The Smiler - General Discussion

[TheMan]

The drop in the smoky darkness with strobes masking the barrel roll. It was a great start to the ride, now not so much.

I don't ever recall experiencing this. I rode this quite a few times last season, and yet strobes and loads of smoke on the indoor section? When people talked about it, I always assumed they meant as you dropped out of the station!

 

[James]

I don't ever recall experiencing this. I rode this quite a few times last season, and yet strobes and loads of smoke on the indoor section? When people talked about it, I always assumed they meant as you dropped out of the station!

There was a great video that shown how good the effect was although I cannot find it. Here is what happened though:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pH-13BDBOUc#ws

I did see a video far better than that where you could see the whole tunnel and barrel roll completely hidden within the smoke.

Just incase anyone gets sensitive with a pov being posted: I do not condone on-ride filming without permission, blame the people who make them - it's a very stupid thing to do.

I'm not be being 'Merlin bashing' now, but surely that's down to poor design and lack of thought.

Agree. If they have to remove a smoke machine because of smoke getting into other areas of the building that just shows very poorly thought out design. The drop is the one part of the ride that is very disappointing. If there was theming inside then I wouldn't complain. The bare concrete leaves you completely outside what is so far at that point, quite an immersive experience.

 

[TheMan]

There was a great video that shown how good the effect was although I cannot find it. Here is what happened though

Thanks mate, no I definitely don't recall experiencing it at full flow then!

Quite effective considering that is in daylight too.

Haha! It was leaking into the baggage hold area?! How on Earth was that happening?

That is a shame, I do hope they fix that, really sets a tone - also, vid makes me want a go again!

 

[Rob]

The first drop and inversion were so much better with the smoke. The combination of the smoke and the strobe was really quite disorientating. However now you just get to look at a flooded indoor section filled with sandbags, makeshift pipes and concrete. Hopefully it is something they are looking to sort out over this closed season.

 

[djtruefitt]

It just shows that rides built years ago, such as in 1992 (eg Haunted house) can use smoke and have no problems, yet a ride 20 years later can't use smoke without it causing problems!

 

[Dave]

It just shows that rides built years ago, such as in 1992 (eg Haunted house) can use smoke and have no problems, yet a ride 20 years later can't use smoke without it causing problems!

Its a symptom of the times. 20 years ago internal walls in houses where made of brick... these days they are made of plaster board....

... Plus no-one at Merlin studios considers logistics, i refer the jury once again to Zufari's exit station

 

[Bubblegum]

Just basic things need fixing, by the end of the season the TV outside the station didn't work, speakers near the station didn't work, the big speaker in the corner near the first lift hill didn't work, the speaker on top of the shopping container sounded like it was going to explode at any moment. One of the speaks on the break run had fallen off. The list goes on. All of which are basic things, and surely should be covered by a guarantee of some sort to work!

It's like a Bose disaster around the Smiler, pretty much all of the speakers are broken, those long thin ones on the marmaliser, and in the corner dont work, one of the subs like you said sounds horrible, and all other small speakers are seemingly disconnected or just not working.

 

[CoasterCrazyChris]

It's like after they built the ride itself, everything else in the design was an after-thought.

It's an ugly mess of cattlepen, plastic vinyls, concrete and practically non-existent landscaping.

 

[Ian]

I don't know if it's just me (Could well be ) but a lot of the audio seemed to "go wrong" all at once, with several of the tall sound bars ceasing to work, and a couple of other speakers going too. I wonder if Towers perhaps had some kind of complaints from the locals, or were in breach of their noise restrictions, and had to turn them off/down to avoid further issues.

But I will say that one of the subs does sound rather knackered, and could do with swapping out.

 

[James]

...maybe The Smiler is just cursed? I blame the Ropers, they've probably been working on their dark black magic.

 

[jackandylan123]

...maybe The Smiler is just cursed? I blame the Ropers, they've probably been working on their dark black magic.

Just blame them for everything that goes wrong at Towers tbh

 

[Alastair]

Great interview with the composers of The Smiler score here by Airgates UK:

‘Ha Ha Ha…Ha Ha Ha…Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha’
On entering X-Sector, guests at Alton Towers are subjected to an ominous and inescapable medley: The Smiler music. For many, this music plays over in their head long after they leave the park.

IMAScore is the German company responsible for the iconic music. As well as creating music for Alton Towers, the park has composed ride-songs for Europa-Park, Movie Park Germany, Chessington World of Adventures, and Heide Park.

Airgates spoke to the CEO, Xaver Willebrand, and lead composer, Andreas Kübler, about how the ideas are formed and made into music.

“The production of the soundtrack of The Smiler was very special! First of all it was all about finding the right musical style. It had to be something unique, something you could instantly connect with the ride and its story.”

“We looked at concept arts for hours and even sat together for a brainstorming session, where every member of our team brought up ideas.”

“This project was quite a challenge. Not just because of the amount of music we had to produce, but also because of the uniqueness. ”

“The creatives at Merlin Entertainments are always pushing you to the limit – and that’s absolutely a good thing, because they have a great imagination and know very well what they want to hear at the end!”

“The music of IMAscore is produced on high end PCs by using high quality virtual instruments.”
“We used a lot of strange electronic sounds and layered them with a big, but slow beat – like a factory that is running all the time and producing smiling advocates.”

“In some melody lines, you can hear that it is not a happy place but then the laughing sounds and melodies are coming back and it you’re a part of this happy world again. The result is the sinister music and sound atmosphere you hear at Alton Towers Resort.”

“Visitors have told us that we’ve created a new music genre with the Smiler music.”

“The main element was the HaHaHa melody line. In fact, the final melody was also the first one we wrote for the ride.”

“It was a real bullseye and everybody fell in love with it hearing it the first time”

“It crawls its way into your brain, but this is exactly what it was supposed to do!”

Andreas Kübler, who was one of the two lead composers for this project, talked about how the initial ideas and inspirations were developed into the fully formed Smiler song.

“Normally we compose the first melodies on a piano, but this does not work when producing a soundtrack like the one for The Smiler, which is full of crazy sounds without natural instruments.”
“There was a Dubstep beat in the first versions but we wanted to create our own style, not the next number one hit. It was a big challenge and took some time to create this atmosphere.”
“We listened to some children’s songs. These are so extremely happy and catchy, so it was the best inspiration for us without copying any existing melody or style.”

“The darker parts of the Smiler music are our speciality. It was great to mix this “fake” happiness with the “real” dark part of the story and it was really crazy to switch the mood from some sort of horror music to a catchy happy tune.”

“Some people think they are listening to a 3-minutes loop… But do they actually know that the Smiler contains over 75 minutes of music? While you’re waiting for the ride, you hear the main melody very often. But every time you hear it again, it’s in another tune or played by other instruments.”

Some riders have complained of the music making them feel nauseous; when asked if this was deliberate Andreas added: “The music plays with your mind, like brainwashing. It is trying to make you happy with the catchy melody. If it makes you feel nauseous, just keep smiling.”

 

[Amy]

I love that interview! It describes perfectly how The Smiler music makes me feel. I absolutely love the music and have it as my phone ringtone, but people do find it quite creepy. I think it's perfect for the ride :twirly:

 

[djtruefitt]

This could have been mentioned in this thread before, but i'm not sure.

I discovered the other day that the company that created a lot of the Smiler graphics are LMC Design (http://www.lmcdesign.co.uk/the-smiler/) they also designed the Smiler logo!

Not only have they done the Smiler they also created all the current marketing graphics on park and in the hotels, golf, spa and waterpark (http://www.lmcdesign.co.uk/portfolio/alton-towers/)!

It seems they have also done work for Sealife, London Eye, Madame Tussauds and Warwick Castle.

 

[Danny]

Just spotted these images posted by Amy_D on Facebook. What a mess!

Spoiler

 

[Stevie]

Well it's reassuring that they're doing some significant work to it.

But the fact that it's only 8 months old and it needs that amount of work, isn't that reassuring.

 

[Martin]

You just have to laugh really. There's no point getting annoyed, just laugh at it.

 

[John]

Looks like they're doing quite a bit of work to it at least, hopefully it'll be a bit more structurally sound this year!

Has the marmaliser screen been on all closed season?

 

[smudge]

Looks like they're doing quite a bit of work to it at least, hopefully it'll be a bit more structurally sound this year!

Has the marmaliser screen been on all closed season?

Well noticed. Probably!

Good news about this I think, at least they are not bodging it. (Well, time will tell)

 

[Stevie]

They're probably too scared to switch it off because it probably won't switch on again.