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Sony Classical to release Ultimate Star Wars Soundtrack Collection (January 8, 2016)


TownerFan

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I made the foolish mistake of using Christmas iTunes money to buy the three prequel scores a week or two ago. Then, sure enough, they re-upload the scores to the iTunes Store yesterday, now with the "Mastered for iTunes" badge. There goes $30 down the toilet. I should have assumed they weren't only remastering the OT.

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1 hour ago, amh1219 said:

If you're in Europe or you have a VPN, the entire collection is now up in 24/44.1 for 15,39 €, which as of today, comes to $17.22 in American money. :w00t:

This pricing may have been a mistake on their part, so grab it now! Probably the best deal I've ever seen in the world of film scores.

 

http://www.qobuz.com/fr-fr/album/star-wars-the-ultimate-digital-collection-episode-1-2-3-4-5-6-john-williams/0886445684056

 

Btw, listening to TPM now and Audacity shows that it's not quite as loud as my CD rip.

Brilliant find - thank you ! These were €80 from launch last Friday so this must be a mistake.

Qobuz Fr is a handy site, you only need a VPN to get to the site to sign up, then just log in the uk site without a vpn and get taken to the French version (much larger catalogue and cheaper prices). They accept PayPal too, super easy.

 

just one question - most places are selling 24/44.1 versions except for HDtracks.com, which has eps 4-6 in 24/192. But the collection is $99 (or $85 with code hdjan08 until Monday). Is it worth it ? And where do they get the better versions from ??

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ESB and ROTJ sound so awesome.

 

SW sounds good but, there's something odd with the stereo separation? Like which instruments are on the left and which on the right? At least with headphones on anyway.

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TESB is surely the one with the most different mix (in respect to the 1997 SE and the Anthology too). 

 

Star Wars sounds great, but I still prefer the more vibrant, "In your face" sound of the SE. The OST is surely smoother and more pleasant to the ear, though.

 

ROTJ sounds magnificent. Too bad it's such a short selection!

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Did you know there is another way to listen ESB original LP program?

 

Star Wars (Main Theme)

Yoda's Theme

The Training Of A Jedi Knight

The Heroics Of Luke And Han

 

The Asteroid Field

The City In The Clouds

Rebels At Bay

Yoda And The Force

 

The Imperial March (Darth Vader's Theme)

Departure Of Boba Fett

Han Solo And The Princess

Hyperspace

The Battle In The Snow

 

The Duel

The Magic Tree

Lando's Palace

Finale.

 

Like you see, it doesn't help the chronology of the music at all.

 

But it will remember you something... ;)

 

BSR-McDonald_550_Stacker-Changer_turntab

 

 

     
     
     
   
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Does anybody know why on HDtrack.co.uk I can buy ANH and ROTJ hi-def files but I cannot do the same for ESB due to "region restrictions"? I just bought the vinyl records and paying £14 each scores would be nicer than paying £67 for the whole lot (and the PT samples are 24/44...).

 

 

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I never really realized the Main Title of ANH on the LP program is merged with a part of the end titles.

 

I always tought that only ESB LP had strange edits... Well, I think I listened this material a long time ago... and maybe in a galaxy far far away!

 

The edit of the Main Title of ESB with "Mynock Cave" is pretty effective, altough it's maybe strange.  It opens the album very well. If I don't make a mistake, the "Mynock Cave" is not even on the Anthology boxset.

 

A pretty interresting old thread:

 

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3 hours ago, ciarlese said:

Does anybody know why on HDtrack.co.uk I can buy ANH and ROTJ hi-def files but I cannot do the same for ESB due to "region restrictions"? I just bought the vinyl records and paying £14 each scores would be nicer than paying £67 for the whole lot (and the PT samples are 24/44...).

 

 

I bought ESB on there @ 24/192 on saturday.

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2 hours ago, Jootec from Mars said:

I bought ESB on there @ 24/192 on saturday.

 

Welcome to this forum.  How is this high resolution remaster of ESB?  Does it sound better noticeably better or just louder?

 

It would be nice if someone would make a thorough review of this new set. 

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12 hours ago, karelm said:

 

Welcome to this forum.  How is this high resolution remaster of ESB?  Does it sound better noticeably better or just louder?

 

It would be nice if someone would make a thorough review of this new set. 

 

It does sound better but I think you need a good system to notice. On my normal PC I'd say it sounded 10% better. But on my music system it sounds 25% better than the original CD. I still don't think it tops the Anthology Empire CD though. 

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Just now, BloodBoal said:

I just call it Star Wars. I don't care if people understand which one I'm talking about or not.

 

I do because I'm sick of having to explain it to people who don't know that 1977 was before 1999!

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2 minutes ago, Stefancos said:

I wasn't aware of a pitch problem with Star Wars (1977)

But there is, unfortunately... the original LP and counterpart CD is a little faster than the Anthology and the SE.

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We don't know the status of the original recording session tapes.  It seems likely that some are OK and some are not.  Maybe something will publicly be stated about that once Sony's contract ends and Disney hires someones to work on new expanded editions.

 

If you mean the album masters, those are clearly fine as evidenced by the new Sony release.

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3 minutes ago, Jay said:

We don't know the status of the original recording session tapes.  It seems likely that some are OK and some are not.  Maybe something will publicly be stated about that once Sony's contract ends and Disney hires someones to work on new expanded editions.

 

If you mean the album masters, those are clearly fine as evidenced by the new Sony release.

Yeah I meant the original session tapes. Here's what I read.. "The Anthology is the most comprehensive to date, it's the last time the original master mixes were used before they disintegrated."

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They clearly didn't, as evidenced by the 1997 sets, 2005 ROTS bonus DVD, and various video games all of which use material from the original session recordings

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11 minutes ago, Jay said:

They clearly didn't, as evidenced by the 1997 sets, 2005 ROTS bonus DVD, and various video games all of which use material from the original session recordings

That's what I thought. Unless everything since the Anthology has just used the Anthology's transfers.. ;) Unlikely though, but who knows really

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1 hour ago, Jay said:

It's unlikely we'll have any answers for another few years

I found this..

 

"The Empire Strikes Back was largely mastered from four-track ¼” tape copies comprising the edited film mix as three channels of music with one track being a pilot tone for film synchronisation. These tapes were purportedly in poor condition – probably suffering from lubricant failure therefore making baking an inappropriate treatment – and were not located until near completion of the project. “At least one tape was beginning to fall apart as I transferred it,” recollected mastering engineer Bill Wolford. “I had to use alcohol on the capstan wheel to clean the disintegrating residue off as it played, being careful not to affect the pitch. If I hadn’t done this the tape would cause a squeal as it passed the heads rendering the dub useless.” Wolford recalled this being a stressful time as there were limited playbacks possible before the tape was rendered unusable."

 

http://www.malonedigital.com/starwars.pdf

Page 23

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God stuff like that makes me cringe.  Hopefully all kinds of restoration efforts have happened that we simply don't know about

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3 hours ago, Zaralyth said:

I found this..

 

"The Empire Strikes Back was largely mastered from four-track ¼” tape copies comprising the edited film mix as three channels of music with one track being a pilot tone for film synchronisation. These tapes were purportedly in poor condition – probably suffering from lubricant failure therefore making baking an inappropriate treatment – and were not located until near completion of the project. “At least one tape was beginning to fall apart as I transferred it,” recollected mastering engineer Bill Wolford. “I had to use alcohol on the capstan wheel to clean the disintegrating residue off as it played, being careful not to affect the pitch. If I hadn’t done this the tape would cause a squeal as it passed the heads rendering the dub useless.” Wolford recalled this being a stressful time as there were limited playbacks possible before the tape was rendered unusable."

 

http://www.malonedigital.com/starwars.pdf

Page 23

 

That's on page 21, if you look at the page number footer. But the PDF indeed marks as page 23.

 

I think it's worth to say that this situation happened with the 1993 Anthology CDs. For the 1997 SE CDs, they were able to locate the 2" 24-track tapes sessions from Empire Strickes Back, but only for the cues that were already released on the 1980 2LP edition. The remaining music was apparently sourced from the 1993 digital masters, as stated on pages 27 and 28 (of the PDF marker, or pages 25 and 26 of the page number footer).

 

It's also worth to mention that the first version of this excellent document was written in 2005. I believe many good things happened since then... and Mike Matessino mentioned in the terrific interview that Jay conducted with him that he'd love to work on Star Wars again, but is not allowed to say anything about such projects (see here, the last two questions: http://www.jwfan.com/?p=8269). If he's not allowed to say anything, then neither Nick Redman, Ford Thaxton nor anybody in the business, I would say. I sure hope this means something good.

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I have some news regarding the 10CD BOX SET that I just recevied in the mail.

Some much needed clarification, if it hasn't been stated already.

 

The Original Trilogy is exact duplicate/repackages of the Special Edition CDs.

The Prequel Trilogy however, is remastered, They did NOT use the original soundtracks. In fact, they used the new digital masters for the prequels. So these are the digital versions in 16/44.1 instead of the 24/44.1 you can get on HDtracks or Qobuz or whatever, on The Ultimate Digital Collection.

 

End of story. 

 

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1 hour ago, Zaralyth said:

I have some news regarding the 10CD BOX SET that I just recevied in the mail.

Some much needed clarification, if it hasn't been stated already.

 

The Original Trilogy is exact duplicate/repackages of the Special Edition CDs.

The Prequel Trilogy however, is remastered, They did NOT use the original soundtracks. In fact, they used the new digital masters for the prequels. So these are the digital versions in 16/44.1 instead of the 24/44.1 you can get on HDtracks or Qobuz or whatever, on The Ultimate Digital Collection.

 

End of story. 

 

 

If this is true, I'm definitely getting that boxset for the prequel material! 

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It would be beyond heartbreaking to learn that parts of the original trilogy's masters disintegrated after the 1993 scan, and the best quality copy of those recordings is now based on 1993 scanning technology.

 

Has there ever been a clear explanation on why ROTJ sounds so bad? Were they secondary source masters? There is no chance the SE CDs came from the master tapes (at least, for ESB and ROTJ) because we've heard vastly superior versions from other sources.

 

They're 3 of the most important film scores in history. Last year we were gifted the most perfect restoration of a Williams score pre-dating Star Wars, so it's hard to believe the master tapes for a score years later literally disintegrated.

 

I pray to the old gods and the new.... Help us, Matessino. You're our only hope.

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38 minutes ago, Drax said:

Do the prequels sound any better or are they just brighter and louder?

The remastering is slight. So slight you can't notice a difference between the new and the old unless you play them side by side. The new material is, dare I say, unmastered sessions, or close to it. They give that vibration in the eardrum you only get from lossless unmastered session material. Especially noticeable in horns. They sound nearly identical to the original soundtracks, but they FEEL completely different. The resonance is cleaner, more precise, especially in Episode 3. Darker, smoother bass. Brighter, precise brass, strings and percussion alike across all three albums. There's just something about them, you can hear it when you listen to them. 

 

My recommendations, Zam the Assassin and Anakin Vs. Obi-Wan are good tracks to listen to at first. You will notice the clarity, the precision, the boost in dynamic range especially from these intense tracks.

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