Shuki Levy - MCOG DVD Interview 

I know right!? The man really is a legend and yet the sad thing is not many people know who he is and what he has done. The man has wrote/co-wrote/composed sooo many songs and a large quantity of them are really catchy themes that seem to fit the mood/setting of the show just so perfectly. Why that is I don't know. I've always listened to all his music with such attention to detail trying to get into the man's mind about how he came up with the songs that he did. For example, I've always loved a lot of the "Penny Themes" from Inspector Gadget and also "Zia Themes" from MCOG and love how they have haunting choruses layered with pads to trigger emotions and possibly even the hairs off your back when you hear them allowing to experience the joy/pain/fear/anguish those characters are going thru on screen at the time. I wish I could compose like him but I don't think I'm even remotely as gifted as he is. I'm still learning more and more about the man and all the songs he also did abroad in Europe for TV shows and also down in South America and they are all REALLY awesome songs but almost no one in America is aware of them. Glad you enjoyed the interview! Check out the others!

haim saban i thought was female but apparently not both are male.

Great themes too!

The Super Mario Super Show rap too.

I agree. He really is in a league of his own. I very rarely have seen a composer quite like him. He has a great sense of rhythm and understanding the proper construction of a song for the theme or background music.

Wish I could interview the guy. There are so many questions I have for him. That would be one of them but I would also want to know more about the music he did for other countries. He recorded many theme songs for countries in middle and south America along with countries in Europe such as Italy. Some of those songs are amazing but they are almost NEVER discussed. He briefly talks about the HeMan and SheRa series in the french interview I have uploaded here.

@Mr. ItaloSynth85 I've seen that, and it's something, but ever so brief. I'd want like an in-depth documentary that only focuses on his work in He Man and She ra.

What? That intro is just a bad cover of the origianl Ghostbusters song. Levy has done far better tunes than that.

@@ZoeChan-s4j: Could you provide a link to any of the tunes? The only ones I get when searching for The Real Ghostbusters Soundtrack are really bland pop tunes performed by Tahiti.

Wow. Learn something new every day. Never new about the "Ryuji Sasai" for MCOG. I'll need to look into this guy next. It's interesting because if you watch the french interview I have uploaded here Shuki even says during the interview that he played most of the instruments for the MCOG soundtrack. I didn't realize that Cardona sang the french version. That Groupe Apollo can be found on the MCOG and Inspector Gadget soundtracks but who comprises of Groupe Apollo? It's hard to say. According to all the records supposedly both shows were scored in California at the Sound Connections Studio, but may either have been mastered and/or pressed at Saban Records in France. As in terms of other composers that is def true as the theme for Power Rangers is basically Ron Wasserman with input from Haim and Shuki. Because of legal rights and credits of how the music industry works, its very hard to determine who really helped make a song because like you said many of those other individuals have signed over their legal rights to their music for a flat payment. I've always wanted to know who sang the Inspector Gadget theme song but I don't think we will every know unless they make themselves known to the public. I still love Shuki Levy's work ( I really like the Zia Theme too; one of my favorites) and I agree you can def hear some of the Shuki and Aviva in the MCOG soundtrack too.

So MCOG was released in mid 1982. So music production was somewhere from late 81 till mid 82. This gives us an idea of what synths could be used based on those years. According to one site I read with a user that seemed to have very detailed knowledge about Mr. Levy reported that at Sound Connection Studios in the early days they had some of the following equipment at their disposal: - Ampex ATR 100 (4 track Recorder) [They must have used for mastering cause most session recorders are atleast 16tracks] - Emulator E1 (Digital sampler with 8 Bit keyboard produced by E-mu Systems in 1981 so could Very well been used); - LinnDrum (drum machine by Linn Electronics in 1982 and I am pretty sure i have heard this guy in a few of the songs from MCOG); - Solina (also known as String Ensemble, multi-orchestral analog synthesizer with string instrument sounds produced by ARP Instruments from 1974 to 1981 and truly has a nice synthesized string on it. SynthMania on youtube did a nice video on demonstrating this ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-oYH5-n_7K08.html and another with a Yamaha CS5 that sounds great ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-VP1Yo3uyhyY.html . This had to have been used to provide this synthetic strings you hear a lot in MCOG); - Prophet-5 (analog synthesizer produced by Sequential Circuits made from 1978-1984. I would be shocked if this wasn't used on the soundtrack as it's one of those Grand daddy Synths that you literally find anywhere); - Odyssey (analog synthesizer manufactured by ARP Instruments from 1972 to 1981). Again all this information is 2nd and 3rd party so there is no good way to either confirm of deny this info apart from employees who worked at Sound Connection Studios in the day. I'm kinda surprised I don't see a MiniMoog on this list cause I sure I have heard one being used at some point by Mr Levy. I know in later years he used a Yamaha DX7 cause you can clearly hear the presets of the bell/chime like sound that the DX7 is known for in some of the He-Man/She Ra soundtrack. Also keep in mind in the interview he does mention the use of acoustical instruments as well so we have to take that into account too. I also read somewhere that people believe Shuki used a Oberheim synth/sampler at some point maybe for Jayce and Wheeled Warriors show. Again everything above is second hand info/my own opinion so take it for what it's worth. I'm just hoping that one day Haim will release the FULL soundtrack for download only on some streaming platform. That way he can keep his production costs low for the sale of the music. But since Shuki and Haim are both credited and I am not exactly sure if they are on speaking terms or not I dunno if that will ever happen (in atleast two interviews with Haim Saban after the breakup Haim didn't mention Shuki even once in the half hour interview and when his current wife was questioned about Haim talking about Shuki she almost answered "Who's that?" I don't recall him ever talking about a Mr. Shuki Levy, No). I've heard stories that supposedly some of the soundtracks are "Gone" including the Mysterious Cities of Gold. Not sure what this means as knowing Haim and his character (which in my opinion is not a very nice man cause anyone that says during an interview about producing a new show "Make them laugh, make them cry, take their money" clearly has one objective) he would be sitting on those 16/24/48 track masters collecting royalties as long as he can with show syndication. If they truly are destroyed such as a fire, that really REALLY is a travesty. There had to have been copies made and stored elsewhere if that is true. I would pay good money to get my hands on the Inspector Gadget, MCOG, Grimm's Fairy Tales Classics mixed down master recordings for a start.

@@mr.italosynth8520MCOG was full of Prophet 5 for sure. While the show is from 82 I think his added music was from a bit later, maybe 84-86 somewhere around there, after Haim Saban bought the show package from Japan for redistribution.

early 80s was experimental in that area. probably jury rigged some electric pianos and added his own "synth" creatively.

@@fucheduck not so rigged. MCOG was made with pretty standard stuff. Prophet 5(maybe P10, who knows) DX7, Emulator II and Juno are prevalent. The thing about Shuki is that he knew how to write.

@@Gazdatronik 1982 was also when Mr. Levy had composed the DFS Program Exchange jingle, which I believe he did using the Prophet-5.

Ummmm? What do you mean fake? The Artist, where they shot this, his involvement?