Hans Zimmer & Lisa Gerrard - GLADIATOR - 25th Anniversary 3-CD Expanded Edition from La-La Land Records

[WampaRat 1,768]

I'm curious if there will be crossfading between tracks on this new release like on the OST or if there will be clean beginnings and endings. Progeny/The Wheat/The Battle all blended into each other along with a handful of other tracks on the original album (Honor Him/Now We Are Free etc).

Also, @Stéphane Humez I have a question about Hans' "sketchbook"/demo methodology. From what I've gathered, he sits down at his keyboard and tries to come up with ideas/melodies in a kind of "stream of consciousness" kinda way. Is that correct? Is what we hear in demos released from Interstellar/MoS/Pirates etc him actually working through things in real time? Like he sat down, hit record, and started playing and that's what we hear in those cases? His literal first attempt at creating musical ideas for those films? Or do they go through a bit more refining then that before he plays them for the director?

 

[Stéphane Humez 520]

18 minutes ago, WampaRat said:

I'm curious if there will be crossfading between tracks on this new release like on the OST or if there will be clean beginnings and endings. Progeny/The Wheat/The Battle all blended into each other along with a handful of other tracks on the original album (Honor Him/Now We Are Free etc).

Also, @Stéphane Humez I have a question about Hans' "sketchbook"/demo methodology. From what I've gathered, he sits down at his keyboard and tries to come up with ideas/melodies in a kind of "stream of consciousness" kinda way. Is that correct? Is what we hear in demos released from Interstellar/MoS/Pirates etc him actually working through things in real time? Like he sat down, hit record, and started playing and that's what we hear in those cases? His literal first attempt at creating musical ideas for those films? Or do they go through a bit more refining then that before he plays them for the director?

 

 

Crossfadings indeed, for several reasons, but the score works that way.

 

 

About the suites, no. I mean, he can come up with improv ideas. But first of all Hans focuses on the sound, as much as the themes. Define the palette of what the score will sound like. What samples, what synths, what kind of orchestral writing etc. Sometimes he'll spend weeks or even months on those suites. The funny thing on Sherlock Holmes 2 he spent so much time on his "Moriarty" suite that people around him went like "err... there's a score to write, now it might be time to actually start to picture ?"

 

The final Man Of Steel Sketchbook is actually version 57 of that track !

[Luke Skywalker 2,180]

2 hours ago, bollemanneke said:

I'm very hopeful we've finally reached the moment where we'll start getting as many Zimmer expansions as Williams ones. And it's about time.

Thats bad news for you then...

 

You may get one or two zimmer scores per year.

 

Now if you had said, like Goldsmith, horner or barry....you would be flooded with zimmer scores right now...

[Richard P 4,752]

Given we just got three Zimmers in close succession, that's pretty close to how Horners were coming out a year or two ago.

 

The crossfading presentation is one I pondered about as well, and if you go strictly by my preferences I'm generally a clean opening/endings person, but the presentation of the very start and ending of the OST does work very well as is - that's how it's heard in the film after all. The main thing for me is having the unedited, film takes for those bits.

 

Also, the OST struck me as largely very faithful to the film - only a handful of differences I ever noticed, aside from lots and lots of edits here and there (some of them clearly unnecessary in my view - who decided the album should be just 1 hour?). To Zucchabar is a different cue for the most part - I was always disappointed that they didn't choose the film version for the bit where the camera pans over the landscape and we get that arabian-flavoured descending melody (an edited version of it appears in the MMF). The only other bit I can think of is the string 'lament' at the end of the battle which has a slightly different melody at one point and doesn't have the vocal (or less prominent) - I slightly prefer it over the OST version. I'm sure there are some other differences I'm not aware of - this expansion will be like a sweet shop!

[WampaRat 1,768]

6 hours ago, Stéphane Humez said:

 

Crossfadings indeed, for several reasons, but the score works that way.

 

 

About the suites, no. I mean, he can come up with improv ideas. But first of all Hans focuses on the sound, as much as the themes. Define the palette of what the score will sound like. What samples, what synths, what kind of orchestral writing etc. Sometimes he'll spend weeks or even months on those suites. The funny thing on Sherlock Holmes 2 he spent so much time on his "Moriarty" suite that people around him went like "err... there's a score to write, now it might be time to actually start to picture ?"

 

The final Man Of Steel Sketchbook is actually version 57 of that track !

Awesome news about the crossfades. They worked terrifically on the OST!

Cool to hear more about the suites/demos process. The Moriarty suite is actually one of my kiddo's favorite pieces of music. He always requests I cue it up when we're driving on the freeway. How funny they had to pull Hans away from it and finally score the movie!

And there's 57 versions (or more?) of that MoS Sketchbook?? Holy cow. I wonder how different versions 55-56 were? haha

[bollemanneke 3,999]

Do you mean crossfading as in that a track starts in the middle of a piece of music? I never understood why one would do that. For me, a track has to be one piece of music that starts and ends.

[Richard P 4,752]

In this case, I think it means that cues designed to flow into each other in the film are connected, then split into tracks for gapless playback - the OST does that for almost the entire album. I'd imagine this set will be a bit like The Rock, but with a track like the final rocket sequence broken into gapless tracks.

 

My personal chosen assembly for this album would likely have been to keep everything separate, but I'd say that for the opening/closing, and a couple of other sequences, continuous music does make sense. Just not for the entire two hours.

[Stéphane Humez 520]

2 minutes ago, bollemanneke said:

Do you mean crossfading as in that a track starts in the middle of a piece of music? I never understood why one would do that. For me, a track has to be one piece of music that starts and ends.

I mean exactly that, like it was done in the 2000 album.

If you ask me, initially I would have kept Elysium / Honor Him / Now We Are Free as one big 8 min track lol.

But can we do that to a track as popular as Now We Are Free ?

And legal reasons also explained why we went this way. Remember that all of those tracks have 2 studios owning them, so have to be careful & smart how to present them ! Not even to mention cue credits & publishing !

It really depends on the scores I believe. For the most part I agree with you (and how I presented The Rock or Backdraft, or League prove this). But on some occasions, it works really well that way.

[bollemanneke 3,999]

Make sense. And might I add that I think it's FANTASTIC how engaged you are with these threads? Really makes this whole experience very special.

[ThomasFernando 109]

1 hour ago, bollemanneke said:

Make sense. And might I add that I think it's FANTASTIC how engaged you are with these threads? Really makes this whole experience very special.

 

I'll second this. Just wonderful to see these scores handled with such care and attention to detail.

[bruce marshall 1,477]

One reason CDs are superior to streaming:

crossfaded tracks don't have gaps. When you stream, there is a break which destroys the flow.🤬

Long live CDs!

 

https://www.facebook.com/groups/95015405220/permalink/10168375795345221/

[Edmilson 10,433]

7 hours ago, bollemanneke said:

Make sense. And might I add that I think it's FANTASTIC how engaged you are with these threads? Really makes this whole experience very special.

Makes me wish Mike Mattessino to create an account here to discuss his latest John Williams releases with us. We for sure wouldn't make his life miserable...

 

Spoiler

... too much. 

 

[bollemanneke 3,999]

Yes, people totally would not ask him about Star Wars. Wouldn't even come up.

[Edmilson 10,433]

I mean, if not even Stéphane can't confirm with us what are the next Zimmer releases he's working on that haven't been announced yet, Mattessino wouldn't show up one day here and be like: "Hey guys, I'm working with Disney Records on the release of the complete recordings for all the John Williams Star Wars/Indy movies, expected release date is 2027. But don't tell anyone, okay?"

 

But that surely wouldn't stop us from asking him. Every single day. Sometimes more than once on the same day 

[Stéphane Humez 520]

Yeah I mean I have no problem discussing albums once they come out, but for sure I won't jinx whatever I'm doing at the moment !

All I can tell you is that I'm extremely busy ! The year is far from over ! 

[Edmilson 10,433]

1 hour ago, Stéphane Humez said:

All I can tell you is that I'm extremely busy ! The year is far from over ! 

I gotta ask, even if I understand if you can't disclosure details. Do you plan on expanding scores from other composers from Zimmer's MV/RC aside from HZ himself? Like, some random examples, Nick Glennie-Smith's The Man in the Iron Mask, HGW's/Trevor Rabin's Armageddon or Steve Jablonsky's Steamboy?

 

I'd love official expansions of HGW/John Powell's Chicken Run, for instance, as well as Harry's Kingdom of Heaven (even though he apparently is allergic to expanding his scores). His brother Rupert's DC scores Wonder Woman and Aquaman are holy grails of mine, especially the latter due to the dreadful OST that left out a lot of important cues (but it's probably impossible right now because of the AFM post-2005 thing ).

[OneBuckFilms 446]

Crossfades between tracks will be interesting. While I personally digitize everything for listening, I'll trust the judgement.

[Jay 42,355]

Your CD ripper will be able to join the crossfaded tracks into one long track for the files in your device.

[Stéphane Humez 520]

2 hours ago, Edmilson said:

I gotta ask, even if I understand if you can't disclosure details. Do you plan on expanding scores from other composers from Zimmer's MV/RC aside from HZ himself?

 

 

I'll just say that I'm trying !

[OneBuckFilms 446]

They’re shipping. Yay!

[Stéphane Humez 520]

One thing I wanted to explain, don't bother too much about the label "film version" on some tracks. You might think "why is there a film version and no other version ?", but it's just a technicality to differentiate the tracks with the previously released ones (meaning they are not exactly the same, either longer unedited, or not crossfaded etc.). It doesn't mean they are alternates.

 

Like for instance Patricide was crossfaded in 2000 (they even made a tiny bridge of the string section that last a few seconds longer) while it's not the case here...

[crocodile 9,167]

Thank you for being so upront and informative @Stéphane Humez. That is really appreciated.

 

Karol

[Holko 11,342]

A lot of us know about this cataloguing/renaming technicality stuff from Mike's many podcasts but yes, great to see someone else also caring enough to follow and explain it!

 

26 minutes ago, Stéphane Humez said:

(they even made a tiny bridge of the string section that last a few seconds longer

UNRELEASED INSERT???

[Stéphane Humez 520]

5 hours ago, Holko said:

A lot of us know about this cataloguing/renaming technicality stuff from Mike's many podcasts but yes, great to see someone else also caring enough to follow and explain it!

 

UNRELEASED INSERT???

 It's the same opening note going on 5 seconds longer... lol

 

And yeah I assume most this is known but just in case anybody was wondering...

 

It's specific to that case of Gladiator though. I mean I'm working on 2 scores at this moment and the "Film Version" listed are actually alternate film versions... 

[Trope 1,185]

5 hours ago, Stéphane Humez said:

I'm working on 2 scores at this  and the "Film Version" listed are actually alternate film versions... 

DON’T TEASE US STÉPHANE!

[A. A. Ron 2,257]

Yeah, just come out and tell us that it's Prince of Egypt and Road to El Dorado you're working on. We won't be mad that you spoiled the surprise, we promise!

[Edmilson 10,433]

Yeah, you can tell us! We won't tell anyone, we promise!

 

[12-Mile Reef 146]

On 8/4/2025 at 6:14 PM, Jay said:

Your CD ripper will be able to join the crossfaded tracks into one long track for the files in your device.

 

This actually started to be an issue for me 15 months or so ago. I'm having a problem with gapless playback that has always worked fine but stopped working with IOS 17 and continues now into IOS 18 on both my iPhone 13 pro and my iPad. The issue is with all past music and music I currently purchase for download and music ripped from CDs.

 

It is clearly an issue with the IOS as I can still correctly import CDs requiring gapless playback on the MacBook Music App which then still play perfectly on my 2 iPod touches (which cannot be upgraded past IOS 15, not that I would ever risk doing so, now that they are my only devices that still play music properly!).

I've raised the issue a couple of times with Apple but the responses have always fizzled out and with every software update I hope it's been fixed . I've had to send examples to the Apple engineers a few times and coincidentally have always sent the first few tracks from the original Gladiator release as it is very obviously disruptive when listening to them. Anyone else with IOS devices having the same issue? It's rare new releases (especially from the specialty labels) have crossfaded tracks these days so I'm interested to see if this is something others have issues with when people start receiving their copies.

[Jay 42,355]

Right, I'm saying instead of ripping them as separate tracks and relying on your software to play them gaplessly, you can just tell it to rip, for example, tracks 1-3 as one single file.  Now you'll have one long track that sounds exactly the same as if you played the real CD, and don't have to worry about your software fucking up the gapless-ness.

[12-Mile Reef 146]

Yes, but considering it has always worked fine until about 15 months ago and is an issue with hundreds of albums I have (requiring a huge effort to re-rip everything), it would be great if Apple could fix it. I'm keen to know if any others have had the same issue.

[A. A. Ron 2,257]

Historically yes, though I haven't noticed any gapless issues recently.

[Richard P 4,752]

It was only a few years ago that I discovered the ripping technique Jay refers to - I've used it now and again for scores with gapless tracks that didn't need to be multiple tracks.

 

In this case there are a handful of pairs of tracks that don't seem to me to have any reason to be split up on the OST - Progeny/Wheat, Strength and Honor/Reunion/Slaves to Rome, and Elysium/Honor Him. So one thing to figure out with this release will be whether I join all those stretches where applicable.

[Jfallon 48]

1 hour ago, Jay said:

Right, I'm saying instead of ripping them as separate tracks and relying on your software to play them gaplessly, you can just tell it to rip, for example, tracks 1-3 as one single file.  Now you'll have one long track that sounds exactly the same as if you played the real CD, and don't have to worry about your software fucking up the gapless-ness.

 Jay is done through ripping in iTunes? Would love to figure this out!

[Jay 42,355]

What?

[Meredith McKay 7,842]

2 minutes ago, Jay said:

What?

Translation: Can it be done/is this done using iTunes? I would love to figure out how to do it that way, it would be so useful

[Jay 42,355]

Oh.  I haven't a clue, I haven't used iTunes in over a decade

[Tom Guernsey 3,217]

19 minutes ago, Jfallon said:

 Jay is done through ripping in iTunes? Would love to figure this out!

Yes. When you put the cd in, you just select the tracks you want to combine and on the options on the top right of where the tracks are displayed you just select join tracks. Repeat for any other groups of tracks you want to combine. Rip disc. I only mostly use it for classical albums where long movements are split into separate tracks or it’s like a short symphony that plays without a break (like Sibelius’ 7th symphony). However I used it for a few older John Powell scores where he used to programme lots of short tracks to get round (I believe) reuse issues. It does combine all of the track names in the single track so you may want to edit that after it’s ripped. 

[Jay 42,355]

Just now, Tom Guernsey said:

older John Powell scores where he used to programme lots of short tracks to get round (I believe) reuse issues.

 

It wasn't re-use fees, it was fees you had to pay for tracks that included choir.  The fee had to be paid for the duration of the entire track, not the length of the choir part within it.  So they isolated the parts with choir into their own short little tracks to pay the smallest fee possible.

[Tom Guernsey 3,217]

3 minutes ago, Jay said:

 

It wasn't re-use fees, it was fees you had to pay for tracks that included choir.  The fee had to be paid for the duration of the entire track, not the length of the choir part within it.  So they isolated the parts with choir into their own short little tracks to pay the smallest fee possible.

Ahh yes. That’s the one. Madness. 

[Alan 743]

Looks like LLL did get it early. Mine shipped

[Richard P 4,752]

Yes - shipped just now! Hopefully it'll clear the pond over easter and I'll have it by early next week.

 

We know from MV's post on FSM that they'd sold 750 by 90 mins after the drop on the 1st and I ordered around half 6, so they must have a lot of orders to get through by now.

[WampaRat 1,768]

That's terrific! I had to wait until the following day after it was announced to order mine. Hopefully, it will ship in the next few days. I can't wait to dig into the liner notes and rediscover one of my all-time favorite scores. 

[Richard P 4,752]

Yes, I'm unusually looking forward to the liners. I love the film, and all the background on how the score came together.

 

All of my grails are nearly together....

[Bilbo 3,998]

1 hour ago, WampaRat said:

That's terrific! I had to wait until the following day after it was announced to order mine. Hopefully, it will ship in the next few days. I can't wait to dig into the liner notes and rediscover one of my all-time favorite scores. 

Does when you order make a difference? I ordered it before the social media posts went up and no shipping email yet.

[tomsmoviemadness 4,234]

Shippes over here as well!

[Richard P 4,752]

I realised upon looking at my tracking link that 'shipped' now just means a label has been printed, not that USPS actually has it. Stamps.com doesn't work.

 

Judging by a few at FSM (one had their label printed by Sat, another apparently has their set (!), I think time of ordering made a big difference - and I was just a half hour after the drop. I'd assume mine will leave the warehouse today.

[HunterTech 1,502]

I got an 'awaiting shipment' status change on Sunday, but I've accepted that they seem to put in-state orders at the tail end of every initial batch they ship out

[Bilbo 3,998]

2 hours ago, Richard P said:

I realised upon looking at my tracking link that 'shipped' now just means a label has been printed, not that USPS actually has it.

 

Judging by a few at FSM (one had their label printed by Sat, another apparently has their set (!), I think time of ordering made a big difference - and I was just a half hour after the drop. I'd assume mine will leave the warehouse today.

mine changed to shipped just after midnight in Ireland.

 

I got my confirmation email at 8 minutes past 6 Irish time on the 1st. So that was 8 minutes after it went live. 

[Richard P 4,752]

My above assertion was partly wrong - the notification itself may be the label printing, but Stamps.com has sprung to life and it did indeed leave LLL yesterday - it's touring 'shipping partner' facilities of L.A.

[OneBuckFilms 446]

Gladiator arrived, and it sounds great.

 

Such a great release.