Well, according to my favorite Christophe Beck site, Blunt Instrument:

Unfortunately, despite an 18 month association with Beck (in Once more with feeling (6.07) he is credited as Douglas Stevens), whom he credits as of great value in aiding his composing apprenticeship and entry into Buffy scoring, and despite planning themes for the whole season and even bringing back Chris Bleth to play woodwinds, his involvement was limited to 'Lessons' (7.01), 'Same time, same place' (7.03) and arranging Joss Whedon's "Mrs." song for Anya in 7.05. Luckily his involvement in the genre continued, providing music from 2002.09 for Angel 4.08-4.21 and 5.01-5.04, 5.06-5.11, 5.13-5.21. Ironically, his services to Angel included an opportunity to score Spike's firey return from his Hellmouth end during Buffy 7, and for this he used the theme he originally planned for the character—it has been added as a soundclip to his official website.

I have the available tracks from "Lessons" ("Istanbul," "Lesson One" and "In Westbury Field") so the sample above must be from "Same Time, Same Place." (I'm thinking Willow waking up on the couch.)

I'd really like to have this track, but it doesn't appear you can download it from this site.

ETA: Never mind BleuJean - it looks to be the same as linked above. (I hate dial-up.) However, from Blunt Instrument, I did find this site: http://www.kharlamov.com/ - Go into "Music, Production Music, Electronic & Rock" for a cue from Buffy ("Beer Bad") and Angel ("No Sacrifice") as well as one from The Practice.

[ edited by ShadowQuest on 2008-12-13 00:11 ]

ShadowQuest | December 12, 14:34 CET

His music on Buffy was quite a return to form for the show. Music really aids the mood on a TV show, and on Buffy I always found that particularly important to the overall enjoyment. Thomas Wanker had a decent first episode but through seasons five and six he kept recycling themes without evolving any of them and I felt like it dragged down the quality of the show for me. I felt it was a shame because Christophe Beck had crafted a distinct invidual score for each episode like it was a movie, with carefully distinct themes for each character or relationship that slowly developed in tandem with the storylines.

daylight | December 12, 14:56 CET

Attempt #2, as my first one gave me a "Grr Arg - overload" message.


daylight

For the past couple of years I have been slowly building a playlist entitled "Instrumental Buffy," which is over three hours of mostly Beck, with some Wanker, Romayne-Stevens and Duncan @the end.

Most of the "tracks" I have were downloaded from the 'net, but I do have the suites from the OMWF soundtrack for "Hush" & "Restless," and a couple friends provided me w/the new tracks from the recent CD, as well as the bonus tracks.

Re: that cue above - ew. I'm not sure that's really from the episode. It certainly doesn't sound to me like anything from "Buffy." But I don't remember "Beer Bad" too much, so maybe it is.

ShadowQuest | December 12, 15:26 CET

Ah, too bad you can't download, because I would love some of those tracks to add to my personal collection. Some of them haven't been released (he did let people download some of his Buffy/Angel tracks way back in the day).

NileQT87 | December 12, 17:04 CET

NileQT87 (Clever name, btw) Maybe someone else w/the know-how can download, but when I right click all it gives me is "play," "stop" and etc options.

I do have the Buffy tracks that were available from his site - "Istanbul," "Lesson One," "In Westbury Field" (My fav, for personal reasons), "Just in Time" and "On the Mend." Very good stuff.

I did email him to see if that track could be available for dl - I'll inform upon response.

ShadowQuest | December 12, 20:47 CET

There's a whole bunch of Angel ones and one Buffy one there.

I'm still waiting for someone to release the Drusilla's nursery, stalker-Wesley in Billy and evil-Cordy theme (the creepy piano theme). That's the ultimate AtS track that I want.

[ edited by NileQT87 on 2008-12-16 19:15 ]

NileQT87 | December 13, 06:37 CET

@ShadowQuest: Do you actually have legitimate mp3 tracks of Thomas Wanker's music, or were they just recorded from the show? I've been trying to get some of his Buffy pieces for a while now, but they don't seem to be available anywhere. I'd especially love to find the track that plays at the end of "Smashed" from season six, when Spike and Buffy are "bringing down the house". :)

kungfubear | December 13, 19:13 CET

kungfubear The only tracks I have from Season Six are "Dawn's Ballet" and "Broom Dance/Grr Argh." And the alternate version of "Sacrifice," which was played...I think in "Bargaining, Part 1." When Buffy's wandering the streets & sees the tower again. All three come from CDs - OMWF and the new score that was just released. (I don't have the alternate version in my playlist, because it'd come right after the original, and there isn't that much difference between the two. I might end up adding it, though, for completion's sake.)

The only info I have on Thomas Wanker comes from BluntInstrument:

Thomas Wanker
Bluntinstrument has been unable to find a decent information source on this composer, whose work on the 5th and 6th seasons of Buffy has maintained a constant tone beneath the sometimes overly-drawn-out storylines. An impressive opening with Buffy vs. Dracula (5.01) showed reasonable flair with action set-pieces, but these were perhaps not varied enough over the next two years, and the composer's strength has since been shown to be in unassuming mysterious underscore—well-suited to the 6th season. Even before quitting Buffy, he has managed build up credit in television movies in the US and Germany. A promotional disc is rumoured to exist.

Unlike several others in the "Composers Hall of Fame" there is no available website for him.

As for Douglas Romayne, he only scored "Lessons" and "Same Time, Same Place," and arranged Joss's piece for Anya in "Selfless," the so-called "missing" song "I'll Be Mrs." ("Missing" because it was the only song we didn't hear/see in OMWF - I have a copy of it someone ripped from the episode; it includes the Mustard Lament.)

As mentioned above, I have "Istanbul," "Lesson One," "In Westbury Field," "Just in Time" and "On the Mend."

I wish I knew how to rip tracks from the DVDs, because I'd really like to get a bit from "Pangs," from right after Angel tells Giles how hard it is to not be able to talk to Buffy - it cuts to Spike looking through the broken window at the neo-vamp's first feeding. I call it "Outside Looking In."

If you'd like more information on the composers and which episodes they did, then I recommend going over to the Composers Hall of Fame @BluntInstrument - http://www.bluntinstrument.org.uk/beck/buffy/others.htm

You can also get select tracks of Beck's music, some rather nice MIDIs and MP3 captures, and there are links to some artists' sites.

ShadowQuest | December 13, 22:52 CET

Yeah, I've actually contributed information to that site (about Joss writing the lyrics to Angie Hart's "Blue" from Conversations With Dead People). I have the OMWF album (got it for Christmas back when it came out) and I bought the Chris Beck CD on iTunes, so I'm on top of all the current news. :) Thanks, anyway.

As for ripping music specifically from DVDs, it can be done, apparently. However, I think it has something to do with using software/hardware to separate the music from the other audio tracks on a 5.1 sound mix. I don't know if this can be done with a 2.0 stereo mix, which the Buffy DVDs are.

kungfubear | December 13, 23:16 CET

For a reason I'm still fuzzy on I was sent a promo CD by this guy's rep or something and his work is pretty great (it also included a version of Mrs. without any broadcast audio).

I still really appreciate how rousing he made the beginning of Buffy's seventh season, particularly even the first episode. (This reminds me though, so did Buffy fandom ever find out more about that song playing over the German goth/clubber potential getting murdered? I always wondered if that was composed for the series or an existing band...)

orangewaxlion | December 17, 02:55 CET