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Staggering Stories Podcast #460: Highlanders Revisited

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Staggering Stories Podcast #456: Tales of the Totally Expected

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Audio: Music By Other People

Tony guards the audio section of Staggering Stories very, very fiercly indeed. It is his domain. He rules it with an iron fist - or something. So, this section is for the very occasional pieces of music that others have done, that have impressed his high and mightyness enough to be permitted to appear in the Staggering Stories Audio Section. Its taken four years for someone to break in and plonk themselves here...

Oh, and in case your worried Tony is loosing his grip, as the Seventh Doctor once said..."There will be no Status Quo here!"

At least, I think thats what he said...

He bloody well should have...

By Alistair Lock

'Take-Over Bid' Music
Track 1, MP3 (842 KB) or Ogg Vorbis (797 KB)
Track 2, MP3 (2,148 KB) or Ogg Vorbis (2,261 KB)
Track 3, MP3 (680 KB) or Ogg Vorbis (649 KB)
Track 4, MP3 (314 KB) or Ogg Vorbis (251 KB)
Track 5, MP3 (1,166 KB) or Ogg Vorbis (1,052 KB)
Track 6, MP3 (424 KB) or Ogg Vorbis (386 KB)
Track 7, MP3 (1,932 KB) or Ogg Vorbis (1,778 KB)
Take-Over Bid End Theme, MP3 (3,222 KB)

'Planet Without a Home' Music
Track 8, MP3 (2,844 KB) or Ogg Vorbis (2,634 KB)
Track 9, MP3 (2,802 KB) or Ogg Vorbis (2,777 KB)
Track 10, MP3 (2,402 KB) or Ogg Vorbis (2,166 KB)
Track 11, MP3 (5,808 KB) or Ogg Vorbis (5,369 KB)
Track 12, MP3 (2,724 KB) or Ogg Vorbis (2,702 KB)
Track 13, MP3 (1,206 KB) or Ogg Vorbis (1,173 KB): The original soundtrack by Alistair Lock for his audio plays 'Take-Over Bid' and 'Planet Without a Home'. Try to figure out which of these are updated versions over those in the plays! You can find those full audio plays in our Audio Plays section!

Zygon
MP3 (4,508 KB) or Ogg Vorbis (2,741 KB): An exclusive peek at the music to the new (at the time of uploading) BBV DVD. Featuring some rather wonderful strings, this is a full on piece of scoring from Alistair.

Doctor Who - Open Your Hearts
MP3 (4,626 KB)

It was originally inspired/suggested by Andrew Beech and used for the 1993 convention at the Novotel Hammersmith. It came about after I'd mangled a version of the Dr Who theme and "I do like to be beside the seaside", so naturally Andrew thought I could do the same to Madonna.

I was humming the Madonna "Open your Heart" in my head, as you do, when doing the dishes. (I get my best ideas when doing the dishes) I came to the uncomfortable conclusion that here and there you could overlay the Doctor Who theme on top of the Madonna song as long as you weren't listening.

I think this verison was done borrowing a friend's synth for some of the sounds, as I was too poor to be able to afford more than three in a room at any given time.

(Site Note: This version has been taken from cassette tape (with a lil bit of a clean-up) and as such should be 'viewed' as an archive piece, rather then a shiney new yummy digital thingy. Not to be reproduced without express permission of Alistair Lock, thank you.)

Doctor Who
MP3 (3,718 KB)

Ah, the tinkly version, using my ZX spectrum to trigger the bass line and fussy arpegios.

The rest of it is "hand played" on my old (still functioning) Juno 6 keyboard. I used it only yesterday to create a new sound effect. Not telling what - it's would be giving a major plot point away. Tee hee.

By Danny Stewart

Doctor Who: Fool's Gold MP3 (3,859 KB)

"I started this mix way back in December of 2006, and worked on it on and off until the summer of 2007. It's the result of literally hundreds of hours of work. This mix started out as an attempt to recapture the feel of Murray Gold's theme for the new series of Doctor Who, then change some things around and build on it to make it sound closer to my "ideal" theme for the new series. The goal for this mix has changed many times in the months I've been working on it -- from straight recreation to totally new remix, it's finally ended up somewhere in between. The main thing I wanted out of this theme was to have something that was more loyal to Delia Derbyshire's original version of the theme than the one Murray has done. I just harbor a great respect for the original theme, and believe in fierce loyalty to it when making a follow-up version. This theme takes influences from a range of sources, including the original Derbyshire theme, the unused pre-broadcast version of the Gold theme, both of the televised Gold arrangements, and Murray's album arrangement on the first soundtrack release.

This theme was created in Sony ACID Pro 6.0. I started with a customized Derbyshire multitrack setup, using the original theme's bassline and melody sections, as well as the radiophonic scream at the start and wind bubble at the end. I then added in orchestral sections closely mirroring Murray's arrangement, courtesy of East West Quantum Leap Symphonic Orchestra Silver Edition. Finally, I added extensive synth sections (everything from additional bass lines to backing melody lines to the various sound effects that appear throughout the theme) using my two real hardware synthesizers, the Roland Juno-6 and the Yamaha DX21 (both of which were recommended to me by Dominic Glynn, who used them during his time composing for Doctor Who from 1986 to 1989). None of the sounds in this mix came from a software synthesizer of any kind.

In addition to Peter O'Rourke (Marinedalek), Chris Adams (HardWire) and my brother, Ian Stewart, I would like to express my deepest appreciation and gratitude to Dominic Glynn, who made himself personally available to me during the production of this mix and provided invaluable advice and assistance in making this mix the absolute best it can be."

Doctor Who: Fool's Gold (Closing) MP3 (2,071 KB): "My second Fool's Gold mix is Fool's Gold in name only, as it was started completely from scratch and did not use my original Fool's Gold project as a basis. This is a closing version of Fool's Gold, modeled largely after Murray's series 2-3 closing theme. This mix was created in August 2007 in Logic Express 7 on the Mac. I made this mix shortly after transitioning from Windows to Mac, as I wanted a proper new version done using my new setup. I'm proud of the overall sound and feel of this mix... it has a fullness to it that took me weeks to capture with the original Fool's Gold. This mix came together in only two days."

By Hardwire

Doctor Who: Time Tunnel Mix V4 MP3 (3,398 KB): This is something thats been added for a) completeness and b) to show you the track Tony was talking about in his musing 'Mildly Perturbed by... Mr Dalek'.
As you can tell, its an 'early days' sort of track and yet it shows a lot of promise... and listening to the versions before it, it was great to hear the track develop version by version...then, of course, Hardwire came out with 'Good As Gold' and all bets were off, LOL.

Doctor Who: Vortex Remix MP3 (2,646 KB): A great remix of the Doctor Who theme by Hardwire - all sorts of nice ideas thrown into the mix... there's Howell, Gold, Derbyshire... It might sound like a right old hodgepodge, but I doubt Im doing it justice with this description... Trust me... you'll like this one...

Doctor Who: TCI MP3 (1,656 KB): Another Hardwire classic. The theme from the Christmas Invasion and subsequent second series. I do wish young Mr Gold would listen to what Chris has done because I think Mr Gold might get a little embarrassed... Again, with thanks to Danny and Ian Stewart.

Doctor Who Good As Gold Theme MP3 (3,501 KB): This is a re-created version of the Murray Gold theme with the Middle 8 back in. Many hours have been spent re-creating every sound (no Gold samples here folks;)) to get it as close to the actual theme as possible. Other additional changes to the original MG theme include the addition of the tunnel effect from the Derbyshire original, the Derbyshire bassline throughout, and a slight delay on the melody similar to the theme of the Troughton/Pertwee/Baker eras. Enjoy ;)
A special thanks goes to Danny Stewart, who has worked with me and given advice on the theme's accuracy, and also for the derbyshire sounds provided.

Good As Gold (Closing Theme) MP3 (2,792 KB): The end credits to series one as realised by Hardwire, with added second part/bridge/middle eight/whateveritscalledthisweek.
With thanks to Danny and Ian Stewart for the Delian Radiophonics...

Doctor Howell V4 MP3 (2,539 KB): A tweaked version of the Peter Howell theme, again created from scratch by hardwire with the aid of Danny Stewart. Very impressive it is too...

The McGann Theme MP3 (6,478 KB): This track has been the most requested of Hardwire, so at long last here it is. He's added a new middle section to take the track to over 3 minutes as the original is too short. The bridge or 'middle 8' has been included in the track where it normally resides in other versions, but the opening bridge remains. The piano was initially hard to decipher so Hardwire enlisted Danny Stewart's help here, but they both eventually came up with what they think is the correct arrangement.

Torchwood Extended Theme MP3 (481 KB): A slightly extended version of the Torchwood theme by Hardwire. And very nice it is too...