Schindler's List - 2CD 25th Anniversary Edition from La-La Land Records (2018)

[Chewy 2,379]

Someone really should compare the tracks with the sessions!

[crumbs 14,302]

The trick is knowing exactly which takes from the sessions the LLL used. I think I already tried lining up the CD2 tracks with the sessions and it wasn't as easy as I expected. 

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

5 hours ago, rough cut said:

Perhaps. But I doubt it. Why wouldn’t they?

 

Why wouldnt they?

 

Up until last year they didnt have a great source material for Die Hard. A film only a couple of years older than SL. 

 

[Jurassic Shark 12,030]

#FirstWorldProblem

[Jay 37,290]

Schindler's List was recorded onto analog tape that is perfectly vaulted at Universal with no issues.  Those original tapes were not pulled to assemble this release; they've probably been sitting in the same place since 1993.  I am sure some day in the future they will be pulled and a fresh and modern high res transfer will be made from those tapes, and a new definitive release will be created from that transfer, but that wasn't possible to do for this release.  I am sure LLL would have funded a transfer of those tapes, and MM would have built two CDs full of music from scratch using it if it were possible, but Williams wanted the OST on disc 1, and MM had to fight to get any kind of bonus tracks release at all, so Mike and I went through the possible alternate/film version cues to present to JW to potentially release on a second disc, and when he heard what Mike put together, he thankfully agreed.  If he hadn't, this would have been a single-disc straight OST reissue (with a new booklet).

I am sorry you are seeing things on a computer screen that you can't hear when listening, but I don't think there's much reason to be so dramatic about it.  It sounds good to me, a definitive proper release will very likely happen in the future, and everybody who worked on this has long since moved on to making many other JW expanded issues happen so I doubt any explanation for what you are seeing here is coming.  And I don't think it'd be possible to "fix" without pulling and transferring those analog tapes anyway, which is a very expensive endeavor nobody can afford to do unless a new CD edition was the reason to do so.  Sorry!

[Jurassic Shark 12,030]

9 minutes ago, Jay said:

If he hadn't, this would have been a single-disc straight OST reissue (with a new booklet).

 

What would the point of that have been, when the original release is still widely available?

[Jay 37,290]

Because Spielberg wanted it?

[Jurassic Shark 12,030]

26 minutes ago, Jay said:

everybody who worked on this has long since moved on to making many other JW expanded issues happen so I doubt any explanation for what you are seeing here is coming.

 

The frequency cutoff is such an obvious thing that those who worked on the audio must have seen it. Mike could be asked to comment on it in the next JWFan interview, to enlighten the curious ones.

 

15 minutes ago, Jay said:

Because Spielberg wanted it?

 

I guess someone forgot to tell him the OST is still in print! 

[Jay 37,290]

I will certainly ask Mike if he wants to make any kind of comment on this "issue", but we have many other more important things to discuss first the next time I talk to him!

[Luke Skywalker 1,792]

Nooooo so i Will have to triple dip on this score?

 

I hope It contains everything then....

 

 

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

27 minutes ago, Jay said:

I am sorry you are seeing things on a computer screen that you can't hear when listening, but I don't think there's much reason to be so dramatic about it. 

 

This is kinda my beef about judging sound quality by looking at a wave form.

[Jurassic Shark 12,030]

Just now, Luke Skywalker said:

Nooooo so i Will have to triple dip on this score?

 

I hope It contains everything then....

 

 

 

Of course it won't!

[Bilbo 3,709]

7 minutes ago, Stefancos said:

 

This is kinda my beef about judging sound quality by looking at a wave form.

 

Same. Why would you even look at a wave form anyway? 

[Jurassic Shark 12,030]

If you're deaf?

[rough cut 1,714]

Thanks @Jay.

 

I am happy with what we got, in terms of extra tracks, less happy that they aren’t 44.1 kHz. 

 

I don’t know why this seems to have been heresy to state considering the fact that it is the industry standard.

 

But I guess it is what it is then - A better source is sitting in a vault, based on JW’s/Spielberg’s reluctance to change the OST, as if it were a historical document. Fair enough.

[Jurassic Shark 12,030]

2 minutes ago, rough cut said:

I am happy with what we got, in terms of extra tracks, less happy that they aren’t 44.1 kHz. 

 

The sample rate is 44.1 kHz. The audio frequency of a CD never reaches 44.1 kHz - the maximum theoretically possible is 44.1 divided by two. *Sigh*

[rough cut 1,714]

On 4/23/2019 at 3:49 PM, Holko said:

That 16kHz cutoff does look pitiful though.

 

We don’t have to do this again. We agree. Or did you change your mind?

[Holko 9,499]

No, but you're confusing the two again. The CD DOES have a 44.1 kHz sampling rate.

 

[rough cut 1,714]

Oh! Yeah, yeah, sorry. I am talking about the cut off.

 

Can we agree on that at least? Or is CD 2 perfect?

[Holko 9,499]

Diplomatically: it sounds much much better than its spectrograph looks.

[crumbs 14,302]

It would be interesting to hear more general technical thoughts from Mike about the varying quality of masters he often has to work with on these catalog releases. No doubt they're often non-ideal.

 

Can frequencies accidentally be scrubbed off during compression, or clipped in an attempt to remove tape hiss? Is there a level of automation that occurs during the scanning process that cleans the audio up, or does Mike handle all that himself with the raw scans? How does he handle the conversion of high resolution multi-track scans into 44.1khz stereo CD audio? Is his editing workflow high definition, and are these releases archived as such for high definition media in the future?

 

The SW demasters are fascinating if you study the spectograms, because you can easily identify flaws in the tracks. I'd love to hear his thoughts on that (but presumably he's not at liberty to talk about those scores atm). And it would be nice to have confirmation about that rumour of some Empire master tapes disintegrating while being scanned for the SEs. I really hope that's just an urban legend! 

[Chewy 2,379]

2 hours ago, Jay said:

we have many other more important things to discuss first the next time I talk to him!

I like those kind of comments

[Jurassic Shark 12,030]

Yes, such as where JW purchases his polo sweaters.

[bollemanneke 3,337]

Or the story behind the fantastic 3-Cd re-issue of Hook.

[Jurassic Shark 12,030]

Are you referring to the bootleg + the OST?

[Bayesian 1,359]

4 hours ago, Jay said:

... everybody who worked on this has long since moved on to making many other JW expanded issues happen ...

 

I feel like this is what everyone should be focusing on! I especially like how Jay uses that word, “many.”

[Jay 37,290]

The man's written a lot of scores!  Gotta expand 'em all!

[bollemanneke 3,337]

1 hour ago, Jurassic Shark said:

Are you referring to the bootleg + the OST?

No, it's just wishful thinking.

[crumbs 14,302]

...just not the Sony ones, bar a small handful.

[Disco Stu 15,495]

Somebody make a “2019 - a year for the books” thread

[Corellian2019 384]

11 hours ago, crumbs said:

And it would be nice to have confirmation about that rumour of some Empire master tapes disintegrating while being scanned for the SEs. I really hope that's just an urban legend! 

 

I think you're referring to the quarter-inch tapes disintegrating as they were being transferred for the Anthology box; that incident is mentioned in page 21 of Chris Malone's article. In any case, they were not the original 24-track tapes, only a copy of the film mixes (the best source at the time, circa 1993).

[Chewy 2,379]

So I compared the track The Perlman Family (from the LLL set) with 10M1 Tk55 (using a MP3-320 rip of the sessions), and as you can see the frequencies on the session rip are not cut at 16 Khz) :

 

So I still don't really know what happened, either Mike did something wrong when editing the tracks or he used another inferior source.

 

And by the way, to me the beginning of I Could Have Done More (Film Version) sounds like a badly compressed MP3, does anyone else have the same feeling?

[Jurassic Shark 12,030]

Interesting! Do we know whether the session leak originates from the analogue or the digital master?

[Chewy 2,379]

I think both the sessions leak and the tracks that appear to be lossy on the LLL set come from the digital master.

 

As you can see, high frequencies look clean which is a typical thing from digital sounds:

[crumbs 14,302]

I was dreading that comparison discovering something like that. So either Mike was given dodgy source material for both Azkaban and Schindler's List, or something in his workflow is creating clipped frequencies. Very disconcerting.

[Jurassic Shark 12,030]

So basically, Mike could have done more.

[Chewy 2,379]

Just now, crumbs said:

I was dreading that comparison discovering something like that. So either Mike was given dodgy source material for both Azkaban and Schindler's List, or something in his workflow is creating clipped frequencies. Very disconcerting.

I doubt this is the same problem as Azkaban. These tracks look and sound like lossy tracks, Azkaban has some frequencies curves but it sounds OK.

Just now, Jurassic Shark said:

So basically, Mike could have done more.

Stop that!

[crumbs 14,302]

I don't envy the position he was in. No doubt everyone at LLL wanted to do fresh scans of the analog master tapes that were reportedly vaulted in mint condition (and would probably have avoided this outcome). Alas, when the composer himself insists on using the existing files (and budgetary factors prevent new scans), things like this happen.

 

It's still utterly bizarre though. Digital files don't degrade; they certainly don't lose frequencies over time. The clipping above 16k seems deliberate?

[Holko 9,499]

Possibly the studio didn't even bother looking for the original, leaked, better digital source and just sent the first clipped batch they could find? Maybe whoever leaked it stole it!

[Jurassic Shark 12,030]

11 minutes ago, crumbs said:

The clipping above 16k seems deliberate?

 

It certainly looks very unprofessional to basically just clip the frequencies instead of applying a gradual fade-off.

[Chewy 2,379]

No one is noticing compressed sound in the beginning of I Could Have Done More (Film Version) ?

[Jurassic Shark 12,030]

Could it be ringing due to the abrupt frequency cutoff?

[Chewy 2,379]

2 minutes ago, Jurassic Shark said:

Could it be ringing due to the abrupt frequency cutoff?

No, just compression artifacts ala MP3 128kbps

[The Illustrious Jerry 3,356]

3 hours ago, Jurassic Shark said:

So basically, Mike could have done more.

This stops now.

[Jurassic Shark 12,030]

Mike: You're gonna need a better producer for the expanded SL set.

JW: I know, Mike baby, but they're all dead.

[bollemanneke 3,337]

6 hours ago, crumbs said:

I don't envy the position he was in. No doubt everyone at LLL wanted to do fresh scans of the analog master tapes that were reportedly vaulted in mint condition (and would probably have avoided this outcome). Alas, when the composer himself insists on using the existing files (and budgetary factors prevent new scans), things like this happen.

 

It's still utterly bizarre though. Digital files don't degrade; they certainly don't lose frequencies over time. The clipping above 16k seems deliberate?

Yeah, but I want to know more about that. Why was the budget so small? Because JW didn't want a remaster? Seriously, who allocates a small budget to Schindler's List re-issues? Who does that? It's mind-boggling.

[Jurassic Shark 12,030]

Yeah, they should have allocated more.

[Unlucky Bastard 7,782]

Something's happening... I'm not the Jedi I'm meant to be... I want more!

[bollemanneke 3,337]

It' Mike's fault. HE'S HOLDING US BACK!

[Jurassic Shark 12,030]

He keeps the best sources to himself.