What's your opinion on the Ocean dub music?

[Kakacarrottop]

I started this thread since no one hardly ever talks about the music in their dubs for Dragon Ball Z. For me one of the reasons the later Ocean dub felt so much worse compared to the original one with Saban & FUNi was because of the music. I mean some of the recycled Mega-Man/Monster Rancher music felt nice and moody but at other times it felt generic and bland as heck. The fact they had to keep using the exact same cues for 150 episodes or so didn't exactly help either.

I loved the music used in the original 1996-1998 Ocean dub and it's definitely my favorite Dragon Ball score, and actually some of my favorite music period. When people have discussed the score i've heard it called "generic" and a "humorless action score" which to me is entirely incorrect. The music (which is mainly orchestral based unlike all the other replacement scores) was actually very lighthearted and happy, just like the original Japanese version music and only a few dark pieces were made for the score, the thing is though they had to keep using those dark pieces over and over again since Dragon Ball Z for the most part is a dark fighting show not a comedy or anything. Another problem was the composer (Ron Wasserman and or Shuki Levy) didn't have a chance to create more music for the show since their company Saban severed ties with Ocean & FUNi after season 2. If they got a chance to make music for the entire series then i'm sure the score would of had much more variety.

[TheGmGoken]

Well most don't talk about music for their dubs in DBZ because almost all dubs kept the original BGM. Unlike the english dubs

The music in the Ocean dub honestly bores me. They all sound the same to me. That and they lack emotion. I've never heard a soundtrack that sounded so dry in my life. The Megaman music brought some emotion but felt so badly out of place that it was unwatchable.

[LordCrumb]

It's the worst of the three, and it never fails to surprise me when people rank it higher than the Faulconer soundtrack.

[thaman91]

I really like the Ocean dub music! I think it fits what the dub was trying to be very well. It probably could've been more varied had it been allowed to develop over more seasons and episodes.

I still get goosebumps when I hear this theme playing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yjqLGXj3g_s

[Kakacarrottop]

It's the worst of the three, and it never fails to surprise me when people rank it higher than the Faulconer soundtrack.

You're talking about it as if it's one continuous score by the same person. There are two scores in the Ocean dub, the first (for the first 53 edited episodes) was original music done by composers from Saban Entertainment, and the second (from episode 108 onwards) was a hodge-podge of recycled music from other cartoons and a few new pieces of music here and there by some unknowns. A lot of people seem to lump the early score and the crappy, totally different second score together frequently. FUNi's original Z dub also has two composers, Nate Johnson for the first two Orange Brick seasons, then Faulconer for everything else.

Well most don't talk about music for their dubs in DBZ because almost all dubs kept the original BGM. Unlike the english dubs

I don't see a problem if the replacement music used is better/more fitting than the original music.

For comparisons sake here's a vid i found which compares the original Japanese score, the early Ocean score and the FUNi score, for a scene during the Saiyan saga. I think it's clear which one is the best.

[Lord Beerus]

Fucking atrocious.

I'd gladly take Bruce Faulconer over whatever the hell the low budget crap was for the Ocean Dub.

[LordCrumb]

It's the worst of the three, and it never fails to surprise me when people rank it higher than the Faulconer soundtrack.

You're talking about it as if it's one continuous score by the same person. There are two scores in the Ocean dub, the first (for the first 53 edited episodes) was original music done by composers from Saban Entertainment, and the second (from episode 108 onwards) was a hodge-podge of recycled music from other cartoons and a few new pieces of music here and there by some unknowns. A lot of people seem to lump the early score and the crappy, totally different second score together frequently. FUNi's original Z dub also has two composers, Nate Johnson for the first two Orange Brick seasons, then Faulconer for everything else.

I am talking about the whole score, not just one particular saga or composer. The whole thing is a mess imo, way too tacky and game-like.

For comparisons sake here's a vid i found which compares the original Japanese score, the early Ocean score and the FUNi score, for a scene during the Saiyan saga. I think it's clear which one is the best.

I can pick out a hell of a lot more scenes where the Ocean score fails miserably compared to the Funi score. One scene doesn't make a whole thing good.

[TheGmGoken]

It's the worst of the three, and it never fails to surprise me when people rank it higher than the Faulconer soundtrack.

You're talking about it as if it's one continuous score by the same person. There are two scores in the Ocean dub, the first (for the first 53 edited episodes) was original music done by composers from Saban Entertainment, and the second (from episode 108 onwards) was a hodge-podge of recycled music from other cartoons and a few new pieces of music here and there by some unknowns. A lot of people seem to lump the early score and the crappy, totally different second score together frequently. FUNi's original Z dub also has two composers, Nate Johnson for the first two Orange Brick seasons, then Faulconer for everything else.

Well most don't talk about music for their dubs in DBZ because almost all dubs kept the original BGM. Unlike the english dubs

I don't see a problem if the replacement music used is better/more fitting than the original music.

For comparisons sake here's a vid i found which compares the original Japanese score, the early Ocean score and the FUNi score, for a scene during the Saiyan saga. I think it's clear which one is the best.

Funimation had ONE composer originally. It wasn't until the remastered dub that Funimation got Nathan. Not to mention Ocean dub was made by Funimation until budget cuts. Also it's YOUR opinion that the music in Ocean Dub(1-53) was the better. I respect that. But you should't talk about it...as if it was fact. I think Megaman music for DBZ and Levi's music for Dbz is horrible. Just a waste of time and IMHO makes me wanna watch the series in mute. Lastly in that very scene you posted, I thought Original score was best. It was CLEAR to me that the best one was the ORIGINAL. The only time IMO that anything topped the original was DBZ Kai(Since it's the same animation) and Bruce F(Only in the Boo arc).

[Kakacarrottop]

Fucking atrocious.

I'd gladly take Bruce Faulconer over whatever the hell the low budget crap was for the Ocean Dub.

Right because music from Saban Entertainment, a company owned by a man who has a net worth of 3 billion dollars, is going to be a lot cheaper than the music from some random guys in Texas with keyboards and a guitar.

[VegettoEX]

Enough with the dismissive, sarcastic comments. Some of you newer folks aren't exactly getting yourselves off to a good start.

To be extra clear, there's very rarely been cases where it's actually just one composer working on stuff alone. Even the Shuki Levy score had someone else working on it (whose name escapes me at the moment), and Faulconer Productions had several people working under Bruce Faulconer (one of whom somewhat regularly posts here). It's pretty much just Mark Menza and Nathan Johnson that worked "alone" internally at FUNimation, and it wouldn't surprise me if they had some uncredited assistance from time to time, as well.

[90sDBZ]

I love the Shuki Levy/Ron Wasserman score from episodes 1-53. I always felt the dark and intense feel it gave really suited those early episodes. Particularly the Saiyan saga which had most of the Z fighters killed off during an alien invasion. And it had some really good triumphant music too, such as Goku's Arrvial theme and that theme that plays after Vegeta gets hit by the Spirit Bomb. Despite being pretty dark in general it was quite a well rounded score. It's definitely a close 2nd to Team Faulconer's music as my favourite DBZ score.

As for the music used in episodes 108 onwards aka the Westwood score, I mostly despise it. The early Ocean and Faulconer scores had both left such an impression on me and were so enjoyable and memorable, so suddenly switching to the extremely repetitive and uninspired recycled Megaman music really sucked a lot of enjoyment out of the show for me. The Army theme was pretty decent but was played mindlessly during pretty much every fight/transformation/dramatic scene for the entire Android/Cell saga and most of the Buu saga. It got to the point that I hated the sound of it. The Westwood score was easily much more repetitive than Kikuchi's music in Kai. It wasn't until around the Fusion saga that they started using more music from Monster Rancher which suited the show much better and gave it a lot more variety. If they'd used that music for the entire Westwood dub then I might be able to look back on it a bit less negatively.

[Kakacarrottop]

I love the Shuki Levy/Ron Wasserman score from episodes 1-53. I always felt the dark and intense feel it gave really suited those early episodes. Particularly the Saiyan saga which had most of the Z fighters killed off during an alien invasion. And it had some really good triumphant music too, such as Goku's Arrvial theme and that theme that plays after Vegeta gets hit by the Spirit Bomb. Despite being pretty dark in general it was quite a well rounded score. It's definitely a close 2nd to Team Faulconer's music as my favourite DBZ score.

I agree that the score was well-rounded in terms of mood, especially considering it was only used for 53 episodes and 1 movie. Stuff like this for example is very goofy and lighthearted, while harsh ambient pieces like these are some of the darkest music i've ever heard in my life. One of my problems for some of the other replacement scores is that they didn't have enough variety in terms of mood, Nate Johnson and Mark Menza's scores for example basically had only two moods "badass/action" and "dark/creepy", there was not enough uplifting music on their scores. Faulconer productions on the other hand though managed to have a fair bit of variety in their music despite the low budget they probably had.

[DBZAOTA482]

It's kinda just.. there. It's fitting but never stands out like even Faulconer's music does at certain points.

[Fionordequester]

Personally, for me, the Ron Wasserman score (I believe that's who you're thinking of VegettoEX), was...ok, but not great. Firstly, IMO, were that it wasn't varied enough. As Chris Psaro said, it really only seemed to have "action music", "dark and intense music", and "comedic music". I mean, I think there was like, ONE song that sounded sort of sad when Piccolo convinced Gohan to give up on fighting the saiyans...but even that only lasted like, 18 seconds if I remember right. And then the second big thing that turned me off was how it seemed to constantly drone on and on. The whole thing, especially during fight scenes, didn't seem like a series of tracks carefully chosen to fit the scene. Instead, it often just seemed like one long, 12 minute blob of music. And while Team Faulconer occasionally fell into that in the early Frieza Saga score, it didn't do so nearly as often.

As for the Westwood dub score, I think it's the 2nd best score after the Team Faulconer score...or at least, it WOULD be if it wasn't used so repetitively! Seriously, it had a ton of variety in musical moods, the songs themselves were well composed, it did a good job both at being ambient and at being loud and bombastic...And then they ruined it by using only the same select few songs over and over...and over...and over...and over again. And often in exactly the same ways, all while putting tracks in places where they didn't belong. Like so...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_W2RBGQUvxg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N8yw90zJRHU&t=1m0s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qR29gRl ... 242B5CBB08

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IyBDygf ... 242B5CBB08

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p5aairX ... 242B5CBB08

So basically, the Late Ocean score is the perfect example of why good sound editors are so important. Because even the best score can be turned into garbage when used incorrectly.

[Kakacarrottop]

Personally, for me, the Ron Wasserman score (I believe that's who you're thinking of VegettoEX), was...ok, but not great. Firstly, IMO, were that it wasn't varied enough. As Chris Psaro said, it really only seemed to have "action music", "dark and intense music", and "comedic music". I mean, I think there was like, ONE song that sounded sort of sad when Piccolo convinced Gohan to give up on fighting the saiyans...but even that only lasted like, 18 seconds if I remember right. And then the second big thing that turned me off was how it seemed to constantly drone on and on. The whole thing, especially during fight scenes, didn't seem like a series of tracks carefully chosen to fit the scene. Instead, it often just seemed like one long, 12 minute blob of music. And while Team Faulconer occasionally fell into that in the early Freeza Saga score, it didn't do so nearly as often.

As for the Westwood dub score, I think it's the 2nd best score after the Team Faulconer score...or at least, it WOULD be if it wasn't used so repetitively! Seriously, it had a ton of variety in musical moods, the songs themselves were well composed, it did a good job both at being ambient and at being loud and bombastic...And then they ruined it by using only the same select few songs over and over...and over...and over...and over again. And often in exactly the same ways, all while putting tracks in places where they didn't belong. Like so...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_W2RBGQUvxg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N8yw90zJRHU&t=1m0s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qR29gRl ... 242B5CBB08

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IyBDygf ... 242B5CBB08

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p5aairX ... 242B5CBB08

So basically, the Late Ocean score is the perfect example of why good sound editors are so important. Because even the best score can be turned into garbage when used incorrectly.

Don't get me wrong i think Faulconer productions made some decent music (although it better suites video games), but i think it gets severely overhyped by the more fanatical hardcore FUNi dub nostalgia fans who grew up with it. I mean it's really just music any random person with a decent knowledge of synths/guitars could make. Ron Wasserman, who composed all of the dark stuff on the original Ocean score (i'm fairly certain Shuki Levy composed the lighthearted stuff) composed classic, innovative 90s theme songs for shows like Spider-Man and X-Men which are loved worldwide (he never got any credit though because of some greedy, backstabing people who worked at Saban Entertainment). What did Faulconer compose prior to the FUnimation in-house DBZ dub? nothing really since he and his students were essentially amateurs copying Wasserman just like the new cast were copying Ocean. On a musical sense the score used in the original Ocean dub was much, much better. If you listen to some of the tracks on the official Ocean dub OST album then you'll see they are actually quite progressive with a whole bunch of tempo shifts from orchestral to rock to synth etc. The Faulconer score (on a musical sense not a score placement sense) was very inferior imho. The Saban score just suffered from extremely poor placement i think.

[SaiyanHamster]

I love some of the Levi suites that were released (Gohan's Friend, Escape from Piccolo). I've only watched a little bit of the Westwood dub, and I can't really say that I heard any memorable BGM. I'm not really biased when it comes to Falcouner or the original BGM either. I just like whatever sounds good to me.
I love the Ocean dub, but mainly because I like the voice actors and the silly dialogue. Granted, I never grew up with any version of Dragon Ball Z, especially when it was popular here in America (I was 5 or 6 years old).

[TheBlackPaladin]

Well, I suppose I like it better than the recycled music of the Westwood dub and Menza's score for GT.

All things considered, though, whenever I hear the phrase, "Levy score," nothing really sticks out to me. Like, I could identify a piece of his score if I heard it, but I can't recall or hum any specific tune off the top of my head other than--maybe--the episode preview music.

I massively prefer all of the original scores, but if I had to pick a replacement score, I'd pick the Faulconer score.

[Kakacarrottop]

Well, I suppose I like it better than the recycled music of the Westwood dub and Menza's score for GT.

All things considered, though, whenever I hear the phrase, "Levy score," nothing really sticks out to me. Like, I could identify a piece of his score if I heard it, but I can't recall or hum any specific tune off the top of my head other than--maybe--the episode preview music.

I massively prefer all of the original scores, but if I had to pick a replacement score, I'd pick the Faulconer score.

I think one of the scores only problems musically was that some of the happy/comedic tunes sounded pretty generic. But IMO the dark/meditative stuff on that score is some of the best music i've ever heard in my life. When the music from that score was actually placed well then it worked incredibly, Like in this TV Saban dub scene for Goku fighting Turles (or any scenes from the TV Saban dub for Tree of Might really since the overly dramatic music works better as a film score as opposed to a TV score). I think most people assume this score is terrible since they haven't actually listened to it on it's own musical merit and associate it with the Saban dub which had lacklustre scripts and generally only decent and or passable acting.

[NitroEX]

Ron Wasserman, who composed all of the dark stuff on the original Ocean score (i'm fairly certain Shuki Levy composed the lighthearted stuff) composed classic, innovative 90s theme songs for shows like Spider-Man and X-Men which are loved worldwide (he never got any credit though because of some greedy, backstabing people who worked at Saban Entertainment).

It seems as though a lot of different artists from the Saban days didn't get the most credit because despite orchestrating the music it was Shuki Levy who wrote and composed it for them. I used to be very confused by this because I'de hear similar styles of music in Saban cartoons and anime such as the 90s Spiderman score sounding very similar in style to the Digimon US score.

Despite being done by the same guy (Udi Harpaz) Shuki would be credited for the Spiderman one. I think this was the case with Wasserman as well since you can clearly hear his style of music in Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, DBZ and X-Men but Shuki probably wrote the music for him on DBZ and X-Men while he had freedom to do what he wanted on Power Rangers and got credited more for it.

[TheBlackPaladin]

Well, I suppose I like it better than the recycled music of the Westwood dub and Menza's score for GT.

All things considered, though, whenever I hear the phrase, "Levy score," nothing really sticks out to me. Like, I could identify a piece of his score if I heard it, but I can't recall or hum any specific tune off the top of my head other than--maybe--the episode preview music.

I massively prefer all of the original scores, but if I had to pick a replacement score, I'd pick the Faulconer score.

I think one of the scores only problems musically was that some of the happy/comedic tunes sounded pretty generic. But IMO the dark/meditative stuff on that score is some of the best music i've ever heard in my life. When the music from that score was actually placed well then it worked incredibly, Like in this TV Saban dub scene for Goku fighting Tullece (or any scenes from the TV Saban dub for Tree of Might really since the overly dramatic music works better as a film score as opposed to a TV score). I think most people assume this score is terrible since they haven't actually listened to it on it's own musical merit and associate it with the Saban dub which had lacklustre scripts and generally only decent and or passable acting.

Mmmmm....well, to each their own. I actually own the official CD release of the Levy score for DBZ, so I have listened to the score separately from the dub. I have a hobby of hunting down rare soundtracks (odd, I know), and it was that more than anything else that led me to seek it out. Despite it being in my iTunes library, I've never listened to a track all the way through. They all sound so similar to me. Too similar for me to associate them with any particular moments in the series.

Of course, I'm not saying there has to be a new track for every scene. Quite the contrary, I like the use of leimotifs in musical scores, and being familiar with certain pieces of music has its advantages. However, in the case of the Levy score, I can't differentiate one track from another, for the most part.

Actually, here's the best way to put it. I looked up an old site called DBZ Uncensored, in which a fan of the original Japanese version, Chris Psaros, chronicled the English dub as it aired on TV. I don't agree with everything he said on that site, but here is an example of a case where I believe he was absolutely, 100% right. He was talking about the scene where Goku found out that his friends who perished in the battle against Nappa had made it to King Kai/Kaiou's place:

"The part where Goku's friends contact him telepathically for the first time since their deaths is completely screwed up in the English version, all because of the music. This scene feels TOTALLY different. In the Japanese one, that 'touching moment' music is used, which, well, makes the moment a whole lot more touching, it almost brings a tear to your eye. In the English one it's just that aimless, wandering crap in the background, and you don't feel any of the emotion that is expressed by this scene in the Japanese version.

I realized something about FUNimation's score, it is incredibly narrow. There are seemingly three types of themes: action, heroic, and mischievous. There simply isn't any music for this type of scene, one of those emotional, tearjerking moments. Therefore, when one of those scenes comes up, they aren't effective at all at getting the viewer to feel what he is supposed to feel. They really need to work on this, because some of these scenes are the best ones in all of Dragon Ball. Anybody remember (from much later in the series) when Goku meets Goten for the first time? Man, I just break down every time I watch that scene, and so much of it has to do with the music used."

For a reference, the original music he referred to can be found here at the 9:45 mark, and the Ocean score here, at the 7:38 mark. Please note, the latter link points to the actual episode, not the individual music. Normally I'd try to look for that individual music piece by name and search for it that way...but again, I couldn't tell you which track it is, as they all sound too similar to me.