Need Help Identifying Faulconer Music?

[Kamiccolo9]

Not sure if this is the right area to post this but here goes nothing... Faulconer is my favorite composer of the series so needless to say I own the orange brick sets...

(1st Question) but only now having watched the series more times than I can count in Japanese, and in English with Japanese music, and US broadcast noticed for the first time how different the "US music" for season 1 sounds from the rest of the series and is noticibly different as soon as Goku arrives on Namek in season 2...Am I wrong to believe that Faulconer did not in fact do season 1 or 1/2 of season 2? I know Ocean had the rights and then came the Funimation team so does that mean season 1 in fact lacks Faulconer?

2nd Question, Now Wikipedia says when Funimation redubbed season 1 and part of 2 that Faulconer was no longer working for them hence why Kai has the baby rattle and trumpets background music for epic moments like going super Saiyan rather than epic faulconer electric guitar rifts...is this the true reason Kai did not change the score?!?

3rd question, what is the name of the, as I describe it, Freeza's Hell's Bells music? At first I thought Vegeta simply got the theme during the Android and Garlic junior arcs but that song is clearly "Vegeta's Theme" on I think vol. 4 and has some killer lead guitar shredding whereas in the US dub Freeza's music lacks the lead guitar and in place has more intense bass. Any help would be awesome!

Disclaimer: I think the Japanese music score is great and works beautifully with the Japanese language but that same music is just awful when played along side the English voice actors. Schemmel and Sabat are the only 2 it sounds compelling with, but everyone else in Kai, especially Gohan, when speaking with that music sound totally out of place. Just wanted to make it clear my preference is not bashing the original.

1. I seem to remember the music changing sometime around the Ginyu fights as well. I'll look into that.
2. I know very little about Kai, so no idea.
3. If I'm right, you're referring to thishttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7GpeZBqKQWU. It's the extended version of Vegeta's theme, and it was unreleased.

Edit: Looks like VegettoEX has you covered for the first two.

[cRookie_Monster]

Nathan Johnson did the music for seasons 1 and 2 when Funimation redid them. Before that Shuki Levi had written scores for those seasons. Faulconer Productions took over in season 3.

Thanks for comments on the lead guitar! I added those for emphasis...somewhere in the Cell or Android series, I forget exactly. The original Vegeta theme was written during the Ginyu Saga (season 3) and had no lead guitar. The version that got put on Volume 1 of the "Best of" Cds has my lead playing only. There's a few youtube uploads where people have ripped the leadless version and then put the lead version side by side. Coy Coy does some great work: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7GpeZBqKQWU This is really what we should have done for the CD!

[Kakarot88]

Re: cRookie_Monster and Kamiccolo9

Thank you both! This is awesome I've been looking for this music! Thanks for the info on season 1 too, for me music plays a an integral role in how I connect with a lot of motion pictures and television programs. I think part of my overall enjoyment of the Namek arc is due in no small part to the score by Faulconer. Thanks again!

[cRookie_Monster]

Re: cRookie_Monster and Kamiccolo9

Thank you both! This is awesome I've been looking for this music! Thanks for the info on season 1 too, for me music plays a an integral role in how I connect with a lot of motion pictures and television programs. I think part of my overall enjoyment of the Namek arc is due in no small part to the score by Faulconer. Thanks again!

Great Glad you like the score. Mike Smith did most of the early Namek music btw, though Bruce did in fact write the Guru theme himself.

And I forgot: lol on the baby rattle comment. That's actually a vibraslap, which is supposed to sound creepy I guess, but yeah it just sounds silly to me as well. Here's a great video on it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PNkkvNyMflg

It does appear in the Faulconer Productions score btw...and rather prominently, just in a creative and unrecognizable way. I'll stop there

[thaman91]

Hey Scott, do you know anything about why the main Dragonball Z theme was slightly modified for the Buu arc?

Original: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S3dH9hA183s
New One: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k3nT54-EYfA

I believe the one released on the CDs is the newer one. Is there any sort of story to this? Was Bruce simply not happy with the original one?
And is there any way to obtain this original one (the video has some voices in it)?

[Gonstead]

They're both exactly the same, just that the older opening uses un-muted clips for the video.

[thaman91]

They're not exactly the same. Listen very carefully (maybe both at the same time). The overarching theme is the same but a lot of the secondary guitar pieces are different.

[DarkPrince_92]

Yeah they are slightly different.

[cRookie_Monster]

Hey Scott, do you know anything about why the main Dragonball Z theme was slightly modified for the Buu arc?

Original: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S3dH9hA183s
New One: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k3nT54-EYfA

I believe the one released on the CDs is the newer one. Is there any sort of story to this? Was Bruce simply not happy with the original one?
And is there any way to obtain this original one (the video has some voices in it)?

I hear the differences, but honestly I wasn't even aware that there were two versions. I wasn't there for the Buu arc, I had left a while before that. So basically I have no idea. Maybe Funimation wanted something different, maybe they sent him the new animation in case he wanted to change things up to match the new cuts, dunno.

EDIT: Oh I do know that Bruce did a lot of different takes on this when he originally did it. Funi and Bruce went back and forth a lot. Maybe they accidentally put in an alt version? There were lots of them floating around probably.

EDIT AGAIN: OK here's my best guess at what happened:
1) Bruce and Funi go back and forth arguing about the "best version" (Bud Guin comes in for several recording sessions)
2) Funi gets the one they like and use it (the "original")
3) Bruce takes his fav and puts it on the CD ("new one")
4) Buu arc comes along, Funi no longer gives a bleep or even remembers previous debate. Bruce uses his fav version.

I really doubt Bruce brought Bud Guin back in to do more takes of guitar riffs for the CD\Buu version. I think he had pool of them and it was just a matter of what they chose to use. In fact I'm sure of it, because that CD version was around before I left (wayy before Buu arc), and Bud only came in during that initial recording time. Yeah..sorry so confusing. I think Bud came in several times over a couple weeks as they worked out what the original version was, then he never came back.

[Coycoy88]

Did you guys know that a small snippet of that theme without the guitar lead played on the main menu of the original FUNimation dvd single "Captain Ginyu - Assault"? Wish it would of been the entire track though.

[thaman91]

Hey Scott, do you know anything about why the main Dragonball Z theme was slightly modified for the Buu arc?

Original: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S3dH9hA183s
New One: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k3nT54-EYfA

I believe the one released on the CDs is the newer one. Is there any sort of story to this? Was Bruce simply not happy with the original one?
And is there any way to obtain this original one (the video has some voices in it)?

I hear the differences, but honestly I wasn't even aware that there were two versions. I wasn't there for the Buu arc, I had left a while before that. So basically I have no idea. Maybe Funimation wanted something different, maybe they sent him the new animation in case he wanted to change things up to match the new cuts, dunno.

EDIT: Oh I do know that Bruce did a lot of different takes on this when he originally did it. Funi and Bruce went back and forth a lot. Maybe they accidentally put in an alt version? There were lots of them floating around probably.

EDIT AGAIN: OK here's my best guess at what happened:
1) Bruce and Funi go back and forth arguing about the "best version" (Bud Guin comes in for several recording sessions)
2) Funi gets the one they like and use it (the "original")
3) Bruce takes his fav and puts it on the CD ("new one")
4) Buu arc comes along, Funi no longer gives a bleep or even remembers previous debate. Bruce uses his fav version.

I really doubt Bruce brought Bud Guin back in to do more takes of guitar riffs for the CD\Buu version. I think he had pool of them and it was just a matter of what they chose to use. In fact I'm sure of it, because that CD version was around before I left (wayy before Buu arc), and Bud only came in during that initial recording time. Yeah..sorry so confusing. I think Bud came in several times over a couple weeks as they worked out what the original version was, then he never came back.

Wow there should be a documentary about all this little stuff that happened in the production of this show's dub. I wish he had released both versions in the CD though. Maybe CoyCoy can find a way to create an "unreleased track" out of it.

[Coycoy88]

@thaman91

I tried to rip the unreleased version of that track that had the sfx on it a couple of years back, but the audio is in mono. That makes ripping it impossible. It seems like the only way we could get it, is if Faulconer himself released it online somewhere. But that is HIGHLY unlikely due to obvious legal reasons.

[thaman91]

Oh even the dvd versions are in mono? I had tried using the Audacity method to rip the music from a youtube clip of that intro and it came out mute. I guess that happens even from official sources haha. Maybe music from the credits sequence can be ripped and spliced into audio from that intro clip to create a full version? Though the credits part is really short so it may not work.

I have been recently trying to splice parts of the official CD version into the original version to fill in parts where there are voices. The end result is something that just sounds like a mix of the two versions rather than what I intended. Oh well, I guess we may never get that original.

[Lord Exor]

Did Mike write the Frieza theme as well?