Best Mike Matessino release?

[ckahn 0]

What Mike Matessino release is considered the best listening experience?   I saw lots of praise in the Jurassic Park Collection thread about its sound quality  -- is that the best?   It certainly sounds amazing.   I know Mike's liner notes are considered amazing also but I wanted to focus on listening experience.

[John Dutton 7,259]

There is actually some debate over the sound of Jurassic Park 1.

 

I think The Lost World is a pretty definitive presentation, however. It's one of the best-sounding JW scores, it's all there and works in complete chronological.

[Holko 10,086]

Actually I think TLW is better when you join the tracks that were intended to be joined but Mike didn't do it for some reason.

[rough cut 1,740]

One of the coolest things he ever did, I’d say, was the disc 2 of alternates for Close Encounters.

 

Very cool idea, and excellent execution.

[TSMefford 1,526]

Harry Potter. Hands down.

[Richard Penna 4,089]

Definitely Potter.

 

JP could contend, but the lack of the film mix of Ripples enables Potter to claim it.

[Matt S. 552]

My favorite is Dracula.  I've had the earlier CD for years but never really got into it because of the poor sound quality.  The new release blows it away, and has allowed me to get more familiar with the score than ever before.

[Bryant Burnette 691]

Tough call.  I think Empire of the Sun might be it, though.

[John Dutton 7,259]

9 hours ago, Richard Penna said:

Definitely Potter.

 

JP could contend, but the lack of the film mix of Ripples enables Potter to claim it.

 

That one's new to me...

[Holko 10,086]

The two combinations on Dracula to help LiStEnInG ExPeRiEnCe do work great!

 

On Azkaban, apart from maybe Trouble Takes Many Forms where I personally much prefer March to lead into Rainy Nights, all the completely seamless work on the short cues slightly out of chronology to join with similar material and alternates indistinguishably being present next to each other in the main program is nothing short of genius.

 

I'd be more hesitant to throw Empire of the Sun or maybe E.T. around, since there all he had to do was list everything in order and it already works perfectly.

 

With CE3K I love Disc 1, love Disc 2 and all the work gone into it to make it another completely viable presentation of the journey, and also love the complete chrono score you can build from all that pretty much without any additional necessary editing or splitting! It's a unique achievement.

[The Train Station 8,566]

ID4

[John Dutton 7,259]

Return of the Jedi

[Holko 10,086]

That one's garbage!

[bollemanneke 3,568]

Very difficult to say. HP immediately comes to mind, but it has that bad flying car transition. So I'd have to say... Home Alone 2.

[Bespin 8,674]

Now I listen to Expanded scores in Winamp, using a cross fade-in/fade-out settings, that makes all the tracks playing continuously.

 

MAGIC!

 

 

 

 

Now what are the 5 JW's Top MM releases?

 

- A.I.

- Harry Potter boxset

- E.T.

- Jurassic Park - Williams collection

- Jaws

[Chewy 2,495]

The Jurassic Park set of course!

 

On 6/29/2019 at 10:51 PM, Dieter Stark said:

There is actually some debate over the sound of Jurassic Park 1.

Haven't heard of that?

[The Illustrious Jerry 3,357]

On 6/30/2019 at 6:46 AM, Bespin said:

- Jurassic Park - Williams collection

Do I still "inherit" this if you were to die unexpectedly?

[Bespin 8,674]

2 minutes ago, The Illustrious Jerry said:

Do I still "inherit" this if you were to die unexpectedly?

 

If I don’t die being poisoned, yes.

[The Illustrious Jerry 3,357]

1 minute ago, Bespin said:

If I don’t die being poisoned, yes.

That'd certainly be...mysterious!

[Jay 39,162]

JAWS certainly must be mentioned.  The sound quality is so, drastically different from the 2000 Decca made from the same analog element, you realize just how hard he worked on that to get it to sound how it did (and how much technology improved in 15 years)

[Yavar Moradi 2,942]

Yeah in terms of Mike's painstaking work making a difference, I think the original Jaws film recording beats literally everything else! (Too bad first generation tapes for the album recording didn't survive -- I'm guessing the UMG fire -- or he could have made that sound better too, I suspect.)

 

Yavar

[Jay 39,162]

Yes all evidence points to the original master tapes for the album sessions burned up in the Universal fire

[Luke Skywalker 1,932]

Jurassic park collection for me. But iam biased, holy grails for years 

[1977 1,745]

Something that is yet to be released!

[Jay 39,162]

I agree!

[Ollie 1,108]

Superman.

[John Dutton 7,259]

I don't like how Jaws sounds.

[danbeck 123]

6 hours ago, Yavar Moradi said:

Yeah in terms of Mike's painstaking work making a difference, I think the original Jaws film recording beats literally everything else! (Too bad first generation tapes for the album recording didn't survive -- I'm guessing the UMG fire -- or he could have made that sound better too, I suspect.)

 

Yavar

 

Jaws is one of my favorite films and scores ever and I will be forever thankful to Mike for making the film score listenable. I could not bear the muffled sound of the previous Decca release. 

 

Other great achievements were Close Encounters, Dracula, ET, Poltergeist, Superman (some controversy on this one for the dynamic range as I saw in some forums but sounds great to me). I think his greatest achievements are with older/challenging materials on which he does make a difference. I consider him the best in the business now (also love James Nelson and others, but MM is the guy I hope one day will bring us the definitive Indy and Star Wars).

 

On the other hand I’m not a big fan of his Jaws 2 mastering. Somehow I think it is a bit too hissy (while he minimized this issue much more in Jaws and Poltergeist maintaining the clarity of the recordings) and in the balance the low bass, specially in the shark theme seems a bit more burried in the mix than in the movie (such as in the Big Jolt - when the fin is sinking - or at the end of Catching The Cable, Sinking the Catamaran and The Big Bite). 

[Amer 2,210]

The following are perfect examples of Matessino's work:

 

1.Empire of the Sun. 

2.Close Encounters of the Third Kind. 

3.Jaws.

4.Superman

5.Jurassic Park (Collection) 

 

The trouble is, He (Matessino) raises the bar higher each time. 

[Demondm810 399]

I'd say a tie between AI and Jaws.  

[Dr. Rick 1,193]

19 hours ago, JTWfan77 said:

Something that is yet to be released!

 

19 hours ago, Jay said:

I agree!

 

Argh!! Y'all are killing me!     I take this little exchange to mean that it's going to be Hook, IJ box set, or SW box set of some kind possibly?!?!  Perhaps to coincide with the "huge" 500th LLL release?  Can't wait!

 

Back on topic, my favorite MM release (so far) is the HP box set.

[Holko 10,086]

Only one of those is possible and come on LLL, it's July already even in the magical land of forestfires.

[Yavar Moradi 2,942]

9 minutes ago, ATXHusker said:

Argh!! Y'all are killing me!     I take this little exchange to mean that it's going to be Hook, IJ box set, or SW box set of some kind possibly?!?!  Perhaps to coincide with the "huge" 500th LLL release?  Can't wait!

 

Back on topic, my favorite MM release (so far) is the HP box set.

 

If you're hoping for a Williams title as the 500th release...I wouldn't get your hopes up, honestly. If anything would be big enough that LLL could tackle, it'd be the Harry Potter box set, and they didn't save that for the 500th release. Hook they already expanded, and it's just a single score. It wouldn't match their hype about this being a big one (and I suspect that may refer to a box set of some kind, besides).

 

A definitive Indiana Jones or Star Wars box set would fit the hype obviously, but I don't think these will happen yet (and if/when they do happen, it'll more likely be from Intrada, the only speciality label with a relationship with Disney, which has owned Lucasfilm for several years now). Even if a soundtrack specialty label could wrest rights for these major franchises away from major music labels, they would definitely hold off on producing such a set until *after* Indiana Jones 5 and Star Wars Episode IX come out -- *obviously*. Why would they risk leaving Williams's final work for each franchise unexpanded, and unincluded in the set?

 

So yeah...think beyond Williams.

 

Yavar

[Chewy 2,495]

1 minute ago, Yavar Moradi said:

A definitive Indiana Jones or Star Wars box set would fit the hype obviously, but I don't think these will happen yet (and if/when they do happen, it'll more likely be from Intrada, the only speciality label with a relationship with Disney, which has owned Lucasfilm for several years now).

Wait, I thought 3rd party labels were unable to release a Star Wars or Indy boxset and that if it happens, it would have to come out via Disney Records.

[Yavar Moradi 2,942]

Did you not read my very next sentence? ("Even if a soundtrack specialty label could wrest rights for these major franchises away from major music labels...")

I'm not saying it's likely. I'm saying it'd be *more* likely to happen from Intrada (because they have a Disney connection) than any other specialty label, including LLL.

 

The best guess so far that I've seen floated at the FSM board is a box set of scores from the superb HBO From the Earth to the Moon series, because if it's an announcement LLL is going to make soonish, ghost of 82's prediction on the timing makes a lot of sense:

Quote

And it's going to be announced next week or the week after, tying in with both the 50th anniversary of the JUly 20th landing and the release of the remastered Blu-ray set of the HBO series (which has a Dolby Atmos track and new visual effects, so its received some TLC).

 

New remastered Blu-ray release of the series, which has not been widely available for a while, plus 50th anniversary of the moon landing. A box set of these great orchestral scores timed with that would be pretty awesome, and MV actually did express interest in pursuing one -- last year in the MV/LLL questions thread at FSM.

 

We are talking one of Michael Kamen's best themes and some of his best work, ever (three scores for the series), plus soaring and inspiring orchestral scores by other high profile feature film composers Mark Isham (two scores), Marc Shaiman, Mark Mancini (so many Marks!), Brad Fiedel, and James Newton Howard! I mean, those are some big fan favorite names, there, who cover the gamut of having written soaring/inspiring music, from Shaiman's American President to Isham's October Sky! And the one composer I didn't mention (Mason Daring) might not be as well known as the others, but he did very fine work for three episodes of this series too. Fingers crossed that this happens -- if not now, then eventually...but the timing sure seems particularly great, now.

 

Yavar

[1977 1,745]

I take it Fiedel's contribution is synth only? I'm unfamiliar with the series and it's score.

[bollemanneke 3,568]

On ‎7‎/‎1‎/‎2019 at 10:13 PM, JTWfan77 said:

Something that is yet to be released!

You mean Hook... right? YES YOU DO! HOOK IS COMING! I KNEW IT!

[Not Mr. Big 4,729]

A

I

[Dr. Rick 1,193]

13 hours ago, Yavar Moradi said:

Did you not read my very next sentence? ("Even if a soundtrack specialty label could wrest rights for these major franchises away from major music labels...")

I'm not saying it's likely. I'm saying it'd be *more* likely to happen from Intrada (because they have a Disney connection) than any other specialty label, including LLL.

 

The best guess so far that I've seen floated at the FSM board is a box set of scores from the superb HBO From the Earth to the Moon series, because if it's an announcement LLL is going to make soonish, ghost of 82's prediction on the timing makes a lot of sense:

 

New remastered Blu-ray release of the series, which has not been widely available for a while, plus 50th anniversary of the moon landing. A box set of these great orchestral scores timed with that would be pretty awesome, and MV actually did express interest in pursuing one -- last year in the MV/LLL questions thread at FSM.

 

We are talking one of Michael Kamen's best themes and some of his best work, ever (three scores for the series), plus soaring and inspiring orchestral scores by other high profile feature film composers Mark Isham (two scores), Marc Shaiman, Mark Mancini (so many Marks!), Brad Fiedel, and James Newton Howard! I mean, those are some big fan favorite names, there, who cover the gamut of having written soaring/inspiring music, from Shaiman's American President to Isham's October Sky! And the one composer I didn't mention (Mason Daring) might not be as well known as the others, but he did very fine work for three episodes of this series too. Fingers crossed that this happens -- if not now, then eventually...but the timing sure seems particularly great, now.

 

Yavar

 

Meh...  give us the hook!

[crumbs 14,696]

The best unreleased Mike Matessino release is probably the Star Wars prequel trilogy box set, whenever that happens. Or the sequel trilogy box, considering the vast amount of unreleased music it contains (3 hours?)

 

But both would appear to be several years away and, barring a miraculous intervention, destined for Disney's in-house label rather than an independent one where Mike has complete creative control. 

[bollemanneke 3,568]

But even if Disney were to tackle it themselves, wouldn't JW's people force MM to have complete control?

[Holko 10,086]

3 hours ago, crumbs said:

The best unreleased Mike Matessino release is probably the Star Wars prequel trilogy box set, whenever that happens.

 

At the moment I'd be happier with Indy, complete&chrono in great sound by Mike. It's the only reason I'm looking forward to 5, it'll either be a tie-in like the (bleh) Concord or come out afterwards, but surely no chance of it until then as long as the film's seriously on the table.

[crumbs 14,696]

I think a five-score Indy box set (assuming Williams actually scores 5) is off the table until 2021. Not only does Indy 5 release that year but it coincides with the 40th Anniversary of Raiders.

 

It would be the first time Williams ever allowed both an OST + expanded release of a score in the same year though, but he'd surely understand the reasoning behind it.

[Holko 10,086]

That aside...

 

[bollemanneke 3,568]

That was great! But seriously guys, am I the only one who is NOT gonna buy a complete Indy or SW box set? I mean, separate releases would be much more welcome for me.

[Disco Stu 15,501]

6 minutes ago, bollemanneke said:

am I the only one

 

In my experience reading your posts over the last 3 or 4 years, the answer to this question is always, emphatically, "yes"

 

(just teasing, I would also prefer separate releases, even though I'd buy all of them, I prefer them to box sets.  but obviously I'd buy a box set)

[Holko 10,086]

I guess we don't have a precedent for the price range of a complete score from a big studio who has all the rights internally and doesn't have to licence shit.

[bollemanneke 3,568]

Yeah, I mean, HP is one thing, but there's no way I'm buying every single Indy or SW score: SW4 and Indy 2 and 4 aren't worth it.

[Holko 10,086]

What did you just say?

[Yavar Moradi 2,942]

2 hours ago, bollemanneke said:

Yeah, I mean, HP is one thing, but there's no way I'm buying every single Indy or SW score: SW4 and Indy 2 and 4 aren't worth it.

 

Whaaa? We're talking scores here, not movies (or I'd agree with you on Indy 2 & 4). Crystal Skull comes across as a much greater score in complete form, and though the film annoys me to no end, Temple of Doom is an absolutely incredible score.

Yavar