Training Montage - Reproducing Vince Dicola's original Rocky IV soundtrack

By Lee Graham

The first concern with this highly demanding but thoroughly rewarding task was to reproduce the 'feel' and emotion of the original score but to simply put a new, contemporary 'twist' to it. This updated version remains surprisingly close to the original, but has enough of a character of it's own to be considered, and indeed enjoyed, as a seperate piece of music. Of course the most dramatic change was the use of the electric guitar playing the lead melody line, and a much heavier, 'rocky' (!) feel than the original. Although electric guitars were used in the original piece, admittedly they are almost inaudible in the mix (save for the odd tremelo harmonic), and these days guitars need to be cranked up a lot louder!

Another noticeable change is that it no longer sounds like the soundtrack for a rocky film, but rather like one for Alien, or something similar. Indeed, using one of the most outstanding synth modules i have ever heard (the Roland XV5050) for the entire production, has spiced-up the music with a definate Sci-Fi flavour - beautiful, suspenseful and awe-inspiring. The first instrument to be recorded was the kick drum - the sound needed to be weighty and not too thin or too hard. This was achieved by layering two seperate kicks, an R&B kick and a power-ballad kick (the former slightly softer in tone and velocity than the latter), mixing them appropriately to suit before recording. Next came the bass. Noticing that the original contained both real and synth bass, we did not opt for real bass, but instead chose the most convincing sample of a real bass on the module - fingerbass. The synth patch we settled on was a basic synth bass with a stereo delay to produce a very spacey, atmospheric effect not heard on the original. Again, mixing the sounds together was key before recording to 16-track (this was required as we were working with the limitations of a 16-track machine).

Then came the hard part - the music itself! Vince is a very talented composer, and without the original score to work from we had to decipher the music's harmonic content by ear. This wasn't easy, especially where there are many different sounds being layered, as is the case with 'Training Montage'. Surprisingly, and with a bit of extra effort and determination, it's harmonic content was revealed to us quite quickly. A lot of our findings came from trial and error, and the attitude that if we could generally stay along the lines of what Vince originally intended to do, we could also balance this with our own methods. Our general guide was 'If it sounds right, it IS right!'. The choir sounds were replaced by a string ensemble patch, but the choir itself also makes an appearance in our version a little later than the strings and is then dropped out of the mix. Piano sounds (except for the opening melody line during the 3rd bar) have all been lowered in volume to produce a slightly percussive, but not overly intrusive effect.

And finally, the piece changes its time signature from 4/4 to 2/4 during the middle section, and modulates from it's original key of F# minor, up a minor 3rd to A minor towards the end.

All in all a thoroughly enjoyable piece of work to re-produce, and one which we hope will be spinning on many CD players to come!

(Re-production by Rick and Lee Graham) back