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Towers Loving Care

Bert2theSpark said:
Never knew Duel had so much detail!
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Yeah, because of the trite lighting it's had for years.

I am so very bored of being critical and had given them the benefit of the doubt about this redo. But the pictures already show some pretty poor decisions in this refurbishment. Please not another one step forward, one step back.

Theyve deliberately conflated "flourescent strip lights" (just standard true-blacklight tubes) as something poor/outdated, but their "specialist UV" looks like standard LED UV going by the pictures. LED UV produces far more visible light than the invisible UV light that makes the scenery flouresce, resulting in a flat, cheap-looking purple haze.

Please don't be Tomb Blaster's awful 2016 "UV" redo all over again. The whole point of UV is that it maintains total darkness while only the scenery is lit. LED UV doesn't do this unless its very high end. Traditional UV is far better to maintain darkness or any colour that's not purple.

In that above picture, why is there LED UV lights in a scene that has never had any UV paintwork in it?? Other than the floor, which was inexplicably painted over in UV some years ago by the Attractions team. So are we going to get a glowing floor and the rest the room beaming purple? It should be simple. How is this going to improve the ride?

The previous lighting was rushed and poor yes, but this risks being poor in a different way, making the whole ride look like a tanning salon. It will also need the sets to be scenically retreated after many years of scuffing and cheap overpainting, if they want them to look good under blacklight again.

In 1992, it looked a totally different attraction. How come we can't light or paint a dark ride like that anymore?

Well, I won't judge til theyve finished compeltely. New soundtrack could be a very good change to bring back some atmosphere, and getting rid of the £2-budget preshow has been long overdue!
 
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I'm looking forward to seeing the changes come opening day, but I cannot imagine the budget for this project is huge so I'm not expecting too much. So long as the ride seems to be in a good condition I'll be fairly happy, and hopefully they'll have been able to get the trommel working again.

Pleased to hear about a new soundtrack though, the existing one was catchy but pretty awful! However is it me or are they recording the new soundtrack in a makeshift office in one of the buildings in the gardens!? I'm no expert but that can't be the best place for it!

:)
 
Part of the problem with Duel is that it would be very easy to spend a lot of money on it without really making the ride any better, or even solving all the glaring issues it has at the moment. Hopefully it'll be a bit better than last year though.
 
I agree with the above. Haunted houses aren't supposed to look like lazer quest battlegrounds. It should appear candle lit throughout, as if it were natural lighting and be as dim as possible. The LED UV should only be the focus when it comes to ghosts and ghouls.
The new soundtrack, however, sounds promising. And the fact that it is zoned is taking a well needed step back to the old haunted house which is great.
Let's just hope the next stage is ripping out every unnecessary zombie with the terrible 'scream' royalty free sound effect
 
electricBill said:
Yeah, because of the trite lighting it's had for years.

I am so very bored of being critical and had given them the benefit of the doubt about this redo. But the pictures already show some pretty poor decisions in this refurbishment. Please not another one step forward, one step back.

Theyve deliberately conflated "flourescent strip lights" (just standard true-blacklight tubes) as something poor/outdated, but their "specialist UV" looks like standard LED UV going by the pictures. LED UV produces far more visible light than the invisible UV light that makes the scenery flouresce, resulting in a flat, cheap-looking purple haze.

Please don't be Tomb Blaster's awful 2016 "UV" redo all over again. The whole point of UV is that it maintains total darkness while only the scenery is lit. LED UV doesn't do this unless its very high end. Traditional UV is far better to maintain darkness or any colour that's not purple.

In that above picture, why is there LED UV lights in a scene that has never had any UV paintwork in it?? Other than the floor, which was inexplicably painted over in UV some years ago by the Attractions team. So are we going to get a glowing floor and the rest the room beaming purple? It should be simple. How is this going to improve the ride?

The previous lighting was rushed and poor yes, but this risks being poor in a different way, making the whole ride look like a tanning salon. It will also need the sets to be scenically retreated after many years of scuffing and cheap overpainting, if they want them to look good under blacklight again.

In 1992, it looked a totally different attraction. How come we can't light or paint a dark ride like that anymore?

Well, I won't judge til theyve finished compeltely. New soundtrack could be a very good change to bring back some atmosphere, and getting rid of the £2-budget preshow has been long overdue!
Click to expand...

Looks to me like everything has been washed in Congo Blue.

They probably don't even know what a blacklight is nevermind UV.
 
electricBill said:
It will almost probably be synthesised (most theme park music is today) with no mic'd recording taking place so the studio won't affect it.
Click to expand...

sadly you need a well acoustically treated room to hear detail for a decent mix, also judging by those KRK monitors (designed for dance music) i'm not hopeful....
 
It’s nice to see another UK ride getting a lighting update this year.
 
The duel music in itself was good, and i hope they find a home for it. I like the idea of the exit ramp or shop for its new home.

I am looking forward to see what they do with zoned music. Hope there is not too much overspill into the neighbouring zones.

Sent from my SM-J320FN using Tapatalk
 
The guys doing the work on Duel are reading this topic and no doubt taking on board concerns.

However, rest assured they'll ignore your concerns if you start trading insults.

Sent from my SM-G930F using Tapatalk
 
Just wanted to be clear all my posts are written to be constructive and I am passionate about this, I question poor decisions if I believe they're poor but Im not here to insult anyone. :)

It's a rough diamond that's been in need of a lighting restoration and scenic retreatment for over 20 years. This is surely the last opportunity to make it a show stopper, before it gets changed to Ghostbusters 5D or something!
 
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I don't want to see a blue glowing ride, I hope they iron that out at least.

I liked the Duel audio theme, it was never suited to the ride, but I liked it. Looking forward to seeing what they do with a whole new soundtrack, pretty exciting!

Anything happening to the trommell tunnel? I can't remember the last time that actually worked! I know it needed a fair bit of money spent to fix it, although this seems like the perfect opportunity to do that.
 
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