Neal Acree, the last living composer of all three Stargate TV series, joins David Read on Dial the Gate to share stories of creating music for the franchise and working with legendary composer Joel Goldsmith. Neal is also responsible for creating Dial the Gate’s original theme music!

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Timecodes
0:00 – Opening Credits
0:27 – Welcome and Episode Outline
02:11 – Guest Introduction
03:49 – “The Velvet Machine”
07:08 – The Pressure of Composing Music
09:52 – The Rise of Video Game Music
11:48 – Neal’s Heroes
14:22 – “Score” Documentary
16:37 – Neal’s Upbrigning
19:57 – The Attraction of Sci-Fi
21:51 – Getting Involved in Stargate SG-1
24:32 – Meeting Jonathan Frakes
27:15 – Meeting Joel Goldsmith
34:59 – Composing a Typical Stargate Episode
47:18 – Unhappy with any end results?
49:38 – Evolving the Aesthetic from SG-1 to Atlantis
53:04 – SGU’s Music
55:28 – Favorite Stargate Motifs
58:34 – Emulating Other Composers VS Your Own Score
1:00:33 – The loss of Joel Goldsmith and Rick Chaddock
1:02:36 – Neal’s Stargate Memorabilia
1:06:58 – Heavy Metal in “Vegas”
1:09:28 – Will there be more soundtracks for the various Stargate series?
1:12:11 – Different Music Cues for Broadcast VS DVD
1:15:07 – Instrumentation on SGU
1:16:17 – Any SG Homages in your Blizzard work?
1:20:01 – Recording the Score for Dial the Gate
1:22:31 – Thank You, Neal!
1:23:00 – Post-Interview Housekeeping
1:25:31 – End Credits

***

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TRANSCRIPT
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David Read
Hello everyone, my name is David Read. Welcome to Episode 15 of Dial the Gate, I’m really glad to have you with me. I have Mr. Neal Acree, the last surviving composer of all three Stargate series, waiting in the wings here. We’re gonna be bringing him in momentarily. For this particular episode I’m going to have a call to action to invite you to share this with your fellow Stargate friends. Then I’m going to bring Neal in to have a conversation with him and then after I get through my questions, I’m going to read off yours. We have moderators standing by in the YouTube live chat right now, I believe it is Keith and Ian this time around. I also want to thank Sommer and Tracy and Jeremy for helping me out through this process, as well as Jennifer and Linda, the GateGabber. You guys are my right hands for production assistants so thank you all for that. Before we bring Neal, if you like Stargate and you want to see more content like this on YouTube, it would mean a great deal if you click the like button. It really makes a difference with YouTube’s algorithm and will definitely help the show grow its audience. Please also consider sharing this video with a Stargate friend and if you want to get notified about future episodes, click that subscribe icon. Giving the bell icon a click will notify you the moment a new video drops and you’ll get my notifications of any last minute guest changes, this is key if you plan on watching live. Clips from this live stream will be released over the course of the next several days on both the Dial the Gate and GateWorld.net YouTube channels. With all of that information out of the way, I’m going to bring in my guest and the man of the hour, a personal friend of mine, Mr. Neal Acree. Hello, sir.

Neal Acree
Hello.

David Read
How are you?

Neal Acree
I’m doing great. Thank you for having me. I’m so glad to be here.

David Read
I am tremendously happy to have you on, You have been a part of the DNA of the show from the very beginning. I wanted to have Stargate music at the core of the podcast series and you made that happen so thank you very much.

Neal Acree
My pleasure. This is my first time being on a show that I wrote the music for.

David Read
So how are you and what have you got going on?

Neal Acree
I’m good. I have been staying at home for few months now, like like a lot of us. I have twin toddlers and I work from home anyway so I wasn’t really going anywhere to begin with. It’s been an interesting year in all respects but it’s been a good year. Behind the scenes for me, lots of really very special projects and cool things happening, some of which I can’t talk about at the moment but some really exciting things on the horizon. It’s been a very creatively invigorating year.

David Read
So you’ve managed to stay busy?

Neal Acree
Yes.

David Read
This is good. All right. I wanted to talk with you a little bit about an album that I found on Amazon. It’s this little thing called The Velvet Machine. It’s a eclectic, I didn’t know what to expect. I first put it on and I’m thinking “this is cool, this is techno.” There’s some cuts that are almost practically classic rock and then you’ve got new age kind of Enya kind of sounding. Where did this come from, The Velvet Machine, your album?

Neal Acree
Well, about 14 years ago I was looking for a creative outlet to do something a little different than the more cinematic stuff that I was known for, some more personal stuff. I kind of created this side project and started working on it and got busy. The career took up so much time that it wasn’t until 14 years later that I was able to finally get it out there. It’s been one of those things that…it’s been fun to surprise people with it because you build up a reputation or an expectation of having a certain sound as a composer. That doesn’t mean that I haven’t had this other side of me, since the very beginning, since I was in high school and making music. Five years before I decided to become a composer I wanted to be a recording artist and make just instrumental albums and stuff. I never got to really never got to release a commercially available album until this year, I’m finally out there. It’s been a major relief to have it out there finally. A little nerve wracking, the final stretch, to wonder “is anyone going to embrace this?” Nobody asked me to make it but it’s done, it’s out there. If anyone wants to check it out, it’s a very special project to me.

David Read
Where can they go and check it out? What’s your preferred?

Neal Acree
All streaming outlets. I have CDs for sale on Bandcamp but it’s on Spotify, Apple Music, all the usual.

David Read
Alright. The Velvet Machine, I will be linking to it in the episode notes below once we are done. Congratulations by the way, I know what it’s like to have such a long gestating project just be out there and just to have it done is a relief. Then it’s like, “is anyone gonna care?”

Neal Acree
At the end of the day I felt like if even one person got something out of it, then it would have been worth it. Thankfully, at least one person did. A good friend of mine that I have known since my childhood emailed me right away and said, “this is right up my alley.”

David Read
Fantastic. I do enjoy it myself too so that’s two! What is the pressure like to know you’re composing a piece which is going to be getting 10 to 20 million YouTube views and furthering a video game dynasty like World of Warcraft? You’ve composed every cinematic for that thing since Burning Crusade which was the first expansion pack way back in the day. Is that overwhelming, exciting, a little of everything?

Neal Acree
A little of everything. I learned a long time ago to not think too much about it. Obviously, if you get caught up in the pressure of “will anyone like it? Is this gonna be the best thing I’ve ever written?” That pressure can be stifling, to say the least. I just tried to do my best to channel that pressure into making it the best I can, keeping just the blinders on and focusing on what’s right in front of me. I’ve done that with the smallest of projects and the biggest projects. At the end of the day, if I’m happy with it, that’s all I can expect. I just try to get it done and hope that everyone responds to it. I’ve been lucky enough that I’ve been invited to participate in projects that fans love so much. You know, the fandom of the Blizzard games and even Stargate; it’s something very special. To be a part of helping continue that legacy has been a real honor of my career.

David Read
I guess the main thing that you have to do is just to focus on the work and not focus on all the lovely stuff that’s hopefully going to come from it as well. At the end of the day, meet your deadlines.

Neal Acree
Whatever you’re doing, someone’s gonna probably dislike it before they even hear it. They have certain associations or maybe you’re writing a theme for the Horde and there’s an Alliance player that’s like “I hate the Horde, I’m not gonna like this no matter what.” There’s built in kind of connections that people have to it and on top of that everyone has different tastes in music. At the end of the day I try to create an emotional experience for the listener. Regardless of what you think of the music, if you can have an emotional connection to the piece, to the cinematic as a whole or to the game as a whole, then I feel my job is done. My primary goal is to create an emotional experience for the listener.

David Read
You have been lucky enough to fly around the world, to conduct live, a lot of your music on stage What has it been like watching this rise in mainstream accessibility and just mainstream interest in video game music and watching it take such a prominent role in concerts around the world. I mean, before COVID, these concert halls were selling out with celebrations of video game music.

Neal Acree
Yeah. I’m so grateful that those concerts were happening and they will happen again, I have no doubt. Getting music appreciation of, not only for video game music or film music, but getting young people and families alike to go and experience a symphony orchestra for the first time. To have been a part of that and getting to conduct my own music, it’s a dream come true, especially from starting out as a heavy metal guitar player when I was in high school. I always wanted to be a rock star in a heavy metal band and never quite got there. To finally have the chance to be on stage, in this completely different, especially conducting an orchestra when my background is in rock like that, it’s really just a incredible experience. Not to mention to truly feel at one with the music; to be connecting with all the players on the stage. We’re often synchronizing to something, a large video screen that has the music synchronizing to the video. It is incredibly difficult to time it and have the orchestra playing along with it and everything. It’s just an immense rush and I can’t wait to get back to that, before too long.

David Read
Neal, who are your heroes? Both personally and those you’ve watched and listened to, who have influenced you?

Neal Acree
Great question. I always say John Williams because as a composer, not only has his music been a huge influence, I mean, you can’t deny the Star Wars influence.

Neal Acree
John Williams, not only with the music, but with the poise and the grace with which he’s carried his career into his 80s, late 80s. To still be at it and inspiring people, I hope to have a fraction of that poise and grace at that age. Jerry Goldsmith, Joel’s father, getting to know him in the smallest way through Joel, an absolute titan in the industry. As a person, a very larger than life, intimidatingly gruff guy, but incredibly talented. I’ve always admired his craft and the ability to make such a significant musical impact with a simple statement. He was very no frills in kind of very bold, musical kind of gestures. I always admired. The two of those men were working at the same time, they were friends. They were under contract with Fox around the time; Star Wars came out, Jerry was doing The Omen and John Williams was doing Star Wars. They were friends and they were colleagues and yet very different people in a lot of ways. But still, to have grown up with their music and to get to work in the same industry that those giants made such an impact in; it’s really been a continuing inspiration for me.

Neal Acree
I don’t know what you’re talking about. “Bring me Solo.”

David Read
There is a documentary that recently came out called Score and anyone who’s out there, I cannot recommend this film enough. It mentioned in the bit that it talks about with Jerry, I don’t even think it brings up his Star Trek work at all, which is an absolute shame. It brought up his work on Planet of the Apes. I hadn’t seen the film in years and I went back and I watched the original Planet of the Apes just for the music. I was like, “I want to see this thing just to listen to Jerry’s score.” I’m watching this thing and I’m like “what’s this guy thinking?” It’s so out there; he’s throwing everything that he can think of to throw at that movie. It’s eclectic and it’s all over the place and it works. I mean, the guy was a sick genius.

Neal Acree
He had an enormous amount of his scores thrown out because they were just not right for the film in the mind of the filmmakers. I always take that statistic as not something to strive for, but the reason is that he took so many chances. The fact that the Planet of the Apes score is basically percussion players hitting kitchen bowls and stuff like that, it’s crazy. It was groundbreaking at the time and it still is all these years later. For somebody to take chances like that! He’s one of the, maybe the first person, to use synthesizers in video and film scores with the Star Trek movie and before even that.

David Read
It’s amazing how far we’ve come in such a short period of time, in terms of film music. When you look back at the decades that have passed there hasn’t been that much time that has passed and yet this is an industry that has evolved its sound so much. Tell us about the 14 year old Neal connecting with music like Def Leppard and then Stravinsky and taking up guitar. Your dad had a bunch of instruments around the house and started putting them away when you were around 14, is that right?

Neal Acree
Yeah. He played fiddle and guitar and all these different instruments. He’d play a couple songs on each and music was always around, instruments were all around the house. I think by the time I was 14 he had kind of given up on the idea of me picking up an instrument. He started to kind of put them away and just make room for other things in the house. Once he put them all away in the back room I’m like, “I want to play guitar.” But I wanted to play heavy metal guitar because my friend Mike had turned me on to the Def Leppard Hysteria album. We listened to it and before that the only thing I’d really listened to on my own was Weird Al Yankovic.

David Read
At least you’ve got taste.

Neal Acree
This was like a whole different world opening up; hearing the production and the rawness of the guitar. Def Leppard Hysteria is one of the most produced and polished albums of all time, perhaps. There’s something just so powerful and impactful about it to, to a young me. I picked up guitar right away and I decided I’m going to be in a heavy metal band. Just being an angsty teenager, I just was getting into heavier and heavier things. Metallica started to take over and then Slayer and Death Metal, I was looking for a heavier and heavier sound. At some point, maybe towards the end of my teens, I realized there’s only so low you can tune a guitar string or how loud you can get. At some point I heard Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring and I’m like, “it doesn’t get any heavier than that, that’s the next level right there.”

David Read
The Russian revolution.

Neal Acree
So it was, strangely enough, my trying to find heavier and heavier music that led me into classical music that led me to orchestral music that led me full circle back to the film music that I grew up with. As a kid, Star Wars and Superman, all the John Williams soundtracks I grew up with, were always there and always a part of my musical DNA. I didn’t realize until I started branching out from the guitar that there’s this whole different world of music that had already been there. Then of course, combining music with visuals, took it to another level of impact. That was and still is, to me, the most powerful form of art; is the combination of the moving image and music, because it just affects all the senses. Except for smell.

David Read
Yeah. In that vein, is there anything specific that attracts you to the science fiction/fantasy genre? Is it just the flexibility of the tapestry? You can do anything with it and almost nothing’s the wrong answer or is there something more specific?

Neal Acree
I think the language of sci-fi music is something that I’ve always enjoyed. The fact that a lot of sci-fi scores are really just bold and sweeping and thematic, same with fantasy. I think the language of sci-fi music predominantly comes from The Planets from Holst; a classical piece that was written last century for sure. If you listen to it now you’ll hear bits of Star Wars and bits of Star Trek; certain kinds of tonalities and modalities, things that laid the blueprint for sci-fi music as we know it. That piece was in the temp score to Star Wars and other composers throughout the years have always gone back to it. If you listen to it, if you haven’t heard it, I recommend checking it out. It’s a beautiful collection of pieces, each written for all the planets that were known at the time. If you’re a fan of sci-fi music and you haven’t heard it, you’d be surprised to hear how much of the sci-fi sound is laid out in that piece. That language is just always something that I’ve enjoyed listening to, grew up with and always enjoying writing it as well.

David Read
How did you get involved in Stargate SG-1? Did SG-1 come first or did Joel?

Neal Acree
Joel. I was a fan of SG-1 for the first couple years that it was out, before I even met Joel. I watched it on TV, I loved the fact that there was a show that just reminded me of the sci-fi shows that I grew up with. You go to a new world each week and it was kind of an encapsulated show that had an adventure and things happen to kind of wrap up to a certain degree at the end of the episode. I always loved that so I was a fan of the show. At the time, I was doing cartage of all things. It is this job where you set up musical equipment at studios or kind of a moving job of sorts. I was at the beginning of my career and needed a job and it seemed like this would be fun to get to see recording sessions and stuff like that. I had no idea that the first day on the job I was going to meet James Horner and the next day I was going to meet Jerry Goldsmith. For the next year or so that I did it I basically got to be a fly on the wall on the Titanic sessions.

David Read
Oh my god, you never told me this.

Neal Acree
Yeah, a bunch of Jerry Goldsmith sessions. Pretty much every major composer that was working at the time, somehow, it might have been just delivering a stand up bass or walking through the studio.

David Read
Yeah, “I’ll mop the floor!”

Neal Acree
Yeah, anything. It ended up being the best education I could have…I would have paid thousands and thousands of dollars to be able to sit there during the session, at the back of the room, and watch my favorite composers conducting and produce a session and hear the orchestra. One time Thomas Newman even asked me to hit an A on the piano to tune the orchestra. I was sitting by the piano and the piano player wasn’t on the set, there wasn’t a piano player in the session. So I go and I’m about to hit it and there’s 80 musicians all staring at me and I’m like [overwhelmed]. The keyboard might as well have been just no white or black.

David Read
Where’s the A? Oh god.

Neal Acree
I somehow managed to hit the right one and it was all good, but terrifying.

David Read
Absolutely. You told me about, I think it was you, talking about bumping into Jonathan Frakes during the production of Star Trek First Contact, during the scoring.

Neal Acree
It was Insurrection. It was one of the first days, very early on this job. It was at Paramount, they had a scoring stage at Paramount. It’s long since been turned into office building, offices and stuff like that, but it was a great scoring stage with a lot of history. Jerry was there working on this. Jerry walked by in the hallway, it’s the first time I’d met him. I was technically working as his keyboard player’s…the guy that set his stuff up. He was a friend and he invited me to come to the session so I said hi to Jerry. I said, “hi, I’m a friend of Nick’s” and Jerry, without even stopping walking, said “I didn’t know Nick had friends.” That was my first meeting with Jerry, who later on, ended up being very sweet to me. He had that kind of gruff demeanour.

David Read
Absolutely.

Neal Acree
Then an hour later I was in the bathroom and, you know, number one. I shouldn’t say number one when I’m talking about the bathroom.

David Read
Not in the bathroom context.

Neal Acree
But Jon Frakes walks in and I’m totally as starstruck as I’ve ever been.

David Read
Number one, number one? I’m sorry, go ahead.

Neal Acree
I really walked into that one didn’t I?

David Read
Wow, what an amazing opportunity.

Neal Acree
Anyway, so I have to say hi to him and I’m wanting to say hi to him but I’m so starstruck that I can’t say anything. Outside the bathroom he can tell that I’m starstruck and he walks up and he says, “hi, I’m Jonathan.” I reached out my hand and said, “thank you.” That’s how I met Jonathan Frakes. In the interim, he follows me on Twitter now. I don’t know how that even happened. I think I told that story on Twitter and he heard it.

David Read
Oh, that’s great.

Neal Acree
I don’t know how that even that even happened but it certainly makes up for the awkwardness.

David Read
You gotta be careful what you say because people are watching and listening.

Neal Acree
Exactly. Trust me, every tweet that goes out I’m like “[nervous] Riker’s gonna read this.”

David Read
How did you meet Joel and how did that partnership start?

Neal Acree
Through the cartage, one of the first gigs we had was helping Joel move his studio across town. He was moving his house and his home studio to a new place and I helped to move. I remember telling him while we were on the driveway at his new place that I was a big fan of Stargate and really liked the music he did for it and he was very, very gracious. At some point during the following week while he is getting set up in the new studio, my friend Nick, that Jerry said, “I didn’t know Nick had friends.” Well, Nick had a few friends and one of them was Joel. He told Joel, “you should hire this guy to help you set up your studio and sort old cables and dust things off and stuff.” That’s what I did for a few weeks. I was a young composer and was very ambitious and eager to get working in the business. Getting to work in the studio with Joel was an incredible experience, learning experience. It’s very much an on the job…this is right in between seasons two and three of Stargate. Before long we were cranking out Stargate season three and I was getting to kind of watch it all go down and help out in various ways of helping mix the cues and print the cues and all this and that. It eventually led to help him write on the show which was an incredible learning experience to have so young. I was very young.

David Read
Did you ask for that or did he offer?

Neal Acree
One of the first things that I said to him was, “I would love to do any writing for you.”

David Read
Okay, so he was aware?

Neal Acree
Oh yeah, of course. I didn’t tell him that often, maybe once or twice a day for a year or so.

David Read
One of those things that I wonder about is, I guess it comes down to the person, but how much can you tap that goblet and say, “Hey, I’m willing and able, if you give me a chance.”

Neal Acree
I was kidding about asking, David.

David Read
I know.

Neal Acree
But I think he knew that I was really eager. I want to say that I think some of my early success, if you call it that, was sort of being naive and not really knowing my place and just kind of being like, “hey, I don’t care if I’ve only been doing this for a couple years and I’m really young and green. Maybe my music isn’t as good as it’s gonna be someday, I just want to write.” I think that not even really thinking about where I was and what I was asking, eventually, he saw an opportunity to have me help out and I delivered enough that he asked me to do it again. When you have two shows, we started to get to the point where there was two shows going on and occasionally he’d do a movie; it’s just too much work for one person to do. Being able to kind of fill in and kind of help him focus on the bigger thematic writing and the key moments in the shows, to really spend that time. I was young and worked really fast. It’s how a lot of people start out but I’m always going to be grateful to Joel for not only getting me started on the Stargate show but introducing me to directors that hired me to do their movies who then told their friends to hire me. I can trace everything I’ve done back to Joel; working with him and then him recommending me to other people. Even the game stuff, the game stuff wouldn’t have happened without Stargate. At that point, when I started doing games, I had been composing for nine years and I was a co-composer on SG-1. I had built up a reputation that Joel had really helped make happen.

David Read
Wow. Rick Shaddock, was he on the team before you stepped in or did he come later?

Neal Acree
Well before I got there.

David Read
Okay, so he was a producer?

Neal Acree
He was a music editor.

David Read
Music editor. Got it.

Neal Acree
He was Joel’s right hand man in every way. He kind of helped produce Joel’s music and was there and he played guitar. He was in a band in the 80s and 90s called White Sister and Tattoo Rodeo, two bands. They were very in the Guns N’ Roses vein, stuff that I had kind of started out listening to. So he was a guitar player, he played guitar on a lot of Joel’s stuff including all the Stargate Universe stuff. When Joel kind of shifted the sound a little bit there, that was all Rick playing.

David Read
I did not know that. There’s more kind of homefront, almost like a western edge, in some respects to a lot of the SGU music. That’s Rick?

Neal Acree
Yeah.

David Read
I’ll be darned.

Neal Acree
Yep. Kull the Conqueror was a semi-obscure Kevin Sorbo movie that Joel had done. He wanted what was basically a combination of orchestra and heavy metal guitar. A lot of people do that now but at the time it was kind of a different thing. That’s also Rick playing.

David Read
Got it. So you came into SG-1 during production of season three?

Neal Acree
Uhuh.

Neal Acree
I met Joel before that, just helping in various capacities over the years. Early on, it was really about just kind of helping wherever help was needed. I think that was the longevity of it. I always tell young, aspiring composers, or aspiring assistants, you know, just find something that needs to be done and be the thing that’s going to help make that happen. Create opportunities for yourself. There were probably times in between seasons where Joel didn’t need me as much but I got out Photoshop and I made these nice labels for his mixing board. They had this gradient, this nice font on it. It was the stupid his thing but Joel loved it.

David Read
Okay.

David Read
Every little bit helps.

Neal Acree
For years later with all the following assistants that would come and replace me, he’d be like, “you gotta be like Neal, go the extra mile. Look at these labels here. He spent hours and hours on these and cost me a lot of money, hourly, if you think about it. But man, they’re beautiful.”

David Read
Well, shortcuts like that, especially like any tools that we have, they can really add up in the long run in terms of how advantageous they can be. Can you walk us through the steps of composing a typical episode of Stargate. I’ve got cutaways.

Neal Acree
Okay, so we start with a spotting session. This is the same with movies and games cinematics and stuff like that. A spotting session where Rick and Joel would call Brad and Robert and they’d go through the show on the phone, old school. Before digital video everything would be on VHS tapes. So on the phone they’d be like, “okay, countdown to play. 3, 2, 1, play.” We were in L.A and they were in Vancouver so you’re doing this over long distance. They would watch the show bit by bit and decide where music would be. Nowadays, you’ll have temp music that kind of dictates the general style and feel of what the music is desired to be. The editor will put that in with the help of the director and producer. But at the time, no temp music, the shows were empty, they would go through and figure out where every piece of music is going to be. Talk about “here’s a new character, here’s a new kind of character thread that might be going on and carrying on through future episodes so maybe we should have a theme we want to establish early on.” Just kind of be able to see the bigger picture beyond just the one episode. Rick would go and take all the notes and make a sheet that had all the timings on it so we know the lengths. It is very important in TV music, TV production; you have to kind of have an idea of what the challenge is going to be ahead of you that week. How many minutes of music have to be written? The mix dates are going to come whether you like it or not and you got to be able to get that done. We would write and have to basically produce and orchestrate and do everything, all in that time. The next step, and I’m sorry if I’m jumping around here. The next step would be a planning phase where we’d kind of figure out who’s going to do what; divvy it up. Joel would go, and if the show needed a special theme, he would start working on that and give me that if I was going to be expanding on that. I need some water.

David Read
No, you’re perfectly fine. Spotting and planning.

Neal Acree
Joel would write a theme for the episode. Whether it’s a new character or even just something that happened to be…like Window of Opportunity for example. It’s just kind of a recurring motif because you have that Groundhog Day kind of vibe to it. There’s this kind of a musical motif that continues over and over again to kind of create a feeling of identity to that show, musical identity.

David Read
It’s very specific. Yeah.

Neal Acree
He decided me a particular thread through the show that kind of allowed for some continuity. If we were doing a show with replicators, I mean, Joel had written this great Jaws-esque replicator theme. If it were a show that kept cutting back to the replicators throughout, I might take that segment just to kind of, for one, be able to create a sense of continuing momentum with each of the pieces. To be honest you’re having to create a lot of music in a short period of time. To be able to revisit ideas is a lot quicker than having to start over and kind of develop something from scratch.

David Read
Absolutely, yeah. And then writing.

Neal Acree
I’d say there would be somewhere between 20 to 30 minutes of music in every episode and we’d have about a week to do it, sometimes a little longer. Especially when SG-1 and Atlantis were going at the same time, that’s double the amount of work. We didn’t have the time or budget to do full orchestras. Nowadays you hear a lot of shows that have orchestra in it, that was very rare at the time. A lot of it was in the box, samples, and occasionally some soloists here and there. You’d have to kind of write the music, orchestrate it, mix it, all at the same time and it would have to happen very quickly. We’d always find ways, whatever way we could, to really kind of give it the attention and the polish that we would expect from a movie, a cinematic score. It was a sci-fi TV show but it had the production value of a movie. It was telling a story as big as any Hollywood movie so that’s what we tried to give to every episode.

David Read
Wow. The more time that you spent with him, I would think that when it really got down to it, you could probably create a formula as to how much completed music he could create in say a day or two. Like, if he’s got this amount of time in the office, he’s going to be able to generate this many seconds of completed music. Were you able to calculate that in terms of what both of your output was?

Neal Acree
You kind of have a rough best case scenario kind of thing, worst case scenario. We’d hope to only have to do about a couple of minutes a day, those were the nice days, you get to really spend a lot of time. Sometimes you’d have to do eight minutes a day and those are challenging days. Sometimes you’re up for three days at a time sometimes, it was rough. It was exciting and maybe I’m romanticizing it all these years later, but there’s kind of an adventure to it; every day would be a new challenge. I miss Joel so much. Part of it was the camaraderie of knowing that I might be working all night, but so was Joel on the other side of town and we’d call each other up. One time he sent his friend, Gary, over with a video camera. This is before FaceTime calls or Zoom calls. Joel was very curious and just kind of had this sense of humor that was unlike anyone I’ve seen. He sends his friend Gary over at two in the morning with a video camera to film me working and then report back and show him the video. He just wanted to see what it looked like while I was working because he was just maybe looking for a distraction in the midst of a really intense deadline. That’s the kind of thing he would do.

David Read
God. Whatever to keep it moving, man. Step four, printing and delivery.

Neal Acree
Starting out was was digital tapes, a DA-88 tape was an eight track digital tape that had timecode synchronization. You could synchronize it with the videotape that we were working on. That sounds so ancient now because now we have digital video and digital audio and everything, it’s so simple. We’d have an eight track tape and we we’re mixing in 5.1 so that would be six tracks. We’d have two DA-88 tapes. If anytime there was a cue that overlapped with another one, we’d have a second tape, there was the B roll. We would print it to the tape and FedEx the tapes to Vancouver with enough time for it to get to the dub where they would mix all the sound and the sound effects and then music and dialogue together. The producers would then review it in context with everything together and any notes they would send, we would address those as they had like a review or revision mix that happened a few weeks later. Sometimes we’d have to work with visual effects that weren’t finished. We’d have a black slug that would say, “Space Battle for 20 seconds.” Nothing on it. You know there’s going to be these F-302s flying through the air and this firefight happening, but you don’t see anything. You just kind of have to write something that you hope will kind of catch the mood of it. We’d get another chance to go back and see the final visuals and if we had to make any adjustments.

David Read
Sure, say 20 seconds of space battle, if it’s one shot then I can kind of get that. But if you’re cutting multiple times, if you’re changing perspective, as a composer you’re going to want to know where those cuts are, even if it is all just visual effects.

Neal Acree
If you have spaceships flying through the sky with a certain movement. I tend to be a very visual composer in that I like to match what’s on screen to the best of my ability without “Mickey Mousing” as they call it, where you’re hitting every little detail. I kind of like the music to feel like it’s moving hand in hand with the visuals.

David Read
The ship flies by, you want to have it like arc with the music?

Neal Acree
Yeah, Sharpe Sound was where we mixed. They were in Vancouver and we were the only aspect of the production, I believe, that was outside of Canada. We’d send everything there and eventually when digital audio became available we’d be able to upload stuff. It was available earlier but when it became practical to upload multiple tracks, I mean, once I got past the AOL 56k modem days.

Neal Acree
Yeah.

David Read
That makes a lot of sense. Wow. I think Rainmaker did the finishing, Rainmaker Digital. My understanding was they did the finishing back in the day and Sharpe Sound.

David Read
Geez. Did that lend itself to more time for you guys to compose? Or did production take that?

Neal Acree
The time that it would have taken FedEx to send that tape up to Canada, that was maybe two days?

David Read
That’s a lot.

Neal Acree
Yep. A third day for just wanting to get it there on the Saturday before the Monday mix. This allowed us to upload Sunday night.

David Read
I’m not really asking you to tell on yourself but were there ever situations where it was like, “it’s done, I’m not happy with it but we ran out of time? It’s serviceable but I’m not happy with it, but it’s done.” Does that make any sense?

Neal Acree
One of the funnest things about TV, probably, or the thing that I enjoyed the most about it, was that when the show was done, it was done. You might get a chance to revise something but it had to pretty much be done the first time out when you sent it. We didn’t always have a chance to second guess and that kind of really forced me to streamline my process and really kind of find the simplest, most direct way to convey an idea. When I have all the time in the world on my hands, I get obsessive about detail. Some of these cinematics I work on, I have months or even a year to work on, all in. I’ll get obsessive with the tiniest detail but not having the ability to do that can be liberating in the sense that it really just kind of forces you to just focus. Just get it out and hope that it’s the best it can be. Sometimes all that extra time spent second guessing yourself doesn’t necessarily make it a better piece.

David Read
It’s not constructive.

Neal Acree
Sometimes you’re able to revisit things and observe them from a perspective the next day and listen to it and say, “maybe I could try this.” If left to my own devices, I would rewrite everything. That’s why it took me the 14 years to finish my album. I didn’t know when it was done, I just kept adding.

David Read
It’s the problem with perfectionists. At a certain point art is just abandoned and it has to go out there in the world and do what it’s meant to do. How did music from SG-1 evolve into Atlantis? If you listen to the music in Lost City, the theme of Atlantis is in there. Joel talked about that that a long time ago with me, he was like “well, this works.” I’m like “oh yeah.” He didn’t intentionally mean for it to be that kind of bridge phrase in the opening title theme to Atlantis. How did SG-1 musically evolve into Atlantis?

Neal Acree
That was the Ancients theme that story wise was a continuing arc that evolved into a new series so musically it made sense to do. What I loved about Atlantis, personally I love the Stargate theme and themes that David Arnold wrote. I loved the movie, I love the music. When the movie came out it was my favorite score and it still is, really just a beautiful sci-fi score.

David Read
It’s a beautiful score.

Neal Acree
It’s really one of my favorites and to have gotten to work on a series that was based on that movie and to get to play with those themes was a lot of fun, it was great. Once we got to Atlantis it was time for “this is a new location, a new thematic opportunity.” Joel wrote this beautiful new theme for it. All these themes had elements to them that would then be kind of split out and become elements for…the Wraith had a little motif even in the theme there. It was a chance, it was a fresh new start, to kind of develop a new palette of themes and Joel did some really beautiful stuff for that.

David Read
SG-1 has a very Indiana Jones kind of feel to it; it’s very adventure oriented. Obviously his goa’uld themes, he jumped off a lot of what David Arnold created in the feature film, The cool thing about Atlantis was it was both more of an action show, but it had a maritime quality to it as well. It felt like a very seafaring type of theme, especially that main theme. I think it won an Emmy nomination, if I’m not mistaken.

Neal Acree
Two Emmy nominations, one for the theme and then one for, I think Grace Under Pressure, the episodic nomination.

Neal Acree
I think the only reason he didn’t win the theme one is that Danny Elfman was nominated for Desperate Housewives. Nothing against that.

David Read
That’s right.

David Read
No, he’s a great composer.

Neal Acree
That was the thing at the time but in terms of the actual quality of the work…I’m glad they recognized him again with the episodic nomination.

David Read
Absolutely. We spoke a little bit about this earlier. In what ways was Universe an outgrowth of both of the shows that came before?

Neal Acree
Well, musically it was very different in my opinion. The aesthetic was kind of exploring something new and I had very little involvement in Universe. Joel really hunkered down and said, “I’m going to do something really, really special and personal.” He disappeared for weeks, months. I was kind of starting my game career at the time and getting busy and I wouldn’t see him as often. I remember coming over and seeing Rick tracking on the opening episode. It’s just such a cool sound that show had and I’m glad that I got to contribute to it a little bit along the way. But it was really Joel’s show in every respect.

David Read
The music in SGU is my favorite of the music that he did. Not to say that he wasn’t amazing when he was starting but there was a, for want of a better word, a maturity level to the sound of SGU; it was just so invigorating. SGU is my favorite of the three and in very many respects, the music is my favorite part of SGU.

Neal Acree
I think the music sounds the most like Joel of all the series. Certainly Joel’s sound is all over them in some regards but SG-1 was a continuation of the movie sound. Stargate Atlantis was a continuation of that but taking it in a different direction. SGU, Joel’s like, “I’m going to find a sound that’s just this.” It was more his sound than anything I’ve heard from him before. It was very personal, very innovative and I still love listening to that.

David Read
Are there any specific motifs from Stargate that you are very fond of?

Neal Acree
I love the Atlantis theme. I love the rising cue from the pilot that, when Atlantis rises. It’s one of the best pieces of film music, TV music, that I’ve ever heard. I got to kind of do a deconstruction of that when Atlantis submerged again in First Strike. It was kind of fun deconstructing what Joel had done, kind of did it in reverse in a way. Joel worked on that theme a lot, he had on his website all the iterations he had done, different versions. He shared that with the permission of Brad and Robert, just to kind of show how a TV theme can evolve and what goes into it. Kind of took the idea and kind of simplified it from the original form. The website’s long gone but I wish that information was still out there because it was really fascinating to kind of see how that was developed over over time. The end result, I think, is one of the best TV themes ever written.

David Read
One of my favorite pieces of what you did, and certainly the First Strike piece is up there, but I love your callback to the Asgard in the Lost Tribe. You take the Asgard theme and then you twist it inside out and say “this is not the Asgard, this is the Vanir,” or evil Asgard, whatever you want to call them. It’s a two minute queue but I get tingles just thinking about it. These beings, they look like our friends, but they aren’t. I just love how you took his theme and turn it inside out in two minutes.

Neal Acree
Yeah. What I love about collaboration is the idea that you can write something and have somebody else take it in a completely different direction and hear it in a way that you never could have yourself. Getting to work with Joel’s themes in that way was an education. It was also just so much fun, it really was.

David Read
Have you seen Thor Ragnarok?

Neal Acree
I have not. It’s been in my queue for too long.

David Read
There is a scene where, I don’t know if you’ve heard, but the phrase, the Stargate Asgard phrase, is hidden in the music.

Neal Acree
Oh, cool.

David Read
It’s a great nod. It can’t be anything else, it’s clearly it. Was it difficult creating music that was in the vein of Joel but wasn’t directly just replicating his content when you were working alongside him? Or was the intent more or less, “copy my sound and move forward from there?”

Neal Acree
We were trying to make a unified sound. Nobody wants to make a show sound like it’s coming from multiple sources, especially when there are multiple writers. I obviously had my own style and approach going in but I learned a lot from him about simplifying ideas and as I said, kind of creating the most direct way to convey an emotional idea through a simple sound or simple melody. There was a point where our sounds were very close because I had learned a lot from him. I wasn’t trying to sound like him but I had learned so much from him that it kind of became an imprint on what I was doing to the extent that every once in a while I’ll do something and I’m like, “ah, Joel.”

David Read
It’s where you come from!

Neal Acree
He’s doing a drum solo in the middle of a cue, I’d be like, “ah, Joel.” He used to a joke about sometimes you’d have these really hard cues you’re working on and you’d spend weeks trying to find the right thing. Sometimes you get to just do a drum solo, he does the whole cue just drum. Those are the gifts we get to make up for all the hard ones we do.

David Read
We lost Joel, 2013 was it?

Neal Acree
Yeah.

David Read
I think Rick Shaddock wasn’t a year later, I don’t think.

Neal Acree
It was about fall of 2013, both in the same year.

David Read
I met Rick once and I talked with Joel a few times, got to talk with him a few times and met him at least once. I think about him all the time. There’s just certain losses, he was a hero of mine, that you just don’t get over. It just doesn’t digest. Any particular standout memories with Joel over the years?

Neal Acree
Joel was like a second father to me in a lot of ways. It was more than just losing a musical hero of mine, it was losing like a family member. Not like, it was losing a family member! I’d call him all the time whenever I had a challenge or some something in my life that I didn’t know how to overcome or just needed some advice. He had done everything, gone through everything that I had struggled with. He had an answer for everything, sometimes it would be a humorous thing. I was scoring a Jean-Claude Van Damme movie and I called him just to say, “Hey, I’m doing a Van Damme movie” and he’s like, “Hey, everyone’s got to do it at some point.” As if to say that was like your requirement as a composer; you have to do at least one in your career.

David Read
Sounded a little like Jerry coming through there, sounded like something Jerry would say. “Well, you know, you’re not that great.”

Neal Acree
Just like Jerry, they had their gruff grumpy moments but then they’d make you feel like a million bucks when you needed it.

David Read
I have some fan questions here for you. Do you have the framed piece of memorabilia that we talked about?

Neal Acree
Yeah I do. I brought it out, you told me to have it ready.

David Read
Yes please. Before I get to the fan questions I wanted to have you show this off. So what is this?

Neal Acree
This was a book that they gave us at the 10th anniversary party in 2006, in Vancouver. We got to go, Joel, Rick and I, went up to Vancouver. It was my first time there, getting to meet the cast and the crew. They had this party celebrating 10 years and it was shortly after the 200th episode. They had this book they gave out and we’d have people sign it, cast and crew. I took the book and I took the two signature pages and I framed it because it’s such a special piece. The highlight of this thing here, is right here, Don S Davis. What a sweetheart that guy was. As a fan of the show, not only from the beginning, but just…You work on the show and you feel like you know the actors because you see them week after week. To finally get to meet them in person is like “I’ve known you for 10 years now, for eight years” or whatever. He had recently been doing some artwork and he had recently started a website with his artwork and was telling everyone about it. That night, I don’t know how many people’s books he signed or people he talked to, every single one of them he wrote out this lengthy thing saying, “Neal, it was a pleasure to visit with you. If you’re at the 200th episode gala, if you’d really like to check out my artwork, go to donsdavisart.com.” He wrote out the website. Every single thing he signed the entire night he wrote out the whole website. I love it. Richard Dean Anderson right there.

Neal Acree
Absolutely.

Neal Acree
Christopher Judge “thanks for everything” peace sign. “To Neal, cheers you cheeky little bugger” from Paul McGillion.

David Read
Paul McGillion. Absolutely.

Neal Acree
Claudia Black, I asked her to sign it and she’s like, “Yo, it’s gonna devalue your book, you don’t want me to sign it.” I was like “you’re like my favorite.” She’s great.

David Read
Absolutely.

Neal Acree
So she signs it saying like, “consider this devalued” or something. I don’t have my glasses on so I’m having trouble reading it. David Hewlett wrote like, “Neal, you’re keeping me from the food.”

David Read
It sounds like him.

Neal Acree
We had a chat recently. He had me do an interview thing for an educational project he’s working on. We talked for hours and we had so much fun.

David Read
He’s a great guy.

Neal Acree
Great guy. It’s fun to look back and realizing that I’m this quiet kid that’s coming up and bugging everyone in the middle of the party and asking them to sign stuff. Everyone is so nice.

David Read
And you have production patches.

Neal Acree
I do. Yeah. I’ve got the Daedalus and the Atlantis patch and the SG-1 patch. I had this up in my studio and it is one of my favorite possessions.

David Read
Well thank you for sharing. It means a great deal. I’ve got a few fan questions for you.

Neal Acree
Yeah, shoot.

David Read
Teresa McAllister. Some of these questions may technically be for Joel so we’re going to have to figure that out together.

Neal Acree
Yeah.

David Read
Teresa McAllister wanted to know – what inspired you to put heavy metal in Vegas.

Neal Acree
Well, I’m speaking for Joel because I did a little bit of work on that one but that was Joel.

David Read
I don’t think he’ll mind.

Neal Acree
For anyone that doesn’t know, I was so grateful to be able to help Joel on the show. It was always Joel’s vision for the music. Vegas was a very different show that you can find Joel in. He’s one of the poker players in the poker game, cameo there. He loved playing poker, played all the time, online poker as well. He was great at it. I never played with him because I’m smart and didn’t want to lose any money. But heavy metal, Joel was a rocker at heart and Rick was a rocker as well. I think Joel played drums early on. I think Joel wanted to play drums and asked his dad for a drum set. His dad said, “I’ll get you a drum set after you learn piano.” So he learned piano, which is good too, But I think he wanted just to be a drummer so whenever we got to do a drum solo in something it was kind of revisiting his roots. The heavy metal thing, I think Joel was looking for an excuse to use it whenever he could. The question is why didn’t he use heavy metal as often?

David Read
I think that’s certainly a fair question. I think if any species is going to, I don’t know how I want to put it…the Wraith would do it. The Wraith did get more percussiony as the show went on, especially with Sateda. Joel kind of talked about rebranding The Wraith sound. It didn’t completely transform but it was definitely more percussive from that point forward.

Neal Acree
Yeah, very primal and raw.

David Read
Yeah, and Vegas kind of takes that further. JohnFourtyTwo – will there be a remastered complete soundtrack to all Stargate at some point? Similar to these huge box sets like The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings have done?

Neal Acree
I certainly hope so. The composer is usually the last person to have any say in things like this, especially with rights being owned by studios or having been sold here and there. I’m just speaking in general. Especially with Joel being gone as well, it’s not like he’s around to be able to oversee and push that kind of thing through so it’s doubly difficult for things like that to happen. I know there’s a desire on a lot of people’s parts to do stuff like that. The library of music wallet exists in different places. Again, you’re dealing with a situation where the composer and the music editor that managed that library are both gone.

Neal Acree
I don’t even know where all the masters are and who owns them, who would have the desire and the ability to push something like that through. It is an investment in money to do that kind of thing because soundtrack sales, CD sales, are not what they used to be true. They were never great and they’re certainly less so now. You’d have to find someone that really believed in the project. I’m not saying I don’t, I’m just not the person that has any control on that kind of situation.

David Read
I know. Where are they?

David Read
Okay. Joel had an estate, right? Something that I should potentially look into pursuing? The next question here, The Fred – do you have the audio track of Gauntlet’s ending? The most beautiful piece of soundtrack we’ve ever heard. I would have to agree that the Gauntlet end theme is, in my opinion, is his best piece of work. I would love to do whatever I could to help pursue getting that content out there to fans in a purchasable form. Do you think that’s something that is feasible for me and others to look into?

Neal Acree
I’d love to see it happen and I’m willing to do whatever I can to help make that happen. But my own personal involvement in that aspect is very limited. I’d love to see someone do it, that’s for sure.

David Read
I’d do it for free just to get that out there. Ugly Pig – sometimes SG-1 episodes had different music cues between the broadcast version and the seamless version, the ending of Frozen for example. What would the reason for this be?

Neal Acree
Well the reason is, episodic version, you have a commercial break and the music would generally ramp up to the commercial to create suspense, to want you to come back after the commercial, sit through the commercial, different function there, and then commercial you’re back in. Now that the commercial has passed, maybe there’s no reason to have music at all. When they did the seamless version, they would obviously get rid of the commercial gap and you have the end of one scene and the beginning of the next, butted against each other. It would sound really weird to have this dramatic ramp and then suddenly stop. We would do whatever we could to polish those after the fact. It was the kind of thing that would happen while we were working on new episodes. Not to say we didn’t give it the attention it deserved but sometimes rather than write a whole new piece of music, Rick, music editor, would edit a transition that would kind of help bridge those gaps. Sometimes that meant it was just easier or made more sense to get a new piece of music that would cross through those scenes. Basically the seamless version became a whole new show; it just had a different feel, different dramatic intent of the music, because you weren’t trying to create that ramp to the commercial.

David Read
That’s fair. So when you were originally working on an episode, the version with the commercial breaks would be sent up and then later on when the DVD version was going to come out, that’s when you would get to the others?

Neal Acree
It could have been months later or a year later. You kind of go back and take a look and see what worked and what didn’t and then make adjustments accordingly.

David Read
Or you know what, “I really didn’t like this piece over here. Can I please go in and change it now?” Did you ever sneak any edits like that in?

Neal Acree
I don’t remember doing so. I think at that point you to move on. During this whole time we’re working on the new episodes of two series at the same time. Going back to something that we had finished a long time ago…we still made sure it worked but we wouldn’t go back to the drawing board on that.

David Read
Ian wants to know – can you talk at all about the instrumentation in SGU, specifically the “waw waw” that kicks off the intro theme in the first episode.

Neal Acree
I wasn’t there for that. I do know that Joel used a lot of new production techniques, a lot of recording techniques, guitar, manipulated guitar and a lot of synthesizers. He had this great wall of analog synthesizers that he had his assistant build. He got into some really cool sounds because he was playing with synthesizers when he was a teenager. In fact, he programmed the synth sounds on the Star Trek movie.

David Read
Not too much of a chip off the old block was he?

Neal Acree
So yeah, I couldn’t tell you exactly what that was but I know Joel just had fun playing with new sounds.

David Read
It’s one of those things, he told me what that instrument was. I think it’s like a stringed instrument of some kind, he’s running a bow over, I’m not entirely sure. I can’t remember for the life of me what it was. Ben Fix​ – did you slip in any homage to Stargate with your Blizzard music or audio work? Blizzard games are known to have all kinds of easter eggs.

Neal Acree
No, I wouldn’t do that kind of thing. With Blizzard stuff we’re trying to create a new sound, a new franchise. People will always mentioned to me, “oh, that thing you did sounds like something from Stargate” and I realize that it’s just imprinted in my musical DNA, the stuff we did and that sci-fi thing. Somebody sent me a scene from Stargate, they said “oh, I can hear the Overwatch theme in here.” Stargate, we’re talking about an episode that had been written years before Overwatch. I listened to it and sure enough there’s the Overwatch theme, or sounds a lot like it. I point out a couple things, one, the Overwatch theme you’re referring to is not the one that I wrote so you can’t blame me. This was written years before so Stargate didn’t copy Overwatch. With the musical language, the film music language, there are certain things that we kind of identify as being a heroic motif.

Neal Acree
Something that is going to remind people of things and it’s not intentional. For anyone to think that I’m paying tribute to Stargate, I don’t take that as a bad thing. My love for the show and the years I spent on it are always something that I carry with me.

David Read
Phrases, yeah.

David Read
I think the point is that any kind of audio transfer is more or less unintentional?

Neal Acree
Yeah. I couldn’t legally do that if I wanted to. If you have something that’s identifiable enough, that’s legally owned by another company, then I could get sued for that.

David Read
It’s not worth it.

Neal Acree
It’s not my intention to do that.

David Read
Absolutely. But also, human beings, we’re built to decipher codes from chaos. It’s easy for us to hear things, there’s only so many kinds of phrases that are out there. Music evolves over time so from decade to decade a lot of things sound very similar because we’re all jumping off one another as we learn stuff.

Neal Acree
Music is a language. The phrases we use musically are derived from the things that…we learned from watching the movies we loved and hearing the soundtracks we love. To try and evoke a similar emotion to something we felt when we watched a movie or a show, it’s possible you’re going to grab the same chords or some kind of variation on them because those chords are going to evoke that very specific emotion. We’re speaking with music so in order for it to get very specific in what we’re saying, sometimes the language gets very specific and therefore it is easy to spot similarities between franchises or even over decades of time.

David Read
It was such a privilege to have you compose the music for this project. Having the Stargate DNA, which as far as I’m concerned, the baseline of that is the music, inside this show has been a dream come true for me. I think I told you I want it to sound like the SG-1 theme but obviously we can’t have the SG-1 theme. How long did that melody take to mature in your mind? I wrote you one day and one or two days later you said, “I basically got it. I just have to hammer it out.” I was like, “what! That thing matured overnight, maybe not even.”

Neal Acree
Yeah, I think that the time I spent in that world will forever be imprinted on my brain in a good way so I fell right back into it. It was fun to have the opportunity to do that so thank you for that. You’ve been a great friend since we met at the Stargate Continuum premiere in San Diego in 2008 so when you asked me to write something for you, not the kind of thing I normally do, but I just didn’t hesitate in this case.

David Read
It meant the world to me. I love listening to it three or four times every weekend. It means so much to me that you did it and it means so much to me that you came on and gave us so much of your time this weekend to talk with fans. If there is going to be an SG-4, a fourth Stargate series, would you be on board to compose for it?

Neal Acree
Oh, of course. I wish Joel was still here, Joel would be able to take the reins on something like that. The opportunity to dive back into that universe would be really an incredible homecoming and I hope the opportunity might arise.

David Read
Fantastic, I hope so too my friend. I thank you again for taking the time to talk with us and I’d love to have you back on in the future. Just thank you so much for everything, it’s been such a treat to have you.

Neal Acree
Thank you. It’s been a treat to be here.

David Read
I’ll give you a ring in a little bit buddy, but I’m gonna go ahead and wrap up the show.

Neal Acree
Sounds good.

David Read
Thanks Neal, I appreciate your time.

Neal Acree
Thank you.

David Read
You be well. Neal Acree everyone, composer of Stargate SG-1, Stargate Atlantis and Stargate Universe and a ton of other projects. You need to check out this guy’s IMDb, he is prolific. I definitely recommend his album, The Velvet Machine, which I will be linking below, the Amazon link. The mp3 album and audio CD are both available on Amazon. I think there’s a streaming version as well if you have Amazon Music Unlimited. Check it out, it’s really cool. That’s all that I have pretty much for you. Before I do let you go here, if you like what you’ve seen in this episode I would appreciate it if you’d click the Like button. It really makes a difference with YouTube’s algorithm and will definitely help the show grow its audience. Please also consider sharing this video with a Stargate friend or a music fan and if you want to get notified about future episodes, click the Subscribe icon. If you plan to watch live I recommend giving the bell icon a click so you’ll be the first to know of any schedule changes, which could happen all the time. Keep in mind clips from this live stream will be released over the course of the next several days on both Dial the Gate and Gateworld.net YouTube channels. I really appreciate you sticking around. I want to thank our moderators, Sommer, Ian, Tracy, Keith, Jeremy; you guys are fantastic. Big thanks to my production assistants, Jennifer and Linda the GateGabber. Tomorrow we have another two sessions for you. At 1pm Pacific Time, Miss Teryl Rothery will be joining us, Dr. Janet Fraiser herself. Then at 3pm Pacific time, Mr. Darren Sumner, founder, owner, Managing Editor Gateworld.net, will be joining me for a round of Stargate trivia. 20 Questions, Darren, I am coming for you! That’s all I have for you today folks. I really appreciate you sticking around for the show this weekend and it means a great deal to me that our audience is continuing to grow. I think, if we haven’t cracked it yet, we are about to crack it. About to crack 5000 subscribers, we’re 14 away. If you enjoy the show, please consider subscribing. My name is David Read for Dial the Gate, I appreciate your time and I’ll see on the other side.