Season 1 Soundtrack

[TheSkeletonMan939]

I’m very excited to announce that the season one soundtrack to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is finally here! Back in November I gave you all a tantalizing taste of what was to come, and after months of listening, editing, and re-editing (and procrastination), I’m happy to give you all the fruits of my labor.

I could never have done this without the ample help of my buddy evan2000. Not only did he provide the audio files necessary for me to complete this project, but he also took a great interest in the making of the soundtrack, going so far as to design the album art (Shark_Blade and Powder helped a little with that too) as well as giving invaluable insight as to what parts of the album to edit, redo, or omit. I couldn’t have done this without his help. Thanks, Evan!

A quick Q&A for those who want to know more:

Spoiler:

Woah! How’d you make this?

This series was mixed in 5.1 surround sound, meaning that there are six discreet channels of audio through which the various audio elements are passed through. Sometimes the music was isolated in a couple channels, so I extracted the bits of music that were listenable and compiled them into the soundtrack you see here.

Does this have sound effects and dialogue?

I tried very hard to stay away from any tracks containing dialogue… nevertheless, you will hear some faint voices in the background of some tracks. There are lots of sound effects, unfortunately, but I hope it’s nothing too distracting. I tried my best to edit them out without distorting the music itself.

But your 4Kids soundtrack didn’t have dialogue, and that was mixed in 5.1!

Well… the Russian DVD company that produced those certain 4Kids DVDs just took the final mix, removed the dialogue, and placed the music and SFX only in the front and rear channels. It wasn’t a real 5.1 mix. The Nick show has an actual sound engineer who does a real job (though not necessarily a good job, in my opinion) at mixing the various audio elements into the sound channels.

Is there any other way to get the music?

Not at this time, no. As far as I know, no music for this show has ever been released by Nickelodeon or the composer (Sebastian Evans II) either officially or unofficially. This is the only place on the internet to get this music, I think. If someone has contacts on the inside who can acquire the raw music files, or even the final mix audio stems (dialogue, SFX, and music all separated out [preferably in stereo]), from the studio, then it’d be awesome if you could try to get those to me. If you’re someone who knows Sebastian (or hell, if you’re Sebsatian) please talk to him about the possibility of this show’s music seeing the light of day! Too few TV shows are able to have proper soundtrack releases, either officially or through bootlegs, and it’d be a real treat if this show’s great music could be heard on its own.

My favorite cue in the whole world isn’t on this soundtrack! Why not?

Believe me, whatever your favorite track is, I tried to get it. I analyzed each and every season one episode for bits and pieces of music that were relatively SFX-less. I squeezed out as much music as I could from the 26 episodes. If there is a track you’d like me to try again to get, well… okay, I can, but I almost guarantee it will be laden with distracting SFX and/or dialogue, even if I try to suppress them with filters.

Tracklist:

Spoiler:

I know what you’re thinking: when are you making the season 2 soundtrack, Skelly? Well, Evan and I have already talked about it, and we’re going to try to work together to make sure the season 2 soundtrack comes out in a timely manner (i.e. less than a year from now) and includes all-new material.

Note that track 93 “ Rooftop Run” track is a suite of the music used in the Rooftop Run iOS game. I couldn’t find the source audio files for the game (weird!) so I had to record straight from the iPad. The music that plays when you drive the truck would have gone on longer, but I died. Sorry!

You can download it here! Files are transcoded at MP3, with a bitrate 320 kilobytes per second (the highest bitrate an MP3 file can have) and a sample rate of 48kHz. It's about an hour-and-a-half long.

Please say thank you, to both myself and Evan! Working on this was no small task for either of us, so it really does matter when you let us know our work not in vain.

If you have a complaint:

Spoiler:

Actually tho’, if you do have a problem with something let me know (if it has to do with SFX or dialogue then I can’t be of much help).

Can't get enough TMNT music? Then check out my 4Kids soundtrack thread or my TMNT Smash-Up thread too! I'm thinkin' about creating a soundtrack for the 2007 TMNT video game based on that year's film. Would there be any interest in that?

ENJOY!!!

[Powder]

Thanks a mega-ton, to all involved parties! This is super awesome. As a collector of all things TMNT, including soundtracks for virtually every version available, I am most pleased to download this release. I'll be listening to it while drawing, gaming, reading comics, & more!

This show has a ridiculously good OST, so I'm very happy to have the ability to appreciate it in full, outside of the show.

[evan2000]

Thanks for the acknowledgement, and well done for this fine compilation of yours, SkeletonMan!

Since I had the privilege of listening to the album a couple of weeks before you guys (as I was doing the pre-screening), let me just say that I'm very impressed by sheer amount of quality music you will find in this album. Being a music person myself, I truly appreciate all the variety that's included, from intense fight scene music, comical cues, rhythmic waltz to slow emotional tunes, everything's there. Sebastian is a great composer who did an exceptional job bringing the cartoon to life with his music. Now thanks to SkeletonMan's months of hard work, all the best parts are cleanly compiled in one nice album for your enjoyment, so hopefully you guys appreciate it as much as I do!

[Shark_Blade]

Thanks a bunch Skeletonman and evan!

[Aaronardo]

Thank you, SkeletonMan and Evan, so much! This show's OST, as said before, is amazing, and I'm so glad we can finally listen to its beauty! Thank you, and a million times YES!

[JTH]

Awesome, thanks a bunch.

Just curious, where did you find the theme instrumental, because I just remembered that the DVDs use the instrumental theme in the title menus, I could have ripped it right off the DVDs a long time ago for ya.

Oh well, thanks again.

[TheSkeletonMan939]

Originally Posted by JTH

where did you find the theme instrumental

It wasn't until I had mixed the end credits with the rear channels of the opening that Evan realized that the DVD menus had the theme in toto. We used the menu version instead of my own (which had one or two SFX).

Has anyone else noticed that the end credits are poorly mixed? There's way too much bass. I really don't like the way this whole show's sound has been mixed, frankly...

[evan2000]

Originally Posted by TheSkeletonMan939

It wasn't until I had mixed the end credits with the rear channels of the opening that Evan realized that the DVD menus had the theme in toto.

That was literally a EUREKA moment for me when I finally found that the DVD menu theme has been sitting there all the while! Especially after spending an (undisclosed) amount of time browsing through every TMNT video on youtube searching for the complete instrumental theme and found none

Oh, and I just noticed the last segment of the Rooftop Run track was in fact the same music Donnie played in The Pulverizer when the turtles took the Shellraiser out for a spin for the first time (the part Leo was driving recklessly while the other 3 were swinging around in the Shellraiser due to the centrifugal force)! It's really nice to hear a music used in the story itself, it's like... having the T-phone ringtone on my phone (for the record I do have it)!

[senpai]

You guys are amazing! Sounds great! Thank you so much.

[aliena]

I posted a thank you on the other thread, but I'm going to say it here too. Thank you so so much Skeletonman and Evan for all your hard work. I appreciate it so much and I hope you get back tenfold for this.

[TheSkeletonMan939]

Originally Posted by aliena

... I hope you get back tenfold for this.

I already did! Recording sessions for The Wolverine, two Harry Potter films, Iron Man 3, Man of Steel, Guardians of the Galaxy, and so much more leaked earlier this month... I also managed to rip the score to Rocky Balboa from my BR. So I have a lot of music to enjoy in the coming months.

[magidkaiser]

thank you very much for TMNT music

[Gwydion]

A little late in finding this, but thank you so much for all of your hard work, you two! This is amazing, and very much appreciated!

[alien_ken]

Thanks a lot

[Diorm]

A big thanks to ya! Great work

[Hero]

I echo that thanks. Much appreciated.

[TheSkeletonMan939]

A friend of mine made an alternate cover, for those interested:

Spoiler:

[evan2000]

Originally Posted by TheSkeletonMan939

A friend of mine made an alternate cover, for those interested:

Spoiler:

http://s12.postimg.org/pbazdslfh/Turtles.jpg

Nice! May I ask, what font name he used for the text?

Btw... just a minor quirk - "television" was spelled incorrectly...

[TheSkeletonMan939]

Originally Posted by evan2000

Nice! May I ask, what font name he used for the text?

I can ask him; he said he downloaded it, so I guess that means someone made a custom Turtles font...

Btw... just a minor quirk - "television" was spelled incorrectly...

I can fix that sometime.

[GildedLily]

I know this is an old topic, but I tried to unzip the file, after downloading it on my Mac, and it kept giving me like an error thing.

Can anyone help me as to how to get this soundtrack for us Mac users? Cause the Application that usually Unzips files, is having an issue with the file that gets downloaded.