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Remasters of the First 6 Star Wars Soundtracks now available (Shawn Murphy / Disney Records 2018)


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2 hours ago, The Big Man said:

Has anyone recreated the ESB OST program using the Arista and/or RCA tracks? Can it be done?

 

It cannot be done without busting out a sound editing program, because Williams chose to trim out bars here and there, overlap cues within a track, he even replaced the ending of one cue with a chord tracked in from another cue!

 

However, don't forget, before Shawn Murphy's terrible 2018 "remaster" of the old OST LP, in 2016 Sony put out a remaster of the OST LP that is a perfect sounding preservation, because they used the album master from 1980.  It wasn't a rebuild like Murphy's, it used the 1980 album master as its only source.  This edition was never released on physical CDs, though; There was a physical vinyl, but otherwise they only sold it digitally online.

 

Just for funzies, here's how you can re-create a very close approximation to the 1980 LP using the 1993 set:

 

  1980 OST LP program Closest 1993 RCA approximation
  SIDE ONE  
1 Star Wars (Main Theme) n/a - use OST CD track 6
2 Yoda's Theme 2-06 Yoda's Theme
3 The Training of a Jedi Knight 2-12 The Training Of A Jedi Knight
4 The Heroics of Luke and Han 2-03 Luke's Escape overlapped into 2-08 The Rebels Escape Again
  SIDE TWO  
5 The Imperial March (Darth Vader's Theme) 2-05 The Imperial March
6 Departure of Boba Fett n/a - You have to open up 4-17 in an editor and grab only 7:47-end
7 Han Solo and the Princess 2-11 Han Solo and the Princess
8 Hyperspace 2-18 Hyperspace
9 The Battle in the Snow 2-06 The Battle in the Snow
  SIDE THREE  
10 The Asteroid Field 2-09 The Asteroid Field
11 The City in the Clouds 2-15 City in the Clouds
12 Rebels at Bay 2-04 Luke Rescue overlapped into 2-07 Luke's First Crash
13 Yoda and the Force 2-14 Yoda and the Force
  SIDE FOUR  
14 The Duel 2-17 The Duel
15 The Magic Tree 2-13 The Magic Tree
16 Lando's Palace 2-16 Lando's Palace
17 Finale 2-19 Finale / End Credits
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The only major problem with the 1993 version of Empire is they completely forgot the Mynock Cave cue (as it's always been mixed with the Main Title on the OST, on the 1993 version, they just put the Main Title Fanfare... and they forgot to add the Mynock cue elsewhere)... and then it have a stereo dropout (exactly like on the Shawn Murphy demaster) in an Edit concerning "Training of a Jedi Knight".

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5 minutes ago, The Big Man said:

Is the 2016 digital version still available?

 

No.  Sony's contract to sell Star Wars music expired at the end of 2016.  On Jan 1 2017 Disney Records issued Sony's albums remasters across all digital media platforms.  However, when they released Shawn Murphy's demasters in the summer of 2018, they took the 2016 remasters down.

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Just now, The Big Man said:

That's a shame. I would very much like to hear this elusive high quality version of the ESB OST.

 

Just 4 years too late!

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The 2016 remasters were sold from January 8 2016 until May 4 2018.  You had plenty of opportunity, but missed your chance.  Your only options to hear these editions now is to illegally download files, or legally purchase the vinyl box set from the secondhand market.

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Just now, The Big Man said:

 

I wasn't aware of its release, as I'd lost interest in SW at the time.

 

You lose the faith, now suffer!

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My current favourite way of listening to the original trilogy is like this:

 

- Star Wars '77 (the CD1 of the 1993 boxset)

- ESB (the 2015 remastered OST) 

- ROTJ (the CD3 of the 1993 boxset)

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8 hours ago, Jay said:

However, don't forget, before Shawn Murphy's terrible 2018 "remaster" of the old OST LP, in 2016 Sony put out a remaster of the OST LP that is a perfect sounding preservation, because they used the album master from 1980.  It wasn't a rebuild like Murphy's, it used the 1980 album master as its only source.

 

We're lucky Sony did such a nice job cleaning up the album masters and getting those out in high-resolution before losing the music license. They're definitive presentations of the OSTs in my eyes, because they used the first generation album masters. Shame they're no longer available to purchase legally.

 

The Disney releases (for SW & ESB at least) are bizarre curiosities, offering little more than a glimpse into the potential of future expansions. Recreating the OST using the film mixes was such a bizarre endeavour; guess they needed a point of difference to Sony's remasters (and to justify the expense of their shiny new transfers).

 

They can go straight in the bin as soon as comprehensive expansions are assembled by a competent producer. The only question is whether people need to hold on to the Sony remasters of SW & ESB due to their exclusive album mixes.

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I remember getting the OST remasters at the time of release. I was curious about the listening experience.

 

But years of listening to the Anthology and the Special Editions made it hard for me to absorb any greatness that lingers in the original sequencing/editing.

 

But, as it’s Star Wars, still it’s soundtrack gold.

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The Sony versions are excellent.

 

The Disney ESB sounds like it's mostly playing in one channel. I thought it was my headphones malfunctioning but it's the way it actually is. Imperial March sounds good though.

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Yes the 2015 versions are the best, although the stereo is pretty narrow, but in the 2018 remasters, they tried to expand it... Far too much, for what the poor tapes can give.

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They very likely had the multitracks they used in 97 (also badly), they just decided to badly downmix the live LCR mix also contained on those instead of doing a proper mix because they're lazy bastards. Those tapes have plenty to give.

 

Stop that defeatist horseshit.

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All the more reason for Mike to mix the score from scratch using the multitrack masters, rather than attempt another downmix of the LCR mixes to stereo.

 

After so many botched attempts, I'm sure he'd feel the weight of expectation to finally get the job done properly.

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21 minutes ago, The Big Man said:

Will Mike include OST cuts on his SW releases like he did with Superman?

 

ESB would need to be 3 discs if he included the OST album mix, so who knows. That depends on how much freedom Disney allows him.

 

There's nothing wrong with Sony's 2015 remasters of the album masters, except that they're no longer available.

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I acquired the Sony 2015 remasters vinyl box and it is really fantastic that they faithfully reproduced the original LPs including their labels and inserts (including a form to order a SW t-shirt [with a small disclaimer that the offer is expired]), they had a digital dowload card but the files, if I remember correctly, were not hi-res. 

 

Before receiving the LPs I had also aquired them in iTunes (but 256kbps files) at that time and they dowloaded as a single album with multiple discs, so I renamed the albums splitting the collection for each movie. Last year I noted that the downloads had dissapeared from my iTunes libary but it was possible to restore them accessing my previously purchased items. I was very happy to discover that I could still recover them even if the albums were no longer available for sale.

 

Besides sounding better than the latest remaster one thing I always noted is how the LP mix in ROTJ track "The Emperor" is the only version were you hear a kind of 'wind effect' at 0:32, 0:48 that is absent from all subsequent releases (including the Arista 1993 box).

 

If MM is allowed in the future to work on these I think the ideal approach would be to do the best he can with the original recordings to release the complete scores and remaster the original albums from the actual album masters instead of recreating them as they attempted in the latest release. 

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5 minutes ago, danbeck said:

If MM is allowed in the future to work on these I think the ideal approach would be to do the best he can with the original recordings to release the complete scores and remaster the original albums from the actual album masters instead of recreating them as they attempted in the latest release. 

Not if they get a physical release and they'd waste an entire additional disc on it and hike the price up. Or even if it was digital and you could only get them as one more expensive package. Just let these stupid programs die already.

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29 minutes ago, Holko said:

Not if they get a physical release and they'd waste an entire additional disc on it and hike the price up. Or even if it was digital and you could only get them as one more expensive package. Just let these stupid programs die already.

 

C'mon, Holko, now you're not being any better than how you claim Thor to be, only the opposite.

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46 minutes ago, danbeck said:

Besides sounding better than the latest remaster one thing I always noted is how the LP mix in ROTJ track "The Emperor" is the only version were you hear a kind of 'wind effect' at 0:32, 0:48 that is absent from all subsequent releases (including the Arista 1993 box).

 

That's an ARP synthesizer. What I like about the 2016 remasters (and I believe the original albums as well since they use the same masters) is that the synth effects are a bit more pronounced, instead of being buried like they are in subsequent released. Another example is the synth on the first track right after the main title, which is clearly a lot more visible on this set.

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8 hours ago, Holko said:

Not if they get a physical release and they'd waste an entire additional disc on it and hike the price up. Or even if it was digital and you could only get them as one more expensive package. Just let these stupid programs die already.

 

No.

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4 minutes ago, Disco Stu said:


Holko is the anti-Thor.  The yin to his yang!  The PB to his J.  We will join them and achieve the perfect balanced synthesis of film score fandom

 

The difference is Thor is fine with other people listening to C&C as long as he doesn't have to. But Holko wants to suppress OSTs so that nobody else will ever be able to hear them.

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