Harry Potter 7CD Collection - MUSIC discussion

[Jurassic Shark 12,055]

It really is unforgivable. We demand Jay's immediate resignation!

[bollemanneke 3,342]

Or his spreadsheet.

[redishere 697]

JWFan drama is always enthralling.
Wish I was here during the infamous Vanishing Tyrannosaurus Teeth impeachment.
 

[Richard Penna 3,684]

I've gotten used to not falling in love with a particular mix or what an individual instrument is doing - it makes sets like this easier to enjoy. It's not always easy if it's a favourite moment, but you can't please everyone.

 

In this case my guess is that it's an alternate take which JW preferred. Honestly, a lot of problems in this field would be largely solved by putting isolated scores on BDs so that those like me who love film mixes can get them, and those who don't can ignore them.

[Jurassic Shark 12,055]

Chopped up film mixes... yay...

[bollemanneke 3,342]

If the editing was done well (so not Titanic's leak), isolated scores can be really good to have.

[Smeltington 1,440]

I thought we concluded last time that the sound team created the film version editorially? Although I don't have Jay's superior skills for finding the exact post.

[Richard Penna 3,684]

I thought that was related to the percussion at the end (just before the window crash shot). Seems like a lot of stuff in PoA wasn't Williams.

[Jurassic Shark 12,055]

It was all Bill Ross!

[redishere 697]

1 hour ago, Jurassic Shark said:

It was all Bill Ross!

 

 

 

[Smeltington 1,440]

Always in the shadows, from the very beginning...

[wowbobwow 69]

27 minutes ago, Smeltington said:

Always in the shadows, from the very beginning...

 

"What's your name?"

"Bill Ross."

"Bill Ross who?"

"Bill Ross Williams."

[TSMefford 1,509]

On 2/4/2020 at 4:45 AM, crumbs said:

Yeah... and it's pretty obvious the take used in the film is not the take on the LLL. If they did splice in just the harpischord section from an alternate take, it should have been represented on the LLL, just like all the various inserts which Mike used in the film score presentation over Williams' original intentions.

 

Here's the thing. Inserts that ARE included were intended or recorded to be inserted by Williams. The harpsichord was (as far as I remember) inserting by the SFX guys, probably pulled from the stems of another cue or take. This makes it a sound editorial change and not an official Williams insert. The goal was to represent Williams' original intentions that were recorded. Hence the missing percussion alternate of Sir Cadogan. 

 

It's a slippery slope when you ask for the film versions. The pure film versions that include everything from editorial would also include tons of edits. Some fine, some nasty. For example, with "Snowball Fight", the sound guys dropped several stems very roughly and left only the strings to close the track:

 

https://clyp.it/mhxx0wwf?token=bef38a8ec179434279d7e12a793ad993

 

I'd much prefer having the full original recording. That being said, I prefer ALSO having the chopped up and remixed film versions to compare and learn what was done to them and why to have them fit the final film. In the case of a label score release...an Album is not the proper place to put these things. If only all the Potter films came with official Isolated Scores. That would be a perfectly acceptable place for that.

[bollemanneke 3,342]

Could we call the Cadogan cue an editorial change, though? Because while the tambourines might have been added by the effects guys, the cue itself is slowed down and is most definitely a different take. I'd love MM to comment on these things.

[Holko 9,519]

And the cue title is still 3M13 - Sir Cardogan "for Dufay Ensemble & Percussion" , but the OST/LLL take has zero percussion while one of the two film versions does.

[Arpy 4,145]

@TSMefford Why would the sound guys edit in a slightly different harpsichord take - that would be purely a musical decision. It doesn't make sense when it's replacing something that was already there. It just seems to me that the most reasonable explanation is that it was a different take that isn't represented on the LLL set and probably because it's barely noticeable to humans. 

[Jurassic Shark 12,055]

MM screwed up again!

[Datameister 2,041]

4 hours ago, Arpy said:

@TSMefford Why would the sound guys edit in a slightly different harpsichord take - that would be purely a musical decision. It doesn't make sense when it's replacing something that was already there. It just seems to me that the most reasonable explanation is that it was a different take that isn't represented on the LLL set and probably because it's barely noticeable to humans. 

 

This.

[Brundlefly 2,385]

But the chembalo's resonance differs noticably in the two versions.

[Datameister 2,041]

8 minutes ago, Brundlefly said:

But the chembalo's resonance differs noticably in the two versions.

 

It's a synthesizer - Williams easily could have asked Kerber for a different sound for different takes.

[bollemanneke 3,342]

Is it normal that I only just noticed that the first theme statement in Leaving Hogwarts contains a note I thought wasn't there at all?

[redishere 697]

10 minutes ago, bollemanneke said:

Is it normal that I only just noticed that the first theme statement in Leaving Hogwarts contains a note I thought wasn't there at all?

I think it's happened to me before, yeah! Which note?

[bollemanneke 3,342]

The 13th played by the English horn, the A. I was convinced it was an F-sharp one octave higher.

[Jay 37,346]

On 2/2/2020 at 4:01 PM, Chewy said:

I just noticed something interesting in the track "Befriending the Hippogriff": the harpsichord heard at the beginning of the track sounds different when comparing the LLL track with the film version.

 

Here as two clips to compare:

 

@Jay Do you know if this is an alternate take or just another edit from the sound effects team (but no idea how they'd do that) ?

 

The harpsichord take that was used in the film was not found on any of the elements Mike had, so he used a different take rather than having no harpsichord at all.

[Chewy 2,388]

8 minutes ago, Jay said:

 

The harpsichord take that was used in the film was not found on any of the elements Mike had, so he used a different take rather than having no harpsichord at all.

Interesting! Do you know if there are other little things that could not be found in the elements Mike had when making the assembly?

[Holko 9,519]

So the studio gave the film stems for ltp preparations, possibly allowed for them to be used for the AotS podcast, but not for the actual soundtrack release when things were missing from the used sources?

 

 

 

 

Dicks

[Jay 37,346]

I don't know any specifics, but I think there's a lot of one hand not talking to the other stuff going on at WB, especially when it comes to Potter stuff, which eventually had its own division created.  It's very possible they sent him an outdated music stem from before overlays were added, then later found the right stem to give to the LTP people and never let him know about it.

 

All three scores, despite being recording relatively close to each other time wise, have vastly different archives requiring Mike to follow a pretty different process for each score.

 

Each score had something we wanted that didn't turn up, but each score also had something turn up didn't even know existed beforehand so that was cool.

 

In the end everything major and important is included and that was the most important, that and his total rebuild of the HP1 score so the studio now has 24/192 versions of it all instead of using the same 24/44.1 masters created in 2001 they had been using.

[bollemanneke 3,342]

Would he have found that take had he used the tapes?

[Jay 37,346]

What?

[greenturnedblue 372]

35 minutes ago, Jay said:

What?

 

think he means, 

Would he have used that take had he found the tapes?

[Holko 9,519]

He's referring to the obviously incomplete digital masters Mike used instead of the analog tapes. And probably wondering why they're so incomplete that Mike had to use wrong takes or pull things from the OST master. Come on, Warner, this was only recorded 16 years ago in the digital age, it's not like it's a 1953 score with one person alive who was there in the booth.

[TSMefford 1,509]

17 hours ago, Arpy said:

@TSMefford Why would the sound guys edit in a slightly different harpsichord take - that would be purely a musical decision. It doesn't make sense when it's replacing something that was already there. It just seems to me that the most reasonable explanation is that it was a different take that isn't represented on the LLL set and probably because it's barely noticeable to humans. 

 

Despite the fact that I ended up being incorrect in this instance. This does happen all the time. Jay has specifically stated multiple times that (for example) the percussion for Sir Cadogan was a sound fx decision. I can't explain the title on the sheet music thoguh, I myself was puzzled by that.

 

I will say though that if the sound guys can tinker with music then they will. There's all sorts of bizzare editing choices made throughout the Potter films including many times where the final music edits involve pulling from stems from other tracks, dropping out instruments, etc. PoA is no exception, which is why I assumed this could be another instance of that. I highly doubt some of this horrid editing would be made by a competent music editor.

 

In this case, as to why they would edit it in and replace something? A hypothetical situation could be that the director zeros in on something and wants to change it late in the game, and the sound guys do what they can to blend takes. I assume that explains many of the weird editing choices across the Potter films and honestly on MANY films.

 

I've had my own music tinkered with in editing. I wasn't part of that process at all. I watched the final product and an entirely different cue was playing in place of something that I had written, then revised, and then was apparently tracked over after being approved. Things happen.

[Arpy 4,145]

The taiko drums overlay in Revenge of the Sith is another instance - I'm not doubting the fact that there is tinkering by people other than Williams, just the decision for that one cue which had several visions with and without the harpischord and the version used in the film wasn't an extreme case. 

[bollemanneke 3,342]

12 hours ago, Jay said:

What?

I meant, would the take have been on the analog tapes? And why didn't they use those in the first place? It seems… strange that someone so thorough like Mike can't get his hands on everything. Did he just assume/hope that the files he got were everything, or was this WB being difficult or LLL unable to afford transfers for everything? (Aka, please do a 10-page Q&A with Mike about this set.)

[Holko 9,519]

Yes, the annual Jay Mike interview is way waaaaaaaay overdue (though we've gotten podcasts with often more casual questions to hold us over). But it's obvious he's just waiting for Hook to get the final signoff and go into disc production so he can ask him about that too!

[crumbs 14,306]

29 minutes ago, bollemanneke said:

I meant, would the take have been on the analog tapes? And why didn't they use those in the first place? It seems… strange that someone so thorough like Mike can't get his hands on everything. Did he just assume/hope that the files he got were everything, or was this WB being difficult or LLL unable to afford transfers for everything? (Aka, please do a 10-page Q&A with Mike about this set.)

 

It's still unclear but it seems that WB didn't provide POA's analog masters to Mike/LLL for modern scans of the scoring sessions.

 

Instead, they were provided incomplete 5.1 digital masters and had to use a dodgy OST master to fill in the blanks for cues missing from those digital masters. Worse, it means we have no idea if Williams actually recorded the alternates that leaked in the sheet music (another alternate Firebolt, alternate Remembering Mother, alternate Dementors Converge).

 

Sadly I don't think Mike has really elaborated on why the 5.1 masters were incomplete or what happened to the analog masters. I always found it curious that only PS got fresh scans of the analog tapes while COS and POA did not.

[Holko 9,519]

The fact that only PS was locked into CD quality with those old scans is a good excuse, but still.

[bollemanneke 3,342]

True, although Jay did say Mike got access to every COS take. I interpreted that as 'everything that was ever recorded,' analog tapes or not.

[crumbs 14,306]

5 minutes ago, bollemanneke said:

True, although Jay did say Mike got access to every COS take. I interpreted that as 'everything that was ever recorded,' analog tapes or not.

 

That seems to be at odds with this comment:

 

14 hours ago, Jay said:

Each score had something we wanted that didn't turn up, but each score also had something turn up didn't even know existed beforehand so that was cool.

 

Clearly all the missing Azkaban music is well documented (nearly half a dozen alternates we know JW wrote, plus his Double Trouble demo used during filming) but judging by Jay's comment there was material missing for the first two scores as well.

 

Surprising, because the first two scores seem significantly more comprehensive than the third.

[Holko 9,519]

There could be many many versions written, then rewritten before they would have been recorded.

[Brundlefly 2,385]

14 hours ago, Jay said:

Each score had something we wanted that didn't turn up, but each score also had something turn up didn't even know existed beforehand so that was cool.

Any specific examples we don't know about yet?

[bollemanneke 3,342]

My thoughts exactly. I have no idea how (un)common it is for JW sheet music to contain loads of alternates that weren't recorded.

[crumbs 14,306]

I was under the impression Jay and Mike didn't definitively know whether many of those infamous POA alternates were even recorded -- and with the 5.1 digital masters incomplete, there's no way to know unless the analog masters can be studied (as those would contain every raw take, not just the finalised 5.1 masters).

 

And on PS, perhaps they were hoping the speech JW gave on the morning of September 12 (following the 9/11 attacks) would turn up? From memory Mike said they couldn't find it in the sessions, so it must not have been recorded (but several musicians told him about it).

[bollemanneke 3,342]

Yes, isn't it odd that they didn't get some kind of list with cue names and dates for HP3? Jay seems to know them for HP1.

[redishere 697]

The HP3 plot thickens. 
Can't wait for Prisoner of Azkaban Complete (For Real This Time) 20th Anniversary Edition coming in 2024

[gkgyver 1,645]

Holy Christ, I just saw that Filmtracks gave PoA a *** rating. 3 stars. THREE. That's the same rating he gave the last bunch of Transformers scores. 

What a complete and utter tool! 

[TheUlyssesian 2,478]

11 minutes ago, gkgyver said:

Holy Christ, I just saw that Filmtracks gave PoA a *** rating. 3 stars. THREE. That's the same rating he gave the last bunch of Transformers scores. 

What a complete and utter tool! 

 

He had given the OST 4 stars. He heard the LLL and thought, this extra music added to the original music I liked means I will take away 1 star.

[bollemanneke 3,342]

Incomprehensible.

 

Having said that, just finished HP2 again. Love the flow of the presentation.

[Unlucky Bastard 7,782]

On 2/8/2020 at 11:03 PM, crumbs said:

Jay and Mike

 

 

[Jurassic Shark 12,055]

11 minutes ago, bollemanneke said:

Having said that, just finished HP2 again. Love the flow of the presentation.

 

Geez, you're up too early!

 

2 hours ago, TheUlyssesian said:

 

He had given the OST 4 stars. He heard the LLL and thought, this extra music added to the original music I liked means I will take away 1 star.

 

Probably because Ross composed all of the music.