Intrada Will Release Poledouris' Conan The Barbarian and Conan The Destroyer

[Wojo 2,455]

It's the single greatest score ever written...

...to accompany an Arnold Schwarzenegger motion picture.

It deserves a wide range of album presentations.

[scallenger 494]

I dunno about that, wojo, I love me some Total Recall.

[Brónach 1,304]

I'm eager to have an awesome super duper presentation combining Tadlow's and Intrada's.

[Luke Skywalker 1,882]

I wonder how many Tadlow albums will end up cheap on the used market after Intrada debuts their version.

I hope people appreciate the re-recordings as a fresh interpretations of the music and no something to hold on to while waiting for the original tracks to be released.

specially these two works, where the re-recording are the composer's intended vision (orchestra size, etc...)

i'm sure he got the best out of the film orchestras, but budgets and time constraints did not let him fullfill his vision. that's why it is important.

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,338]

This is great. Soon we will complete re-recording AND complete original recordings of all 3 of Poledouris Conan scores!

[Jay 38,291]

Roger:

This project just keeps sounding better! It will no doubt be a highlight in your MAF series.

Yes, especially when you consider people have only heard the film in mono or albums taken from 1/4" masters. This will be the first time anyone has heard the original tracks remixed from 24-track.

[Luke Skywalker 1,882]

and since its not a Williams score, all will be preserved in pristine condition, no film stems!

[Jay 38,291]

It does seem like masters to Williams recordings go missing more than any other composer

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,338]

What case, other then a part of Hook are you referring too?

[Luke Skywalker 1,882]

Family plot, Poseidon Adventure, Midway, Temple of Doom?, BLack Sunday, How To steal a million, Towering Inferno...

and I think monsignor and Spacecamp were not expanded because only LP mixes were found.

[Jay 38,291]

Return of the Jedi & Jane Eyre are 2 that immediately come to mind

[Luke Skywalker 1,882]

Oh my Jane eyre is lost? damn. didnt knew that one.

[Joe Brausam 216]

I think Space Camp was not expanded due to some rights issue, if I remember correctly.

And apparently the Monsignor LP actually has more music than is in the film, but I do think the film had one or two cues that didn't appear on the album.

[TheTennisBallKid 17]

Monsignor had rights issues, too, I think.

I recall Nick Redman posting that he had the recording sessions with terrific sound.

[Luke Skywalker 1,882]

I recall Nick Redman posting that he had the recording sessions with terrific sound.

humpf!!!

, if i were him, I would either:

a) fuck the shut up

or

b) accidentally leave it in my sharing folder of your prefered sharing program. or something.

I prefer the latter

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,338]

Family plot, Poseidon Adventure, Midway, Temple of Doom?, BLack Sunday, How To steal a million, Towering Inferno...

What?

[Luke Skywalker 1,882]

Family plot, Poseidon Adventure, Midway, Temple of Doom?, BLack Sunday, How To steal a million, Towering Inferno...

What?

Family plot: mono

Poseidon adventure: mono

Midway: several track film stems

Temple of doom: speed issues, maybe due to tape damage

Black sunday: missing source music

How to steal a million: film score in mono

Towering inferno: damaged tracks

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,338]

Who gives a shit about Black Sunday source music. And i doubt there is anything seriously wrong with the TOD masters.(Concords Raiders has some speed issues too, right?).

The Towering Inferno sounds fine and all the others are not top shelve JW scores.

Was Family Plot mono? Good thing i passed....

[Luke Skywalker 1,882]

the towering inferno bonus tracks 3-4 of them are damaged and that why they are apart from the main score.

Every score can be a top shelver for anyone

[crocodile 8,290]

Family Plot actually sounds fine to me.

Karol

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,338]

Return of the Jedi & Jane Eyre are 2 that immediately come to mind

Isnt a better source for ROTJ available now? They just didnt have access to it for the SE's.

[Jay 38,291]

The sail barge source music is lost to time

[crocodile 8,290]

Yeah, same for the original SW. The DVD attatched to ROTS seems to indicate that.

Karol

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,338]

The ROTJ cues from the 1993 anthology sounded better then the 97 release. So a better source has always been out there.

[The Great Gonzales 5,817]

Towering inferno: damaged tracks

And missing tracks.

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,338]

Pish posh!

[Jilal 569]

The sail barge source music is lost to time

It isn't. The master tapes weren't lost.

They transferred them in 2007 for the Blu-Rays.

The ROTJ cues from the 1993 anthology sounded better then the 97 release. So a better source has always been out there.

The Old Republic has some cues that sound better than the 1997 release (same goes for The Force Unleashed).

[Jay 38,291]

Roger Feigelson has revealed to our very own Olivier Soude (EhTar) that Intrada's Conan The Barbarian set will be 3 discs

For Conan The Barbarian, the master is done. It’s three CDs and it’s truly complete: it contains everything, including alternates and the original album program. It’s assembled from the 24-track masters, which have never been heard before. All previous album releases came from ¼” masters, and the movie is in mono. So there are details in the music that have never been heard before. At least not unless you were there live for the recording. For Conan The Destroyer, we have all the elements but we haven’t started putting them together yet.

Source: http://www.underscores.fr/index.php/2012/07/interviews-intrada-to-disney-and-beyond/

[Jonesy 55]

Hooray!

[Brónach 1,304]

I don't understand why they put some music twice.

[Jonesy 55]

That is called repetitive material.

[publicist 4,643]

Roger Feigelson has revealed to our very own Olivier Soude (EhTar) that Intrada's Conan The Barbarian set will be 3 discs

Unfortunately, he has also revealed that no Williams comes from them this year. So say goodbye to DRACULA.

[Jay 38,291]

The non-Conan aspects of the interview are being discussed over here:

http://www.jwfan.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=17656&st=4280#entry827427

[Jilal 569]

The sail barge source music is lost to time

Nope. They found it, but Lucas didn't bother to include it.

EDIT: lol, i said the same thing 7 posts ago...

[Jay 38,291]

You're repeating yourself, you just said that 7 posts ago

[Jay 38,291]

Tons of new info from Doug Fake:

Hear ye, one and all. Nothing to lose sleep over. EVERY piece of music in the movie appears on our 3-disc set, all delivered under Poledouris' baton in a reading of raw intensity and primitive fury unmatched in any other performance. We're talking some 110 minutes or so of actual soundtrack music, newly-mixed from the complete 2" 24-track session masters PLUS numerous cues deleted from the re-recording such as: the striking tam-tam, low piano and percussion pieces ("Freedom Council" where Conan is turned loose from captivity, "Warpaint" where he prepares for battle), the drinking music before he's summoned to Osric ("Indulgence/Mettle") and the fire music prior to meeting the "Wolf Witch". You'll also find both Basil's original unused music for the snake fight, based on his gladiator "Pit Fights" music and Milius' preferred film version of "Las Cantigas De Santa Maria" that was used instead.

If that's not enough you'll find an early unused "Prologue", three different percussion loops written as alternates for the council meeting, a rejected and strikingly different "Anvil Of Crom" with trumpets doubling the horns in extremely high registers, an alternate "Battle Of The Mounds", unused versions of the entire "Children Of Doom" sequence written for mezzo-soprano with chamber orchestra as well as for female choir with harp (including a gorgeous, never-before-heard bridge passage for woodwinds), a complete re-construction from Universal's paperwork of the film-edited version of the kitchen battle ("The Defilers") and the similarly edited "End Title" music, the complete original Poledouris album assembly for MCA Records...

AND...

An "extra" of the complete "Prologue/Anvil Of Crom" sequence featuring our beloved Mako speaking that immortal opening, "When the oceans drank Atlantis... ." We wouldn't dream of leaving that off. You dear listeners get to have your cake and eat it, too.

(Oh, and yes, you get Arnold on the cover.)

--Doug

P.S. And patience, please, as we dot the 'i's" and cross the "t's" in our packaging. We're as anxious as you to play this beauty. (Ok, yes, we can play it now... but we want you to be able to play it, too.)

Source: http://www.intrada.net/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=60269#p60269

[Wojo 2,455]

Stunning how many jabs at Tadlow's re-recording that message contains, but I guess that's all part of the advertising business.

However, any true fan of this score or Poledouris will own Intrada's package as well as the Tadlow/Prometheus album, and fortunately also own either the Milan or Varese, or at least have the music. I'll be getting this.

More frugal buyers, however...

[Jay 38,291]

More tidbits from Doug

btw. i would give my left arm to get a chance to hear each of the single 24 Tracks of the Multitrack sessiontapes. Especially from the "Anvil of Crom" track.

might be quite interesting !

Here's possibly more info than you'd want but - yes - playing just the horn tracks during "Anvil" was chilling but, keep in mind, while 24-track masters do have individual instruments (flutes on one track, tuba on another, so forth) and various positions (overhead, left orchestra, right orchestra, etc.), the instrument assignments to their respective mikes also reflect the seating arrangement within the orchestra. As such, while you primarily hear oboes on their own track you also hear the instruments immediately to the right, left and back of them as well. You can re-mix everything and get certain details otherwise not evident with a mix from some thirty years ago, but you can't do crazy exaggerated things without damaging the overall orchestral sound as originally captured.

Raising the trombones during the battle music might seem like a cool idea but it would also raise the trumpet players right behind them, and the tuba player to their left, throwing stuff out of balance. Yes, you can draw a little more out of them, but you still need to take the overall positions into consideration, which means your model is still what Basil and his engineers initially captured. In other words, please don't listen now for flute players to get up and walk over to the right or triangle players to move up in front of the orchestra and stuff like that... unless the engineers seemed to want that effect.

Okay, truth be told, in a few places we couldn't help but subtly raise the level of the contra-bassoon and metallic percussion in a couple of key spots on some of the previously unreleased cues since the resulting sound itself was so awesome. But you can figure this is still "Basil's mix." All we did was blend all of those individual tracks into brand new two-track stereo mixes that are quieter and crisper, if you will, compared to what the analog mixes achieved back then. But the raw power and intensity of those sessions, especially the unique sounds from the variety of live percussion effects, was always on the tapes. Perhaps not quite as vivid as they are now but they were there. A better way of putting it is that we just "enhanced" their clarity.

One major advantage with 24-track elements, of course, is that if a snare drum player bumps a stick against the stand, you can work on reducing the noise just on that track alone without adversely affecting the overall sound. In this regard, it is possible to remove unwanted room noises and even patch and replace wrong notes for single instruments... but it still requires judicious thinking or we'd just be trying to re-do the performance. Perish the thought.

Of course, going back to the original multi-tracks also means you're using the actual first generation tape stock that was used to record the sessions. It doesn't get any better than going back to the actual source.

--Doug

Source: http://www.intrada.net/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=60336#p60336

Thanks Doug for the Info.

with most of the facts i am familiar because i am a soundengineer

I guess you transfered the analog material from the 24 Track Tapes to Protools (192khz ??)

Do you mind if i ask:

Do you have added any Dynamics like Compressors / Limiters etc. or did you ONLY newly mixed the tapes, with tweaking of the Frequencies etc.

greetings from germany

Hi D-Udo!

We really dislike compressors and expanders and Aphex aural exciters and noise reduction programs and anything else that monkeys with the audio. Yes, some of these tricks do reasonably well with whatever it is they do but we prefer to capture the most faithful reproduction of what's on the tape that we can. Sure, with really old elements, some restoration is necessary. But in the case of CONAN, the masters were in superb condition and required little additional tampering with save some minimal EQ.

--Doug

Source: http://www.intrada.net/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=60349#p60349

[scallenger 494]

Wow... this release sounds incredibly exciting. I can't wait! I hope they put this much effort into "Destroyer" too.

I think some of their jabs at the re-recordings are done on purpose to really make people who already own those have a reason to go for this new release. Some may really feel having the re-recordings will be good enough. But clearly from reading all of this it definitely is not the case. Wow. I always love original performances best, too. I understand what he means about it having this raw intensity and enthusiasm that any re-recording could never match. I think it's because with an original score, they aren't trying to full-on mimic any particular work, just going for their own sound, playing around with it, having fun with it. Whereas a re-recording is definitely focused on being faithful to something and being almost cautious to the point where it can sound workman-like. Not that the re-recordings Tadlow did for Conan were bad, on the contrary. But even as they noted here, they do lack that special touch that can only come from an original work.

[Luke Skywalker 1,882]

You can appeal to customers in a much more classy and respecful manner to fellow labels.. IMHO.

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,338]

I agree. Intrada has done this before to Tadlow, and it's bloody rude.

[Luke Skywalker 1,882]

they must have some king of grudge, if not i dont understand it.

[Jay 38,291]

I didn't think the jabs were that bad

It's about on par with Tadlow's posts about how the re-recording was better because of the poor performers at the time of the original recordings

[Matt C 459]

I agree. Intrada has done this before to Tadlow, and it's bloody rude.

Yeah. I don't care if Doug has found pristine masters of the score... there are performance flubs in it you can't ignore or gloss over with a shiny new mix. The re-recording doesn't have that problem... and it has all the instruments Poledouris wanted but couldn't get with the Rome ensembles.

Tadlow and Intrada just need to quit the pissing contest while they're ahead.

[Jay 38,291]

I think the problem started when someone leaked that Intrada was even working on the Conans at all, and that leak happened before their Destroyer re-recording had come out. If there was no leak, we the public still wouldn't have any clue these were coming from Intrada, and Tadlow surely would have sold more copies to date

[Matt C 459]

True, but there's still the issue of that jabs Doug and Tadlow have done. No need to make comments like "this has the orchestra size Basil didn't get" and "this doesn't get any better than the original source", it makes you look childish.

Let people vote with their wallets.

[Admiral Holdo 16]

Eh, they're trying to play up their selling points. It is what it is.

[Koray Savas 2,254]

I think the problem started when someone leaked that Intrada was even working on the Conans at all, and that leak happened before their Destroyer re-recording had come out. If there was no leak, we the public still wouldn't have any clue these were coming from Intrada, and Tadlow surely would have sold more copies to date

That's the reason why I didn't get their Destroyer rerecording. I can wait for Intrada.

[Joe Brausam 216]

The Destroyer recording is incredible though....even though I'm no fan of the score itself.

[Luke Skywalker 1,882]

I think the problem started when someone leaked that Intrada was even working on the Conans at all, and that leak happened before their Destroyer re-recording had come out. If there was no leak, we the public still wouldn't have any clue these were coming from Intrada, and Tadlow surely would have sold more copies to date

That's the reason why I didn't get their Destroyer rerecording. I can wait for Intrada.

you are going to be dissapointed, if you havent heard it, since the original recording is very flawed and small ensemble.

even if intrada's has pristine sound, tadlow will sound like better performed.