E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial La-La Land MUSIC Discussion

[Jay 38,749]

Hey, ya'll,

 

The original thread will be full of people talking about shipping notices for another 4-5 pages or so, so to avoid you having to weed through that to talk about the actual contents of the set, here is a separate thread to do that!

 

Those of you who have the set - how does it sound, what do you think of the music that was never released before, was ET Adventure worth the wait, what do you think of the liner notes?

 

Oh, and just to leave it in a place more easily found, if you are putting this on your digital player of choice and want the extra cues from disc 2 integrated into the the flow of the complete score, here is the chronological order again:

 

1-01 Main Title 1:14
1-02 Far From Home / E.T. Alone 6:57
2-11 The Encounter 1:49
1-03 Bait for E.T. 1:45
1-04 Meeting E.T. 2:08
1-05 E.T.’s New Home 1:28
1-06 The Beginning of a Friendship 2:53
1-07 Toys 3:13
1-08 I’m Keeping Him 2:20
1-09 E.T.’s Powers 2:44
1-10 The Closet 0:53
1-11 E.T. and Elliott Get Drunk 2:57
1-12 Frogs 2:12
2-14 The Kiss 0:49
2-15 Levitation 0:41
1-13 At Home 5:38
1-14 The Magic of Halloween 2:55
1-15 Sending the Signal 3:58
1-16 Searching for E.T. 4:18
1-17 Invading Elliott’s House 2:24
1-18 Stay With Me 2:24
1-19 Losing E.T. 2:04
1-20 E.T. Is Alive 4:22
1-21 The Rescue and Bike Chase 8:07
1-22 The Departure 7:07
1-23 End Credits 3:55
 
TOTAL TIME - 81:16

[OneBuckFilms 329]

Thanks !!!

Once I listen to it, I'll let everyone here know my thoughts.

[phbart 623]

I'll start slow then. I've not got to CD2 yet, but I can tell you this about CD1 regarding the sound quality: it's perfect! It's unbelievable what they achieved here! Forget all about the past releases, because this one tops out by far.

 

I really like MM work on other JW releases in restoring, mixing, mastering and so on (I know he wasn't involved in E.T.'s past releases), but I must say LLL did a VERY WISE choice by putting the mixing and mastering job in the hands of the original recording engineer Bruce Botnick. That guy is a genius!

[Jay 38,749]

Yea I think it's the best sounding version yet too.  Also it's edited impeccably, the segue from The Rescue into The Bike Chase for example is perfect.

[Erik Woods 584]

There really isn't much difference in the sound quality with the exception of some added low ends and an ever so slight volume boost (or compression) in some sections. It sounds as crisp and vibrant as it always has.

 

Although "Adventure on Earth" went through a massive transformation.  Still sounds bright and vibrant... as always... but you can tell by looks at the waveforms how much work was put into that cue specifically.

 

-Erik-

[Unlucky Bastard 8,461]

So how does the OST presentation compare to the 80s audiophile release?

[phbart 623]

Nah, man. The differences are not so small as you said. Of course, it's not "night and day" different, but it does sound significantly superior to past releases, SPECIALLY the 2002 one. They managed to get rid of the hiss from the '96 release without sucking the life out of the music like they did on the 2002 release, and yet it has an improved sound over '96 release.

 

I'm getting there, Baby Jane. But I can't tell about the audiophile vinyl release from '82

[Disco Stu 15,501]

I can resist.

[OneBuckFilms 329]

I’m really loving this release. Fantastic in every respect.

[Jay 38,749]

54 minutes ago, Erik Woods said:

Although "Adventure on Earth" went through a massive transformation.  Still sounds bright and vibrant... as always... but you can tell by looks at the waveforms how much work was put into that cue specifically.

 

-Erik-

 

Why are you looking at waveforms instead of just enjoying the music?

[Unlucky Bastard 8,461]

Someone needs to perform a spectral analysis. It's fun!

[Disco Stu 15,501]

Zoom.  Enhance.

[phbart 623]

Just finished CD1. To be honest, I can't really share any thoughts right now. This music simply knocks me out every time I give it a comprehensive listening. Tomorrow I certainly will be more up to share my thoughts, detect takes used here and there compared to previous releases, and so on. I'll just say one thing: BUY THE DAMN THING RIGHT NOW IF YOU DIDN'T YET!

[The Great Gonzales 6,019]

17 minutes ago, Jay said:

 

Why are you looking at waveforms instead of just enjoying the music?

Why aren't you?

[Erik Woods 584]

2 hours ago, Jay said:

 

Why are you looking at waveforms instead of just enjoying the music?

 

Why assume that I'm not enjoying the music?  

 

But I am an audio guy and take great interest in the restoration of film music so I threw a few tracks into Audition to have a look so I could analyze the music further.  Anything wrong with that?

 

-Erik-

[Jay 38,749]

It was just surprising to me it would be the first thing anyone would do upon getting this treasure.  Nevermind.

[Erik Woods 584]

7 minutes ago, Jay said:

It was just surprising to me it would be the first thing anyone would do upon getting this treasure.  Nevermind.

 

It wasn't the first thing I did.

 

-Erik-

[The Great Gonzales 6,019]

Looks like both parts of The Kiss made it?

[Jay 38,749]

What do you mean?

[The Great Gonzales 6,019]

Well it starts with a short Golden Age-style piccolo and strings suspense passage (the fix), then after a second or two of silence the bit we all know from the LD starts (the "not-fix").

[Amer 2,207]

4 hours ago, phbart said:

Nah, man. The differences are not so small as you said. Of course, it's not "night and day" different, but it does sound significantly superior to past releases, SPECIALLY the 2002 one. They managed to get rid of the hiss from the '96 release without sucking the life out of the music like they did on the 2002 release, and yet it has an improved sound over '96 release.

 

I'm getting there, Baby Jane. But I can't tell about the audiophile vinyl release from '82

 

 

Good to know! While the 1996 edition was hissy but then the 2002 edition removed the hiss but reduced the brightness off the brass instruments somewhat. I hope that same brightness is maintained without eliminating the high end fields of the sound stage.

 

How does the booklet fare?

[OneBuckFilms 329]

Booklet is excellent. Jim Titus is on good form.

[rough cut 1,739]

3 hours ago, Jay said:

It was just surprising to me it would be the first thing anyone would do upon getting this treasure.  Nevermind.

 

I was thinking the same thing.

 

Granted, I know nothing about waveforms, other than to recognize clipping, but can you really tell by looking at a wav that effort has gone in to the remastering process?

 

Nowadays, I let my ears do the judging. I've bought many a remasters in my day, and when I was younger I was struggling to hear/recognize that they sounded better than my old analog-to-digital CDs. They were supposed to sound better!! Why else remaster? Why else put out a different version, if it was worse?

 

Until I decided that the label "remastered" wasn't the key. It was listening. Whatever sounded better, sounded better, no matter the technology or marketing labels behind it.

[Incanus 5,784]

1 hour ago, OneBuckFilms said:

Booklet is excellent. Jim Titus is on good form.

How are the notes? Do they focus on the film this time or is there more discussion on the score?

[OneBuckFilms 329]

I’ve glimsed them, and they focus mostly on the score, but I’ve not read them in detail.

 

They have a cue by cue breakdown, and some notes about the live to picture performances of the score.

 

They seem pretty exhaustive, so there may be some material related to the movie.

[Amer 2,207]

14 minutes ago, OneBuckFilms said:

I’ve glimsed them, and they focus mostly on the score, but I’ve not read them in detail.

 

They have a cue by cue breakdown, and some notes about the live to picture performances of the score.

 

They seem pretty exhaustive, so there may be some material related to the movie.

 

Good to know that they have dissected the music cues. How many pages does it entail?

[bollemanneke 3,529]

Could anyone explain why the presentation isn't chronological? Is it to be able to put the main score on one CD?

[Incanus 5,784]

6 minutes ago, bollemanneke said:

Could anyone explain why the presentation isn't chronological? Is it to be able to put the main score on one CD?

Most likely.

[phbart 623]

7 hours ago, azahid said:

Good to know! While the 1996 edition was hissy but then the 2002 edition removed the hiss but reduced the brightness off the brass instruments somewhat. I hope that same brightness is maintained without eliminating the high end fields of the sound stage.

 

How does the booklet fare?

They used first-generation elements for this release (the booklet covers that in more details), while I'm pretty sure that wasn't the case on the '96 and 2002 releases.

 

Speaking of the booklet, it's all ingredients to satisfy: it has cue analysis, it talks about the film, it talks about the tech details on the restoration for this release (there're some interesting details about it that actually surprised me).

 

Since I'm consider myself a completist, I'll keep the '96 and 2002 releases for some different nuances in the perfomance of a couple of cues that are not on this release.

[crumbs 14,584]

Any interesting anecdotes about Botanicus?

[Unlucky Bastard 8,461]

What cues aren't on this new release?

[Jay 38,749]

On 10/4/2017 at 7:10 AM, bollemanneke said:

Could anyone explain why the presentation isn't chronological? Is it to be able to put the main score on one CD?

 

It IS chronological.

 

And yea, the complete score is 81 minutes as you can see in the main post, so the two shortest and most inconsequential cues had to be moved to disc two.

 

 

On 10/4/2017 at 7:33 AM, Baby Jane Hudson said:

What cues aren't on this new release?

 

None, this release is complete.  I don't think you read his post clearly enough.  Bouzereau chose many wrong takes to put on his expansions instead of the correct takes chosen for the film.  So if you care about minor performance differences JW never intended to be heard, you can use the old CDs to hear those wrong takes.

[Amer 2,207]

I'm more interested in the 2nd cd. I hope the OST album sounds as good as the audiophile version that was issued in Japan.

[Unlucky Bastard 8,461]

Just now, azahid said:

I'm more interested in the 2nd cd. I hope the OST album sounds as good as the audiophile version that was issued in Japan.

 

Yes!

[phbart 623]

59 minutes ago, crumbs said:

Any interesting anecdotes about Botanicus?

Not in particular. A short paragraph in the "Additional Music" section explaining what it is. By the way, it didn't adopt the lovely "Botanicus" nickname like we did here.

 

58 minutes ago, Baby Jane Hudson said:

What cues aren't on this new release?

- E.T. Alone cue from this release is the correct film take, as also heard on the '96 LD iso score. The '96 and 2002 CDs has s slightly different perfomance for that cue (which I prefer).

- E.T.'s Powers cue has an additional instrument in some point not present in past releases.

- At Home cue from the '96 CD release has some slight different performances compared to this release and the 2002 (which are the correct ones).

- The second half of Sending the Signal is the correct film take, as also heard on the '96 LD iso score. The '96 and 2002 CDs has s slightly different perfomance for that cue (which I also prefer).

- Searching for E.T. is "97%" the correct film take. On this release, the bit where Mike actually finds E.T. in the river, the performance is the same as the '96 CD release, but not the same as the '96 LD iso score and 2002 release, which is the correct bit. But it's only on that small section, the rest is just fine. But I think MM did the right choice here, as this bit piece here flows better. The correct film take of that bit is on the alternate music section on CD2.

 

27 minutes ago, azahid said:

I'm more interested in the 2nd cd. I hope the OST album sounds as good as the audiophile version that was issued in Japan.

I read somewhere that "audiophile" japanese CD is the same as all versions of the OST released until now. I'll try to find where I read it and post here. But rest easy the the OST tracks on this release buries them all.

 

Edit: I found this on the FSM forum

" Okay, so I ran the frequency analysis on tracks 1 and 8 of both my copies the original release of E.T. (one marked ADD and one marked DDD). They are exactly the same.
Given the differences found by Gunnar, I'm convinced that we can confirm the story about the two versions of the original E.T. album. It looks like it works out the following way:

--If you have MCAD 37264 / DIDX-381 or something otherwise labelled as DDD, it is DDD.

--"If your MCAD-31073 disc has MCAD37264 on the inner ring underside of the CD it probably is also from the early 1980s digital master." I.e., it too is DDD. My copy of this disc is in storage so I cannot check the labeling but I'm hunching this is right, especially since the frequency analysis of my copy of MCAD-31073 is identical to MCAD 37264 / DIDX-381.

--If your disc is MCD 01878 / DMCL 1878, it is AAD.

If anyone else has encountered and AAD disc in the wild, post your disc numbers! It will help others pin down exactly what is on their discs!

 

http://filmscoremonthly.com/board/posts.cfm?forumID=1&pageID=2&threadID=93414&archive=0

[bollemanneke 3,529]

On 10/4/2017 at 7:34 AM, Jay said:

 

It IS chronological.

 

And yea, the complete score is 81 minutes as you can see in the main post, so the two shortest and most inconsequential cues had to be moved to disc two.

 

 

 

None, this release is complete.  I don't think you read his post clearly enough.  Bouzereau chose many wrong takes to put on his expansions instead of the correct takes chosen for the film.  So if you care about minor performance differences JW never intended to be heard, you can use the old CDs to hear those wrong takes.

 

 

Thank you. Chronological was a bad word.

 

Do we know why JW approved the Bouzereau expansion if some takes were not 100% correct? Did they only start to involve JW with expansions in recent years, or would he just not have heard the minor differences?

[phbart 623]

I think either one of them cared. Bouzereau didn't want to go to the trouble of "stitching" different takes, like MM does, as this is time consuming (and costly for them, I imagine) and JW doesn't even remember what takes were used and where, unless someone tells him. He just wants to see the $$$ in his bank account

[Jay 38,749]

3 hours ago, bollemanneke said:

Do we know why JW approved the Bouzereau expansion if some takes were not 100% correct? Did they only start to involve JW with expansions in recent years, or would he just not have heard the minor differences?

 

I think you're not understanding how the process works.

 

When recording the score for the first time, Williams is making adjustments in between each take, telling some orchestra members to do such and such differently, etc.  When they sit down to assemble the recordings into the film, he might take bars 1-4 from take 37, bars 5-99 from take 40, and bars 100-end from take 38 or something like that.  Williams is involved with all this - again, when the film is being made, and of course he chooses all the takes for the concurrent album as well (most of the time its the same takes used in the film).

 

These catalog expansions of older scores are done by a producer, usually one who had nothing at all to do with the original film at all, and its that producer who selects takes to put on a new CD once all the takes are transferred from the archives (if all takes are even transferred; For example the first LLL Home Alone was sourced from a later generation tape of additional cues, it wasn't until the second LLL release that the true first gen masters of every take was found).  Anyway, every producer is going to go about assembling a new CD different.  Bouzereau largely chose to just grab a take that sounded mostly good all the way through and slap it on there;  Mike examines the takes in the film second by second and makes sure he replicates the choices made for the film.  So back to our example, Bouzereau might have just used take 40 and been done with it, while Mike will re-create the Take 37 -> Take 40 -> Take 38 edit.

As for John Williams approving things, it's not like he remembers what takes he chose of what passages 35 years and almost 100 scores ago, ya know?  The only things the producers tell us what what John might or might not approve is changing the order of some tracks around or nixing source music, etc.  I get the impression he listens to it and makes sure its a musically sound product and that's about it, there's zero chance he's noticing that bar 5 of cue whatever had a better violin performance recorded, ya know?

I hope that answers your question.

[JoeinAR 1,953]

Whats to discuss? Its either the 1st or 2nd best score he's written per this site. Its so powerful that I personally listen and watch only with great breaks in between. I am sure when I die and go to heaven I will be given the ultimate definitive edition, God's approved version. 

[Jay 38,749]

Well, there is music appearing on this set that has been sitting in a vault unheard for 35 years, so that is certainly worth discussing.

[OneBuckFilms 329]

I listened to the original album on CD 2, and since I never got around to picking it up on CD (I only have the 2002 MCA release prior to this), I have to say it is such an amazing album.

 

This release is simply fantastic in every respect.

[phbart 623]

I should say that, analyzing it more carefully in the spectral view, I'm quite sure the 1/4" analog tape they used as source (as mentioned when the 4K Blu-ray set with the OST CD was announced) is most likely a dub of a digital master because there's nothing above 20kHz except tape hiss. That kind of frequency limiting is sort of typical of 80's and early 90's digital masters.

 

But don't worry. This is the best version of the '82 OST yet.

[Nemesis 254]

I like the Levitation cue!

[Jay 38,749]

Yea!  I like The Kiss a lot, too!

[OneBuckFilms 329]

Jay, are you going to update the spreadsheet?

[Jay 38,749]

What do you mean?  It already has been since the tracklist was announced.  Is there something wrong on it?

 

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/e/2PACX-1vT0E9cHkK-SqctUuLKYjNov1cm3DB7Dol3CCfQqmXPJUbNqwIrwdNTtn4FqV212S-3e_GltYaEDIUM8/pubhtml

[OneBuckFilms 329]

Just wondering, since there are some TBD items on it.

 

Incidentally, these spreadsheets are really awesome references. Thanks.

[Jay 38,749]

Thank you!  Yea, the TBD was just for the alternate takes, I can figure out how to describe the differences I suppose

[nightscape94 965]

The score sound quality is incredible and extremely well balanced and beautiful, which is even more remarkable for a score recorded 35 years go. 

 

The new material is fantastic.  "Stay With Me" is one of my favorite tracks, with a sweet rendition of the flying theme.  The ride music is short but wonderful, despite a noticeable sound quality dip as compared to the rest of the score.

[Jay 38,749]

Yea Stay With Me is an essential part of the score IMO.  That and the "ouch" scene insert really kick up the emotions higher than anything else