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Which Star Wars "Main Title" performance is your favorite?


michael_grig

Which Star Wars "Main Title" performance is your favorite?   

43 members have voted

  1. 1. Which Star Wars "Main Title" performance is your favorite?

    • A New Hope
    • Empire Strikes Back
    • Return of the Jedi
    • Prequels
    • The Force Awakens / The Last Jedi
      0
    • The Rise of Skywalker


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I mean only the first approx. 01:30, not the music afterwards!

 

 

So there are slight differences in each performance, hear for yourself:

 

 

(The prequels all use the same recording - for whatever reason???)

(TFA and TLJ are also identical?)

 

1. Personally, I like TROS the best because the reverb is so full and bombastic.

2. prequels

3. ESB

4. ROTJ

5. ANH

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If I'm not mistaken the main theme of TFA was conducted by Gustavo Dudamel. The same recording was also used for TLJ.

 

15 minutes ago, Michael Grigorowitsch said:

By the way, can anyone tell me why both the Prequels as well as TFA/TLJ use the same recording?

 

That's usefull laziness and it allows the opening crawls to have the exact same time... We save time and money.

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6 minutes ago, Bespin said:

If I'm not mistaken the main theme of TFA was conducted by Gustavo Dudamel. The same recording was also used for the two following movies.

 

No, TROS definitely has a new recording. 

But TLJ still uses the recordings from TFA. But I don't know why. The Main Title was clearly also recorded during the TLJ sessions.

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15 minutes ago, Michael Grigorowitsch said:

No, TROS definitely has a new recording. 

But TLJ still uses the recordings from TFA. But I don't know why. The Main Title was clearly also recorded during the TLJ sessions.

Well, I'm wrong!

I just compared in Audacity and they used the same recording, but apparently TROS has just much more reverb added and a different mix! HA! Surprising!

image.png

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4 minutes ago, Loert said:

 

 

Also, special mention goes to the banging timps at 1:04 of ANH. Would've loved to be the one doing that! BAM BAM BAM BAM BAM BAM

 

Oh yeah! Those hits are so cool!

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7 minutes ago, Loert said:

But that's the thing, it's a bit too clean. In some sense it's the "model" performance of the opening titles. You can hear each note clearly, but it lacks the soul of the OT (in my opinion of course).

Agreed, this plus the fact that playing Lego SW so much made me weary of it (hearing it for every PT level and every time you open the game) makes me want to put it low on the list, there's nothing too interesting about it.

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9 minutes ago, Loert said:

Also, special mention goes to the banging timps at 1:04 of ANH. Would've loved to be the one doing that! BAM BAM BAM BAM BAM BAM

 

They make the 1977 version my favourite *arrangement*. As for favourite performance, I couldn't pick.

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2 hours ago, Michael Grigorowitsch said:

I can understand your nostalgia, but unfortunately this one has no power at all.

 

Well, the orchestra used to record The Empire Strikes Back is a fair bit larger than the one used for the original...

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3 hours ago, Gibster said:

they didn't use his take

 

I hate these co-conducted scores, because at the end we don't know who conducted what cue (or a part of an edited cue) and if it's in the movie or just on the album...

 

Confusion, I hate that.

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Prequels 

A New Hope

The Empire Strikes Back

Return of the Jedi 

The Rise of Skywalker

The Force Awakens 

 

This is based on performance. The mix list would probably be different. 

 

Prequels is only just above A New Hope, the performance in both is fantastic. 

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You just gotta love the woodwinds swirling around here in Take 16.  And how about that delightful, rarely heard two note  buildup at the start instead of the singular blast?

 



 

Take 17 sounds so jaunty and aggressive.  I just love it.  The timpani is fantastic here:

 

 


 

I’ll always have fondness for Take 20’s cymbal crash opening, its somewhat relaxed but epic tempo, and the fact that it was used for the Radio Drama. 
 

 

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At the 1:00 mark on the ROTJ performance, that repeating high trumpet ostinato is mixed very prominently. I find that bit delightful. 

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So the Prequels used the same recording? I always thought ROTS sounded a bit stronger and opened a tad faster than the first two. Did they use a different take for ROTS or is it just mixed differently?

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1 hour ago, Brando said:

So the Prequels used the same recording? I always thought ROTS sounded a bit stronger and opened a tad faster than the first two. Did they use a different take for ROTS or is it just mixed differently?

 

Each of the prequels use the same set of recordings, but the takes are mixed around differently for each film.

 

The very openings for each film do use the same take though, I just checked and they all phase together. The mixing is of course different for each one.

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I like them all, honestly, but there is a muscle-y quality to the first one that I like. It feels very Flash Gordon, which is really what Star Wars was at that point, rather than fantasy.

 

I've never been a big fan of the American Hollywood trumpet sound, or the American orchestral trumpet sound in general. Give me Bb's over C's any day.

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5 hours ago, Manakin Skywalker said:

 

Each of the prequels use the same set of recordings, but the takes are mixed around differently for each film.

 

The very openings for each film do use the same take though, I just checked and they all phase together. The mixing is of course different for each one.

U sure about the different mix? I can't hear a difference. Can you spot some?

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11 minutes ago, Michael Grigorowitsch said:

U sure about the different mix? I can't here and difference. Can you spot some?

 

Note that I'm using the original album releases as a reference, I can't speak to the mixing of the "demasters" as I haven't compared the main title mixes yet. For example at the very beginning, the brass is more prominent in the ROTS mix while the initial timpani part is nearly unhearable. But they do phase, indicating that is is in fact the same take.

 

EDIT: I compared the "demaster" versions and they are pretty much identical. So they did use different mixes for the original releases, but for the demasters they were more-or-less copy/pasted.

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40 minutes ago, Manakin Skywalker said:

 

Note that I'm using the original album releases as a reference, I can't speak to the mixing of the "demasters" as I haven't compared the main title mixes yet. For example at the very beginning, the brass is more prominent in the ROTS mix while the initial timpani part is nearly unhearable. But they do phase, indicating that is is in fact the same take.

 

EDIT: I compared the "demaster" versions and they are pretty much identical. So they did use different mixes for the original releases, but for the demasters they were more-or-less copy/pasted.

With "demasters" you mean the 2018 release?

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I have a deja vu somehow. Could it be that we are having that exact same thread about every two years?

 

And why is the second performance in the end titles from The Rise of Skywalker not an option?

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18 hours ago, Michael Grigorowitsch said:

Well, I'm wrong!

I just compared in Audacity and they used the same recording, but apparently TROS has just much more reverb added and a different mix! HA! Surprising!

 

Hm, to me the TROS recording is definitely different from the TFA and TLJ one. What did you see in those screenshots that make you think they are the same recordings?

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3 hours ago, GerateWohl said:

I have a deja vu somehow. Could it be that we are having that exact same thread about every two years?

 

https://www.jwfan.com/forums/index.php?/topic/33432-countless-main-title-of-sw-poll/

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35 minutes ago, Chewy said:

 

Hm, to me the TROS recording is definitely different from the TFA and TLJ one. What did you see in those screenshots that make you think they are the same recordings?

I'm not a pro at reading this data, but I think the Spectrogram in these two sections looks very similar: Can someone who understands this better say if this is an indication of the same recording, or if it's just because it's the same piece of music?

 image.png

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There is only one way to compare two musical segment to know if they are identical (beware, they must be at the exact same speed).

 

You can use Audacity.

 

1) Open the two stereo tracks.

2) Convert the first track from Stereo to Mono (the left and right channel will be combined).

3) Convert the 2nd track the same way.

4) Select the output sound of the first track to play on the "Left" channel and the output sound of the 2nd track to play on the "Right"channel.

5) Make your best to sync in time both tracks (they have to start and play at the exact same time both).

6) Listen the two sync tracks together using headphones. If there's a difference between the two tracks, you'll hear flying comets.

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1 hour ago, Jay said:

 

Okay, sorry :)

but this poll is only about the recordings that were used in the movie, so it's a little different!

 

 

3 hours ago, BB-8 said:

Would the VPO performance qualify at all?

 

 

 

Really? The rhythmic problem from 00:20-00:24, the timpani playing too early (most noticeably at 06:00), and that goddamn overambitious piccolo that you can hear all over the orchestra (especially 05:45-05:52 and 06:00- end) !!!! 
And did someone accidentally drop a cymbal at 06:06? The score, in any case, says nothing about a cymbal crash at this point.

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11 minutes ago, Bespin said:

There is only one way to compare two musical segment to know if they are identical (beware, they must be at the exact same speed).

 

You can use Audacity.

 

1) Open the two stereo tracks.

2) Convert the first track from Stereo to Mono (the left and right channel will be combined).

3) Convert the 2nd track the same way.

4) Select the output sound of the first track to play on the "Left" channel and the output sound of the 2nd track to play on the "Right"channel.

5) Make your best to sync in time both tracks (they have to start and play at the exact same time both).

6) Listen the two sync tracks together using headphones. If there's a difference between the two tracks, you'll hear flying comets.

No need to overcomplicate it like that! If you simply play them over each other and line them up almost perfectly, you'll hear the phasing problems already. Or you invert one track and line them up perfectly, and they'll cancel each other out.

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Okay, I did that: on the left is TFA, on the right is TROS: and I'm confused: at the beginning it syncs perfectly, then in the middle there are some differences, then they sync perfectly again, and then again not. :kaboom:

So, I don't know now? Sb please help lol!

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23 minutes ago, Michael Grigorowitsch said:

Really? The rhythmic problem from 00:20-00:24, the timpani playing too early (most noticeably at 06:00), and that goddamn overambitious piccolo that you can hear all over the orchestra!!!! 

And did someone accidentally drop a cymbal at 06:06? The score, in any case, says nothing about a cymbal crash at this point.

 

Despite all those valid problems you list...I felt that smile at 2:48. Those horns sound amazing!

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11 minutes ago, Michael Grigorowitsch said:

But the first few seconds (00:00-00:08) are definitely the same, you can hear that quite clearly on the trumpet, right?

Maybe they cut around a bit on TROS to keep the crawl time perfect?

 

Try my left/right channel way of comparison now, or shut up till the eternity, mercy. :D

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29 minutes ago, Holko said:

No need to overcomplicate it like that! If you simply play them over each other and line them up almost perfectly, you'll hear the phasing problems already. Or you invert one track and line them up perfectly, and they'll cancel each other out.

Yeah do that, much easier and it works :)

 

Actually there's nothing similar between the waveforms of both tracks, and it doesn't phase at all. TROS is clearly another recording

image.png

 

The spectrograms look very different too:

image.png

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17 minutes ago, Bespin said:

 

Try my left/right channel way of comparison now, or shut up till the eternity, mercy. :D

wtf i did. even uploaded the file for you to hear

33 minutes ago, Michael Grigorowitsch said:

Okay, I did that: on the left is TFA, on the right is TROS: and I'm confused: at the beginning it syncs perfectly, then in the middle there are some differences, then they sync perfectly again, and then again not. :kaboom:

So, I don't know now? Sb please help lol!

 

 

8 minutes ago, Chewy said:

Yeah do that, much easier and it works :)

 

Actually there's nothing similar between the waveforms of both tracks, and it doesn't phase at all. TROS is clearly another recording

image.png

 

The spectrograms look very different too:

image.png

Okay, thanks! To me these spectrograms look almost the same (I just thought the small differences came from the different mix), but now it's all sorted out!

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