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Star Wars Trilogy LP Preservations (Released)

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*** Moving this to the top as it seems many have missed it:

Thanks to the kindness of one of the posters on here, this should magically appear on a 'Spleen near you at some point in the very near future. PMs asking for the files will be ignored. Polite request: PLEASE don’t share these elsewhere… Thank you.

The small-print:

These transfers are solely 100% intended as preservations of the original and long out of print LPs. As with all the GOUT based projects, these preservations are solely for those who already own the originals, but either do not have the equipment to play them back on any longer, or the means to do their own transfers. These are for private home use only… ***

Hey folks!

In an effort to give something back to the OT community for all the amazing projects I’ve enjoyed watching over the years, here’s a little something in return which I hope might be of interest.

Many moons ago, I did some 24/96 captures of the Star Wars and Empire Strikes Back LPs for personal use. I was very happy with them, but times change, standards get higher, playback gear gets better, new techniques are learnt etc etc. So I’ve started from scratch and done V.2 transfers of these, as well as all three ‘Story of’ LPs. I still need to get a mint condition copy of the Return of the Jedi soundtrack LP, but since this didn’t differ at all from the CD release (unlike the other two albums) it’s not a high priority, but it WILL get done. I’m extremely pleased with how fresh & vibrant these transfers sound, compared to the original Polydor CD releases.

I prefer to keep certain details of the transfer equipment used to myself - I find knowledge of the equipment can sometimes colour one’s reaction to the files they’re listening to which can hinder one’s enjoyment. Rest assured, the equipment used is of a very high standard indeed. All LPs were cleaned several times, first using L’Art Du Son cleaning fluid, then another brand of cleaning fluid I’ve had superb results with from an Ebay seller. A ‘Nitty-Gritty’ & also ‘Loricraft Audio’ vacuum record cleaning machines were used to get the best results possible. To ensure the best quality transfers, the LPs must be as clean as possible. You cannot ‘fake it’ with digital tools further down the line - you HAVE to get the best results possible prior to any digital tinkering. Cheap record players WILL NOT do a good job…

For the tech-savvy amongst you, the LPs were captured at 32/96 resolution. All editing, DC nulling, and de-clicking was done at 32-bit. Click Repair was sparingly used on the DeClick 10 / Reverse / Protect Pitch settings. Additional manual click/pop removal was done using Adobe Audition. I was very careful not to compromise the fidelity of the original recordings, so you WILL still hear some occasional noise or clicks/pops. NO blanket noise reduction or rumble filters were used. I wanted the full fidelity of the LPs to shine through as much as possible, which unfortunately means some of the vinyl flaws are audible. You will notice on the ‘Story of’ LPs in particular that the audio reproduction varies in quality. For example some of the music used in the Story of Star Wars LP in wavers in pitch. This is NOT a fault of the LP itself, or of the playback equipment - it is sadly present on the original Story of masters used to press the LP. The Story of Empire can sound a little muffled in places, with some distortion on dialogue at times - again this is what the original LP sounds like. The Story of Jedi seems to be pretty much perfect however (third time lucky I guess :p).

<span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.296875); -webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(175, 192, 227, 0.230469); -webkit-composition-frame-color: rgba(77, 128, 180, 0.230469);">Something not often mentioned (or known?!) is that many LPs were/are pressed with the spindle holes slightly off centre. This results in pitch instability no matter how good the record player (and the one used for these is a high quality Direct-Drive). I had to gently enlarge the holes in some of these LPs to get them aligned 100% perfectly so the stylus/arm didn’t sway from side to side at all. I actually purchased/evaluated 3 different pressings of each soundtrack album too. The PYE version of Star Wars was the best, with red label Polydor a close second. The best quality pressing (technically) for Empire was a rare Japanese release. Unfortunately though the vinyl was absolutely perfect and dead quiet, they must have been given copies of the album masters to use. It didn’t have the sparkle of the US pressings unfortunately. The US versions I have are a promo version, and a standard retail version which was bought brand new/sealed. The promo sounds the best, despite the lower quality vinyl material. How’s all that for dedication? ;)</span>

These files are best listened to on a DECENT playback system. The 24/96 files are to be recommended, but I have also produced some 16/44.1 losslessly compressed FLAC files as well. The 24/96 files are also FLAC files. For the CD quality versions, the files were down-converted from 24/96 to 16/44.1 using Izotope MBIT+ Ultra settings. There will not be MP3 versions. Lastly, to preserve the ‘LP experience’ I have decided not to split the album sides into individual tracks. A lot of thought went into the flow/sequencing of the tracks back in the heyday of the LP. It’s too easy to skip from track to track these days, so I wanted to preserve that part of the ‘sit down and LISTEN’ thing too 😉

Waffle over and done with!

Hope these preservations will be of nostalgic interest to those who own the LPs.

  • 7FN
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I'm very interested! PM sent.

A picture is worth a thousand words. Post 102 is worth more.

I’m late to the party, but I think this is the best song. Enjoy!

—Teams Jetrell Fo 1, Jetrell Fo 2, and Jetrell Fo 3

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AntcuFaalb: PM responded to :)

Timdiggerm: Yes he used selections of my V1 LP transfers in his amazing reconstructions of the full scores.

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Wow, thank you for dong these 7FN, and in high-resolution to boot! You have done the hard part of obtaining the different pressings, dedicated listening by ear, then doing the conversion with manual click repair which can be darned stubborn at times.

I actually hadn't thought about enlarging spindle holes by hand for off-center pressings. That's fine about the equipment chain, I typically just look at these to see what I could change/improve on my own meager system.

I think I can now safely put away my battered 20th Century LP that sounds as if someone decided to fry bacon with the orchestra. ;)

VADER!? WHERE THE HELL IS MY MOCHA LATTE? -Palpy on a very bad day.
“George didn’t think there was any future in dead Han toys.”-Harrison Ford
YT channel:
https://www.youtube.com/c/DamnFoolIdealisticCrusader

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When I receive it from 7FN, I plan to get it on:

  • Google Drive
  • MySpleen
  • Usenet (alt.binaries.starwars)

 

Any suggestions?

A picture is worth a thousand words. Post 102 is worth more.

I’m late to the party, but I think this is the best song. Enjoy!

—Teams Jetrell Fo 1, Jetrell Fo 2, and Jetrell Fo 3

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pittrek said:

mediafire.com

rapidshare.com

Do you need a premium account to upload to those? (I don't want to check from work.)

A picture is worth a thousand words. Post 102 is worth more.

I’m late to the party, but I think this is the best song. Enjoy!

—Teams Jetrell Fo 1, Jetrell Fo 2, and Jetrell Fo 3

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Appreciate the enthusiasm folks, but would politely request that these are only posted to MySpleen and alt.binaries.starwars. If they do happen to appear elsewhere you'll know it wasn't sanctioned by myself - I hope this doesn't happen. This really is meant as a nostalgic preservation for those that already own & have paid for a legit release of the soundtracks.

Ta muchly ;)

I'll get this sent off to AntcuFaalb tomorrow, so hopefully he'll have them within the next week to upload.

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Thanks, 7FN.  I have a stack of vinyl that I now no longer need to rip.  

Just curious if you could share you dither settings from izotope.  Cheers

If I had some gum, I’d chew a hole into the sun…

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schorman13 said:

Thanks, 7FN.  I have a stack of vinyl that I now no longer need to rip.  

Just curious if you could share you dither settings from izotope.  Cheers

 

Sure - in the end I couldn't find a better sounding combo than the default settings - Izotope know their own product well ;)

I'm using Wave Editor for the Mac, which is the cheapest way of getting hold of the legit Izotope SRC. For sample rate conversion I use Izotope Resampler, Quality High (filter steepness 150). Cutoff Scaling and Preringing both set to 1.00. For Dithering I select MBIT+ type, with Ultra for shape, and Normal for Amount.

Hope that all helps.

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Update: the dvds containing the transfers were sent off to AntcuFaalb via Air Mail this afternoon. Fingers crossed he should receive them within the next few days.

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Any news on when these will hit newsgroups? I promise I'll help seed on the spleen if not upload myself. I'm a great fan of your earlier work released in conjunction with ABC!

“I find your lack of faith disturbing.”

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bilditup1 said:

Any news on when these will hit newsgroups? I promise I'll help seed on the spleen if not upload myself. I'm a great fan of your earlier work released in conjunction with ABC!

No news... yet. I still haven't received them! I've been waiting and checking my mailbox every day immediately after the postman leaves.

Shipping overseas (especially to the USA) can be a pain.

A picture is worth a thousand words. Post 102 is worth more.

I’m late to the party, but I think this is the best song. Enjoy!

—Teams Jetrell Fo 1, Jetrell Fo 2, and Jetrell Fo 3

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Damn sorry to hear that - it's been two weeks now. Sent them via Airmail too :/

Off on holiday for a week tomorrow. If you haven't received them in another week I'll get a new set of discs off to you then.

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'Sent them via Airmail too :/'

In my experience recently, airmail from outside the US takes quite a while to arrive. My suspicion is that they are not classified as First Class anymore once they reach our shores and thus take a backseat to everything else. But, "Airmail" sent abroad is classified First Class though (it's not even officially called airmail anymore) so that would be an odd inconsistency.

Moral of the story is that if you want something to arrive in the US double-quick, you'll want to look at Express Mail or private carriers like UPS and FedEx...but then, of course, you'll be paying a pretty penny...

“I find your lack of faith disturbing.”

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I just received the DVDs! I'm working on uploading them ASAP.

A picture is worth a thousand words. Post 102 is worth more.

I’m late to the party, but I think this is the best song. Enjoy!

—Teams Jetrell Fo 1, Jetrell Fo 2, and Jetrell Fo 3

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Great stuff!

Hope they're enjoyed, and many thanks for uploading :)

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OK, they're on Usenet (a.b.starwars) and MySpleen. Enjoy!

A picture is worth a thousand words. Post 102 is worth more.

I’m late to the party, but I think this is the best song. Enjoy!

—Teams Jetrell Fo 1, Jetrell Fo 2, and Jetrell Fo 3

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AntcuFaalb said:

OK, they're on Usenet (a.b.starwars) and MySpleen. Enjoy!

 

Streuth that was quick! You must have a lean, mean fighting machine of an internet connection!

Thanks again for uploading - much appreciated!

Folks: I'd appreciate it if these files were kept at a.b.starwars and MySpleen and not shared elsewhere. If you see them elsewhere you know they're not legit. Ta ;)

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OK, I fixed my seeding issue.

Also, it looks like I kept my MultiPar settings from my PS78 raw captures, so I'm sorry about the huge PAR-set. Should I upload two smaller PAR-sets tonight?

Edit: I definitely will.

A picture is worth a thousand words. Post 102 is worth more.

I’m late to the party, but I think this is the best song. Enjoy!

—Teams Jetrell Fo 1, Jetrell Fo 2, and Jetrell Fo 3

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timdiggerm said:

I don't really understand what your definition of "legit" is, but okay?

 

It means I'd rather not see these files seeded all over the net, and only at the locations I have already mentioned. Seems pretty clear to me...

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Don't understand how I could've missed this thread. This is awesome! loved your previous effort, thanks for sharing 7FN! :)

We want you to be aware that we have no plans—now or in the future—to restore the earlier versions. 

Sincerely, Lynne Hale publicity@lucasfilm.com

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7FN said:

timdiggerm said:

I don't really understand what your definition of "legit" is, but okay?

 

It means I'd rather not see these files seeded all over the net, and only at the locations I have already mentioned. Seems pretty clear to me...

Legit is short for legitimate, which would mean real, the opposite of fake. (atleast thats how I understand it)

so if they were posted somewhere else, it would still be the real deal, but not an approved or endorsed link/post.

John Williams score to Return of the Jedi Remastered/Remixed:

http://originaltrilogy.com/forum/topic.cfm/JOHN-WILLIAMS-Star-Wars-Episode-VI-Return-of-the-Jedi-Remastered-Edition/topic/14606/page/1/