206 replies to this topic

[Luke Skywalker]

But the thing is, final cues are always made up of several takes. As we probably all know, the Main Title from Star Wars was comprised of 3 out of 5 takes recorded.

Mmm i had never read that.

Do you mean the SW (now ANH) main title was made editorially, like for example, the main titles of Superman?

I always thought williams composed several variations and they chose one...

[gkgyver]

As I understand it, for the final cue only parts of several takes are used and edited together. For instance the trumpets from take 2 and the violas from take 1.

Wrong?

[Mr. Breathmask]

But the thing is, final cues are always made up of several takes. As we probably all know, the Main Title from Star Wars was comprised of 3 out of 5 takes recorded.

Mmm i had never read that.

It's in the SE liner notes:

As a special bonus, all five recorded takes of the Main Title are presented at the end of track 13 on Compact Disc One.  At the conclusion of "Binary Sunset (alternate)," two minutes and forty-five seconds of silence precedes the continuous presentation of takes 16 through 20, complete with slate numbers and incidental noise.  Take 16 has particular historical value, as it is the world's first recording of the Star Wars theme.  In it the wind section provides prominent flourish, which was then toned down in take 17 after Williams and Lucas evaluated the playback. The addition of brass to the second half of the cue distinguishes takes 18, 19, and 20, portions of which wre utilized to create the edited Main Title as heard on track 2 and in the film.

- Marc

[Luke Skywalker]

So the best performance IMO, and the one i like best is... a fu***ng edit?!?

[Mr. Breathmask]

Yes. It's the best of three seperate takes put together. It's how creating a film score usually works, you know.

[Luke Skywalker]

F**K.

Note: I own the official SEs CD with booklets, i swear. I must have selective-read that paragraph, since i dont remember at all the last sentence...

Luke, hating 'Star Wars Main Title and Rebel Blockade Runner' right now. Hey Lucas, couldnt' you have spent some fri**in' $$$$ re-recording the cue as you liked?? U phukin' sux!

wow, i hope the anger is off tomorrow..., this cannot be good for my inner programming...

Luke, going to re-hear all the actual recorded main titles and maybe decide again which one is the best...

[Trent Bennett]

Getting all upset over the way how the Main Title for Star Wars was edited? :roll:

As Spock would say.. "Totally illogical".

[John Crichton]

I beleive that if you read the chart at the end of the ANH SE you'll find that the vast majority of final cues are taken from multiple takes. As Marc said, it's the way it's done. In fact, it's just like filming the movie itself.

[gkgyver]

Are these five takes present on the 2004 Sony release? I always wondered why Binary Sunset (alternate) was running for 16 minutes. I've never checked it out.

I'll do it right now.

[Luke Skywalker]

I had never realised this...

I never thought they would mix several instrument soundtracks from different performances to make a 'new' one. I just thought they may record some parts sepparately and add them later, but always intended them.

Shocking news.

The more i learn, the more i realise the little i know...

But well i suppose i dont want to know what the prequels have appart from the ovious cut and paste of whole cues...

Are these five takes present on the 2004 Sony release? I always wondered why Binary Sunset (alternate) was running for 16 minutes. I've never checked it out.

I'll do it right now.

yes, if its that long, then it features it.

[GoodMusician]

So in essence... any release will have been edited together... no matter what

[king mark]

Unless we got the recording session cues.That would be the ultimate for me.

K.M.

[Vaderbait1]

Having all the recording sessions would be excessive and messy. I say, give us the complete scores and the alternates, but keep non-essential recording sessions off.

[Marian Schedenig]

Yes. It's the best of three seperate takes put together. It's how creating a film score usually works, you know.

Not just film scores. It's also the way classical recordings are normally created (at times, particularly in older recordings, you can actually hear the edits). Even most live recordings are done that way, edited together from several performances of the concert, to replace the minor flaws that inevitably happen in live performances.

Actually... one thing I don't understand... With the LOTR Dvd - why didn't they place all the alternate cues and all of the alt recordings, etc on the dvd? It's not like they were short on room...  Then you could choose an option to listen to the complete score... Or goto a menu and listen to it...

There's 2 GB of space left on the disc, so perhaps it would have been possible. But I guess there are several arguments against it: Only people with DVD players could play that content, so all the others would complain. We don't know how many alternates there are, so we don't know how much space would be needed (though the regular talk about "a special alternates disc" makes it sound like the important ones would fit on one disc). TTT, or at least ROTK, may be longer than FOTR, and need the entire space on the DVD - what would people say when they had to leave out the alternates on those scores after they had included them with FOTR? And finally - we might have been waiting several months longer if they had more material to work with.[/url]

[Luke Skywalker]

So i suppose the cymbal clash edit in the imperial march is a side effect of this.

Really, i thought they re-hearsed the cue and when they got it right, it was recorded. Not that they recorded everything and choose the best part of every recording.

But well, if it has always been that way, i think it is useless for me to be upset, or complain about.

[Lurker]

So i suppose the cymbal clash edit in the imperial march is a side effect of this.

Yep.

Neil

[Luke Skywalker]

mm In luke and Leia there is some string jump that always bugged me.

I suppose that was editorial too :/

[tpigeon]

Yes there is. It's the most blatant blemish on any of the special edition soundtracks.

[king mark]

Never noticed that.

k.M.

[GoodMusician]

what about the edits on ROTJ? I'd always assumed they were because of obmissions... but they may be ebcause of editing...

I believe that "Battle for Endor III" has one in the last few moments during the horn fanfare...

I just dont understand why they would merge two blatantly different versions... I mean, they should merge them if there is a problem with a performance, but not two versions that are quite different in that regard... seems... to only lessen the overall experience rather than enhance it...

I guess the technology has changed enough that now, I can merge tracks at home better than they could in the studio..

[ChrisAfonso]

As I understand it, for the final cue only parts of several takes are used and edited together. For instance the trumpets from take 2 and the violas from take 1.

Wrong?

Just a little note, I'm quite positive that this doesn't happen (usually). Cutting the music is like cutting the film, in a chronological kind of way, not cutting the performance of one actor out and pasting it into another take together with the performance of another actor there... (hey, don't start one bluescreen etc., that's a different matter, comparable to overdubs).

[Delorean90]

what about the edits on ROTJ? I'd always assumed they were because of obmissions... but they may be ebcause of editing...

I believe that "Battle for Endor III" has one in the last few moments during the horn fanfare...

Where is that at? The edit in "The Fleet Enters Hyperspace" is a little rough, too.

[NewRisingSun]

A rerelease of the original trilogy soundtracks would be welcome if it had major enhancements over previous releases. What I would like to see:

[list] to two channels, thus a loss of depth and separation. A CD can never carry an original "film mix" because a film mix usually has at least three channels (left-center-right).

Previous soundtrack releases performed this reduction in different ways: the original 1977 release mixed the center channel at approx. minus 3 dB (^=at 70%) --- Tomlinson: "diminishing the centre track a little bit - and you've got your two-track" --- into the left and right channels, whereas the Anthology and SE mix the center at approx. minus 6 dB (^=at 50%). Since the center carries direct timpani and woodwinds plus string and brass reflections, this is one reason why the later releases have quieter timpani and drier sound than the original album release.
[*]No dynamics compression, multiband or otherwise. Please! You're not mastering a Britney Spears CD.
[*]Original Tomlinson live mixes for all tracks. This should not be too hard, as they all seem to be available, as seen in the Special Edition (although it's unclear why Risner remixed some of the ESB cues).
[*]Proper Kenneth Wannberg edits of the best takes. The Special Edition got this *mostly* right, except for the start of "Imperial Attack" and "End Title". (Supposedly they used Wannberg's original paperwork --- either they didn't follow it properly, or the paperwork was incomplete in those cases.)
Ideally, his edits would be re-done in digital to prevent the kind of clicks and dropouts heard in ESB's End Title and ROTJ's "Brother and Sister".
[*]No editing otherwise.
[*]Every recorded cue on a seperate track. If that means the album has 40+ tracks, so be it --- I have Japanese CDs that seem to have no problem with this. Yes, I also want to hear the "Throne Room" seperate from the "End Title" --- the End Title's beginning sounds really cool without the last note from "Throne Room". Anyone who wants to hear them together can always edit them together by himself, or listen to the film or previous releases.
[*]Original cue names found on the conductor's score, not renamed ones.
[*]And of course all cues, including the Max Reebo and Lapti Nek cues. Alternate versions/take only if they are fundamentally different, like "Binary Sunset". No need to include all eight takes (98-105) of "The Trash Compactor"
[list]

(1) will of course only be possible with SACD or DVD-Audio. I personally prefer SACD, as creating a hybrid CD-DA/SACD will reach a wider audience. I think they already did an SACD version of E.T., so this should be not out of the question.

[mattmane]

Sounds good to me - or it would, should something as good as what you descibed ever make it into our (SA)CD players.

Come on Lucas and Sony! What are you waiting for? Oh, yeh - every opportunity to make more money from self-serving film/score releases.

[GoodMusician]

The source music would be nice, but it is my understanding that the masters to ROTJ were lost or irecoverably damaged. All they had to go on were copies made of the masters for editing the prior releases... hence why little material outside of the prior releases is on the SE... and why that which isn't on a prior release sounds bad.

Personally, I agree with everything except 1.

I think that since ROTJ sounds so bad...and is so far gone, they should call in John Williams and the LSO to re-record the score. It's not like he's busy right now...

And what irks me is that they called them in to record new music for ROTJ anyways, but didn't bother to have them re-record ths score. What? You couldn't keep them in the studio for a few days longer?

That way, ROTJ would have a proper sounding release and would be a definate release. They should re-record everything... including alternates and unused moments. Inserts and whatnot.

As far as Lapti Nek goes, it would seem that Joseph Williams has lost most of those tracks... The Rebo Band songs, I'm told, are lost forever as is the film version of Lapti Nek.

But I have some nice edits of Latpi Nek... so if they don't release that it's ok... but I would love for the Rebo Band songs to be found and released... or even re-recorded like they had originally been done... (authentic instruments).

[Stefancos]

The source music would be nice, but it is my understanding that the masters to ROTJ were lost or irecoverably damaged. All they had to go on were copies made of the masters for editing the prior releases... hence why little material outside of the prior releases is on the SE... and why that which isn't on a prior release sounds bad.

This makes absolutely no sense.

Many or all of the ROTJ cues on the 4 CD anthology sound better then the same cues released a few years later on the ROTJ SE.
The same can be said for the original CD release.

Also I believe Ford A. Thaxton once commented that a superiour source of ROTJ recordings was found after the SE's were done.

There is absolutely no factual basis for your assumption at this time, and I would like to stop this turning into another stupid Internet rumour (like the dumb TOD Mastertapes are lost forever shit we have been suffering through.)

[GoodMusician]

I'm sorry... I wasn't trying to start any rhumors.

It's what I was told and it made sense. But as you said, the true masters were found after the release, so there is some truth to what I was told.

Yes, the original material from the Anthology sound better, but the problem, as explained to me, was that since they were copies of the masters, the quality is somewhat lost. And then when they went back and "Digitally Remastered" them, they used the copies of the masters...

But eaither way, the point is, Rotj sounds like shit... if they found the masters, then they need to release that music in this set... not the stuff they've released before...

[king mark]

Well,they must have found a better source for RotJ,since Light of the Force sounds great on the RotS bonus DVD.

K.M.

[Stefancos]

I'm sorry... I wasn't trying to start any rhumors.  

It's what I was told and it made sense. But as you said, the true masters were found after the release, so there is some truth to what I was told.

They were working from inferiour material for the ROTJ SE. As for the state of the masters I don't know, it was a post by Ford Thaxton and it was a few years ago (I tend to take Fords comments with a grain of salt most of the time)

Yes, the original material from the Anthology sound better, but the problem, as explained to me, was that since they were copies of the masters, the quality is somewhat lost. And then when they went back and "Digitally Remastered" them, they used the copies of the masters...

Explained to yiu by whom?

But eaither way, the point is, Rotj sounds like shit... if they found the masters, then they need to release that music in this set... not the stuff they've released before...

All 3 scores could do with a severe nip tuck if they were ever going to get the SACD treatment.
However they still won't sound brilliant. Blame Eric Tomlinson for that.

[NewRisingSun]

Actually I always thought Tomlinson's recordings were "brilliant-sounding" --- while there were some flaws, as in tape hiss and overmodulation, he always managed to make it sound exciting and punchy, and that's what counts. No single rerecording, be it Charles Gerhardt's or Erich Kunzel's, or Williams' himself with Murphy engineering, manages to do that --- they all sound muddy, lightweight and just too... "ballet-like". In fact, the "Skywalker Symphony" recording, with Murphy as "Balance Engineer" ranks among the worst versions I have heard.
Had Murphy rerecorded ROTJ completely during the "Victory Celebration" session, I'm sure I would have hated it.
Also with regards to point 1 in my list, keep in mind that none of the soundtrack releases present the music as it was originally mixed.

It's what I was told

Who exactly told you this about the lost tapes? Chris Malone's article suggests bad Azimuth alignment as well as bad Dolby A calibration as reasons why ROTJ SE sounds so bad, and that explanation makes a lot more sense. To me, ROTJ SE basically sounds like the Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade bootleg (minus the denoise artifacts), and since those tapes aren't lost, I would assume the same kind of incompetence in the ROTJ SE case as was in the LC bootleg case.
Also, while using a copy of a copy does degrade the quality, it's nowhere as bad as losing almost all frequencies above 8 Khz.

[Joey]

Hey its almost September which means 8 more months until this puppy!

[king mark]

I hope we know what's on it before that


K.M.

[Mark Olivarez]

Hey its almost September which means 8 more months until this puppy!

[gkgyver]

Cherish every day without details ...

[king mark]

The only thing I want from the OT is RotJ in pristine sound.I really want to hear all the stuff going on in Dark Side Beckons.It 's a shame that some techincian back in 1997 didn't flip the switch to Dolby A properly or whatever and ruined the sound for everyone.


K.M.

[Charlie_Varley]

Whilst I agree with most of NewRisingSun's suggestions, I think that the ultimate sounding versions of the Original Trilogy scores can be met by adopting the following simple points:

1.) Use the original film mixes – no extra reverb or trickery

2.) Involve Eric Tomlinson – he would no doubt appreciate being involved

3.) Let Steve Hoffman master – only the best will do

4.) Issue hybrid SACDs – LCR 3-track would be nice but 2-channel would also be quite acceptable

I would then be confident that the end result would be an awesome treat for the ears, with point #3 being the salient one. Those who like dynamic range limiting and are scared of tape hiss can continue to listen to their dehissed, muffled sounding, slammed 1997 ROTJ Special Edition discs!

[Stefancos]

2.) Involve Eric Tomlinson – he would no doubt appreciate being involved

Please no, he's ruined Star Wars enough!

[NewRisingSun]

Heh, that's the way I feel about Sean Murphy.

[Mark Olivarez]

It's "Shawn" Murphy.