Star Wars A New Hope 2-LP Walt Disney Records

[Bellosh 1727]

Star Wars 2CD - A New HOPE

[Jay 31058]

[Marian Schedenig 6227]

The thread title is wrong.

[theMaestraX 105]

STAR WARS NO HOPE 2CD from Walt Disney Records

[Demodex 495]

With the Special Editions from 1997 I don't know why we need any more releases of the OT soundtracks.

[Dr. Rick 931]

Because they are not complete and all could use a remastering, esp ROTJ

[Demodex 495]

How are they not complete?  They have everything that's in the films, plus alternates, plus concert pieces.  What more is there?

[Amer 1774]

Jedi is a complete mess. Its horribly tweaked in the remastering stage and sounds muffled. It has no bite. (Specifically Disc 2) Empire has been remixed in most places so it doesn't sound all to great but is much better than Jedi. Jedi is missing the film version of the End Credits and Funeral Pyre music as well as the Jabba Source music. Only Star Wars sounds terrific ( maybe a few sweetners are missing) 

 

But all this needs a new remastering and restoration under the expertise of guru Mike Matessino. The previous editions came out 23 years ago! Imagine what todays upgrade in audio restoration will yield. Plus there are better quality tape sources of Jedi that will toss out the previous editions. 

 

 

 

 

[Demodex 495]

5 minutes ago, Amer said:

Jedi is missing the film version of the End Credits and Funeral Pyre music as well as the Jabba Source music.

 

There are two versions of Funeral Pyre on that release!

 

Who cares about Jabba source music?

 

The end credits are fine to me. 

[Amer 1774]

3 hours ago, Demodex said:

 

There are two versions of Funeral Pyre on that release!

 

Who cares about Jabba source music?

 

The end credits are fine to me. 

 

Correction. I meant Empire End Credits. I dont remember the film version of Funeral Pyre being on that disc! 

 

Plus the main problem in these special editions is that they have used compression and DNR which totally robs us of the high end frequencies. As a result my goto JEDI album is the Anthology discs. 

 

The Jedi Source music  for Jabba's sail barge is one of the most requested missing pieces. So is The Ewok Celebration and Lapti Nek film versions. 

 

Generally the main content is covered in these sets like 99.1% but we need definitive upgrade. 

 

 

 

[A. A. Ron 850]

3 hours ago, Demodex said:

They have everything that's in the films

 

Actually, no, they don't, nevermind additional alternates.

[Holko 8034]

SW: pretty much everything there beside the non-faded-out ending of Cantina Band 2 and an original Credits bit that was replaced. Sound is less than ideal in many places, better than the demaster here and there.

 

Empire: close to everything there but arranged weirdly (alternates in main program in a random place, insert not actually replacing the stuff it was written to replace, just plopped after it then the original piece continues), sound is varying but not great overall, for some cues they just used the Anthology mix because work is hard.

 

Jedi: stuff missing, same alternate/insert problems as Empire, sound sucks all kinds of ass.

 

That they haven't bothered to replace and better these messy rushjobs in 23 years is a disgrace, that they reisued them twice with no improvement but taking away even liner notes is like a spit in the face and a middle finger in addition.

[Arpy 4072]

Return of the Jedi sounds like they recorded the score on tape and then played that through the resonating chamber of a velociraptor. There are many beautiful moments in the score that are buried, compressed, muffled, crackled, quiet and nearly unlistenable.

[crumbs 12625]

3 hours ago, Arpy said:

Return of the Jedi sounds like they recorded the score on tape and then played that through the resonating chamber of a velociraptor. There are many beautiful moments in the score that are buried, compressed, muffled, crackled, quiet and nearly unlistenable.

 

This post inspired me to revisit Jurassic Park 3 for the first time in years. Damn, what a bloody fun score! Davis knocked that out of the park, loving this a lot more than I remembered. He even intertwined the carnivore motif into that scene above:

 

 

And more obscure, the same orchestral stabs Williams accentuates the Rex footsteps in the first film (:04 and :15):

 

Sorry to sidetrack the thread. But let's face it, the thread is bloody pointless now anyway.

[JTWfan77 1312]

^ It's a terrific score!

[Manakin Skywalker 3606]

15 hours ago, Demodex said:

How are they not complete?  They have everything that's in the films, plus alternates, plus concert pieces.  What more is there?

 

TESB:

-Film take of the Imperial March

-Film insert for "Yoda's Entrance"

-Alternate take for "Finale", part of which has surfaced

-Film version of End Credits

-Possibly more alternates(?)

 

ROTJ:

-Film version of Lapti Nek

-English recording of Lapti Nek

-Max Rebo Band source cue (you might not care, but we do!)

-Film insert for "The Ewok Battle"

-Jabba the Hutt concert suite (yes, an entire concert suite is unreleased!)

-Possible the film version of "Funeral Pyre"

-Film version of "Ewok Celebration"

-Possibly more alternates(?)

 

Plus the quality of the SE sets, as others have said, are horrible. At the very least we need a remaster.

[Jurassic Shark 9355]

5 minutes ago, Manakin Skywalker said:

Jabba the Hutt concert suite (yes, an entire concert suite is unreleased!)

 

And probably lost, unless it's hiding in the box with the Dracula "mono" tapes!

[Manakin Skywalker 3606]

14 minutes ago, Jurassic Shark said:

And probably lost, unless it's hiding in the box with the Dracula "mono" tapes!

 

It probably fell behind a shelf in the Lucasfilm archives.

[Smaug The Iron 436]

27 minutes ago, Manakin Skywalker said:

TESB:

-Film take of the Imperial March

-Film insert for "Yoda's Entrance"

-Alternate take for "Finale", part of which has surfaced

-Film version of End Credits

-Possibly more alternates(?)

Can you explain more? I new about the Yoda's Entrance insert but I am not that familiar with the rest. 

[Amer 1774]

Lukas Kendall did a detailed scrutiny of what he found or existed pretty much nailed it in an early FSM magazine issue (which had Elliot Goldenthall on the cover) He basically dissected on all of the varying unreleased cues at that time when the Anthology set came. It was so long ago... 

[Jay 31058]

On 4/6/2020 at 2:23 PM, Smaug the iron said:

Can you explain more? I new about the Yoda's Entrance insert but I am not that familiar with the rest. 

 

Sure!

 

On 4/6/2020 at 1:49 PM, Manakin Skywalker said:

-Film take of the Imperial March

 

Williams' intended music for the reveal of the fleet (2M4 The Probe Scanner, 1997 SE track "Aboard The Executor") was junked in favor of the Imperial March concert arrangement, however, they didn't use the same TAKES from the recording session that they used to assemble the album track

 

 

 

Quote

-Film insert for "Yoda's Entrance"

 

The end of 5M2 Yoda's Entrance (1997 SE title Luke's Nocturnal Visitor") in the actual film is a later-recorded Insert that has never been released

 

Quote

-Alternate take for "Finale", part of which has surfaced

 

Williams recorded a separate ending for this piece that can be used if not seguing into the end titles.  It turned up clean in the "Star Wars: Crimson Empire" audiobook

 

Quote

-Film version of End Credits

 

Not sure what he's referring to here.  With the end credits, we already got the album performance and the film performance released on the 1993 4CD box set.  Both include the longer ending of the Yoda's Theme section, which was an Insert recorded later, but technically an "alternate" could be presented that doesn't use that extension (as some people have done in their fan edits once the sheet music came out and we learned that bit was an Insert)

 

Quote

-Possibly more alternates(?)

 

Not that I know of, just proper clean openings / endings, and presenting the alternates as bonus tracks and not hidden in the main program

[JTWfan77 1312]

3 hours ago, Jurassic Shark said:

And probably lost, unless it's hiding in the box with the Dracula "mono" tapes!

 

Or they wiped the missing part of the tape as Goldsmith did for his alternate Rambo II end titles because apparently nobody liked it.

[stravinsky 192]

Dear Manakin. I have just listened to your edit of Episode IV on YouTube and I'm really astonished to hear clean openings and endings of every cue for the first time in 40 years.

        I wanted to ask you if there are prevuously unknown different takes here that you have utilised for this edition because some of them sound familiar yet not familiar. For instance at 0:15 into "The Hologram" there is a tiny recording artifact which sounds like someone vocalising. I remember it from the original LP set but by 1997 it was absent from the RCA release.

 I've wanted a spliced up version of this score which reflects each cue exactly as heard in the film like this for years! Also am I right in saying that the cue "Learn about the Force" is actually composed of three short cues? Maybe just my imagination. 

      Lastly I've just been listening to David W Collins' excellent podcasts for the first time and I was actually astounded to hear something I had chosen to ignore. He describes three preliminary takes of the main title included as the bonus at the end of Disc 1 (which I never really paid attention to) as a kind of process of changing the notes. But listening to it I was astounded to realise that these early takes of the cue included an orchestrated chord which was actually CUT! This being the very first chord of the score. 

         Even though its only one second of music, still this score after 42 years is still opening up its secrets. Its a pandoras box this music and all the better for the tiny revelations you've provided with your excellent edit. How on earth did you manage it? 

[Manakin Skywalker 3606]

19 minutes ago, stravinsky said:

Dear Manakin. I have just listened to your edit of Episode IV on YouTube and I'm really astonished to hear clean openings and endings of every cue for the first time in 40 years.

        I wanted to ask you if there are prevuously unknown different takes here that you have utilised for this edition because some of them sound familiar yet not familiar. For instance at 0:15 into "The Hologram" there is a tiny recording artifact which sounds like someone vocalising. I remember it from the original LP set but by 1997 it was absent from the RCA release.

 

Well first off, I'm currently redoing all of my OT edits from scratch. There are a lot of issues with my old edits, such as speed issues and incorrect takes. The main source I used besides the '93 Anthology boxset was the 2016 OST remasters, which are based off of the original vinyl masters, which is why they are identical to the '77 vinyl mix. However I noticed that the 2016 master is also slightly sped up, which I need to correct. The Anthology boxset I used a lot as well because of the superior sound quality, but unfortunately there are a lot of incorrect takes that were used, as well as some strange glitches in the audio. The '97 SE is the best source, but the sound is a tiny bit flat, which I am fixing for my updated edit. Those are the three primary resources that I used. Combined, they contain most of the clean openings and endings, although not all of them. A few of them I had to recreate artificially, mostly by carefully applying reverb.

[stravinsky 192]

Thankyou! And your opinion of "Learn about the Force"? As well as the cut chord I mentioned in the early main titles? Cheers Raymond 

[Manakin Skywalker 3606]

27 minutes ago, stravinsky said:

Thankyou! And your opinion of "Learn about the Force"? As well as the cut chord I mentioned in the early main titles? Cheers Raymond 

 

According to the sheet music, "Learn About the Force" is just one cue, the actual title being "R4P2A The Force".

 

And what were you wondering about the Main Title?

[stravinsky 192]

OK thanks for that. It was just to ask if you'd heard the very brief chromatic slide towards the opening of the main title which was later cut (just one chord) which David Collins highlighted in his podcast. He played the openings of three different early takes which are included as an Easter egg. Its fascinating to hear. 

[Manakin Skywalker 3606]

7 minutes ago, stravinsky said:

OK thanks for that. It was just to ask if you'd heard the very brief chromatic slide towards the opening of the main title which was later cut (just one chord) which David Collins highlighted in his podcast. He played the openings of three different early takes which are included as an Easter egg. Its fascinating to hear. 

 

Yep of course. The four takes on the SE set are all actually used in the full version of the main title; takes 16-20 were split up into sections to construct it. Hearing them on the SE was a big revelation for everyone when it came out, hearing what could have been in some alternate universe.

[Jurassic Shark 9355]

7 hours ago, JTWfan77 said:

 

Or they wiped the missing part of the tape as Goldsmith did for his alternate Rambo II end titles because apparently nobody liked it.

 

George probably said wipe them out, all of them!

[crumbs 12625]

It's like someone's cruel joke that the anthology release has such better audio quality but half the takes are wrong, while the SE has the correct takes but sounds like shit.

[Jurassic Shark 9355]

But then we've got everything!

[JTWfan77 1312]

On 4/6/2020 at 4:58 AM, Amer said:

Jedi is a complete mess. Its horribly tweaked in the remastering stage and sounds muffled. It has no bite. (Specifically Disc 2).

 

I had not realised there was a SQ difference between disc 1 and 2 on the SE (I probably haven't listened to it in close to 20 years). If you had to quantify the SQ difference between disc 1 and 2, in relation to the Anthology, what are we looking at? As I'm quite happy with the SQ on the Anthology, I'd consider creating a custom expansion that includes the Jabba's Palace stuff from the SE, while retaining the Anthology cues in film order. I can live without Superstructure Chase as that is primarily adapted material and sounds significantly worse than anything else on the album (I am aware of it being recorded at a different venue).

[Amer 1774]

12 minutes ago, JTWfan77 said:

 

I had not realised there was a SQ difference between disc 1 and 2 on the SE (I probably haven't listened to it in close to 20 years). If you had to quantify the SQ difference between disc 1 and 2, in relation to the Anthology, what are we looking at? As I'm quite happy with the SQ on the Anthology, I'd consider creating a custom expansion that includes the Jabba's Palace stuff from the SE, while retaining the Anthology cues in film order. I can live without Superstructure Chase as that is primarily adapted material and sounds significantly worse than anything else on the album (I am aware of it being recorded at a different venue).

 

 

if you have the software you can see how the brightness level starts decreasing from disc 1 to disc 2. not to mention that the basic brightness was already reduced on disc 1. Suppose all that was done to further reduce the prominent flaws in the sound sources used. The most jarring is the normal brightness on the revised Ewok Celeberation cue at the end of disc 2. It's possible John Williams management may have requested that the sound be tweaked to reduce the brightness at the last stage and somebody altered the deal praying that it not be altered any further? 

 

Many bothans involved in this have always been silent about this despite the obvious odds.

[crumbs 12625]

30 minutes ago, Amer said:

Many bothans involved in this have always been silent about this despite the obvious odds.

 

I'm surprised Matessino has never (to my knowledge) spoken out about the huge audio issues with the SE, considering he was partly involved in the set.

 

In fact, in the last podcast where he discussed the SEs, it never even came up. I guess it would be unprofessional to speak out about it, in the same way he's never said anything about the Didier's flawed Hook expansion.

[Arpy 4072]

Surely some of those issues remained as they were due to the technology of the time and not a glaring oversight? 

[Jurassic Shark 9355]

Nobody wants to talk about their blunders, Mike included.

[Holko 8034]

Mike only wrote the liner notes and provided a list of which takes to use and how to assemble them (which seeing as how the sets turned out, they probably didn't always follow) if I remember correctly.

[Jurassic Shark 9355]

Or he made mistakes in his list.

 

You're downplaying Mike's role is this. The booklets say "Album editing and assembly supervised by Michael Matessino", which means he was responsible for the result when it comes to editing and assembly.

[ckappes 29]

3 hours ago, crumbs said:

 

I'm surprised Matessino has never (to my knowledge) spoken out about the huge audio issues with the SE, considering he was partly involved in the set.

 

In fact, in the last podcast where he discussed the SEs, it never even came up. I guess it would be unprofessional to speak out about it, in the same way he's never said anything about the Didier's flawed Hook expansion.

 

Matessino was vastly involved as Jurassic Shark statet. And he said something about Return of the Jedi sound issues. A reader in FSM magazine asked:

 

(...) Unfortunately, Return of the Jedi only matches the first two releases in the latter category. Of the other two areas, sound quality is definitely the biggest problem. In a recent FSM article (Vol. 2, No. 1), album assembly supervisor Michael Matessino identifies the new Jedi source tapes as “...3-track tape reels that were not used on the boxed set even though they were available at the time.” After listening to the new Jedi set, I can see why these tapes weren’t used previously! The sound quality is awful—dull, flat, lifeless and compressed. The Jedi tapes used for the Arista box set were superior in every way except for completeness. But I find myself willing to sacrifice the latter for the sake of enjoying a pleasant listening experience (for example, compare the tracks “Fight in the Dungeon,”“Heroic Ewok/The Fleet Goes Into Hyperspace” and “First Ewok Battle/Fight with the Fighters” to their counterparts on the new Jedi set). Why were these inferiorsounding tapes used for a release intended to be definitive?

 

Readers, FSM is the place where we cater to your obsessive whims. Michael Matessino responds:

I’m sorry that you found the Return of the Jedi 2CD soundtrack so disappointing. We who worked on it also wished that the quality of the source material was better, but after very careful comparisons to other sources, we concluded that this was the best one to use for most of the album. Overall, there seemed to be a bit more presence and stereo separation than other available sources, but a considerable portion of the set did utilize the same master reels that were used for the Arista anthology. Jedi was recorded with a different, less desirable aesthetic quality from Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back, and this was further compromised by the use of inferior tape stock which did not age well. Unfortunately, the difference is all the more noticeable when compared to Star Wars and Empire, since we had newly discovered multi-track sources on these, both of which were recorded better in the first place. (...)

[crumbs 12625]

Well that's the first I've ever seen of Mike addressing the ROTJ audio quality issues.

 

So it seems they were fully aware it sounded like trash and released it anyway. Certainly not that urban legend about an incorrectly calibrated noise reduction filter that ruined the print master without anyone noticing.

 

So is there any evidence to support the possibility of better quality ROTJ masters surfacing since 1997? If what Mike says is true, the inferior tape stock would only sound significantly worse now (even though the technology to fix it might have improved). Are the Disney Demasters our only evidence, if they were indeed assembled from scratch (using the master tapes) and not the album master?

[JTWfan77 1312]

Perhaps we should prepare ourselves to accept that for ROTJ, the Anthology (in terms of sound quality) and the SE (in terms of near completeness) is as good as it's ever going to get.

 

I can't remember what Lukas said about that mythical 5th disc that was going to be included with the final home video release of the theatrical editions. Was it ever mastered? I seem to recall him saying that he has the assembly on an old cassette somewhere in his attic/cellar.

 

Perhaps we need to petition for a new recording?

[crumbs 12625]

17 minutes ago, JTWfan77 said:

I can't remember what Lukas said about that mythical 5th disc that was going to be included with the final home video release of the theatrical editions. Was it ever mastered? I seem to recall him saying that he has the assembly on an old cassette somewhere in his attic/cellar.

 

A 5th disc for the Anthology set?! Really? That's news to me... did it have more music from ROTJ?

 

And does Mike's explanation above really hold water, considering there are multiple instances of the same cues appearing on both the Anthology and SE that have vastly inferior audio quality on the SE. Why would they use that poorer quality source if they had the superior Anthology source at their disposal?

[Holko 8034]

16-track unspoilt sources exist for SW, couldn't they have looked for similar for Jedi? Or Empire, instead of switching between 3 different mix sources according to Malone's PDF? (Tomlinson film mixes, 1996 worse mixes, 1993 Anthology mixes, all with different sound, balance and even stereo field)

[Smaug The Iron 436]

12 minutes ago, crumbs said:

A 5th disc for the Anthology set?! Really? That's news to me... did it have more music from ROTJ?

https://filmscoremonthly.com/board/posts.cfm?forumID=1&pageID=2&threadID=64952&archive=0

[crumbs 12625]

4 minutes ago, Holko said:

16-track unspoilt sources exist for SW, couldn't they have looked for similar for Jedi? Or Empire, instead of switching between 3 different mix sources according to Malone's PDF? (Tomlinson film mixes, 1996 worse mixes, 1993 Anthology mixes, all with different sound, balance and even stereo field)

 

Mike's pretty vague in that quote above, so far as what the exact sources were. Second generation? Inferior copies? Multi-tracks? Three-tracks? Stereo masters of the soundtrack album?

 

The Demaster doesn't really help us work things out. It's definitely the sharpest and most detailed I've heard ROTJ, but the mix seems really odd and very narrow. It sounds almost mono in places, noticeably Into The Trap (which is doubly noticeable after track 1, which sounds pretty great to my ears).

[Holko 8034]

6 minutes ago, crumbs said:

It sounds almost mono in places, noticeably Into The Trap (which is doubly noticeable after track 1, which sounds pretty great to my ears).

hm, maybe the middle bit, but most of it leans right, strings and some brass are definitely right, harp run at 1:58 is sharp left, those high stings at the end are on both sides, etc.

[crumbs 12625]

Definitely not properly mixed, but at least the instruments are clearer. Definitely an improvement on the muffled sound of the SE.

[Holko 8034]

Huge improvement.

[Jay 31058]

16 hours ago, stravinsky said:

Also am I right in saying that the cue "Learn about the Force" is actually composed of three short cues?

 

The 1997 SE track titled "Tales of a Jedi Knight / Learn About The Force" is comprised of 4 short cues. 

• 0:00-1:39 (1:39) = 4M2 Obi-Wan Kenobi
• 1:39-2:40 (1:01) = 4M2A The Force
• 2:40-3:31 (0:51) = 4M3 The Princess Reappears
• 3:31-end (0:57) = 4M4 Ben and Luke (originally written as 4M4 A Home Destroyed, bars 1 through 14)

 

If you watch the film, you'll plainly see each cue is completely separated from each other, scoring 4 different scenes.

 

This spreadsheet might be of interest to you:

 

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1NTJGw3zWk6qamNFBPNCfrQiMefuO2BQCDlovHwi6ud4/edit?usp=sharing

 

 

Quote

Lastly I've just been listening to David W Collins' excellent podcasts for the first time and I was actually astounded to hear something I had chosen to ignore. He describes three preliminary takes of the main title included as the bonus at the end of Disc 1 (which I never really paid attention to) as a kind of process of changing the notes. But listening to it I was astounded to realise that these early takes of the cue included an orchestrated chord which was actually CUT! This being the very first chord of the score. 

 

We've had that opening chord since the 1993 4CD box set; it opens disc 4.  And there are 5 takes (takes 16-20) of the Main Title at the end of disc 1 of the 1997, not 3.  The final version of the Main Title was constructed using portions of takes 18,19, and 20, like this:

 

On 4/11/2017 at 7:43 AM, phbart said:

0:00 to 0:08, tk.19

0:08 to 0:43, tk.18

0:43 to 1:31, tk.20

1:31 to 1:43, tk.18

1:43 to end, tk.20

[Demodex 495]

20 hours ago, Jay said:

Williams' intended music for the reveal of the fleet (2M4 The Probe Scanner, 1997 SE track "Aboard The Executor") was junked in favor of the Imperial March concert arrangement, however, they didn't use the same TAKES from the recording session that they used to assemble the album track

 

OMG!  How could they!!? 

 

Seriously, does it make any difference?

Maybe I don't fit in here because I would never notice, or care about, this. 

 

As far as I'm concerned, the only SW movies I don't have complete scores for are AOTC, ROTS, and TROS.