Star Wars 1977 70mm sound mix recreation [stereo and 5.1 versions now available] (Released) — Page 16

I'm been trusting Neil's ears for a long time... glad he's here tell us these things! I'm pretty sure Neil has the V3 DVD though, not the Blu-ray.

If the audio were delayed compared to the video, it would be less noticeable.  But since the sounds are actually heard in advance of the image, it stands out as unnatural.  It may not slap you around the head and say "THIS AR RONGZOR!!!!!11!" but I surely can see the discrepancy, and not just with voices either.  RotJ does have a bunch of bad lip synch with ADR, but this is a separate issue.

I'm definitely going to try to correct it.

Any updates h_h? and I did go back and fix the audio on the 83 Theatrical and the 93 PCM files for Jedi(and will re encode new DD files) so once h_h has the files redone for all 3 films the BD release will have the Jedi audio all corrected.

Thanks

Sounds great!  It's good all the tracks will be fixed.

I've completed all the main channel edits for SW except the opening flyby, so there's just that and the LFE channel left to be done.

One edit is actually going to be unchanged from the previous version.  For some reason I find the explosion before 3PO gets in the escape pod to sound tinny in the '85 mix, while the '77 stereo track seems a bit more robust, so I'm leaving that one the same as before.

hairy_hen said:

Sounds great!  It's good all the tracks will be fixed.

I've completed all the main channel edits for SW except the opening flyby, so there's just that and the LFE channel left to be done.

One edit is actually going to be unchanged from the previous version.  For some reason I find the explosion before 3PO gets in the escape pod to sound tinny in the '85 mix, while the '77 stereo track seems a bit more robust, so I'm leaving that one the same as before.

Sounds good to me, I trust your judgment 100% on this, so what sounds good and right to you will work for me.

As long as it's not the high-pitched ricochet from '93...I think Treadwell spelled it "KABMPH!" :)

BTW, I finally got to listen to this mix on my sound system, and it sounds great.

Glad you liked it.  ;)

Turns out I'm going to have to do at least one edit over again, as it didn't actually work as well as I thought.  I suppose I got a little overconfident, forgetting why I'd done it a certain way the first time, but there are some things that just won't work under any circumstances.  Though the improved imaging of the '85 mix allows me to disguise the inserts more easily, other issues like changes in EQ or tape hiss level can still prevent an edit from being seamless, so I have to be really careful about that.  The '85 actually has a lower hiss level than the '93, surprisingly, so obviously it won't do to hear a sudden jump in noise during a switch.

A note of interest: I found another sound effect that was added to the 70mm version that is not present in the 35mm stereo mix.  Just before Han shoots at the garbage monster after they've left the pit (just after Ben has deactivated the tractor beam), the creature makes a high-pitched noise, which is absent from the stereo version.  I'd never paid it much notice before, but when I finally noticed its absence, at first I wondered if it was another '93 addition—but it's definitely there in the theatre recording.

This would seem to cast further doubt and confusion on whether those two surround effects really originated in '93 or were present originally.  Just when I'd made up my mind, things become unclear again.  Blast . . .

Interesting find h_h, thanks for sharing.

Unfortunately I haven't had much time to work on this recently, so nothing new to relate, but I hope to get back to it soon.

Just for fun, however, I put together a little comparison between the original mix and the 2004 version.  I've often gone on at length about how the remix is a pile of unlistenable rubbish, so for anyone who's interested, you'll be able to hear them side by side and understand what I'm talking about.

I used the beginning of the movie since to me it is the most objectionable part of the whole thing.  The original has an open sound with strong dynamics, while the remix is flat and dull with little tonal variation, and seems almost muffled enough to have been recorded through a blanket.  See if you can tell which is which.  ;)

Star Destroyer flyby: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=FAP7N1BE

Stormtrooper shootout: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=5JR2NWAN

Incredible. I was not expecting that much of a difference, but it's shocking to hear how dull and lifeless the remix is compared to the original. It's a real shame that the majority of people are subjected to that garbage mix.

Ginge said:

Incredible. I was not expecting that much of a difference, but it's shocking to hear how dull and lifeless the remix is compared to the original. It's a real shame that the majority of people are subjected to that garbage mix.

The second one was the original mix, right? The first one certainly seemed a lot more familar to me, and obviously a lot more flat. The dynamic range of the second one is amazing. Even through a pair of computer speakers, the difference in dynamic range was incredible. To be honest, it actually gave me goosebumps.

Very true. I do think the Blu-ray sounds pretty good. It's certainly better than the DVD. However, those two clips puts it to shame.

I'm not sure who to blame, exactly. Matt Wood may hold some of the blame, but Ben Burtt sure likes to crank up the sound effects as well.

The 2004 mix has way too many extraneous sound effects. The original mix had the sound effects placed for maximum effect; notice that when the Star Destroyer fires its big lasers in mid-flyover, there's about a second where there are no sound effects except the rumble of it flying over. The SE mixes, and specifically the '04 mix, are full of extra laser and explosion sounds that don't match what we see onscreen.

Also, the relationship between the FX and music in the '04 mix is odd. Mavimao says the music is buried under the sound effects, but in a way it sounds to me like the sound effects are buried under the music. The music is more audible in the remix (and it sounds too "dry" to me, it doesn't have the added reverb from the original mixes), and more clearly separated from the sound effects (too much IMO; it feels like an isolated score track with sound effects added to it).

What few original sound effects remain are buried under both the music and the new sound effects, or surrounded by so much new stuff that they lose their impact (for example, the aforementioned lull before the SD fires its big lasers - that's one of my favorite sound moments in the original, and it's ruined in the '04 mix because there is no lull anymore, just a bunch of new sound effects). The listener isn't given any opportunity to "breathe", but is instead subjected to a constant barrage of lasers and explosions. There's no focus in the mix, it's the sonic equivalent of those CGI battle scenes in the prequels where there's so much shit going on that you have no idea what to concentrate on.

I tend to find it pretty difficult to describe in concrete terms exactly what's wrong with the 2004 mix, because it's so impossibly screwed up and unrecognisable that I don't even know where to begin.  It's like the sound effects are all muddled and mushed together somehow, and there's no breathing room to distinguish them from anything else.  To me it sounds as though they utterly killed the high frequencies, probably as a way of overcompensating for tape hiss, and boosted the low end to an absurd level.  If you play the original mix through an EQ with the bass all the way up and the treble all the way down, it starts to resemble the remix.  (Note that I'm not talking about the really low bass found in an LFE channel, I mean the higher bass registers in the main channels.)

TServo is quite correct in calling it 'unfocused', because there's really no balance between the different elements.  Listen to the hallway shootout in particular, and try to find the 'rhythm' of the laser battle.  Guess what: it isn't there.  In the original, the different types of laser sounds coming from the rebels and the stormtroopers have a sort of back and forth going on, reflecting the camera angle and the position of the characters onscreen.  In a way you can hear the 'story' of what's happening from which sound effects are dominant at each particular moment.  In the remix, the rhythm is gone and the 'story' of it is indistinguishable.  Background tracks for characters firing their blasters from farther away are mixed at exactly the same level as those in the foreground (ie, far too loud), meaning that everything becomes jumbled and indistinguishable.

The shrunken dynamics and muffled EQ are particularly obvious in the explosion of the wall when the stormtroopers appear.  When Vader enters the rebel ship, that awesome rumbling wind sound in the original is just completely gone.

During the flyby, numerous laser and explosion sounds were added that don't correspond to anything seen onscreen, again interrupting the rhythm, and the original sound effects are mistreated.  Some of the lasers are actually out of synch, occurring over a second earlier than they should, and their corresponding visible blasts are silent.  Other sounds, such as the impacts from the blockade runner scoring hits on the Star Destroyer, are simply missing altogether.  The music isn't really at a bad level here, but it is often shrill and harsh and definitely does not integrate with the rest of the mix.

These kinds of problems recur throughout the movie, making the entire thing an unsalvageable waste, but the beginning suffers from the most extravagant screw-ups.  Elsewhere, the music is often muted to a low level, but is selectively brought up and down in a very obvious way, often corresponding to changes in camera angle.  I haven't heard the Bluray mix, but from looking at the waveform of the LFE channel and from comments others have made, I'd be prepared to bet that it's almost identical to the dvd except for a few tweaks.  It really is a shame that the vast majority of the public can only hear Star Wars by means of this colossal sonic failure, and that most of them won't even know anything's wrong.  It is analogous to the visual problems of the 2004 transfer: superficially it might seem great at first, but take a closer look and all the absurd flaws become painfully obvious.  Sure, the mix is loud, and it's in 5.1 EX, so uneducated home theatre snobs will drool over it while turning their noses at the originals for being in an older format, but should we all eat crap just because a trillion flies can't be wrong?

Anyway—I'm finally going to have more time, so I can get back to work on the new 70mm track.  I won't make an exact estimate on when it'll be finished, but I'll try to get through it as soon as I can.  As I've said before, the improvements over the existing version are subtle, but worthwhile.  I'm still considering the possibility of an alternate version, which would retain a few '93 additions and add some mono mix elements, and possibly a couple of minor surround effects from the '97 SE.