Jilal

The first thing that comes to my mind is this passage in ROTJ (at 2:32)

They recorded the entire score 263 times?!

Was that really necessary?

Do we know he still plays piano though? Thing is, he's mentioned before he only really needs it for pitch reference and could compose for several hours straight without touching a piano (paraphrasing).

The Desolation of Smaug is on TV and the dialog and SFX are kind of okay, but the music sounds as if it's being blasted through a cardboard box or a cheap speaker. Is this a typical 7.1 downmix issue or something? Our home theatre system is not perfect but things never sound this bad.

Interesting

So what's "sharp" about ß?

There's a difference in the pronunciation of Strauss and Strauß?

In a vague, undefined sort of way? "Make it sound more like JW"? Or more specifically certain techniques of orchestration, chord progressions, etc?

I don't think anybody who has their music processed by JKMS still sketches/composes on paper, besides JW. But don't quote me on this. Besides, the dimensions of the covered sketch score look very much like those of JW's trustworthy Pacific Music Papers pad. So I'd say that's definitely a JW sketch score.

Wasn't the ESB one recorded with JW conducting? If so that's a good reason why it might actually be included on expansion sets.

Because I think he prefers having everyone in the same room, reacting to each others dynamical levels, I believe I remember reading a quote on that somewhere. It also forces one to work with a click track (which The Round-Up was probably recorded with anyway so this doesn't really matter). For WOTW, wasn't the choir for the Intersection Scene digitally processed in some way? That would explain why they where recorded separate.

The existence of a percussion-only recording does not preclude the existence of a "joint" recording and vice-versa. I don't think JW would ever record sections of the orchestra separate with the purpose of combining them later on. But this is just my two cents. I could be wrong. My hypothesis is that several joint takes were made, as well as a percussion-only take.

I don't know what was said in that podcast, but crumbs's find does not sound like what you're describing. If the percussion was recorded together with the rest of the orchestra for the album take(s), then I believe there'd be no way of completely isolating the percussion (without help from AI tools that is). There'd inevitably be some "bleedthrough" from the rest of the orchestra, which I don't hear here. Also, you wouldn't be able to include the Decca tree in the mix, so it would sound way more close-miked than the album take. There are also some noticeable differences between the percussion-only version on YouTube and the album version, especially in the timpani part.

And at 0:53, the melody is passed to what I think is an alto flute Ran this through the MVSEP DnR v3 model which significantly reduces the animal SFX: hunt.mp3 There does seem to be a problem with the separation during the first four seconds though. I've heard about a similar problem with tape hiss reduction. I'd wager the percussion section was recorded simultaneously with the rest of the orchestra for the album take, while this is a different percussion-only take.