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Jerry Goldsmith's LEGEND (1985) - 2021 2-CD Music Box Records


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16 hours ago, Brundlefly said:

Is the score complete now - meaning there is at least one version of every cue?

 

Probably, the shorter cues are joined in the new 'Playmates' track. But it lacks the film alternate of 'The Unicorns' and 'The Ring', which are more than just cosmetic alterations.

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36 minutes ago, publicist said:

 

Probably, the shorter cues are joined in the new 'Playmates' track. But it lacks the film alternate of 'The Unicorns' and 'The Ring', which are more than just cosmetic alterations.

Are album versions different from the Silva ones? 

 

Karol

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5 minutes ago, crocodile said:

Are album versions different from the Silva ones? 

 

The Silva ones ARE the album versions, it seems nothing has survived beyond the stuff in Mike Ross's garage. The alternates you can hear in the movie.

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10 hours ago, Yavar Moradi said:

Someone will have to do a direct comparison with the poor-sounding boot, which I think had more music but in poor sound.

 

So there is another source then, with more music (although crappier sounding)?

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41 minutes ago, publicist said:

A re-recording would be a catastrophe in the making. The live balancing of the synth probably would cost as much as i biblical Rózsa re-recording.

 

I feel like any re-recording would not follow Goldsmith's practice of recording the synths live and personally I don't think that's a red line.

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In a score like 'Legend', where all the whizzing and flirring synth stuff is so integral to the performance, why would anyone want that as a separate element mixed in later? It's just a bad idea and not worth the bother.

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Mike Ross-Trevor is still around, and he was with Jerry at the original recording! I’m sure he could recreate a lot… but how many people would fund such an expensive recording for just a little bit more music from the score?

 

Yavar

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6 hours ago, Jurassic Shark said:

So there is another source then, with more music (although crappier sounding)?


If you count a terrible sounding bootleg as a source (Link has a complete boot too but both LLL and Intrada just reissued the same original Varese program because they didn’t have a source for the additional cues in good or even decent — like Lionheart — sound)… need to get the new Music Box edition first before comparing. It’s possible that only some alternates are exclusive to the boot.

 

Yavar

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20 minutes ago, Disco Stu said:

Personally, I think a skilled engineer working with  modern mixing software could handle that without a problem

 

The problem is the live performance. The players interact heavily with the synth parts and part of why even some of John Powell's striped scores sound so lifeless is because one section doesn't interact with the other.

 

Compare it to two actors, in one performance they are in the same room, in another they play alone and are joined later by technical wizardry. Of course it can be done, but why?

 

Be that as it may, no one will re-record it, which in this case is a blessing. Thanks to MRT, what survives is over 70 minutes of music and it sounds absolutely fine. There's nothing of importance missing, either.

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1 hour ago, Yavar Moradi said:


If you count a terrible sounding bootleg as a source (Link has a complete boot too but both LLL and Intrada just reissued the same original Varese program because they didn’t have a source for the additional cues in good or even decent — like Lionheart — sound)… need to get the new Music Box edition first before comparing. It’s possible that only some alternates are exclusive to the boot.

 

Yavar

 

I'm not implying they should use the boot as the source. I'm saying the boot had to be sourced from somewhere.

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2 hours ago, Yavar Moradi said:

Mike Ross-Trevor is still around, and he was with Jerry at the original recording! I’m sure he could recreate a lot… but how many people would fund such an expensive recording for just a little bit more music from the score?

How about a re-recording of just the missing elements from Under Fire, Secret of NIMH, Legend and Link?:P

 

1 hour ago, publicist said:

Be that as it may, no one will re-record it, which in this case is a blessing. Thanks to MRT, what survives is over 70 minutes of music and it sounds absolutely fine. There's nothing of importance missing, either.

That's right, at least Legend has good sound quality and is well performed. Two things that Inchon and Lionheart aren't able to exhibit both of.

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1 hour ago, publicist said:

Compare it to two actors, in one performance they are in the same room, in another they play alone and are joined later by technical wizardry. Of course it can be done, but why?

 

What are you talking about? The acting in the prequel trilogy is fiiine!

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1 hour ago, publicist said:

Like in Rambo II's case, someone had some old cassette lying around, made for god knows what purpose. Nothing like properly archived studio materials.

Still can't believe they recorded it and then wiped the tapes. Is studio tape that expensive that they need to reuse it wherever possible?

 

33 minutes ago, Brundlefly said:

How about a re-recording of just the missing elements from Under Fire, Secret of NIMH, Legend and Link?:P

 

That's something I'd love! Include the full Ultimate War from Hook too :D

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22 minutes ago, Jurassic Shark said:

 

What are you talking about? The acting in the prequel trilogy is fiiine!

 

My first thought was LOTR funnily enough.  The scenes they shot where McKellen is in a green screen version of the Bag End set at Gandalf scale and Ian Holm is in the dressed set at Bilbo scale, and they shoot them at the same time.

 

Or did they only do that for the Hobbit?  The behind the scenes stuff blends together for me.

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Yeah that was Hobbit, when he broke down talking remotely to lighting-up printed faces with voices in an all green room. On LotR they used bluescreen and shot separate passes on the twk sets or partial sets with for example a guy taking the staff and hat away offscreen.

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5 minutes ago, Disco Stu said:

My first thought was LOTR funnily enough.  The scenes they shot where McKellen is in a green screen version of the Bag End set at Gandalf scale and Ian Holm is in the dressed set at Bilbo scale, and they shoot them at the same time.

 

Haven't seen it but it sounds fun.

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3 hours ago, Yavar Moradi said:

Mike Ross-Trevor is still around, and he was with Jerry at the original recording! I’m sure he could recreate a lot… but how many people would fund such an expensive recording for just a little bit more music from the score?

 

Yavar

I guess one benefit of a re-recording would be extracting the synths from a couple of cues for an orchestra only version which, I have to confess, for Legend, I wouldn't be opposed to (sorry to those who love the synths).

 

Far point on who would fund it, but Varese re-recorded quite a few scores that had perfectly decent (for the most part) sounding original albums for limited extra music. I'm thinking the John Barry albums they did which were lovely, but hardly critical upgrades.

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2 hours ago, Tom Guernsey said:

I guess one benefit of a re-recording would be extracting the synths from a couple of cues for an orchestra only version which, I have to confess, for Legend, I wouldn't be opposed to (sorry to those who love the synths).

 

Far point on who would fund it, but Varese re-recorded quite a few scores that had perfectly decent (for the most part) sounding original albums for limited extra music. I'm thinking the John Barry albums they did which were lovely, but hardly critical upgrades.


Yeah but that was a quarter century ago and since then costs have risen greatly while sales have comparatively tanked. :(
 

Legend is a much more mammoth score than those Barrys Varese did too…

 

Yavar

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5 hours ago, Jurassic Shark said:

 

I'm not implying they should use the boot as the source. I'm saying the boot had to be sourced from somewhere.


Yes but just because that source the boot was taken from existed at the time the boot tape copy was made doesn’t mean that it still exists today, over a quarter century later.

 

I mean, Doug Fake’s reference copy of Lionheart was obviously copied from a better sounding source that existed in the 80s… but today, only his copy survived as a source for those two extra cues from the sessions… (thankfully though not perfect sound they were a lot better sounding than the Legend or Link boots.)

 

4 hours ago, Brundlefly said:

How about a re-recording of just the missing elements from Under Fire, Secret of NIMH, Legend and Link?:P


Hey I’m onboard! I think that sounds like a great 80s Goldsmith album. It would be under an hour though. Plenty of room to jump back to the 60s and add the missing cues from In Harm’s Way and The Sand Pebbles  too. ;) And hell let’s throw a new recording of the Rambo: First Blood Part II orchestral end credits in there too, while we’re dreaming!

 

(Obviously Ransom and The Chairman simply require complete re-recordings…the original albums themselves don’t sound great, apart from missing a lot of good cues.)
 

Yavar

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10 minutes ago, Naïve Old Fart said:

Never mind what the CDs look like?!

How does it sound?

True but the only thing that can be shared here is the visual, waiting for mine to come to get an opinion on the sound

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4 hours ago, Tom Guernsey said:

I guess one benefit of a re-recording would be extracting the synths from a couple of cues for an orchestra only version which, I have to confess, for Legend, I wouldn't be opposed to (sorry to those who love the synths).

 

I'd love that for Lionheart, but I really can't imagine it for Legend. Like them or hate them, the synths are such an integral part of the score that I don't think it could work at all without them. Personally, they're the reason why it's a score I don't play often. There's much to admire, but I have to be in the right mood for it.

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13 hours ago, Yavar Moradi said:

Hey I’m onboard! I think that sounds like a great 80s Goldsmith album. It would be under an hour though. Plenty of room to jump back to the 60s and add the missing cues from In Harm’s Way and The Sand Pebbles  too. ;) And hell let’s throw a new recording of the Rambo: First Blood Part II orchestral end credits in there too, while we’re dreaming!

If I were rich, that would be one of the first things I'd spend money on. Just make the Goldsmith catalogue complete and available for everyone.

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11 hours ago, May the Force be with You said:

Lucky you... How do the CDs look like if it's not too much to ask?

 

Disc 1 looks blue and disc 2 red. Nothing excited.

 

8 hours ago, Naïve Old Fart said:

Never mind what the CDs look like?!

How does it sound?

 

Everything sounds great, except for the alternates on disc 2. They are in lesser quality with some distortion.

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12 hours ago, Marian Schedenig said:

I'd love that for Lionheart, but I really can't imagine it for Legend. Like them or hate them, the synths are such an integral part of the score that I don't think it could work at all without them. Personally, they're the reason why it's a score I don't play often. There's much to admire, but I have to be in the right mood for it.

It's really interesting how far opinions on Goldsmith's use of synths diverge. Especially Lionheart, Legend, Under Fire, Link and many more scores from the 80s set off discussion now and then.

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22 minutes ago, Brundlefly said:

It's really interesting how far opinions on Goldsmith's use of synths diverge. Especially Lionheart, Legend, Under Fire, Link and many more scores from the 80s set off discussion now and then.

 

In Legend's case, it's a no-brainer. Up to that point it was the most creative wedding of classical music and an (then new) electronic ensemble. It's basically what you would have expected a modern *classical* composer would have come up with. So much for the historical significance.

 

That many of us aesthetically find at least some of the choices irritating is another discussion. I, for one, was turned off by the goblin music. It was meant to be abrasive but i still think it's not a particularly successful thing. There's also the limitations that existed for synthesizer banks and blending them with the orchestra etc., considering all that i think it's a monumental achievement if you take into account how Goldsmith still wrote a film core tailored to the movie and took this additional challenge.

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Legend, unlike Lionheart, is a full success in my opinion regarding the blend of synths and orchestra. Nowhere else that challenge has been more impressive handled with. There is a reason that this is my second favourite Goldsmith score.

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2 hours ago, Brundlefly said:

It's really interesting how far opinions on Goldsmith's use of synths diverge. Especially Lionheart, Legend, Under Fire, Link and many more scores from the 80s set off discussion now and then.

You left out his most extensive use of synthesisers, in a score: RUNAWAY; a score that is all-time top-10 Jerry for me - no, I'm not joking!

 

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1 hour ago, publicist said:

It's basically what you would have expected a modern *classical* composer would have come up with.

That is also what I thought, when I first listened to the score.

But later I thought, I would have prefered it sounding like the synth and the orchestra are actually in the same room. But in a way it sounded like the recording was done in the room with the synths and the orchestra played in the next room, and the choir came somewhere from the church next door.

Regarding the recent edition of the Always score does a much better integration of the synthesizer and orchestra.

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