Richard Penna

I rather like that slightly retro sound he's gone for. If I had a note of improvement, it would be to ditch the typical RCP rhythm under the theme a minute or so in, and little to distinguish it from most other Djawadi pieces - zero effort for originality there. The bridge section from 1:50 is rather nice too, and the build-up to the theme again at 2:50 is nice. Overall it's a piece that's memorable enough to replay it quite a lot, and I'll give the whole thing a listen when it's out.

Then it's good this isn't a car maintainance forum

CDs won't risk killing you in an accident if something about them is not 100% correct. (I now realise my previous comment was a bit flippant from a safety perspective ) I realise this view is not shared by many, but I'd rather the labels focused on getting new releases out, and not on trying to fix every little last issue which often pertain just to making people feel like they have a 'technically' flawless product. Note that I am not defending every error they make. Some are genuine problems which interrupt listening, and I hope the label producers make notes to check more carefully for some of those that crop up more often.

If your car was running happily and to your satisfaction, and it took someone with specialist knowleddge to point out that something was wrong, do those things matter?

I've compared the two versions of Buckbeak's Flight, and I can perhaps feel something more going on in the 'fixed' version, but it could just as easily be confirmation bias. It's very difficult to know when not doing it blindly and when believing that one may be better. Which does bring me to a point to ponder.... whoever first opened these files and looked at the frequency view... what were they looking for exactly? Not once have I ever opened up a music track in that view, because as long as I play it and it sounds good, what reason is there to think anything's wrong? I also base this on the fact that not every recording is perfect. And that's why these perceived issues are getting annoying to read about, because it feels like rather than just receiving a set, playing and enjoying it, people are forensically interrogating it, and upon finding anything that's technically not quite as it *could* be, crying foul that their favourite composer has been disrespected, even if the issue is audibly hard to hear (or impossible to).

https://www.filmscoremonthly.com/board/posts.cfm?threadID=145575&forumID=1&archive=0

The theme is ok, a bit better than a typical RCP theme. More interesting stuff going on with the chords and in the middle section than the actual primary melody, although it's not unmemorable - just has somewhat of a videogame quality to me. The second track to me is a perfectly pleasant, but not particularly remarkable bit of choral/string writing. Although both are better than I would generally expect from Djawadi, so there's that.

My sole exposure to any of these films or scores is an 8-minute suite from The Ten Commandments from Silva's Epics compilation. Not a lot of choice that I can think of in the modern era either - Prince of Egypt, the Mummy scores (my top spot), and Gods of Egypt.

I sort of enjoyed the film as a cinematic experience - I went the whole way with a coke and popcorn - but ultimately felt a bit let down by it, and certainly the ending with the flying saucer had me open mouthed, not in a good way. It didn't help that I was desperate for a pee by that point

Something we learnt from the Sleepy Hollow release is that 'film version' labels can mean very little when it comes to what's actually in the film. They likely started from that, but what the music editors then did is anyones guess. It can be immensely frustrating to someone like me who gets strongly attached to how music sounds in the film, but of course the labels are doing their job of presenting the score as intended.

I think their website was actually updated a few years ago, it's just their method of playing samples that's antiquated.

I'd love option A, because then we would know what to stop bitching about, but I suspect the labels wouldn't love the resultant messages and questions about something that's not out for months. I got very lucky in the 3rd Q of this year, with my top grail (see <<<<<<<) and two others on my 'most wanted' list ticked off, and I got a handful of older ones I haven't listened to properly, so either way, this has been a kick-ass year. In some ways not knowing is more fun.... what could someone be working on/editing/mastering right now which in a few weeks/months give me the same 'woah!!!' reaction?

I look at how the five BFs from 2019 backwards looked like from a JW perspective, and can't help but think that those yearning for that to be sustained are setting themselves up for disappointment. In my little world, I'm hoping that the post someone made at the Intrada forum regarding Gladiator supposedly being a long delayed LLL title has some truth to it, and that we might see that in the coming months. I'd love to see The Terminal done properly at some point too, but it can't all be about Williams.

I like MV's refreshing honesty with these matters, as it's pretty clear what he thinks. I don't mean to excuse the labels from any and all mistakes, but can you imagine toiling away at releases, only to have a fan forum demand you spend precious funds re-pressing some CDs because somewhere along the line, a producer used elements that happened to lack frequencies that no one can hear? I had trouble ripping one track from Intrada's Alive (had a gap in the middle of it), then I just tried a different ripper program; problem solved. I swear that's criteria for someone, somewhere to demand a repressing, because they imagine it must indicate a flaw in the disc.

Fully with you on the SL front, if it's audibly inferior. Frequency, or inaudible issues are where it gets muddier for me, because it's harder to place the point at which a product is defective. If some audio-techy person (I'm techy, but not in audio) hadn't looked at the music in an editor and seen that frequencies were missing, no one would be discussing this, because to our ears it sounds fine. And again it comes down to this being a highly speciality product where we're literally trying to find flaws, or anything that makes it 'imperfect', even if it doesn't in any way affect our enjoyment. I just wonder how minor or unnoticeable these flaws have to be with someone deep down still wanting a replacement. Apparently Varese's recent Dante's Peak release came from a new tape scan as it has a higher frequency range than a DAT contained. Quite what this means .... I have no idea. Had they used the DAT and not mentioned it, I'd be none the wiser. Hence my point that if it takes a specialist to point out some theoretical technical issue... does it really matter?