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SPOTLIGHT ON JOHN WILLIAMS: A Prospero Classical CD release featuring new recordings of JW film music


SyncMan

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4 hours ago, Jurassic Shark said:

@Tom Guernsey pointed out that London Music Works sounds (at least partially) like a synthetic orchestra. I'm inclined to agree.

 

Missed that post. But yes, the sound in that one is quite artificial.

4 hours ago, Jurassic Shark said:

@Tom Guernsey pointed out that London Music Works sounds (at least partially) like a synthetic orchestra. I'm inclined to agree.

 

Missed that post. But yes, the sound in that one is quite artificial.

4 hours ago, Jurassic Shark said:

@Tom Guernsey pointed out that London Music Works sounds (at least partially) like a synthetic orchestra. I'm inclined to agree.

 

Missed that post. But yes, the sound in that one is quite artificial.

4 hours ago, Jurassic Shark said:

@Tom Guernsey pointed out that London Music Works sounds (at least partially) like a synthetic orchestra. I'm inclined to agree.

 

Missed that post. But yes, the sound in that one is quite artificial.

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1 hour ago, Jurassic Shark said:

 

How old is it, and did you purchase it yourself?

It's 12 years old now and yes, bought it by myself. 

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14 minutes ago, Nemesis said:

It's 12 years old now and yes, bought it by myself. 

 

Cool. I'm planning to purchase an acoustic piano myself - I've only got a digital one now. I'm not sure whether to buy a used (old) one, which can be had for a bargain on web marketplaces, or a brand new one. What's the approximate price of a new Schimmel?

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Digipak is fine. Never had any issues with it (except for THE LOST WORLD). Compilations of this kind just don't fall under my 'completism' definition.

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I dislike several things about digipaks, but one of the worst is that you can't put them on the shelf without squeezing and twisting their spineless spines:

 

IMG_20210417_181523.jpg

 

(Good luck finding A Momentary Lapse of Reason in there if you don't know what it looks like or where it fits in chronologically)

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30 minutes ago, Jurassic Shark said:

 

Cool. I'm planning to purchase an acoustic piano myself - I've only got a digital one now. I'm not sure whether to buy a used (old) one, which can be had for a bargain on web marketplaces, or a brand new one. What's the approximate price of a new Schimmel?

That really depends on the instrument, I paid 15k$ for it but I'm sure there are used ones that are cheaper and also very good. 

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2 minutes ago, Nemesis said:

That really depends on the instrument, I paid 15k$ for it but I'm sure there are used ones that are cheaper and also very good. 

 

Yeah, there's of course different models to cover different price ranges. Luckily there's a proper piano store where I live. It's ages since I was there, but I fear they'll have mostly Yamaha.

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25 minutes ago, Marian Schedenig said:

(Good luck finding A Momentary Lapse of Reason in there if you don't know what it looks like or where it fits in chronologically)

 

Thank God I'm so old, then, that I have MOMENTARY in a good, old-fashioned jewel case.

 

Back to SPOTLIGHT, I have one criticism after finishing the first disc now. It's too heavy on action/uptempo material. Not a lot of dynamic range. Second disc is better that way.

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The limited dynamic range has been mentioned before.

 

On 3/20/2021 at 12:05 PM, Mattris said:

I just listened to the album selections made available on the City of Light Symphony Orchestra's YouTube page. Some generally good performances, especially from the percussion section. Unfortunately, the album was sabotaged by the mixing/mastering engineer, who decided to implement a dynamics limiter throughout. What a shame this is, unless the CD itself ends up sounding different.

 

This isn't the first time this specific, unnatural sound issue has inflicted a John Williams album in recent years. Along with basically every City of the Prague Philharmonic recording, the Dallas Winds album comes to mind. Why?!  :angry:

 

On 3/20/2021 at 1:44 PM, Jurassic Shark said:

Because it's aimed at car and headphone listening with a lot of background noise?

 

On 3/20/2021 at 10:18 PM, Mattris said:

You don't know that. Even if that were true, there's absolutely no sense in hard-limiting every mic throughout. If the engineers/producers wanted the album to be more-audible (louder), they could have simply limited the loudest points (<1%) of the album.

 

I won't hold my breath that this issue will be removed for the official release. What a disservice to John Williams, the conductor, and the musicians. Pathetic, really.

 

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14 minutes ago, Jurassic Shark said:

 

Yeah, there's of course different models to cover different price ranges. Luckily there's a proper piano store where I live. It's ages since I was there, but I fear they'll have mostly Yamaha.

Well, there are also good Yamahas. I had a grand piano which was a Yamaha. But the best is to try out the piano in the store.

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2 minutes ago, Jurassic Shark said:

The limited dynamic range has been mentioned before.

 

Yes, sorry, that comment could be misunderstood. I'm not talking about the sound quality (which is absolutely fine), but the lack of dynamic between slow and upbeat, calm and action. Disc 1 is basically 5th gear from beginning to end.

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3 hours ago, Jurassic Shark said:

A Bösendorfer would be great.

 

I went to kindergarten just around the corner from the traditional Bösendorfer factory (although they'd moved most of their actual production out of Vienna some 10 years earlier or so).

 

(But I only have a Roland e-piano and never had any real piano lessons, just a couple of years of e-organ (yes…) training. I haven't played it in several years - I always figured I'll have plenty of time to use it more frequently during the pandemic and its never-ending series of pseudo lockdowns, but one side effect of those is that I usually can't be bothered to start something if I don't have to…)

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1 minute ago, Jurassic Shark said:

Cool! I'll refer to you for discounts then.

 

It was demolished 9 years ago:
https://www.derstandard.at/story/1341526708906/mitten-in-wieden-abriss-in-wien-boesendorfer-hat-ausgespielt

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1 hour ago, Marian Schedenig said:

I only have a Roland e-piano and never had any real piano lessons, just a couple of years of e-organ (yes…) training.

 

I started out on e-organ, took lessons for five years, then transitioned to piano for which I took lessons for three years. However, the static chord focus of the left hand on the e-organ is still a problem for my left hand piano playing.

 

2 hours ago, Nemesis said:

True!

 

Do you know how the prices of Bösendorfer pianos compare to Schimmel?

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26 minutes ago, Jurassic Shark said:

I started out on e-organ, took lessons for five years, then transitioned to piano for which I took lessons for three years. However, the static chord focus of the left hand on the e-organ is still a problem for my left hand piano playing.

 

My course included some basic counter melodies in the left hand. My main problem on the piano (aside from the fact that I've never learned much and never practised much) is that I never learned how to "properly" play on weighted keys.

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1 hour ago, Marian Schedenig said:

 

My course included some basic counter melodies in the left hand. My main problem on the piano (aside from the fact that I've never learned much and never practised much) is that I never learned how to "properly" play on weighted keys.

 

There's a lot of (partially useless) theory about it. Google curled fingers.

1 hour ago, Marian Schedenig said:

 

My course included some basic counter melodies in the left hand. My main problem on the piano (aside from the fact that I've never learned much and never practised much) is that I never learned how to "properly" play on weighted keys.

 

There's a lot of (partially useless) theory about it. Google curled fingers.

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Well, the physical CD is finally available to order on Amazon US - and it's $30!

 

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08ZW4RJJ6/

 

Any other US residents know if there's a cheaper way to obtain this physically here?

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On 4/15/2021 at 5:08 PM, Tydirium said:

 

There’s one on iTunes. It’s a great booklet.

 

Hey Tydirium, just wanted to check and make sure if you had looked at a certain PM thread lately.

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47 minutes ago, BB-8 said:

The booklet is of very high quality.

 

Indeed - and the hardback casing is very sturdy (if only DG had put the Mutter/Williams/Vienna discs in some of those).

Of course there's not really any new information in there for die-hard Williams aficionados, but for anyone else (the real target audience for a "spotlight" album, I guess) it's very nice to have an extensive overview of his career, paired with a few comments by notable collaborators and himself, and some cool "concept art"-like paintings/drawings relating to several of the scored films. Also a nice painterly filter applied to all of the photos... they really wanted to art it up ;)

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I might have missed this among the post about the slow reveal of the individual tracks, but do we know how "limited" this is? Somehow I wasn't even aware of that, and now that people are posting their numbers I wonder if it is safe to not order this right away.

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The physical CD is clearly listed as a "Limited Edition" so presumably will not get reprinted when the initial release is sold out, but no numbers have been provided -- There isn't even any numbers mentioned on the official page:

 

https://prospero-classical.com/album/spotlight-on-john-williams/

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On 4/23/2021 at 8:39 PM, Jay said:

The physical CD is clearly listed as a "Limited Edition" so presumably will not get reprinted when the initial release is sold out, but no numbers have been provided -- There isn't even any numbers mentioned on the official page:

 

https://prospero-classical.com/album/spotlight-on-john-williams/

In theory, a minimum of 1000 and a maximum of 9999 copies.

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I guess the long and short of it is, they'll continue to order new copies from the pressing plant as long as they consider it to be profitable to do so.

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15 hours ago, Jurassic Shark said:

From where are you guys ordering the physical release? From CeDe.ch?

I got mine via CeDe.de (firm based in Winterthur, Switzerland).

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