Music Is there more to dub music than just synthesizers?

[Ryu Taylor]

Lately, I've been thinking that, yes, there is. Sure, there's been a great many Japanese cartoon dub whose new soundtracks were digital. The DiC dub of Sailor Moon (I don't know who composed it) had a digital soundtrack (example), as did FUNimation's Dragon Ball Z dub soundtrack by Bruce Faulconer (example). But on the other hand, Saban's soundtrack for Digimon (composed by Knight Rider, Little House on the Prairie, and Cheers (among many, many others) composer Udi Harpaz) was fully orchestrated (example).

With Pokemon, it seems to be digital for some tracks (usually the shorter tracks in the show) and orchestrated for others (like the 4kids soundtracks for the first three films). Though I have heard some digital instruments and sounds among the orchestration in some cases, there's still some real instruments audible in a few of those tracks. Not to mention Norman Grossfeld gave an explanation for the re-scoring process in the First Movie commentary (transcription from here; spelling errors fixed by me)

"Interesting thing also about the musical score for this movie, um, er, many are produced, but it's interesting to viewers that don't really get a chance to hear the process, uh, we actually scored the movie-- rescored the movie from beginning to end, but all of the orchestrations were first created, uh, on computer, uh, a MIDI programmed, um, keyboards, basically, that, uh, you know, sound-alikes for all the different instruments, and once we had locked in the score for the entire movie on computer first, we can hear what the entire thing sounded like, it wasn't-- then and only then do we go in and actually record it with the orchestra, so our-- the techniques we can use today [versus] just even ten to fifteen years ago where the movie would be scored, uh, you wouldn't even hear what it would sound like with all the instruments until you actually went into the recording session with the orchestra. Nowadays, we could-- we basically heard the entire score. We were able to tweak it, frame by frame, you know, second by second, so that musical hits happen just as we wanted them to, um, before we actually spent the money to go in and record it with the orchestra. And I think that, uh, still, to my ear and to Michael's ear the real instruments still sound so much better, but, uh, ultimately we went with the orchestra, of course, but, uh, technology has really enabled us to have much more control over what the movie will sound like, and the experience for the viewer rather than waiting until the moment for the orchestra recording."

The bottom line basically is that dub music seems to be a much more involved process than just using a synthesizer or a MIDI program, at least for the music that actually makes it into the show/films. What do you think, though? Let's discuss.

 

[lyric-queen]

It's really interesting to see how much original music was retained in BW in comparison to XY. The first five episodes of BW retained all its original music (Not counting the opening and closing theme) and slowly added a new track here and there. From what I understand, XY went full blown with new music, aside from the Team Rocket motto and the title card.

Now that we've experienced both sides of the music production, it'll be interesting what TPCi chooses to do with SuMo.

 

[Master Cupcake]

It probably depends on the budget and time involved. I haven't seen the show in forever, but I don't recall any many outstanding dub cues within the series. However, the film scores were a different story, as you indicated. I think the first film utilized more orchestrated cues than the latter two movies, though, with only the more significant pieces getting utmost treatment.

While I'm not fond of the dated custom of switching out soundtracks with replacement dub scores, I have to give credit to Schuckett and his cohorts for delivering fairly solid works for the movies. Not just because it all merely sounded nice, but because there was a good deal of thematic complexity to those works and they made the effort of avoiding getting too Mickey Mouse-y (barring what was done for the Pikachu shorts), scoring to the visuals only on a more cinematic level. They weren't just rushed out to function as cheap replacement music so 4kids could skimp out on licensing costs.

The first film especially had a good number of reoccurring motifs, and "Tears of Life" was essentially the culmination of most of the main ones, beginning with one last rendition of the battle theme heard throughout the film (such as near the end of "Surviving the Storm" for when Mewtwo bests Gyarados, the sad variant intermingling with Mewtwo's motif at the beginning of "Three on Three," and the unreleased cue when Ash tries to punch Mewtwo), then shifting to the tears theme hinted at much early on in the movie, and then concluding with a lengthy and more pleasant variant of this secondary theme for Mewtwo heard throughout the film's prologue when he's contemplating what his purpose is (his main theme also makes a quick appearance during that conclusion as he makes his speech).

It's kind of weird seeing that much complexity to mere replacement scores, given just how cheap and merely serviceable they could have turned out. It helped that they didn't try to dip into a musical style that doesn't fit Pokemon very well too. Had it all been scored in the same edge-lord/EXTREME style of Faulconer Productions' work for DBZ's old dub, it wouldn't matter how thematically dense they all were, they'd still be just unbelievably inappropriate and grating. Miyazaki's distinct musical palette was lost, but what we got was at least in the same vein as traditional and melodic scores.

 

[kantoskies]

There have been a few dub tracks in XY that sound pretty nice, the sad piano pieces in a few episodes for instance. But with how advanced synthesizers have gotten these days I still think it's all synth work. That being said, synth =/= worse and live orchestra =/= better (Paper Mario TTYD for instance has one of the best video game soundtracks I've ever heard and it's not live orchestra). Where I feel the dub music fails is that it's not recognizable. When watching the Japanese version, I can go "oh this is the Hall of Fame theme, this is the Lumiose City theme, this is Team Rocket's Secret Strategy" and so on. Part of the reason is because the dub replaces music remixed from the games, but they also practically have wall to wall music, and they seem to be going the route of making dozens of shorter musical cues for every action rather than having longer musical pieces that they place where they see fit (like the Japanese version). The dub music is also a lot more subdued than the Japanese version (as is the voice acting), which makes it more difficult to really get the mood of each scene. I just know they're going to replace Serena's version of DoriDori in XY113 with some dull synth stuff.

Okay I kind of got off-track there. The point is I think the dub music's is definitely synth stuff, but that's not necessarily it's problem (or biggest problem).

 

[Yash]

On the subject of dub music, I have to say I really dig the off-brand Team Rocket motto theme that they've used in the past few episodes to replace vocal songs. My preference will always be for just keeping the Japanese music, but it's just nice to have a fairly lengthy piece of dub music for once that seems to have had way more thought put into it than any other song. I think it speaks to how the dub is scored moreso than the quality of the music itself - when it's scored similarly to the Japanese version and it serves to set the mood and ambience, it works pretty well. When they're just Mickey Mousing everything it stinks. Would like if they used SOME silence too (which they did starting in Diamond & Pearl) but that's getting a bit off-topic.

Some of the Goldfarb music is pretty good, but I'm assuming it's mostly just high quality synth. You can definitely hear a synth quality in the strings, for example. I find the music is at its best when it actually plays to the synth elements, like with Professor Sycamore's theme.

 

[kantoskies]

One thing the dub could do to improve its music (if they insist on using it) is adding chiptune sounds every now and then. One example of this where it works very well is another show on Cartoon Network, Steven Universe. They use actual Gameboy sounds in several of their music tracks and it sounds really good. I also think there have been some tracks in the Japenese version of this show that have use it too? It would certainly be way cheaper than a live orchestra and it would improve the music (assuming they used it well).