The difference of "Music by" and "Music Produced by"?

[dbboxkaifan]

Lately I've been watching my DBZ Rock the Dragon TV discs and noticed that Shuki, Kossa, Ron and Jeremy are credited but what confuses me is that they're under "Music by" and then "Music Produced by"... So they all composed the soundtrack for the Ocean Group Dub?

Screen



Hope that someone can clarify this for me.

[Gonstead]

Going off limited knowledge...

"Music Produced By" - Who wrote the music.
"Music By" - Who performed the music.

Someone with better knowledge will know better.

[Blade]

Going off limited knowledge...

"Music Produced By" - Who wrote the music.
"Music By" - Who performed the music.

Someone with better knowledge will know better.

"Music By" denotes the writer of the Music, as in he or she who wrote the melodies.

"Music Produced By" denotes those involved with either the technical side of the production, such as sound recording and mixing, or occasionally those involved in the commercial side of production (so not really 'producing'). An example of the latter is Simon Cowell, who receives production credit on many of his X Factor contestant releases, but his influence is purely directive from a commercial perspective and non-technical.

"Performed by" is self explanatory, and 'Arranged by' denotes the person who takes the written music and helps map it to physical instruments. This is often seen in orchestral pieces.

[VegettoEX]

Just noticed that Levy's name is spelled wrong there. It is indeed "Shuki Levy"... right?

Pretty sure I've seen "Shinsuke Kikuchi" in some of this early FUNimation stuff, too.

[dbboxkaifan]

Thank you very much I'm now aware of what's what.

Just noticed that Levy's name is spelled wrong there. It is indeed "Shuki Levy"... right?

Pretty sure I've seen "Shinsuke Kikuchi" in some of this early FUNimation stuff, too.

Hm, yep[.

Since that's a misspell then so is "Kossa" which should be Kussa now that I think of it.

[cRookie_Monster]

I highly doubt that Ron Wasserman produced Shuki Levy's music. Composers like Shuki would produce their own music I would think. There's not enough time to be sending the score around like that. Mike and I did arrangements of each others melodies sometimes(from something the other had already recorded), but mostly we wrote/recorded/performed/programmed/mixed everything from start to finish by our lonesome (except when I was called on to add real guitar)

I learned on this forum that Ron Wasserman wrote\recorded "Rock the Dragon". How is that represented in the credits? Funimation's credits are always highly suspect to me. Most of Mike, Julius, and my credits were "code" for what we really did...and even those credits were often late to change. For instance Ben Kasperak (a music editor) and myself were both late to receive credit and late to lose it after we left. Now a-days on the orange bricks even Faulconer Productions and Bruce are missing from the credits entirely no matter which soundtrack you select.

[GarrettCRW]

In this case, I'm going to guess that the producers told Levy and Mahehi what sort of music was needed, and let them do whatever. Also, and especially in Levy's case, I'm sure that the producers were there to cover for Saban, since Haim Saban has screwed Levy out of millions upon millions of dollars over the years in royalties due to the contract he suckered Levy and others into signing.

[Levlik]

I highly doubt that Ron Wasserman produced Shuki Levy's music. Composers like Shuki would produce their own music I would think. There's not enough time to be sending the score around like that. Mike and I did arrangements of each others melodies sometimes(from something the other had already recorded), but mostly we wrote/recorded/performed/programmed/mixed everything from start to finish by our lonesome (except when I was called on to add real guitar)

I learned on this forum that Ron Wasserman wrote\recorded "Rock the Dragon". How is that represented in the credits? Funimation's credits are always highly suspect to me. Most of Mike, Julius, and my credits were "code" for what we really did...and even those credits were often late to change. For instance Ben Kasperak (a music editor) and myself were both late to receive credit and late to lose it after we left. Now a-days on the orange bricks even Faulconer Productions and Bruce are missing from the credits entirely no matter which soundtrack you select.

Well, there is this quote found here:
http://www.kanzenshuu.com/forum/viewtop ... 8&p=502825

Hi Ash,

Thanks so much for writing and I'm very flattered to know my work was part of your childhood.

DBZ - To tell you the truth, I can not remember if I wrote [Rock the Dragon]. I 'think' so, but a majority of my work was the score. I remember doing these huge ethereal music cues and Saban was not in my way as they did not give a darn about that show.

I never backed up any of the score and took it home like I did with some of the Power Rangers stuff so I unfortunately don't have any of it to search for. Sorry about that.

Hope all is well!

Ron Wasserman

Seems to be similar to the Faulconer Productions issue where Wasserman got a lot less credit than he deserved, if he's telling the truth. I don't doubt it, anyway. Almost all of the music in the season 1 and 2 dub very much sounds like Ron Wasserman's work.

[cRookie_Monster]

I highly doubt that Ron Wasserman produced Shuki Levy's music. Composers like Shuki would produce their own music I would think. There's not enough time to be sending the score around like that. Mike and I did arrangements of each others melodies sometimes(from something the other had already recorded), but mostly we wrote/recorded/performed/programmed/mixed everything from start to finish by our lonesome (except when I was called on to add real guitar)

I learned on this forum that Ron Wasserman wrote\recorded "Rock the Dragon". How is that represented in the credits? Funimation's credits are always highly suspect to me. Most of Mike, Julius, and my credits were "code" for what we really did...and even those credits were often late to change. For instance Ben Kasperak (a music editor) and myself were both late to receive credit and late to lose it after we left. Now a-days on the orange bricks even Faulconer Productions and Bruce are missing from the credits entirely no matter which soundtrack you select.

Well, there is this quote found here:
http://www.kanzenshuu.com/forum/viewtop ... 8&p=502825

Hi Ash,

Thanks so much for writing and I'm very flattered to know my work was part of your childhood.

DBZ - To tell you the truth, I can not remember if I wrote [Rock the Dragon]. I 'think' so, but a majority of my work was the score. I remember doing these huge ethereal music cues and Saban was not in my way as they did not give a darn about that show.

I never backed up any of the score and took it home like I did with some of the Power Rangers stuff so I unfortunately don't have any of it to search for. Sorry about that.

Hope all is well!

Ron Wasserman

Seems to be similar to the Faulconer Productions issue where Wasserman got a lot less credit than he deserved, if he's telling the truth. I don't doubt it, anyway. Almost all of the music in the season 1 and 2 dub very much sounds like Ron Wasserman's work.

Ahh, well that's interesting. Mike used to forget some pieces he wrote...for me that's almost unimaginable. If I hear a piece I played 4 notes in, I generally remember doing it. I guess everyone is different. Mike also wrote a hell'uva lot more than I did.

[Weejus]

Is that screenshot taken directly from the Rock the Dragon set? Looks quite low-resolution, more befitting of the Pioneer sets.

[cRookie_Monster]

One stupid thing about copyright law is that when you buy the copyrights, you are buying all morale rights, including the title of "authorship". In the minds of people who benefit that might justify the cooky credits in some cases, but it's really stupid imo. For instance when a video game is released, the company owns most of the code, art, and audio. Technically the company is now the "author" but that doesn't mean they don't credit the game's creators for what they did in the credits scroll.

[dbboxkaifan]

Is that screenshot taken directly from the Rock the Dragon set? Looks quite low-resolution, more befitting of the Pioneer sets.

Yeah it was taken from RtD's TV DVD (think volume 1/8) the picture quality does look sub-par.

[GarrettCRW]

And here's another wrinkle in the credits for the Saban-produced dub:

http://www.noamkaniel.com/dessin-anime/80s/

Noam Kaniel is one of the lesser known musicians that Haim Saban has employed (and exploited) for years, and he's claiming to have provided some of the music for DBZ (it seems to be lumped in with his '80s work based on the original production date of DBZ). The likeliness of this is actually pretty high, as the Haim Saban/Shuki Levy co-credit was part of Saban's contract with studios back in the day, where the studios (mostly DiC) would pay a pretty low fee for music that Saban provided (some of which was used on multiple shows across multiple studios) in exchange for Saban getting all royalty rights and control over the music.