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Harry Potter 7CD Collection - MUSIC discussion


Jay

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I agree about Aragog, but the movie did call for the placement of those HP1 cues. The alternative would be to have It's Guarding Something right after The Moving Stairs, which doesn't work either.

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I think it's OK there but whatever. Maybe I'm just very used to the SonicAdventure edit, many transitions of which I recreated just for familiarity. (Introduction to Quidditch/Hermione's Feather, It's a Basilisk/Ginny is Snatched, etc.)

 

As for Azkaban, much care was taken to handle all the little cues and alternates, some, even out of chronology, work simply brilliantly where they were placed (Up the Stairs/Brief Snow Scene, Befriending/Bonding with Hippogriff), you don't even notice they're alternates of the same thing (The Big Doors back to back), or are just such simple, standalone, outlier perfection that they cannot really be joined with anything else and make sense (The Executioner, Walk to Buckbeak).

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I don't really share the grievances of many users here on the short cues. Many times I edit cues down even further to be separated as they were recorded. To each their own. I've also done some combos on other scores. HP doesn't bother me with the short cues though.

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On 5/17/2019 at 9:09 AM, Docteur Qui said:

Well that’s it really - having the short cues cleanly presented means that anyone with even a very basic knowledge of audio sequencing can edit a listening experience that best suits them. That’s not so easy to do when the cues are already merged into each other 

 

Precisely. 

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Confrontation in the Shrieking Shack, 5:00-5:05, the immediate aftermath of Pettigrew's transformation, what instrument does that weird effect, what do the sheets call for?

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  • 2 weeks later...
On ‎5‎/‎16‎/‎2019 at 8:42 PM, JTWfan77 said:

Would like to see your cue list when it's complete. Will you be omitting anything, that is? Will you use crossfades? I'm assuming you'll be ignoring any alternates?

Well, here you go. I'll probably change track names (or the whole thing) because I'm usually satisfied with my edits for like five seconds, but this is the general idea for now (still need to do alternates):

 

01 Opening
02 Aunt Marge's Big Mistake
03 The Knight Bus Appears
04 A Bumpy Ride
05 The Leaky Cauldron and The Monster Book
06 Discussing Black and The Train to Hogwarts
07 The Dementor
08 Arrival at Hogwarts
09 The Dormitory and Bird's Flight
10 The Grim and The Hippogriff
11 Bonding with Buckbeak
12 The Great Hall
13 Boggarts
14 Remembering Family
15 Flight of the Fat Lady
16 Quidditch
17 In The Forest
18 To Honeydukes
19 The Snowball Fight and A Winter's Spell
20 The Three Broomsticks
21 Expecto Patronum
22 The Courtyard and Buckbeak's Fate
23 Peter Pettigrew
24 The Crystal Ball
25 Buckbeak's Sentence
26 The Aftermath and The Shrieking Shack
27 Sirius and Harry
28 The Werewolf Scene
29 The Dementors Appear
30 The Time-Turner
31 Running from Lupin
32 Changing the Past
33 Rescueing Sirius
34 Sirius Leaves
35 Did What
36 Lupin's Departure
37 A New Broomstick and End Credits
 

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CC's review of the Sorceror's Stone extended set. He's generally quite dismissive of it!

 

http://www.filmtracks.com/titles/harry_potter.html

 

Quote

Speculation about an expanded album was rampant in 2001... That expanded issue did not arrive until 2018, however, and that fact was more likely due to Williams' own satisfaction with the mostly comprehensive nature of the first release rather than any fault of the music or film's popularity. This circumstance didn't stop fans from bootlegging decent-sounding expanded versions of the score, usually including an excess of 100 minutes of material and spanning two CDs. While the addition of the film version of "End Credits" is nice to hear, the 9-minute piece is nothing more than a merging of the concert arrangements from the score. Most of the additional material is redundant; unlike later entries in the franchise, this score's original album wasn't missing any flagrantly obvious cues of greatness. Some of the actively traded bootlegs pushed the running time out to complete levels, though artifacts in sound quality were sometimes an issue. The commercial product provided more than enough music to satisfy most listeners and remains proof that Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone is, despite its minor flaws, an underrated modern classic in Williams' career.

 

Quote

This 134-minute experience can be a bit laborious in its entirety, though enthusiasts of the score will finally receive the two themes of evil, for the stone and Voldemort, in their complete development. Source-like cues such as "Cast a Christmas Spell," with the singing ghosts over electronic ambience, is a detriment to the listening experience, and sound effects like the blowing of wind in "Hermione's Feather" sometimes interject. Newly released action material like "Fighting the Troll" is somewhat non-descript.

 

These comments lead me to believe that CC is a non-believer in Harry Potter. That is betrayed by his earlier 4 star rating for this score that was only later upgraded to a 5 star rating. He also betrays his unfamiliarity with the score to claim that not much was missing from the commercial album. So much material was left off, many major cues which contained the proper development of many themes.

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I think CC is actually Thor in disguise.

 

I've never understood this presumption that because the album presentation was missing cues and was a good listening experience that it makes expansions redundant. What one calls a 'good' listening experience is going to be different for another.

 

In SS there were small moments that were evocative of the magic of the film that were left off the album that made me pine for those cues to be released. 

 

Listening experience should be taken into consideration in critiquing the score - there's no arguments against that, but shouldn't more consideration be given to how the score works in its context as a score? Which is why I find this strange from CC who will flip flop between the two on personal bias.

 

I don't understand this dismissal of expanded sets which are presenting the music we fell in love with in the beginning...

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Well, the complete HP score is quite long. Not everyone wants to listen to this stuff for 2+ hours. I don't even have the time for it. I think the original album is very good.

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5 hours ago, Dieter Stark said:

Well, the complete HP score is quite long. Not everyone wants to listen to this stuff for 2+ hours. I don't even have the time for it. I think the original album is very good.

I don't think I've ever listened to a score back to back in one sitting (outside of the film, of course). I've listened to Fellowship of the Ring over the course of a day, but most of my listening experience is just listening to cues or tracks from a selection of films etc.

 

 

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8 hours ago, Arpy said:

I think CC is actually Thor in disguise.

 

I've never understood this presumption that because the album presentation was missing cues and was a good listening experience that it makes expansions redundant. What one calls a 'good' listening experience is going to be different for another.

 

In SS there were small moments that were evocative of the magic of the film that were left off the album that made me pine for those cues to be released. 

 

Listening experience should be taken into consideration in critiquing the score - there's no arguments against that, but shouldn't more consideration be given to how the score works in its context as a score? Which is why I find this strange from CC who will flip flop between the two on personal bias.

 

I don't understand this dismissal of expanded sets which are presenting the music we fell in love with in the beginning...

 

Meh, there will always be some people who prefer a tight, focused presentation of a given score over one that includes as much awesomeness as possible. I usually disagree - especially for scores like these! - but even I have a few other scores that I really only need in OST form. It's fine as long as both options keep being made available to us as consumers, so we can make the choice whether we want to hear the soundtrack album or the film score.

 

I must admit, though, the fact that he starts off by talking about the end credits is baffling to me. And, like...sorry Williams wrote wind sounds into a few moments in the score? 😋

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9 hours ago, Arpy said:

Listening experience should be taken into consideration in critiquing the score - there's no arguments against that, but shouldn't more consideration be given to how the score works in its context as a score?

 

Not if reviewing an album release, which is supposed to work on its own as a listening experience.

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57 minutes ago, Chewy said:

Reading white text on white background isn't very pleasant. Has Filmtracks style been updated since the late 90s?

You mean white on black?

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7 hours ago, Datameister said:

Yeah I can't read that site without highlighting all the text to quasi-invert the colors. White on black starts really messing with my eyes within seconds.

There is the option to read the reviews in printer friendly view, which inverts the colours.

image.png

Which looks like this:

image.png

 

 

 

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Read the whole review now, end credits. I don't agree with this 'OST is enough' approach, end credits. Why the obsession with the end credits, end credits? And what's so unlistenable about Hogwarts Forever, end credits?

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With the case of HPSS, the OST is actually more than enough, and a little repetitive for me.  The OSTs have turned out to be enough for me for CoS and PoA.  I could probably pick two or three stand-out tracks from each score in the boxset to add to the OSTs.

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1 hour ago, Jurassic Shark said:

Finally, you guys have understood it!

Filmtracks.com helped me face the reality, thanks CC!

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  • 2 weeks later...

CC has now updated his HP2 review and had to overhaul it completely because he stupidly decided not to watch the movie and only review the OST in 2002, more proof that OSTs really are good for nothing. He also still says Lockhart's track is unlistenable, doesn't understand why the tracked Voldemort reveal wasn't on the LLL set and even claims the HP2 opening music has a unique version on the OST.

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Because unchronological presentations that omit half of a score's material are unnecessary and in this case completely distort the score. You don't read sections of a novel either, nor do you watch random scenes from movies.

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