HOOK (1991) - NEW! 2023 3-CD Ultimate Edition Produced, Edited, and Mastered by Mike Matessino featuring all Williams/Bricusse songs

[blondheim 1,157]

Im crossing my fingers and hoping the first shipment is able to be sent out early. Either way, I ordered around 7 am on Black Friday, it shouldn’t be long now before I see an email saying it’s been shipped.

[QuartalHarmony 543]

11 hours ago, Tydirium said:

Does anyone know the reason why the OST “Prologue” is the “wrong” speed? Did someone in the editing room screw up? Or did Williams decide he liked it slower?

 

It was a screw-up. It was recorded digitally at 48kHz and when it was put onto CD, they didn't change the sample rate so the samples were put straight onto the CD but then play back (at 44.1kHz) too slowly. We know this because the required speed adjustment is exactly the ratio of 48 to 44.1. It's also more understandable since Jay pointed out that the Prologue was recorded at separate sessions way ahead of the main scoring sessions and it must have just got forgotten that it'd been recorded at a different sample rate to the main sessions when it came to dumping everything onto the CD master.

 

I'm fairly sure JW has absolute pitch, so 'liking it slower' wouldn't be a thing - it would just sound excruciatingly flat to him.

 

Mark

[Jay 37,369]

Jonathan Ross will be playing “Sword Fight and End of Hook” on Saturday’s CLASSIC FM at the Movies, this Saturday 2nd December after 7pm (U.K. time)

 

The show can be streamed live using this: https://www.globalplayer.com/

 

And the episode can be listened to on-demand afterwards here: https://www.globalplayer.com/catchup/classicfm/uk/46wcBXy/

[Bespin 8,483]

3 minutes ago, Jay said:

Jonathan Ross will be playing “Sword Fight and End of Hook” on Saturday’s CLASSIC FM at the Movies, this Saturday 2nd December after 7pm (U.K. time)

 

[bollemanneke 3,349]

Did they get rid of Andrew Collins after that disastrous JW interview or is that unrelated?

[Bespin 8,483]

3 minutes ago, bollemanneke said:

Did they get rid of Andrew Collins after that disastrous JW interview or is that unrelated?

 

Personally, I loved Collins's playlists.

[Richard Penna 3,694]

29 minutes ago, Jay said:

Apparently the show can be streamed using this: https://www.globalplayer.com/

 

It'll be on catch-up afterward here: https://www.globalplayer.com/catchup/classicfm/uk/46wcBXy/ 

 

(the bitrate will absolutely suck though - don't anyone get any ideas of having a decent sounding temporary rip)

[Jay 37,369]

Thanks, added your link to my post!

[Juanki 23]

Jay, may I know if is it worthy to keep any of the previous release if you are getting this one?? I guess everything is on the ultimate edition.

[Jay 37,369]

19 hours ago, Tydirium said:

Does anyone know the reason why the OST “Prologue” is the “wrong” speed? Did someone in the editing room screw up? Or did Williams decide he liked it slower?

 

It's definitely a technical mistake and not an artistic decision.  The percentage that it is too slow by, is EXACTLY the same percent difference as 44.1khz compared to 48khz.  So what seemingly happened is that a performance edit of the trailer music was saved digitally at 48khz, then half a year later when it was decided it was going on the album, that digital transfer was converted incorrectly to 44.1khz and somehow nobody noticed.

 

It was a super busy time of year (October 1991) for everyone involved.  Williams would have been thinking about the rest of the music he had to write and record for Hook, as well as the to-picture cues for JFK he had to write and record, with Sony Pictures wanting Hook in theaters by December 11th, Warner Pictures wanting JFK in theaters by December 20th, Epic Records wanting the Hook soundtrack in stores by November 26, and Elektra Records wanting the JFK album in stores by whenever that came out.  So it's no wonder there was no time to write and record Hook concert arrangements, or that a technical transferring mistake made its way onto the final product.

 

Luckily, the rebuild of the original soundtrack album that Mike did in 2021 for the film's 30th anniversary has "Prologue" at the correct speed, and it is of course correct on the Ultimate Edition as well.

 

Maybe someday Sony Music will replace the version of the OST album on streaming / digital stores with Mike's rebuild, but they haven't yet!

 

 

19 hours ago, Tydirium said:

And for that matter, why did people assume that it was originally recorded at a faster speed and got slowed down, rather than the possibility that it was recorded at the OST speed, and got sped up for the trailer that everyone got accustomed to? Forgive my ignorance on this.

 

Well one reason would be that it plays at correct pitch in the actual trailer, and in-between pitches in the OST version.

 

Another reason would be that the bonus track "Prologue (Alternate)" on the 2012 set (which is one of the 4 raw takes used for the final performance edit presented on its own) plays at the correct speed, while "Prologue" on that set does not (because it was taken from the album master)

 

Another reason would that, well, I worked on the new album and can tell you when Mike got everything, of course it was at the same speed as you hear in the actual trailer and that bonus track, for all the reasons laid out above. 

 

The OST speed is a technical mistake, definitively confirmed.

[Tydirium 1,167]

Thanks for all that info, @Jay! Very interesting. I always noticed that “Prologue (Alternate)” on the 2012 album was in a higher key and with a slightly different orchestration in spots, but it never really occurred to me why it was faster than the standard OST version; that all makes sense now.

[Jay 37,369]

12 minutes ago, Juanki said:

Jay, may I know if is it worthy to keep any of the previous release if you are getting this one?? I guess everything is on the ultimate edition.

 

On 24/11/2023 at 12:08 PM, Jay said:

There is nothing available on the previous expansion (or any boots or leaks for that matter) that is not included in the Ultimate Edition.

 

Well, unless you count some wrong takes that don't offer anything different musically, just are not the performance Williams and Murphy selected to be used in 1991.  Everything on the new set is the correct intended performance edit where applicable.

[Juanki 23]

Thanks for the quick answer!

[Jay 37,369]

7 hours ago, QuartalHarmony said:

It was recorded digitally at 48kHz

 

To be clear, the trailer music - like the rest of the score - was recorded onto beautiful analog tape.  Hook was not a digital recording, though the original soundtrack album was a digital master;  any cues being used for the OST album were transferred to digital, and Ken Wannberg's performance edits made for the film were redone digitally by Armin Steiner.  Though in 2 cases, he didn't match the film exactly...

But yes, clearly a 48khz digital file of the performance-edited trailer music was used and incorrectly converted to 44.1khz at the time for the album master.

 

For the Ultimate Edition, the whole score is sourced from that 1991 analog tape, with all performance edits redone from scratch by Mike.

[bollemanneke 3,349]

2 hours ago, Richard Penna said:

 

It'll be on catch-up afterward here: https://www.globalplayer.com/catchup/classicfm/uk/46wcBXy/ 

 

(the bitrate will absolutely suck though - don't anyone get any ideas of having a decent sounding temporary rip)

The bitrate isn't really the issue, their idiotic dynamic range compression obsession is.

[Richard Penna 3,694]

I wouldn't normally notice - I use Global every day to listen to LBC (not a music station). I just ripped the file for a catch-up show and noticed how low the bitrate was. It's going to be optimised for people using the app when they're on the go. It's probably not meant to sound 'good'.

[Jay 37,369]

18 hours ago, mstrox said:

I was mainly just trolling Matt on this one because he’s so hardline.  I fully expect the main program to be an improvement on the OST in this particular case.  I do want to apologize, since I realize you have some ownership in this situation - I’m not being shitty about the release!  Didn’t think it through.

 

Thank you for saying that Mike, but you have no need to apologize, I knew you were joking around.

[Jurassic Shark 12,079]

23 hours ago, mstrox said:

Maybe JW mistakenly believes he wrote Take Me Out to the Ballgame.

 

If JW believes he wrote it, he did.

[Faleel 5,355]

20 hours ago, mstrox said:

 

I was mainly just trolling Matt on this one because he’s so hardline.

Matt?

[Jay 37,369]

20 hours ago, King Mark said:

BTW it's great Jay your working on these expanded editions , you might have some insight into the mind of a JWfan that MM might not even have

 

Thank you Mark!

 

 

18 hours ago, King Mark said:

The version in the trailer seems REALLY fast

 

I think that was probably because you had heard the OST album hundreds of times and knew it very well, so then seeing the teaser trailer again (or for the first time) when it hit youtube or whatever, it would certainly seem weird and fast and wrong!

 

Now that I've been familiar with the as-recorded speed for a while, it seems completely fine and normal to me, and if I were to listen to a rip of the old OST CD I am sure I would think it sounds slow!

[Marian Schedenig 8,200]

1 hour ago, bollemanneke said:

The bitrate isn't really the issue, their idiotic dynamic range compression obsession is.

 

Without dynamic compression, the bitrate would probably be even more of an issue.

[John Takis 206]

3 hours ago, Juanki said:

Jay, may I know if is it worthy to keep any of the previous release if you are getting this one?? I guess everything is on the ultimate edition.

 

The artwork, liner notes and/or simple nostalgia are all valid reasons to keep the previous releases. But in terms of musical content, the new LLL set is a total replacement (and then some!) for the 2012 set. As for the 1991 OST, it has no music that is not on the new set, although there are some unique "album edits" in terms of how certain cues are combined.

[Manakin Skywalker 4,897]

1 hour ago, Presto said:

Matt?

 

Holko

[Faleel 5,355]

1 minute ago, Manakin Skywalker said:

 

Holko

When/where was the first name reveal? I seem to have missed it.

[Manakin Skywalker 4,897]

1 minute ago, Presto said:

When/where was the first name reveal? I seem to have missed it.

 

Probably Discord several years ago. I've known his name for a while but don't remember when people started using it.

[mstrox 6,651]

I hope I didn’t accidentally doxxxxx Holko!

I’m excited for this!  Hook is a score that, like The Phantom Menace and Temple of Doom, is inextricably tied to the nostalgia of the earliest days on this site for me.  Those rips got a lot of play from me in the late 90s and very early aughts.

[Jay 37,369]

Yeah definitely felt like a full circle moment for me to be able to work on an official expansion of the one score I spent the most amount of time talking about in the early days of the internet.

[Mr. Breathmask 555]

I remember talking about Temple of Doom a lot twenty years ago.

 

Just sayin'. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

All jokes aside; what an age we live in. I still can't wait for this one.

[Bounty95 558]

I vividly remember talking about TROS 20 years ago. Even 8-year-old me couldn't forgive the exclusion of Lando's Arrival. 

 

I impatiently read the new tracklist on a daily basis and I still can't believe this release is finally happening. What will happen to @Holko's video now? 

[Faleel 5,355]

15 minutes ago, Bounty95 said:

I vividly remember talking about TROS 20 years ago. Even 8-year-old me couldn't forgive the exclusion of Lando's Arrival. 

That math does NOT add up haha!

[Mr. Breathmask 555]

22 minutes ago, Bounty95 said:

I vividly remember talking about TROS 20 years ago. Even 8-year-old me couldn't forgive the exclusion of Lando's Arrival. 

 

I impatiently read the new tracklist on a daily basis and I still can't believe this release is finally happening. What will happen to @Holko's video now? 

 

You jest, but I remember an early tracklist for the Revenge of the Sith soundtrack making its way online. It contained a track called I Am the Senate that was nowhere to be found on the final album.  When we all realised this scored a key scene and was impossible to rip cleanly from the surround mix, some people were... dismayed, to say the least.

 

For some of us, twenty years of people ripping video games has thankfully filled in a lot of the gaps in this score. But officially, this still remains unreleased. 

[ciarlese 251]

4 hours ago, Richard Penna said:

I wouldn't normally notice - I use Global every day to listen to LBC (not a music station). I just ripped the file for a catch-up show and noticed how low the bitrate was. It's going to be optimised for people using the app when they're on the go. It's probably not meant to sound 'good'.

 

Is it possible that the bitrate used for LBC is worse because it's a talk radio?

Classicfm on DAB has a good quality and they are going to upgrade to DAB+ in January, so it shouldn't be difficult for them to provide decent bitrate on streaming.

[Brando 1,864]

Mine has shipped!

[King Mark 3,631]

mine is ready to ship

[Groovygoth666 670]

1 hour ago, Brando said:

Mine has shipped!

[blondheim 1,157]

Mine is awaiting shipment but hasn’t shipped yet. Hopefully tomorrow morning, fingers crossed.

[Brando 1,864]

7 minutes ago, Groovygoth666 said:

Tbf, as soon as my copy reaches the mailbox, it'll be intercepted by Santa and held hostage for 20ish days so it'll even out

[Holko 9,529]

6 hours ago, Bounty95 said:

What will happen to @Holko's video now? 

I was so happy to delete it instantly on announcement! People who miss it can just play the last sample on loop

[Bayesian 1,363]

15 hours ago, bollemanneke said:

Did they get rid of Andrew Collins after that disastrous JW interview or is that unrelated?

What's this?? A disaster of an interview? What happened? Is there a link to watch or listen to it?

[Brónach 1,302]

12 hours ago, Presto said:

When/where was the first name reveal? I seem to have missed it.

 

James Hoolko, Captain.

[Juanki 23]

16 hours ago, Jay said:

Luckily, the rebuild of the original soundtrack album that Mike did in 2021 for the film's 30th anniversary has "Prologue" at the correct speed, and it is of course correct on the Ultimate Edition as well.

 

 

Nice to have the right "Prologue" at last! But I was asking myself if the one at wrong speed that had been on the other releases will be available too in the Ultimate Edition? Would be nice to have the error, as it is already an important and loved piece of John Williams music (even if it's wrong).

 

To have both would be great.

[crumbs 14,317]

1 hour ago, Juanki said:

 

Nice to have the right "Prologue" at last! But I was asking myself if the one at wrong speed that had been on the other releases will be available too in the Ultimate Edition? Would be nice to have the error, as it is already an important and loved piece of John Williams music (even if it's wrong).

 

To have both would be great.

 

At last, something the original LLL has that the new edition doesn't!

 

Plus exclusive film stem tracks with bonus loops and edits!

[Richard Penna 3,694]

Was Williams in the room when an engineer copied the Prologue over wrong? If so, it's a crucial piece of history and must be included. If he wasn't, anyone who continues to listen to that flawed, unblessed version must leave JWFan immediately.

 

 

(minor, piffling caveat: I don't know which version is in my playlist. Not listened in ages)

[Richard Penna 3,694]

13 hours ago, ciarlese said:

Is it possible that the bitrate used for LBC is worse because it's a talk radio?

Classicfm on DAB has a good quality and they are going to upgrade to DAB+ in January, so it shouldn't be difficult for them to provide decent bitrate on streaming.

 

No this was a ClassicFM catch-up I looked at. It'll be the same files the app uses (and which every LBC presenter is now required by law to badger us about) so they'll be wanting to minimise file sizes for people using data.

[ThePenitentMan1 744]

10 hours ago, Holko said:

I was so happy to delete it instantly on announcement! People who miss it can just play the last sample on loop

 

They could also click on this link and hit "Refresh" when the hook gets attached:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=twzaorplSzE&t=71s

[MrJosh 892]

5 hours ago, crumbs said:

 

Plus exclusive film stem tracks with bonus loops and edits!

Having film stem bonus loops and edits is tight! Huh, maybe they should have called that release the Ultimate Edition. 

[Holko 9,529]

3 minutes ago, MrJosh said:

Having film stem bonus loops and edits is tight!

"Oh I just think it's going to be pretty hard to convince all those people who already bought a "complete" version of Hook to buy it again..."

"Actually it's gonna be super easy! Barely an inconvenience!"

[crocodile 8,017]

I am sort of staying away from this topic so I can enjoy this set in its entirety once it arrives, with all the surprises it might hold. I will feel more special then. 😀

 

Karol

[Jay 37,369]

18 minutes ago, crocodile said:

I am sort of stating away from this topic so I can enjoy this set in its entirety once it arrives, with all the surprises it might hold. I will feel more special then. 😀

 

Karol

 

This is honestly the path I think everybody should take.

 

Listen first.  You only have one opportunity for that first listen.

 

Discuss the hell out of it later

[Andy 4,138]

Yep.  Me too.  Musical spoilers.  Discussion before listening can impact your first impressions.