Kikuchi Kai: Is the music quality better?

[KBABZ]

This is a strange question that only just occurred to me whilst watching DBZ Kai with a friend today before seeing the Broly movie. Is the audio quality of the Kikuchi replacement score in Kai any better than the original Z anime?

[DHM211]

Compared to the Optical Japanese audio and Funimations shitty 5.1 audio mix for the Orange Bricks/Blu-Rays? Yeah, Kai Kikuchi sounds better.

However, when compared to Dragon Box the movies, they sound pretty much identical.

[JohnnyCashKami]

The Kikuchi score in Kai does sound great but it's usually the same BGMs throughout an episode.

[KBABZ]

The Kikuchi score in Kai does sound great but it's usually the same BGMs throughout an episode.

Haha, I'm not disputing that!

[Metalwario64]

This is a strange question that only just occurred to me whilst watching DBZ Kai with a friend today before seeing the Broly movie. Is the audio quality of the Kikuchi replacement score in Kai any better than the original Z anime?

Yes, because the series uses the old M&E tapes and the tracks in Kai are either from the music CDs or whatever source (maybe digitally at this point) they had them stored on.

[ManuGem]

One thing I noticed (but I watched Kai only by streaming wabsites + excerpts on youtube) is that these BGMs from Kikuchi in Kai seem pretty low pitched, compared to the original, that sounds often almost half a tone lower.

It's disturbing, because when DBZ was on french television, it was exactly the opposite: the BGM sounded high-pitched, I think it's because of a difference in format (number of images per second) compared to japanese television.
Many of these BGMs are in F minor, so I used to hear them in F sharp minor on TV, then I rediscovered them in F minor with CDs and internet ... And now I hear them almost in E minor in Kai: -)

[gokaiblue]

One thing I noticed (but I watched Kai only by streaming wabsites + excerpts on youtube) is that these BGMs from Kikuchi in Kai seem pretty low pitched, compared to the original, that sounds often almost half a tone lower.

It's disturbing, because when DBZ was on french television, it was exactly the opposite: the BGM sounded high-pitched, I think it's because of a difference in format (number of images per second) compared to japanese television.
Many of these BGMs are in F minor, so I used to hear them in F sharp minor on TV, then I rediscovered them in F minor with CDs and internet ... And now I hear them almost in E minor in Kai: -)

Never noticed that. Will have to take another listen to them.

[Danfun64]

Strange. It always seemed to me that the music in Kikuchi Kai was the right pitch. Maybe the sources you watch Kai in have it sped up to 25fps without changing pitch, then reverting to 24fps or 24000/1001 fps with a pitch change.

[ManuGem]

Strange. It always seemed to me that the music in Kikuchi Kai was the right pitch. Maybe the sources you watch Kai in have it sped up to 25fps without changing pitch, then reverting to 24fps or 24000/1001 fps with a pitch change.

Yes, it's possible. Anyway, with the sources I used, I'm sure of what I observed (although it may not be quite a semitone, but it was really low pitched)

[SqueakyBoots]

One thing I noticed (but I watched Kai only by streaming wabsites + excerpts on youtube) is that these BGMs from Kikuchi in Kai seem pretty low pitched, compared to the original, that sounds often almost half a tone lower.

It's disturbing, because when DBZ was on french television, it was exactly the opposite: the BGM sounded high-pitched, I think it's because of a difference in format (number of images per second) compared to japanese television.
Many of these BGMs are in F minor, so I used to hear them in F sharp minor on TV, then I rediscovered them in F minor with CDs and internet ... And now I hear them almost in E minor in Kai: -)

If you were watching clips on youtube, then it's likely whoever uploaded them adjusted the pitch of the audio as a means of automatic copyright flag prevention.

[JohnnyCashKami]

Strange. It always seemed to me that the music in Kikuchi Kai was the right pitch. Maybe the sources you watch Kai in have it sped up to 25fps without changing pitch, then reverting to 24fps or 24000/1001 fps with a pitch change.

That's possible. The Catalàn version of Kai TFC was sped up and sounds really weird how the music goes by so fast.

[GhostEmperorX]

Many of these BGMs are in F minor, so I used to hear them in F sharp minor on TV, then I rediscovered them in F minor with CDs and internet ... And now I hear them almost in E minor in Kai: -)

Excellent, someone else who noticed it. However I didn't hear much of a difference in pitch, it still sounded the same.

[Valerius Dover]

There's definitely no difference in pitch with the tracks. Can clarify that I own both Z and Kai DVDs.

[TheBlackPaladin]

One thing I noticed (but I watched Kai only by streaming wabsites + excerpts on youtube) is that these BGMs from Kikuchi in Kai seem pretty low pitched, compared to the original, that sounds often almost half a tone lower.

It's disturbing, because when DBZ was on french television, it was exactly the opposite: the BGM sounded high-pitched, I think it's because of a difference in format (number of images per second) compared to japanese television.
Many of these BGMs are in F minor, so I used to hear them in F sharp minor on TV, then I rediscovered them in F minor with CDs and internet ... And now I hear them almost in E minor in Kai: -)

That's all a video-reformatting thing.

The standard framerate for NTSC video, which is what North America, South America, and Japan use, is 24 frames per second. On the other hand, the PAL video format, which is what Europe uses, is 25 frames per second. An easy way to convert NTSC footage to PAL footage is to simply speed the footage up by 4.something% (not sure of the exact difference). Speeding up footage results in its accompanying audio sounding higher-pitched, by approximately one semi-tone.

So, all that to say, as a consequence of converting NTSC footage to PAL footage, the footage is sped up and slightly higher pitched in a lot of European dubs as a result--not just dubs of DBZ for that matter, but of all dubs of stuff that was originally in NTSC format and converted to PAL format.

However, during the format conversion process, some companies take the liberty of lowering the pitch by the same amount that the film is sped up by. When that happens, while the footage is still a tad faster than it was in Japan, the original pitch of the music is at least retained. I've also heard there's a more complicated telecine process for converting NTSC to PAL where both the original pitch and the original speed of the film are maintained, but that this is not the preferable option because it results in some quality loss.

So, that leaves us with three conversion methods:

Method 1: Speed the film up while also raising the pitch.
Method 2: Speed the film up, but without raising the pitch.
Method 3: The telecine process.

Now, back to what you mentioned earlier. You said you saw these clips on YouTube, right? Well, for whatever reason, one of the most popularly-shared sources of video for the French dub of Kai is PAL footage that was slowed back down to NTSC speed. The thing is, in the case of the French dub of Kai, the producers did what I mentioned earlier--sped up the framerate, but lowered the pitch so that it would be the same pitch as in the original Japanese version. So, when that PAL footage that kept the original pitch was slowed down to NTSC speed, the pitch was also lowered.

In other words, the French dub of Kai converted the footage from NTSC to PAL using Method 2, but the clips that are commonly posted online are clips that were re-converted to NTSC using the opposite of Method 1--slowing down the footage and lowering the pitch. This created the misconception that the music was "lower" than it was in DBZ.

[TheGreatness25]

I don't know, I just recently watched Kai 1.0 through and while it is a bit jarring when the Kikuchi score just suddenly takes over (the US release), I kind of enjoyed it. I think that what I noticed, was that a lot of the music was from the original Dragon Ball.

Do you think that it would be better if they used the variations of CHA-LA-HEAD-CHA-LA? Obviously the original Z series had different variations of it, while it wasn't used in Kai presumably because CHA-LA wasn't the intro anymore.

Personally, based on what kind of series Kai was, I think they should've just updated the original Kikuchi score from the get-go (like they did for "Kakarot"). It was a refresh grounded by the original Z series and their music might've been better off that way too. And the whole Yamamoto scandal could've been avoided. But hey, who knew?

[ArmenianPepsi]

I've been through Kai 1.0 recently, and I prefer Kikuchi Kai over the new Yamamoto score.

I can't describe it well, but there is just this feeling of dissonance. Like when I hear the Faulconer score. The music doesnt match the visuals in my head. It just feels off. Yamamoto's Kai score would be perfect for the video games, and other more modern DB media. But putting this new score over what is essentially redrawn classic footage just feels wrong. Really distracted me when watching.

Makes me wonder. Are there such thing as Kikuchi score replacements for episodes 1 - 52 out there? If so, is there any way I could obtain copys of them to replace my existing ones for 1 - 52 with Yamamoto score?

[TheBlackPaladin]

Makes me wonder. Are there such thing as Kikuchi score replacements for episodes 1 - 52 out there? If so, is there any way I could obtain copys of them to replace my existing ones for 1 - 52 with Yamamoto score?

The answers to your questions, respectively, are "yes," and "quite easily."

When Toei made the decision to replace the Yamamoto score with the Kikuchi score, the ones most immediately effected were the few that were left to air, but they went back and re-mixed literally every single episode that had aired previously as well. Those new audio mixes, in turn, were also provided to FUNimation. So, all of the most current Kai DVD/Blu-Ray releases from FUNimation should have the Kikuchi replacement score, episodes 1-52 most definitely included.

[ArmenianPepsi]

Makes me wonder. Are there such thing as Kikuchi score replacements for episodes 1 - 52 out there? If so, is there any way I could obtain copys of them to replace my existing ones for 1 - 52 with Yamamoto score?

The answers to your questions, respectively, are "yes," and "quite easily."

When Toei made the decision to replace the Yamamoto score with the Kikuchi score, the ones most immediately effected were the few that were left to air, but they went back and re-mixed literally every single episode that had aired previously as well. Those new audio mixes, in turn, were also provided to FUNimation. So, all of the most current Kai DVD/Blu-Ray releases from FUNimation should have the Kikuchi replacement score, episodes 1-52 most definitely included.

Sorry for the late reply, but thanks a ton for the info

[G1GACANN0N]

Still pissed they didn't use M1311 anywhere in Kai when the rest of the Return of Cooler soundtrack is used almost exclusively.