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Remasters of the First 6 Star Wars Soundtracks now available (Shawn Murphy / Disney Records 2018)


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I gave another go to SW this weekend. From the OT remasters, it's not just the best sounding of the 3, but the best sounding SW release ever.

 

I couldn't help thinking what prevented the original 1977 album to sound great like this...

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1 hour ago, phbart said:

I gave another go to SW this weekend. From the OT remasters, it's not just the best sounding of the 3, but the best sounding SW release ever.

 

I couldn't help thinking what prevented the original 1977 album to sound great like this...

 

The technology just wasn't there yet.

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9 minutes ago, SilverTrumpet said:

What was changed if anything in the prequel soundtracks? I think someone said they added the drums to certain tracks in Revenge of the Sith?

I think it's just Anakin's Dark Deeds that has the film percussion in it. Shame they didn't use the film mix for Enter Lord Vader as well.

2 hours ago, phbart said:

I gave another go to SW this weekend. From the OT remasters, it's not just the best sounding of the 3, but the best sounding SW release ever.

 

I couldn't help thinking what prevented the original 1977 album to sound great like this...

 

The really prominent part of Tie Fighter attack was better on every previous release though, I find it very hit and miss. 

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Just now, aj_vader said:

I think it's just Anakin's Dark Deeds that has the film percussion in it. Shame they didn't use the film mix for Enter Lord Vader as well.

There's the one after the opening title that wasn't on the OST too, right? Is that on there?

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3 minutes ago, SilverTrumpet said:

There's the one after the opening title that wasn't on the OST too, right? Is that on there?

Yes it is, i forgot about that! :) 

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The take used with the percussion overlay for Anakin's Dark Deeds isn't the film version. The film version doesn't have the percussion for the opening with Palpatine's speech, but does include it briefly before that.

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For me who's not as obsessively familiar with the prequel scores (and ROTS in particular), where precisely is the added percussion in "Anakin's Dark Deeds"?

 

EDIT:

Nevermind I hear it now at 0:47

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A yet nobody talked about the flute solo that seems to have been corrected in The Little People...

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18 hours ago, Margo Channing said:

 

The technology just wasn't there yet.

Yes, it was. There are great sounding albums from the 70's, 60's, even 50's. You could argue that the original recording was done poorly, but we know it's definitely not the case here.

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I don't who is to blame for the poor treatment of the tapes of ANH and Empire.

 

The fact that nobody really never cared, the fact that it have an expansion so "early" (in 1993) so everybody think... ok, CHECK.. now, it's done, now. DONE, phewww, we can pass to something else!!!

 

The fact that it changed of owner, from 20th Century to Sony... to Disney.

 

Now we know it, (we hear it), the tapes are so deteriorated that they will never offer us the "sound" we ever dreamed of. That's life.

 

It's just too late.

 

We have to face it.

 

Personnally, I give up. I will stop to expect anything good from these two scores. The best releases of them are behind us.

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Poor treatment of the tapes of ANH and Empire? Apart from the noticeably-worse-sounding TIE Fighter Attack on the newest release, ANH has no sound issues. Most of Empire has never sounded better. Though, I admit we have more reason to be concerned about the condition of the ROTJ tapes. But better mixing, editing, and noise reduction (or lack thereof) should be able to correct most sound/deterioration issues.

 

All signs point to the fact that these 'original album' re-releases were a rushed cash grab attempt by Disney.

 

The next releases will likely have Mr. Matessino in charge. With his talent, professionalism, and perfectionist approach, we should have every confidence that his 'second crack' will be worth the wait... and confidence that the best days of the original recording are ahead.

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Poor used 291st post!

 

I'm sick of all this "hope", seriously!

 

It sounds like it sounds (no, that's not AS BAD as that, but...)

 

Never expect more. Period.

 

Case closed.

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RotJ has always given me the impression it was recorded through someone playing it back on a phonograph and making a another recording of that muffled fuzz.

 

ANH and Empire have been pretty good until now.

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The RCA Victor edition  (aka Sony reissues) of STAR WARS: A NEW HOPE is the only one from the Trilogy expansion cd sets that sounds incredible to me.The mix is identical to the original Eric Tomlinson's mixes. I wonder if that 2cd album master assembly was used to configure the new edition here? 

SWANH.jpg

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Listening through Attack of the Clones, it sounds brilliant, more vibrant and powerful than the original release, although I still maintain that the original set was one of the better sounding one's of the prequel scores. Some of the percussion in Chase through Coruscant and The Arena are strong and come through much better than the original sets, something also tells me they might have spliced/ microedited different takes to the ones used on the original sets. We know they were reconstructed from the masters, but it seems (as is the case with RotS) that one take might sound better than what they had originally used.

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The whole company is based on the philosophy that sound is 50 per cent of the experience, and one of the things that I'm most proud of is the work that both Gary and Ben have done in remastering the soundtrack because the original mix was so complex, so good... but there was no technology to actually hear it. And one thing that George has spent an enormous amount of money to develop a THX system that allows theatres to present films in the way filmmakers actually make them.

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50 minutes ago, Margo Channing said:

The whole company is based on the philosophy that sound is 50 per cent of the experience, and one of the things that I'm most proud of is the work that both Gary and Ben have done in remastering the soundtrack because the original mix was so complex, so good... but there was no technology to actually hear it. And one thing that George has spent an enormous amount of money to develop a THX system that allows theatres to present films in the way filmmakers actually make them.

Still it's a sonic battlefield with the score on one side and the sound effects/design on the other. These days, it doesn't help orchestral music to not just be drowned out by the sound effects, but to be mixed so low that it might as well not be there. There were a few times in The Last Jedi and Justice League where both scores were unfortunately impacted by the abso-fucking-lutely-ridiculous mixing of the sound effects. So many of all the flourishes of TLJ were destroyed by bloody noises of ships and other inane bullshit.

 

RCP have adapted well to this war by having scores that double as sound design and loud enough to penetrate the stormcloud of sound effects.

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The RCA SW is a bit too loud. It suits that score, but the Anthology mix is less fatigueing. The remastering is a pathway to a listening experience some consider to be unnatural.

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I remember a few parts where the score was hindered by the mix, maybe not as much as TFA.

11 hours ago, Not Mr. Big said:

Really?  I thought the in film score mixing in TLJ was excellent.  The best of any post-2010 Williams score

 

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Overall, the TLJ mix treated the score very well, but it wasn’t perfect. For example, most of the music that involved Snoke was barely audible. Williams wrote some excellent music for all the Snoke/Rey/Kylo scenes but the dialogue and sound effects made it hard to be heard. 

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yeah it was the best mixed Williams score since the early 2000's

 

but it still wasn't perfect and some cues you couldn't hear at all

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33 minutes ago, Margo Channing said:

Mark, you're not looking at the background, you're not watching the pods. You're listening to the music.

 

The documentary cuts shortly after, but the raw footage continued:

 

"Haha, that's a good one, George! It's funny 'cause we know you're gonna completely screw over Johnny's music!"

 

"Ha, yeah, fuck that guy."

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On 15/05/2018 at 12:08 PM, Stefancos said:

What is it with that dry Williams/LSO sound in that era.

 

Perhaps one of those bad reverberation units people used to add to their Hi-Fi systems could solve that problem?vwiiutheccjyfu6pqflw.jpg

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19 hours ago, Batman's Diet Coke said:

The RCA SW is a bit too loud. It suits that score, but the Anthology mix is less fatigueing. The remastering is a pathway to a listening experience some consider to be unnatural.

I'm with you on that one. But I think the remaster is even less fatigueing than the Anthology. The RCA 2CD is a very fartigueing listening experience, but it has a perfect editing and sequencing of the complete music.

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