Is it time to accept Faulconer OST did it better than the original?

[ABED]

It's fine if something is dated. There's no way something wont' eventually show its age. That shouldn't be the aim. The aim should merely be to fit the story

[Fionordequester]

It's fine if something is dated. There's no way something wont' eventually show its age. That shouldn't be the aim. The aim should merely be to fit the story

Exactly! Like, to me... Saying a sountrack is worse because it's dated is like saying "Tenshinhan beats Vegeta, because Tenshinhan is taller".

Yeah, obviously a martial artist would want to be as tall as Tenshinhan, rather than as short as Vegeta... But that absolutely is not gonna be what makes the difference.

[MasenkoHA]

The Team Faulconer score is one of the most compositionally complex and rich scores you will ever hear.

Lolwut. I am deceased

Not only did they cover many different styles, they were also constantly improving on each other's tracks.

They had two styles. Electro techno music and stock cartoon music for the non-action scenes

[Fionordequester]

They had two styles. Electro techno music and stock cartoon music for the non-action scenes

Are you speaking in hyperbole? Hyperbole is hard for me to detect, but your assertion makes much more sense as a hyperbolic one.

If you're actually being serious, then I can assure you that there are more genres than that in the Team Faulconer score. I mean that with the utmost of respect.

[GhostEmperorX]

Even so, I've got a very strong love for the compositions I've listened to across many different old games. I listen to them daily, despite not growing up with them.

That may be true indeed, but it's still not exactly transcending its time in the same manner as, say, true instrument music, however it does have the factor of being associated with something else of that period.

But it did happen all over the world. In the UK, the BBC destroyed many original tapes and films probably because of lack of storage space or the cost to do so.
Here in Canada, the French series Thierry La Fronde was broadcast in the 1960s in English. However, the English recordings were apparently destroyed after the series ended its run. So, only the original French tracks survive. And the Dr. Who series episodes Marco Polo was run in the 1960s but was apparently also destroyed after the airing by both the BBC and the CBC. That one is lost forever it appears. And so it goes...

You're right, and I heard this elsewhere but I don't expect much from the UK or most other Western countries to begin with when it comes to their non-film media.

Toei back in the 1970s and 80s was doing hundreds of episodes of series in a year with limited storage space for everything. Those magnetic audio reels were as big as 16mm film reels. And there was no aftermarket at the time other than limited overseas sales and for that, you don't need the original Japanese audio tracks. Smaller studios might have been able to do it since they released a much more limited number of things in a year. I always wonder what stuff we lost out of Mushi and later Tezuka Pro? They also did quite a few things but again, not in the scale of Toei. NHK, the national broadcaster probably also destroyed things as soon as they were broadcast. All of the specials and some of the series I have seem to be missing or else things like their original audio tracks are gone. Esteban Child of The Sun required a redub with the remaining voice actors and others filling in for people who had died for the DVD release. I have a few of the original cast recordings but that's it. Hopefully the entire thing surfaces in Japan.

Being a huge studio they could have definitely kept them elsewhere and they even held on to 16mm film reel up till 2000 while everyone else moved on. They were the only anime studio in the 80's to the 90's to think throwing away the original HQ audio was still a good idea. Really can't be excused no matter what.

[MCDaveG]

It's fine if something is dated. There's no way something wont' eventually show its age. That shouldn't be the aim. The aim should merely be to fit the story

Exactly! Like, to me... Saying a sountrack is worse because it's dated is like saying "Tenshinhan beats Vegeta, because Tenshinhan is taller".

Yeah, obviously a martial artist would want to be as tall as Tenshinhan, rather than as short as Vegeta... But that absolutely is not gonna be what makes the difference.

OK then, I will try it differently... You can clearly tell, when the music was produced based on the sound, instruments and mixing techniques used... Faulconer was clearly low-budget production, based on the synths and low-fi samples used, you have a music from 2000's made like Prodigy album from 1994. So it is better to say that electronic music is not dated, but you can recognize it generally by the sound mixing, instruments used (because synthesizers are instruments) and popular ''tropes'' at that time. You can label something Detroit Techno from 90's just by the sound of it and use of TR 909 drum machine.

Therefore, compared to original Kikuchi score, production was cheap (and had to, because one of the reasons to make a new score besides of making it cool for US kids was the licensing fees to Columbia Music).

The other thing, the musical side. We know that there were trained musicians that worked in the team and there is no dispute about them being skilled.
The problem for me with Faulconer score starts with the actual composition, because there are no connective tissues, no theme building...
When used in the show, it sounds too random and doesn't reflect the actual mood and being what it is, the background music.
Yeah and there is definitely many styles... the whole thing sound like disruptive loud mass thudding over the show.
You have general themes that you build upon... but Faulconer music sounds rather like stock music, as it doesn't have that musical worldbuilding. Even the criticized Norihito Sumitomo does that in DB Super and he clearly talks about it in interviews.

I just have the problem with the name of this topic and Faulconer's leaves a lot to be desired to excced the original.

[GhostEmperorX]

The Team Faulconer score is one of the most compositionally complex and rich scores you will ever hear. I don't have to musical education to say all the right words, unlike some of the pro-Faulconer musicians I know...

A few problems with that though, while a few melodies were good, they didn't even employ variations of one theme, they just made a whole bunch of different themes. It would have been much better to limit the bloat by making standard themes and having offshoots of them, 3 or 4 is fine. There's not one offshoot of any theme ever being used, it's always the exact same one over and over. Even Kikuchi got this right for many of his melodies (albeit most of them are on F minor and almost never transposed, though there are also a few on C minor even if they stay on that key). Calm variations, intense variations, transposed variations, somewhere in between, and done with different instruments to add to that effect. Recurring melodies just don't exist in Team Faulconer's score.

Spoiler:

The Team Faulconer OST is filled with unique techniques and compositions like those, mainly because unlike most DBZ scores, there was a full blown team handling the songs, not just one guy. Kikuchi, Menza, Johnson, Sumitomo... They were all solo acts, and it's obvious they were solo acts when you compare their work to the Team Faulconer OST (which had THREE highly competent musicians, not just one).

Not only did they cover many different styles, they were also constantly improving on each other's tracks.

Using multiple different composers isn't a virtue in and of itself, nor does having only one guy doing all the compositions constitute a disadvantage. In fact it could easily be the other way around. Look at Yasuharu Takanashi's work for Naruto part 2, he did that stuff all himself and there's a mountain of numerous unreleased tracks in that show that probably matches the number of released stuff for it, and he composed entirely different scores (in terms of melody) for that show’s movies. Then on a completely different show he switched to a whole other type of music, I think it should be easy to tell what that one is. That's an example of how one man can have genius surpassing even that of an entire team, and his melodies are original too.
Or Taku Iwasaki where he works with many different genres across all his projects and makes them distinctive to the shows at hand, as well as keeping them consistent to the various elements of the series. I could name more like Kenji Kawai and Kōhei Tanaka but I believe I've made my point.
Plus having one person doing the compositions makes for greater consistency, and it helps when they're competent with many different techniques, genres, and even non-4/4 time signatures as is needed for the project they're working on. And as reality would have it, many of these single composers indeed are. A bunch of different guys are going to have different ideas on what works for the project they're scoring.

Again, I don't have the education to say all the right words... But I did not grow up with the Faulconer score. So from the perspective of an unbiased observer, I hear much more complicated, unique, and resonant sounds coming from the Team Faulconer score than I do coming from any other DBZ score.

It's why I went on that long lecture about how better instruments don't mean better compositions. It's why I went to so much trouble posting remixes that were inferior to the original versions.

Your opinions are your opinions, obviously. But PLEASE refrain from the "these electronic sounds are so dated" argument. I don't believe it matters as much as you think it does...

There's the problem here, only looking within DB for your idea of a score that would have fit it according to your standards instead of what the show warranted. If you knew a lot more about OST's in anime you'd know that the ones in Japan besides DB and Kikuchi that aren't anachronistic on purpose are usually excellent, but at the same time they wouldn't sound as crass and unrefined as Team Faulconer's score. And lots of them were with single composers.
And besides, considering who Toriyama is and what DB's style is, the show is really no place for grandiose or epic scores the likes of other material in different anime no matter what space or tech elements it introduced. Kikuchi's score really does reflect the actual simplicity of the series when watching it in proper form (aka with the actual audio and possibly remastered).
I understand that basically everything would have its merits and pitfalls of any kind relative to the one viewing it, but team Faulconer's score does have plenty of pitfalls that many do indeed notice, and they're valid. And of course, this all isn't even going to the obvious and probably #1 flaw of it coming in only 68 episodes into the series.

Yes, fitting the show is the most important thing, however I only said that those sounds are dated because the Faulconer team's score isn't exactly as "modern" as people think it is.

I'll tackle the rest later but for now this is it.

[Dbzfan94]

The Team Faulconer score is one of the most compositionally complex and rich scores you will ever hear. I don't have to musical education to say all the right words, unlike some of the pro-Faulconer musicians I know...

A few problems with that though, while a few melodies were good, they didn't even employ variations of one theme, they just made a whole bunch of different themes. It would have been much better to limit the bloat by making standard themes and having offshoots of them, 3 or 4 is fine. There's not one offshoot of any theme ever being used, it's always the exact same one over and over. Even Kikuchi got this right for many of his melodies (albeit most of them are on F minor and almost never transposed, though there are also a few on C minor even if they stay on that key). Calm variations, intense variations, transposed variations, somewhere in between, and done with different instruments to add to that effect. Recurring melodies just don't exist in Team Faulconer's score.

Spoiler:

The Team Faulconer OST is filled with unique techniques and compositions like those, mainly because unlike most DBZ scores, there was a full blown team handling the songs, not just one guy. Kikuchi, Menza, Johnson, Sumitomo... They were all solo acts, and it's obvious they were solo acts when you compare their work to the Team Faulconer OST (which had THREE highly competent musicians, not just one).

Not only did they cover many different styles, they were also constantly improving on each other's tracks.

Using multiple different composers isn't a virtue in and of itself, nor does having only one guy doing all the compositions constitute a disadvantage. In fact it could easily be the other way around. Look at Yasuharu Takanashi's work for Naruto part 2, he did that stuff all himself and there's a mountain of numerous unreleased tracks in that show that probably matches the number of released stuff for it, and he composed entirely different scores (in terms of melody) for that show’s movies. Then on a completely different show he switched to a whole other type of music, I think it should be easy to tell what that one is. That's an example of how one man can have genius surpassing even that of an entire team, and his melodies are original too.
Or Taku Iwasaki where he works with many different genres across all his projects and makes them distinctive to the shows at hand, as well as keeping them consistent to the various elements of the series. I could name more like Kenji Kawai and Kōhei Tanaka but I believe I've made my point.
Plus having one person doing the compositions makes for greater consistency, and it helps when they're competent with many different techniques, genres, and even non-4/4 time signatures as is needed for the project they're working on. And as reality would have it, many of these single composers indeed are. A bunch of different guys are going to have different ideas on what works for the project they're scoring.

Again, I don't have the education to say all the right words... But I did not grow up with the Faulconer score. So from the perspective of an unbiased observer, I hear much more complicated, unique, and resonant sounds coming from the Team Faulconer score than I do coming from any other DBZ score.

It's why I went on that long lecture about how better instruments don't mean better compositions. It's why I went to so much trouble posting remixes that were inferior to the original versions.

Your opinions are your opinions, obviously. But PLEASE refrain from the "these electronic sounds are so dated" argument. I don't believe it matters as much as you think it does...

There's the problem here, only looking within DB for your idea of a score that would have fit it according to your standards instead of what the show warranted. If you knew a lot more about OST's in anime you'd know that the ones in Japan besides DB and Kikuchi that aren't anachronistic on purpose are usually excellent, but at the same time they wouldn't sound as crass and unrefined as Team Faulconer's score. And lots of them were with single composers.
And besides, considering who Toriyama is and what DB's style is, the show is really no place for grandiose or epic scores the likes of other material in different anime no matter what space or tech elements it introduced. Kikuchi's score really does reflect the actual simplicity of the series when watching it in proper form (aka with the actual audio and possibly remastered).
I understand that basically everything would have its merits and pitfalls of any kind relative to the one viewing it, but team Faulconer's score does have plenty of pitfalls that many do indeed notice, and they're valid. And of course, this all isn't even going to the obvious and probably #1 flaw of it coming in only 68 episodes into the series.

Yes, fitting the show is the most important thing, however I only said that those sounds are dated because the Faulconer team's score isn't exactly as "modern" as people think it is.

I'll tackle the rest later but for now this is it.

That’s just flat out wrong.
The Faulconer score had a few lemotifs throughout the run. All of the Buu themes and some of the Trunks themes have the same melody just changed up. SS3 Powerup and Gotenks is born as well. Earth and New Earth. And I’m sure others I’m forgetting.

[GhostEmperorX]

That’s just flat out wrong.
The Faulconer score had a few lemotifs throughout the run. All of the Buu themes and some of the Trunks themes have the same melody just changed up. SS3 Powerup and Gotenks is born as well. Earth and New Earth. And I’m sure others I’m forgetting.

Please post them here then. I'd like to see which ones exactly. Because it seemed to lack those for most of its initial existence.

[Fionordequester]

The list of leitmotifs & remixes is actually pretty extensive. The ones I covered in my post were just the tip of the iceberg. I'll demonstrate when I'm off work.

EDIT: To give you an idea, though, Majin Buu alone has eight different versions of his leitmotif. Freeza & Cell also have almost as many, each.

[Dbzfan94]

That’s just flat out wrong.
The Faulconer score had a few lemotifs throughout the run. All of the Buu themes and some of the Trunks themes have the same melody just changed up. SS3 Powerup and Gotenks is born as well. Earth and New Earth. And I’m sure others I’m forgetting.

Please post them here then. I'd like to see which ones exactly. Because it seemed to lack those for most of its initial existence.

The list of leitmotifs & remixes is actually pretty extensive. The ones I covered in my post were just the tip of the iceberg. I'll demonstrate when I'm off work.

How's this?

New Earth theme: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aWJMVo8ECsM
Earh Music https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IMvjg0dk4lU
Earth Music 2 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-MDibIVaqiU

Episodic Trunks https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wPZEWZjzCKM
Heroic Trunks https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2bwvv69WNLU
Goku's Sacrifice https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xtBZrxnpUWc

Majin theme https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BV2NnFp7lEY
Evil Buu https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gkkVEzdKbd8
Super Buu https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=woHtuw_xtcc
Super Buu (piano version) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZmXFtZ-jvzE
Kid Buu https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7tZ6OSlZGsE
Devastion (Buu Saga) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jn0lxZUc6mM

SSJ3 Powerup https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K61rG1hxBwA
Gotenks Is Born https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HDz4_zy2rsU

Perfect Cell Runs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J0-EIU8YObE
Perfect Cell https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N8HRW-840wU
Cell Returns https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LC-tkbFXQhs

And lastly, the opening variations
Recap https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MYK_QqH-BXk
Closing https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eiHu_wmZT-o
Gohan Vs Second Form Freeza https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zuyufNsSOr4

As I said, I'm sure there's more, but I'm forgetting them at the moment.

[jjgp1112]

Frieza also had a bit of a recurring "theme", mainly two or three synth notes that were used to denote his presence in various different songs throughout the Frieza saga.

Yeah, the notion that the Faulconer score didn't have leitmotifs is completely bogus. Every character had a recurring melody or style. Hell, I'd say they stuck to motifs even stronger than the Kikuchi score did (in the series. The movies had a pretty strong connective tissue but outside of some obvious songs for Gohan, Piccolo, and Vegeta, the series never stuck to it).

Side note - I thought it was pretty neat that they repurposed the shelved Trunks themes into Goku's themes instead.

[ABED]

I love music like everyone, but I don't have the knowledge to really discuss it. I can just tell you how I feel. The music was probably more varied and it feels like Faulconer usually scored to the scene instead of banking a bunch of tracks and placing them in a number of similar scenes. That doesn't make it better. It's not inherently that it's cheap, it's that it doesn't fit. The soundtrack to The Terminator is cheap synth. It still boggles my mind the film is as low budget it as it is. It looks way more expensive. However, it fits the aesthetic Cameron was going for (sci-fi/action/horror). DB is a throwback to old hong kong fantasy martial arts films. The score should reflect that.

[Fionordequester]

I love music like everyone, but I don't have the knowledge to really discuss it. I can just tell you how I feel.

For what it's worth, I always did appreciate that .

[VanceRefrigeration]

Goku also had his very own leitmotif that was restated in numerous different ways. The title card music, for example, is the overall melody of Goku's theme.
"Goku Dies" (here it is restated in a somber way): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JhAlkk5aOK0
This portion of the "SSJ3 Powerup" track also restates Goku's theme as Goku is transforming: https://youtu.be/K61rG1hxBwA?t=52
The "DBZ Finale" track also utilized Goku's theme in a celebratory way as the narrator talked about Goku in the final scene of DBZ: https://youtu.be/yJZgl85GvWY?t=67

Another interesting example of thematic variation is with the Ginyu Force.
Here's the standard Ginyu Force theme: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ob2OtKEbczg
Now here's a more contemplative version that was used in the very first Faulconer Productions scored episode as the heroes think about Guru potentially being harmed: https://youtu.be/8r99L_uQMxc?t=1378
Now here's a choir-esque version from later in the same episode as the fight is about to start (has some lower quality areas because it's a rip, not an official release): https://youtu.be/8r99L_uQMxc?t=1487
Now here's a goofy version of it from when Gohan is goofing around and thinking about how stylish he looks (feels appropriate to reference the Ginyu Force for that): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0cbWf6IoLwM

Piccolo's Super Namek leitmotif is also restated in a different way.
Here's the original: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EEJ176c06no
Now here's a version that uses the same melody at the beginning but in a different key and different instruments: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SjIXUsr84sY

Speaking of Piccolo, we often think of his main theme as the track "A Little Help From a Friend".
Here it is: https://youtu.be/_4cHtWpl1Lg?t=7
But if I'm not mistaken, this version actually built upon a short little leitmotif that was used for when Piccolo was communicating telepathically with Gohan: https://youtu.be/8YqPzALPdM4?t=23

Yet another example is the "Gohan Angers" theme.
Here's the standard version: https://youtu.be/ku6xSguANvc?t=33
Now here's an emotional variant of it as Goku and Piccolo talk about Gohan, whom they presume is dead: https://youtu.be/9CEH7goI9lk?t=230
Here's a version that edited a contemplative bit into it as Gohan realizes that Dende is still alive (this one admittedly just adds onto the original, but it has an interesting sound): https://youtu.be/qtxnWyDJcG0?t=591
Here's another example of a version that adds onto it and transitions into the closing theme: https://youtu.be/5-w8L2Rb7ZM?t=123

Now let's get to Vegeta.
Here's the standard theme written for him: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mWD5CNWwPjg
Somewhere in the Android saga, they added a guitar to it, though it's mostly the same: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G7kYneJqmes
Now here's an "angry" variation that was used for when Vegeta is angry about the dragon being summoned without telling him: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GQUbym6a4VE

[GhostEmperorX]

I love music like everyone, but I don't have the knowledge to really discuss it. I can just tell you how I feel. The music was probably more varied and it feels like Faulconer usually scored to the scene instead of banking a bunch of tracks and placing them in a number of similar scenes.

No problem, whether it fits or not in the first place is fine, which should be the #1 purpose. Whether the audience likes it or not is indeed a secondary thing.

DB is a throwback to old hong kong fantasy martial arts films. The score should reflect that.

Overall it should, and the original Kikuchi score does. However, for more otherworldly or space tech-focused areas, which is just a few things, it wouldn’t hurt to have one or two tracks made specifically for a few of those. After all, a soundtrack is a place where any genre can live as long as it has a purpose and can execute that purpose well. Of course you can mix and match whatever instruments you choose as well for consistency with the rest while still standing out at the same time.
Kenji Yamamoto saw that Future Trunks could use something that matched the context surrounding him, but we all knew what his problem was when he indeed made something. Yasunori Iwasaki on the other hand got it right on Bardock and Scouters with Solid State Scouter. It’s very much a track the likes of which you’d only hear in DBZ (in its full package as a track regardless of similar genres and other inspirations).
And while the Kikuchi score does fit, especially so for peaceful or calm moments of which early Z has plenty, it also feels a bit underwhelming at times, like in a few action scenes here and there.
Listening to them on their own outside the show, the particular release I got my hands on doesn’t seem to be recorded with the best quality, however it is better than how it sounds in the inferior optical audio that Toei used and manageable.

[Metalwario64]

Side note - I thought it was pretty neat that they repurposed the shelved Trunks themes into Goku's themes instead.

Yeah, that was good in Goku's Cell Games sacrifice.

I still would have liked to have had the unused Trunks tracks in their original place. That freaking Trunks promotional video had me so pumped and excited as a kid.

[Fionordequester]

How's this?

You know, the funny thing is? That's not even a 1/3rd of the amount of variations Majin Buu has. No, he has 19 themes. Nineteen fricken themes, all with the Majin leitmotif somewhere is there (though some are more subtle than others).

A lot of the other examples you brought up have more as well, but, I'll call it here for today. This list alone was way more work than I thought!!

All of Majin Buu's Various Themes
Majin theme (a.k.a. Babidi's Theme)

Buu's Theme (a.k.a., Fat Buu's Theme)

Buu Eats Cookie (starts at 0:35)

Buu Approaches Vegeta ("Goku Recovers" with Buu's leitmotif, starts at 0:29)

Goku Senses Buu

Evil Buu Theme (a.k.a., Grey Buu Theme)

Super Buu Theme

Scary Buu (a.k.a, Super Buu's 2nd Theme)

Evil Majin

Super Buu Arrives at the Lookout

Human Extinction Attack (Grey Buu remix, starts at 0:27)

Frieza Transforms (Buu Remix, starts at 4:40)

Buu is Fighting

Buu Anticipates

Super Buu Self-Destructs (starts at 5:43)

Super Buu Piano (Mr. Satan's Plea)

Mr. Satan & Bee

Devastion (Buu Remix)

Kid Buu Theme

[ABED]

Okay, I liked the Trunks promotional theme. It's the one that I also think could've fit DB as an insert song.

[VanceRefrigeration]

Buu Approaches Vegeta ("Goku Recovers" with Buu's leitmotif)

Frieza Transforms (Buu Remix)

I think you meant that they're remixes of "Serious Suspense" and "Evil Suspense". And the second link doesn't seem to work, but this is probably what you meant to link: https://youtu.be/bh0ve7jhcDw?t=280