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Project: The other differences in the SW mono mix

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 (Edited)

I was just listening to the mono mix of SW again, and noticed differences which nobody seems to have mentioned before.

In general, due to the narrower frequency range of optical Academy mono (100Hz-8kHz vs. Dolby Stereo's maximum of 30Hz-16kHz), certain sound effects are vague or nonexistent; the low-frequency rumbles and high-frequency whines are dulled considerably. (For example, compare the Tantive/Star Destroyer chase in stereo and mono. The high and low frequencies just aren't there in the mono.)

Here is an ongoing list of differences I've found, with GOUT timecodes. I'm using the original Dolby Stereo mix as a basis of comparison, not the '93 mix. (A warning: The GOUT-synched Belbucus reconstruction is not a 100% accurate reference, so I will note if anything can only be heard in genuine mono sources like Puggo Grande.)

  • 00:00:00-00:00:18 - Fox fanfare has less reverb (Puggo Grande has the actual mono mix fanfare; Belbucus reconstruction uses a mono fold-down from the soundtrack CD)
  • 00:01:59-00:02:16 - Various differences in flyover scene; Tantive's lasers are louder, flyby roar/whine is lower; Star Destroyer lasers are quieter; music seems to be more to the front of the mix, especially when Star Destroyer is flying overhead
  • 00:02:16-00:02:22 - Star Destroyer lasers are louder, Tantive flyby roar/whine is lower (possibly also due to lack of high frequencies)
  • 00:02:22-00:02:25 - No sound effect for laser blast that hits the Tantive; different explosion sound
  • In the interrogation scene, Captain Antilles' dialogue is edited differently. In the stereo mix, it sounds like "We intercepted no transmissions! *ugh* *ugh* This is a consular ship...(pause)...we're on a diplomatic mission!" In the mono mix, it's "We intercepted no transmissions! (pause) *ugh* *ugh* This is a consular ship...we're on a diplomatic mission!"
  • When R2 falls over after being knocked out by the Jawas, he makes a different sound effect when he hits the ground. (In addition, there's an extra sound effect at the end of the previous shot after the electricity animation ends; it's a metallic "bang".)
  • The background Jawa dialogue is a lot louder than in the stereo mix. (At first, I thought the mono had extra Jawa chatter, but it is in the stereo too, it's just much quieter.)
  • 00:20:47-00:22:37 - When the hologram appears, an added sound effect can be heard of a metal object falling to the ground. The hologram itself has a new sound effect as well as added sound distortions when the image breaks apart. When Luke removes the restraining bolt a new sound effect is added when it shuts down the hologram.
  • 00:34:44-00:35:21 - Again the hologram of Leia has a sort of projection sound (the static distortions were already in the stereo mix)
  • 00:51:25-00:51:31 - Creature vocalization added, heard at the moment when Luke has sold his speeder, more exactly when you see the legs of an alien passing by in front of the camera.
  • 01:25:02-01:25:04 - Luke's line "What good will it do us if he gets himself killed?" is a different ADR take.
  • 01:42:52-01:42:57 - "Lock S-foils in attack position." Added X-wing sound effects.
  • 01:46:08-01:46:10 - "There's a heavy fire zone on this side" can be heard more clearly due to the lack of distortion on the radio transmissions.
  • 01:50:17 - 01:50:24 - "Stay there. I just lost my starboard engine." Added sound effect for Red Leader's damaged ship.

 

I think we should try to find all the differences in the mono mix, sort of list of differences in the 70mm version of ESB. I'm sure there are lots and lots of other subtle mixing and editing changes, some of which may be really hard to spot, but I think we can try to find as many as possible.

I don't have the time or patience to do this all myself, so if anybody else can provide any more differences they spot, preferrably with timecodes (for -1), I'll add them to this top post.

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Yeah, the mono mix is full of these subtle differences, I don't think anyone here have tried to document all of them before except the more common line differences, so I like the idea, one difference that comes to my mind right away is the added sound effects of static distortions of Leia's hologram in the garage.

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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This is a good idea to document all differences, especially since this was a dedicated mix and not a stereo fold down.

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excellent!

 

can you put the full timecodes,

or some kind of guide.. yeah i could find the clips.

 

but it's better to be precise..

 

we're doing a waveform comparison.. and i've

done a simultaneous listen to the complete sound

for puggo's/dark jedi version vs 35mm version

 

however, my ears aren't that great.. so i really

didn't notice much beyond what's already known..

 

later

-1

[no GOUT in CED?-> GOUT CED]

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-1, if you wondering about the more obvious changes in the mono mix this page: http://homepage.ntlworld.com/russdawson/mono/index.htm is a good start, but I see that the added X-wing sound effects after "Lock S-foils in attack position" is missing there, that one stands out to me as a quite big change.

Another subtle difference, is in the assault on the Death Star, the line "There’s a heavy fire zone on this side." in the Dolby mixes that line gets cut off at the end due to the distorted quality applied to many of the voices.

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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msycamore said:

-1, if you wondering about the more obvious changes in the mono mix this page: http://homepage.ntlworld.com/russdawson/mono/index.htm is a good start, but I see that the added X-wing sound effects after "Lock S-foils in attack position" is missing there, that one stands out to me as a quite big change.

Another subtle difference, is in the assault on the Death Star, the line "There’s a heavy fire zone on this side." in the Dolby mixes that line gets cut off at the end due to the distorted quality applied to many of the voices.

 yeah, saw that and referenced it.. again,

no timecodes...

 

actually, we've found a lot more differences than have

been listed.. maybe we'll have a writeup about once

we know more.

 

later

-1

[no GOUT in CED?-> GOUT CED]

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Which timecodes should be used? GOUT?

If I use GOUT, I will warn that the GOUT-synched Belbucus reconstruction is not *100%* accurate to the real mono mix. One example I can think of is that the Fox fanfare on the reconstruction is just a mono fold-down from the soundtrack CD.

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TServo2049 said:

Which timecodes should be used? GOUT?

If I use GOUT, I will warn that the GOUT-synched Belbucus reconstruction is not *100%* accurate to the real mono mix. One example I can think of is that the Fox fanfare on the reconstruction is just a mono fold-down from the soundtrack CD.

 whatever you use is fine.

 

we just need something better than descriptions

and screenshots.

 

later

-1 

[no GOUT in CED?-> GOUT CED]

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I'm not going to provide sound samples. This is just a list.

If you want to come up with actual sound comparisons, go ahead. I like your stereo-in-one-ear, mono-in-the-other approach. It's just that I don't have the time to do that myself.

That's why I'm asking for others' help - so that I don't have to watch the whole film and record all the timecodes myself.

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TServo2049 said:

I'm not going to provide sound samples. This is just a list.

If you want to come up with actual sound comparisons, go ahead. I like your stereo-in-one-ear, mono-in-the-other approach. It's just that I don't have the time to do that myself.

That's why I'm asking for others' help - so that I don't have to watch the whole film and record all the timecodes myself.

we don't need the sound samples obviously.

 

just a better idea of which parts you

are talking about. thanks for the updates.

 

you may want to change the thread

topic to reflect the edits you make.

i didn't even see that you changed them.

 

later

-1

[no GOUT in CED?-> GOUT CED]

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TServo2049 said:

If you want to come up with actual sound comparisons, go ahead. I like your stereo-in-one-ear, mono-in-the-other approach. It's just that I don't have the time to do that myself.

This has already been done (and, IIRC, the audio file is synced to the GOUT video).

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Moth3r said:

TServo2049 said:

If you want to come up with actual sound comparisons, go ahead. I like your stereo-in-one-ear, mono-in-the-other approach. It's just that I don't have the time to do that myself.

This has already been done (and, IIRC, the audio file is synced to the GOUT video).

Know where I can find it, perchance?

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00:20:47-00:22:37 - When the hologram appears, an added sound effect can be heard of an metal object falling to the ground perhaps, caused by Threepio beeing startled by the whole thing. The hologram itself has a new sound effect as well as added sound distortions when the image breaks apart. When Luke removes the restraining bolt a new sound effect is added when it shuts down the hologram.

00:34:44-00:35:21 - Again the hologram of Leia gets a sort of projection sound, the static distortions were already in place in this sequence for the stereo mixes so that is nothing new this time.

01:25:02-01:25:04 - Luke's "What good will it do us if he gets himself killed?", the new dubbing sounds horrible IMO.

01:42:52-01:42:57 - "Lock S-foils in attack position." added X-wing sound effects.

01:46:08-01:46:10 - "There’s a heavy fire zone on this side." The whole line can be heard more clearly due to the mono mix dropping the stereo mixes distortions of many transmissions in the battle.

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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A while ago I started to do something like this myself, but didn't finish it for various reasons.

There are many, many differences in the mono mix that have never been pointed out before, and I'm sure there are ones that I haven't noticed, even with all my attention to detail in this kind of thing.

I can tell you right now that putting the mono mix in one channel and a fold-down of the stereo mix in the other won't give you a completely accurate comparison, because all the surround effects in the stereo mix will phase-cancel themselves out, and thus be inaudible.  (And yeah, there are many more surround effects in there than just the noticeable ones, lots of ambience and things of that nature.)  Virtually none of the sound effects that were put in the surround channel were included in the mono mix at all; therefore they'll be altogether absent from both channels of a comparison track and won't register either way.  It just isn't so simple as that, I'm afraid.

The reason for their omission in the mono I'm not sure of, but I would guess that it was probably to reduce noise by having a lesser number of tracks mixed in, since the format was low fidelity and frequency-limited to begin with.

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TServo2049 said:

Moth3r said:

TServo2049 said:

If you want to come up with actual sound comparisons, go ahead. I like your stereo-in-one-ear, mono-in-the-other approach. It's just that I don't have the time to do that myself.

This has already been done (and, IIRC, the audio file is synced to the GOUT video).

Know where I can find it, perchance?

According to this post it was posted to a.b.starwars five years ago, obviously it's gone now, and I can't see any reposts on binsearch.info.

I'll have a look for it. Or you might want to ask Mallwalker, who has a more organized system for archiving these types of file than I have.

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hairy_hen said:

...

I can tell you right now that putting the mono mix in one channel and a fold-down of the stereo mix in the other won't give you a completely accurate comparison, because all the surround effects in the stereo mix will phase-cancel themselves out, and thus be inaudible. ...

Yes, this was noted by Belbucus at the time.

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Just a thought but people might want to listen to Puggo's version for differences since that seems to be the most complete version of the mono track widely available, despite the crackling, warpy 16mm sound.

What’s the internal temperature of a TaunTaun? Luke warm.

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You could listen to the mono compared to each of the tracks compared to the mono individually, write down differences and then work out which were covered by the other tracks, but this might be slow, tedious and inaccurate.

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TServo2049 said:


Know where I can find it, perchance?

I'll repost it...

However, in practice you must take into account the “fuckwit factor”. Just talk to Darth Mallwalker…
-Moth3r

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00:51:25 - 00:51:31 - Creature vocalization added, heard at the moment when Luke has sold his speeder, more exactly when you see the legs of an alien passing by in front of the camera.

Also, forgot about this one.

01:50:17 - 01:50:24 - "Stay there. I just lost my starboard engine." added sound effect for his damaged ship.

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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 (Edited)

01:01:20 - 01:01:22 - When the TIE fighter passing by the Falcon, there's an added sound effect coming from the Falcon when Han touches the control panel/switch above him.

01:05:09 - 01:05:14 - Added sound effect which I believe is meant for whatever it is that moves the heavy box along the floor which the crewmen are about to carry on board the Falcon. One of the crewmen seems to hold some sort of device for it, that's my take on it. ;)

01:39:06 - 01:39:19 - It's not only Hamill's line, "So... you got your reward and you’re just leaving, then?" that's a different take, Ford's following lines are as well.

"That’s right. Yeah."

"I got some old debts I got to pay off with this stuff."

"And even if I didn’t, you don’t think I’d be fool enough to stick around here, do you?"

Not sure how accurate all the timecodes are that I have provided.

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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TServo, this is just my opinion but I really think you should try to make a definitive list of all the differences in the mono mix in terms of content, which means also add the more common changes you don't have listed yet, I definitely think there are many who are interested in such a breakdown.

And I say limit it to content and not the differences in mixing levels etc, because the mono mix is so drastically different in so many ways from the Stereo mixes, that if you start to list everything that's different about the mix you can easily fill a book about it.

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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 (Edited)

That's my plan, I just want to focus on the stuff that's not well-known first. I can plug in the more known changes any time I want.

Well, there are things like the Jawa chatter, where it's a mixing difference, but such a difference that I first thought that the extra Jawa dialogue was *added* to the mono mix.

I guess I'll only include major mixing and editing differences (things like the different music edit when the X-Wings dive).

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TServo2049 said:

That's my plan, I just want to focus on the stuff that's not well-known first. I can plug in the more known changes any time I want.

Ok, just wanted to be sure what the goal of your list was. It's one of the reasons I mostly pointed out added content.

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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I believe the "How long have you had these droids?" line is shifted about a second earlier in the mono mix.  I believe hairy_hen pointed this out in another thread, stating that it makes it look like Luke has to think a little bit before he responds.

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