Star Wars 1977 70mm sound mix recreation [stereo and 5.1 versions now available] (Released) — Page 15

msycamore said:

Interesting, never noticed the difference before. When you describe them I know exactly what soundeffects you refer to. Damn, that's a tough decision on what to do, have you already checked David Morgan's audio files if any surrounds can be heard in those sequences? http://www.wideanglecloseup.com/starwarsaudio.html I'm not able to do so myself at the moment.

Not trying to sound rude or mean at all, but Hairy just said, and I quote:

hairy_hen said:

The in-theatre 70mm recording doesn't seem to have it, at least not the one I have, but then that recording doesn't seem to have any of the surround effects at all, so that tells me nothing[...]

Took a bit of a break to rest my ears, but now I'm back at it.

I did listen to those raw recordings, and the surrounds can't be heard there either.  But I think those are what Belbucus used to make the 70mm/1993 comparison track, so it's not surprising.  Separating the comparison channels and playing them back individually, it seems quite clear that the theatre where the recording was made did not have an operational surround channel.  The front channel portions of the '93 mix when folded down to mono seem to match up exactly with the recording, in the levels of certain surround effects that were also partially panned to the front, which really confirms my suspicion.

So while I still can't make any conclusions about the authenticity of those sounds, I'm leaning towards leaving them in simply because I can't prove that they don't belong there.  There are a few places where the 70mm definitely added sounds that weren't in the stereo mix, so it's not unreasonable to think that these may be in the same category.  With so many variations and sources used for later remixes, their presence or absence in those says nothing concrete about this version specifically.

Been going through the theatre recording with everything except the low frequencies muted, and while the bass is often indistinct and not of good quality, it does seem pretty similar to how they mixed it in 1993 for the most part, though not exact.  I'll probably keep the LFE channel mostly the same as before, but I may change a few things based on what I'm hearing.

As msycamore said, the most obvious addition is the screeching sound when the first Y-wing is destroyed by Vader in the trench.  This is not heard in the stereo or the '85, but it is a part of the 70mm version.  I used to think it was something added for the special edition, since I had never heard it before; then when the GOUT came out and I learned about the existence of the '93 mix I believed it to have been first added to that version.  But it's plainly there in the theatre recording, which really surprised me when I first heard it.

Interestingly, in the 70mm this sound is panned left, but in the '97 SE, mostly derived from the earlier generation four-track master which assuredly did not contain this sound effect, it seems to be on the right instead, since they had to add it separately and apparently chose to integrate it in a different way.

There is another addition when the TIE fighters first appear in the Death Star battle: the first X-wing to be destroyed has a different explosion sound than in the stereo mix.  Actually, when I say 'different' what I really mean is 'enhanced', because I think the original explosion is still there, but with a loud additional element layered on top of it.  There is also a short bit of the same screeching sound as the Y-wing example, too.  The '97 mix does not contain these additions and the explosion sounds the same as it does in the stereo mix; presumably they either couldn't find those elements or chose not to include them (or maybe they just forgot).

The third example is the explosion of Vader's wingman when Han arrives to save the day.  To me this really sounds like a newly created element, not just a different integration of the same sound effect as the stereo.  Again, in the '97 mix this specific explosion is absent and was remade completely differently.

Few in number though they are, these changes are enough to show that the 70mm version was not identical to the stereo mix, though they are very close.  So it is possible that the two surround effects I mention could also have been added along with them, after the stereo had already been finished.  The '97 mix does have the echo in the canyon, but not the hyperspace effect.  Some of the '93 additions made it into the SE while others are not heard in any other version, so it's just impossible to say with any real certainty.  No two mixes have ever been entirely alike in terms of what is included or isn't, and with the surrounds absent in the recording it can't be traced quite as accurately as I'd like.  Oh well.

I think the only way to settle this is for a group of us to travel back in time to 1977, see Star Wars in 70mm and take take detailed notes. Better yet, after we see the movie, let's just break into some theater and "borrow" the magnetic tapes used for playback. How complicated could alarm systems be in 1977? 

Well heck, as long as we're going back to 1977, we might as well just take the whole print with us.  ;)

About the bass . . . well, it seems to me that there are some places where the recording has low frequency hits that the '93 mix doesn't have, but the reverse is also true.  It's hard to tell since most of it is at a low level and not very clear anyway, but that's my impression.  There are spots where the SE's added bass that the original didn't have, too, but then they also left some out.  None of the remixes used the LFE channels from the 70mm, deriving it instead from a separate sound effects master, and each time they made different choices about when it should be placed and at what level.  I couldn't reproduce the original exactly even if I tried, so instead I'm still mostly just going to go with what sounds right to me.  But I think I'll remove a couple small things that probably don't belong, and add a few in that I didn't have before.

Thinking it over again, I've changed my mind: I guess I will remove those two effects.  All the 70mm changes I listed earlier are in the end battle, which is probably what they were most focused on making sound good in the time available, and as msycamore points out, the original surround effects often tend to be partially placed in the front as well (something Dolby refers to as a 2-4 punch, which can really fill out the room), while these are not.  The '93 mix added other effects that only occur in the surround, so actually it probably makes the most sense to assume that they were in this group, since so many other things were being put in at the same time.

If I do this alternate track I keep talking about, then they will of course be left in.  Some extra bass could find its way into that version, as well.

Samples of what I've improved over the last version?  I suppose that could be arranged.  Just have to think which parts would show it the most clearly.  ;)

About the other two films: well, there's not really anything about the current versions that I find lacking, so it's not strictly necessary.  However, I think I would like to do them as well, as the lossless LFE from the Blurays would be a worthwhile improvement, and perhaps the (few) edits could benefit from a little more work also.  Something I've noticed about the '93 mix for RotJ is that the music is sometimes at a significantly lower level than in the original stereo version, so it would be nice to splice in a few more sections of that to get it back to how it was.  Also, the current version is synched to the GOUT in NTSC, but the two most prominent preservation projects, Harmy's and dark_jedi's, are timed to the PAL version.  The NTSC is missing two frames compared to the PAL at the scene change from Dagobah to the rebel fleet, so on both projects there is a noticeable loss of synch at the point: from then on the audio is two frames in advance of the video, which is more objectionable than if it were a delay.  I would have pointed this out before, but unfortunately I'd forgotten about it.  So really this should be corrected.

To clarify, there are two ways that complete synch could be restored for RotJ: either the two frames at the end of the shot could be deleted from the video, or the audio could be extended to the proper length.  The latter choice would be more 'authentic', and it's probably easier for me to do it so that the whole projects don't have to be re-rendered.  I'd just need a fresh rip of the '93 laserdisc PCM for that section to fill it out.

Something crossed my mind recently about the in-theatre 70mm recording: if the surround channel wasn't running, then it stands to reason that they didn't have dedicated subwoofers installed, either.  Since SW was the first film ever mixed with separate LFE, it's safe to assume that most theatres when it first came out had not yet upgraded their equipment to play it back at its absolute best.  The boom tracks were intended to be played through channels 2 and 4, the ones in between the LCR fronts, and these may still have been ordinary speakers in some locations.  If that is the case, then the bass may not always have been as strong, since LFE is deliberately recorded at -10 db from the intended playback level to improve headroom, and compensated for at the amplification stage.  This 10 db boost at playback may not have been implemented if a particular theatre was not aware of the requirement, or if their equipment couldn't handle that high a level; in such a case the bass would probably come across more like it does in the '93 mix—definitely there, but not palpable in the same way.

I was thinking about this lately, because if the 70mm bass was really as loud as I think it was, then the recording may have ended up being much more clipped and distorted than it actually is in those parts.  The above conjecture, as well as acoustic concerns, could easily explain this discrepancy, and of course we should not forget that the recording is very old and probably didn't have good low frequency retention anyway.  Still, while I'm pretty sure I've estimated it correctly, sometimes I wonder if I might be mistaken.  Hmm . . .

Anyway, now to get back to working on the mix instead of just talking about it.  ;)

Phasing?  I can't say I've noticed anything like that, but then I haven't had any formal training in this sort of thing, and my sound system probably doesn't really measure up to professional standards.  Do you mean something goes wrong briefly at specific points, or is it a more long lasting issue?

The only main channel edits I made to ESB were to insert a small segment of the 1980 stereo mix into the '93 to put back the missing snowspeeder crash sound, a splice from the '95 Faces audio when the Falcon attacks the Avenger to remove a high frequency glitch in the left channel, and a tiny segment of the GOUT audio to fix the weird music jump at the beginning of the carbon freeze scene.  The alternate version also uses the '97 mix for Boba Fett's departure from Bespin in order to include the unedited music cue as heard in the SE, but that's not on the disc you watched.  I made sure each of these edits was sample accurate and maintained the proper phase, so aside from a possible shift in imaging or EQ I can't think why there would be any issues, unless something about the upmix is making it sound less than ideal, or if the bass isn't quite synched perfectly.

I hope you enjoyed it apart from that, anyway.  ;)

Thanks for all the updates hairy_hen, so this is confusing, so exactly how many frames are different from the NTSC Jedi & the PAL Jedi? looking at the link msycamore posted, it seems DM found 2 missing, but then Red5 said that they are there, but then he found a different one missing 141780, but then reading on it seems that is the only frame missing, so there is only 1 frame missing from the PAL Jedi or am I missing something? so why is everyone saying there is 2 missing? where is the other one?

Also I do not care about the bad IVTC frames in Empire, those have been fixed, not for V3 but for the Blu, I know this is not about that, but since it was also mentioned in the post msycamore added, I figured I would let you know.

@hairy_hen, I am getting the other 2 files you need today, I will send you a PM when ready.

msycamore said:

d_j, there is only those two frames of the fleet that is missing in the NTSC causing the audio to be two frames ahead from that moment until that frame on Endor which instead is not on the PAL causing the audio only one frame ahead from then on. IIRC the PAL GOUT also have lots of more solid black frames after the end titles, that's why the difference in frames are larger than 1 frame in total when loading the files in VirtualDub for example.

Well before I can figure out what I am going to do, I will first need to see how h_h approaches this, if he fixes it on his end, then Harmy and I won't have to, but if not, then I will then have to decide on what approach I take.