battle of Gods - The Kikuchi Cut

Post by TeeHallums » Thu Dec 15, 2016 3:42 am

MarCas92 wrote:Wow. As soon as I saw this post I was legit about to nut. That poster? OOMPH! Also, disappointed a bit in the sound mixing but I think this is as good a job as were gonna get unless anyone ever finds the individual audio files (yeah right :roll: ) Can't wait to see it!
Disappointed how? The audio we have currently is pretty much isolated vocals. There are, however, about 3 spots where if you turned off our music you could hear a bit of artifacting.

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Re: Battle of Gods - The Kikuchi Cut

Post by MarCas92 » Thu Dec 15, 2016 1:38 pm

TeeHallums wrote: The audio we have currently is pretty much isolated vocals. There are, however, about 3 spots where if you turned off our music you could hear a bit of artifacting.
I have 0 idea what this means. I'm not an audio guy by any stretch. However, I can't describe it. Something sounds off, I can't describe it like the sounds overlap in a weird way (if that makes any sense). If I listen to it REALLY closely you can tell the audio has been fudged around with. But nvm what I think! Love this! Can't wait to see it.
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Re: Battle of Gods - The Kikuchi Cut

Post by Attitudefan » Thu Dec 15, 2016 6:32 pm

MarCas92 wrote:
TeeHallums wrote: The audio we have currently is pretty much isolated vocals. There are, however, about 3 spots where if you turned off our music you could hear a bit of artifacting.
I have 0 idea what this means. I'm not an audio guy by any stretch. However, I can't describe it. Something sounds off, I can't describe it like the sounds overlap in a weird way (if that makes any sense). If I listen to it REALLY closely you can tell the audio has been fudged around with. But nvm what I think! Love this! Can't wait to see it.
Generally, a lot of accompanying effects, like bass and reverb, are in other channels. When isolated, the sound effects become plain without the added effects to the mix which are lost on other audio channels in a 5.1 mix. So too are audio pans from left to right, so while the sound remains, it may get cut off or sound shorter because it's missing audio panning which is present in the whole mix, but not on a single audio channel.

I hope that helps.

Plus, some sound effects are indeed added back in by the people editing this project. I've done stuff like this about 7-8 years ago with DG index (isolating the audio from the 5.1 mix into separate channels), Audacity (to read the audio file type, which would also present the audio spliced into different channels so one could isolate each individual one) and Magix Movie Editor (for the final mix)! I used it with fan dubs when I was still a teen learning on my own about audio mixing and editing.
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Re: Battle of Gods - The Kikuchi Cut

Post by TeeHallums » Thu Dec 15, 2016 7:54 pm

Generally, a lot of accompanying effects, like bass and reverb, are in other channels. When isolated, the sound effects become plain without the added effects to the mix which are lost on other audio channels in a 5.1 mix. So too are audio pans from left to right, so while the sound remains, it may get cut off or sound shorter because it's missing audio panning which is present in the whole mix, but not on a single audio channel.

I hope that helps.

Plus, some sound effects are indeed added back in by the people editing this project. I've done stuff like this about 7-8 years ago with DG index (isolating the audio from the 5.1 mix into separate channels), Audacity (to read the audio file type, which would also present the audio spliced into different channels so one could isolate each individual one) and Magix Movie Editor (for the final mix)! I used it with fan dubs when I was still a teen learning on my own about audio mixing and editing.
Well put. Indeed, any time there were SFX that were panned across multiple tracks, I did my best to put them back in proper, which is especially easy to do faithfully since the entire Hidenori Arai SFX library can be found fairly easily.
I should also note the LFE channel (the channel containing the bassy noises) has been left almost completely untouched, since there is basically never any music contained in them.

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Re: Battle of Gods - The Kikuchi Cut

Post by Attitudefan » Thu Dec 15, 2016 9:09 pm

TeeHallums wrote:
Generally, a lot of accompanying effects, like bass and reverb, are in other channels. When isolated, the sound effects become plain without the added effects to the mix which are lost on other audio channels in a 5.1 mix. So too are audio pans from left to right, so while the sound remains, it may get cut off or sound shorter because it's missing audio panning which is present in the whole mix, but not on a single audio channel.

I hope that helps.

Plus, some sound effects are indeed added back in by the people editing this project. I've done stuff like this about 7-8 years ago with DG index (isolating the audio from the 5.1 mix into separate channels), Audacity (to read the audio file type, which would also present the audio spliced into different channels so one could isolate each individual one) and Magix Movie Editor (for the final mix)! I used it with fan dubs when I was still a teen learning on my own about audio mixing and editing.
Well put. Indeed, any time there were SFX that were panned across multiple tracks, I did my best to put them back in proper, which is especially easy to do faithfully since the entire Hidenori Arai SFX library can be found fairly easily.
I should also note the LFE channel (the channel containing the bassy noises) has been left almost completely untouched, since there is basically never any music contained in them.
Does he have a website where his stock sound effects can be purchased? Similar to Firstcom or Warner-Chappell production music (and sound effect) websites? I know it can be captured from the games and/or the show.

Yeah, the bass is it's own track. I think, if I remember correctly, the Saiyan arc is mixed differently than the rest of the show (on the Orange Bricks), and I swear some of the effects were captured with the music. Something like that anyways which made isolation more difficult in that arc only. I had to rework all the sounds because of that when I replaced the music with the Budokai soundtrack for fun way back in the day.

If there is a stock source to get sound effects from different libraries, that would be fantastic. There has to be some resource that production companies use to get sound effects. Nearly all late-70s through to the end of the 90s used the same stock sound effects, including DB/Z.
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Re: Battle of Gods - The Kikuchi Cut

Post by Ajay » Sat Dec 17, 2016 6:14 pm

The film is almost done!

To celebrate, here's a trailer I put together based on the first full one Battle of Gods ever had.

Since much of the dialogue and narration within that initial trailer were exclusive to it, I had to rip and clean it up. It was a stereo track, so as a result, you can hear the audio's been damaged. Probably doesn't need to be said, but just to be clear, the film itself is fine! Not indicative at all.
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Re: Battle of Gods - The Kikuchi Cut

Post by Forte224 » Sun Dec 18, 2016 1:53 am

This is amazing. Will muxing the audio be similar to how the DBZ Kai Yamamoto Revival project worked by SuperSaiyanHedgehog?

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Re: Battle of Gods - The Kikuchi Cut

Post by sangofe » Sun Dec 18, 2016 3:32 am

Ajay wrote:The film is almost done!

To celebrate, here's a trailer I put together based on the first full one Battle of Gods ever had.

Since much of the dialogue and narration within that initial trailer were exclusive to it, I had to rip and clean it up. It was a stereo track, so as a result, you can hear the audio's been damaged. Probably doesn't need to be said, but just to be clear, the film itself is fine! Not indicative at all.
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