How do you like your soundtracks?

[Hellgi 0]

Hey there,

we're working on a soundtrack album for a yet-to-be-released movie, and I'm wondering what "soundtrack geeks" prefer.

To me, there's basically two types of soundtracks:

1- The "Thomas Newman" soundtrack, with a lot of short, usually non-edited, tracks

2- The "John Williams" soundtrack, usually containing about 15 tracks, oftentimes with cues edited together (even sometimes *heavily* edited together)

And then there's of course soundtracks "in between", with some short (non-edited) and long (edited) cues.

I'd like to know what you guys prefer. Not that this will necessarily change what we do for the album in the end, but I'd like to know anyway, if not simply out of curiosity.

Hellgi

[Koray Savas 2,251]

I voted the third option. I don't like a lot of shorter cues on a release because then there really isn't a definitive track I can go back too. Similarly with albums that have lots of longer cues, sometimes they are too long for me to sit down and listen to it all. I love Roar!, and listened to it like hell when it was first released, but 12 minutes is a lot. A nice mixture of average to longer track lengths is an ideal album release, but that's just me.

[Richard Penna 3,694]

Definitely a mixture. I'm having trouble getting into Wall-E because of how fragmented it is, but then some Zimmer/Horner scores have 15 minute cues.

Obviously it depends on the movie, but I always prefer the largest amount of score possible to present, with any smaller tracks (< 1 min) edited together if it works for a listening experience. It's critical music left off the album, and pointless microedits that I hate the most, and it seems that it's JW albums that offend the most in this area.

And why not do more 2-disc releases?

[Ollie 1,059]

#3

[mahler3 478]

#3

I second that emotion!

[MrScratch 294]

Every score is different, there is no one single option that is best for all soundtracks. A lot of long tracks made up of various cues work tremendously well, but of course some don't.

[BurgaFlippinMan 7]

I'm not particularly fond of tracks where its two cues from very different parts of the movie edited together. I also don't mind long cues like The Battle of Hoth. I voted 3.

[Trent Hoyt 13]

I like the album to have fewer tracks on it. The more tracks the album has the less any of them really stand out to me. I'm thinking of Star Trek II and Apollo 13 has great examples.

[BurgaFlippinMan 7]

I dont mind shorter albums if the none of the good stuff are left off it.

[Trent Hoyt 13]

I find that I generally will listen to the shorter albums more. I'm less likely to get distracted with them.

[Red 75]

A mixture of the two.

[Henry B 50]

I usually don't like out-of-order editing. Tracks like "The Battle of Hoth" are great, as they are presented as written. Even though it's made up of many individually recorded cues, it's just one extended musical piece. Tracks like "The Droid Invasion and the Appearance of Darth Maul" are just the opposite; cues culled from all over the score and artificially stitched together into a Frankenstein monster of a track.

[John Crichton 4]

Generally whatever gets you closest to a proper chronological presentation with a minimum of resequencing. Or none, preferably. I guess that'd be #3.

[BLUMENKOHL 1,068]

If it logically makes sense to tie multiple pieces together in chronological order, I'm all for it. If it's done John Williams style, it can go to hell.

I vote #3.

[Marian Schedenig 8,207]

#1, with reservations. Because the length of the unedited tracks ultimately depends on the score. If you take Williams' unedited tracks, you'll still end of with mostly lengthier cues, and all the editing won't give you long, continuous (!) tracks for a typical Thomas Newman score.

"Grouping" several short cues together as in the finale of Home Alone is fine when they're too short on their own and basically form a longer sequence anyway, but that still doesn't have to involve much editing.

[MSM 126]

Who's Thomas Newman?

[Henry B 50]

...

[Red 75]

Who's Thomas Newman?

You must be joking.

Good one, MSM!

[Henry B 50]

MSM says the funniest things.

[Red 75]

You know, for a second there he almost had me. Almost.

[JoeinAR 1,949]

How do you like your soundtracks?

with cheese and chili

[Ollie 1,059]

Wow it took this long for someone to give that answer.

[Williamsfan301 11]

I like mine medium rare, with melted bleu cheese on top smothered in melted but and a side of twice baked potatoes!

[Pieter Boelen 740]

I don't really like dozens of short tracks and don't mind them being edited together, provided that they work well together and are not re-ordered in a nonsensical way.