StarThoughts said:
jerryshadoe said:
@StarThoughts: there are no differences other than delivery method (with the DTS track encoded from the PCM using SurCode DVD-DTS) The isolated score track was NOT on the bluray, per se, because most of the English audio commentary track 5 is an isolated score track in ac3 192kbps. a little bit of talking here and there but very little. I found a FLAC copy of nearly complete score on a Chinese forum (verified to be real CDDA lossless audio) and I have a FLAC copy of the OST as well. Then I looked up the artist and track name for the songs (like what's on neo's headphones at beginning of movie; for example) that are NOT on the OST and have found FLAC copies of those. Now it's a matter of syncing up all the separate tracks into one audio track, where I'm using the English audio commentary track 5 (which specifically focuses on the isolated score) as a reference. In doing it this way, I am able to reconstruct a lossless copy of the score which I will leave in PCM for the release. (Depending on how much of a pain it is, I might even up-convert it to a 5.1 [and end up with two isolated score tracks with a 5.1 and a 2.0], but this will depend entirely on the results, otherwise I'll just stick with the 2.0)
Ah! I thought that the isolated score was just going to be the track from the original DVD release, but you're talking about assembling a new track from scratch for better sound quality! I heartily approve! If you do make an upconversion, I would hope you would include the original stereo version as well.
It sounds like your primary source for the score is the 2 CD promo of the score that was leaked in the early aughts, which I was lucky enough to snag a copy of this when I went looking for something with better sound quality than the compressed DVD AC-3 track. It has the advantage of not having Don Davis talking over the heads and tails of cues (and sometimes over them — as interesting as some of his comments are, they are intrusive if one is trying to listen to the music), and cues play out in full without the album edits.
Most of the songs can be slipped in with some edits made, but there are a few moments where the film has song remixes that don't appear on the album or the promo. The ones that spring to mind are “Clubbed To Death” and “Leave You Far Behind.” In those cases, you may be limited to the isolated score track.
I feel Don Davis' scores for Matrix trilogy to be outstanding and unique. I was somewhat surprised for a while that more scores didn't start sounding like the Matrix trilogy. I guess I shouldn't have been, as one of the reasons why these scores work so well for their films is because, in the tradition of the best science-fiction scores, they have a very specific sound that relates to the subject matter.
First of all, HAPPY NEW YEAR 2014!!!
I'm very excited right now and am posting some updates on my progress with the audio. So, thanx to DoomBot (thank you again for the lossless Cinema Track - it made a HUGE difference) I was able to look at the clipping issues I had noticed in Andrea's lossy Cinema DTS track and to my surprise (and joy) the issue was almost non-existent in the lossless track. In comparison, the lossy DTS track that Andrea had in version 1.0 had a total of over 30 thousand (!) clipping issues in just channel 01 of the 06 channels of audio; whereas, on the other hand, the total amount of clipping issues in the lossless track was around 130, most of which (around 90) was in channel 03 (center) in the louder action sequences in the last third of the movie. Seeing as this was the case, I cut out ONLY the parts that needed a little correction (where I used the Digital Wavefile De-clipper{which is a very light filter that doesn't degrade the sound IMHO} in Diamond Cut DC Forensics8 Audio Laboratory) and then re-inserted them back into the rest of the un-touched audio. The total amount of corrections in actual real-time was 6.822 seconds of audio that needed to be edited. Then, because the audio had a volume level that was almost at max before clipping starts, I lowered the overall amplification of all channels (except channel 04, the LFE) by a factor of -2.7dB. This will prevent any kind of clipping in the DTS core of the DTS-HD MA track that I have encoded using DTS-HD Master Audio Suite 2.6. I ripped Andrea's spoRv version with meGUI into a 1.97GB (for video at 2000kbps) mkv for easy referencing (and fast muxing) using the ultrafast setting (didn't care about video quality, was just for referencing)... anyway... the Cinema DTS-HD MA track sounds incredible (I'm kind of an audiophile and have the right equipment to enjoy good sound)... very much so looking forward to including this in version 2.0.
Now, the reason I'm really excited right now, is because I just finished watching the Matrix (using above mentioned reference file) muxed with the PCM 2.0 score track that I put together. WOW! Not at my work, but at the score. Again, WOW!!! It's amazing how much you don't realize what affect the music has on the atmosphere of a movie until you watch a movie with ONLY the music. There were things I haven't noticed before in the facial expressions of the characters (particularly Agent Smith and some of the expression in Cypher's face that make it more obvious how much of a snake he is) as well as other little things I noticed about how fake the fight scene in the subway station actually is. Amazing how sound effects can trick you into believing somthing is more than it appears to be. Anyway, for the most part, I have to say that the result is flawless. Indeed, StarThoughts was correct that certain last-minute edits were done with the audio. In fact, it seems like StarThoughts knows a lot about the score. Thanks for pointing out the places I might have issues (as you were right) I payed more attention to these moments because someone pointed out that I should ;) Most of it, like I said, came out flawless... most of it, LOL... Honestly, this is the first time ever that I have taken on such a task. I have been editing sound for a long time, but editing sound and mixing sound are not completely the same thing so this was an experiment for me. I am a stubborn person and I wanted to learn something new and get this done. There are only two (!) places in the whole score that I have to correct. First is the transition between Dragula and the next track (where for about 1.5 second there is an out-of sync issue where there is a slight echo-will explain more why further down- and then everything else is fine. And then about 40 minutes into the movie there is an instance where I cross-faded between two instrumental tracks incorrectly (the first one ends abruptly and I should have done a full fade-out of it instead of a cross-fade out) and it's obvious that those are two separate tracks. Both of these should be easy to correct because I know exactly what I'm looking for and how to correct it.
When it comes to HOW I put this together... ah, this was tricky. The final track is actually 99% CDDA quality (as I have verified with audiochecker and spek) and will be posting the proof files for this once I have the final touches completed on the audio. The 5.1 upmix also sounds great where I'm using the steve thompson plugin in audacity but will have to re-do once the stereo master is complete. planning on encoding the 5.1 mix into a DTS-HD MA/core track. Anyway, to put this together I used the following: lossless score (from the 2cd promo FLAC don davis score) lossless OST (also from FLAC) lossless copies of tracks missing from OST (also in FLAC, one in APE) lossless Cinema track, lossy English Commentary track 5 (the ac3 file at 192kbps)
Now, the songs that were used in certain parts of the movie weren't necessarily the same as the track themselves, in the fact that they were specifically remixed in studio for this movie from the original tracks. This proved to be tricky here and there but the I realized that I can play a couple of tricks on the audio by layering (at precisely the same moment down to 1ms) multiple sources once I had the volume leveled at the same for all. By doing this I was able to seamlessly blend between sources (sometimes using 2 for a couple seconds at a time before fading one out) and re-construct as much lossless audio as possible. So in certain music tracks, it blends between lossless flac file, lossless Cinema audio (where I use only channel 01 and 02 L+R) where I cut out any sound effects that were layered onto that, and lossy English Commentary track 5 (which I had cleaned up a little in Diamond Cut DC forensic8). Now, with them all at the same volume level, I was able to cross-fade between the two or three when needed to reconstruct the entire song mix. Not to pat myself on the back, but the result is actually pretty decent. I have an extremely trained ear and only on rare occasion could I notice the difference in fidelity for a split second. but it's so quick that you almost dont notice. I will let you guys judge once I have it officially complete. Like I said, very excited.
@StarThoughts: if you would be interested in previewing the score track once its finished that would be cool.
Also, now I have all the audio/subtitle tracks (except the score that I'm still working on) muxed into one mkv file to see the actual size and (including the score tracks because I have their sizes already) it takes up almost 22GB. The korean subtitles are corrupted so I had to toss those and it looks like the bengali subs might have to be edited for timecode (looks like they are at 25fps, but will check later) So the "International Edition" of version 2.0 looks promising. Think this is long enough of a rant LOL :)
Peace, Jerry