Star Wars 1977 70mm sound mix recreation [stereo and 5.1 versions now available] (Released) — Page 13

Dunedain said:

dark_jedi: Do you mean hairy_hen's purist DD 5.1 soundtracks were altered for the encode to DTS HD 5.1, or that when the lossless master 5.1 audio files were encoded at such a high bit-rate for DTS HD that it somehow makes them seem not as loud when you listen to them?

Because I would think that they would sound just as loud as the DD 5.1, but have more fine detail and fullness to them, since every ounce of detail would have been preserved by such a high bit-rate encode from the master files.

Like I said, I am probably not explaining it correctly, but to me, and I mean me, I like the encoded DTS-HD MA files better, and yes they are the "purist" none of them alterations used here LOL.

I am also basing my listening off the V3 DVD's, I can go to any of the other audio options and they have a real decent level, then go to the 5.1 mix, and BAM, LOUD as hell LOL, to be honest, I listen to my default audio option on all 3 of my Blu-rays so far, which is the DTS-HD MA.

Thanks to everyone who's commented on their enjoyment of the mixes!  I'm really glad that they add positively to the film experience and that they sound as though they could be the real thing.  My goal was simultaneously to be as authentic as possible and also to create the best-sounding versions I could, and it's great to hear that my estimation of them has proven successful.

As to differences in volume level, I quite honestly have no idea why they would be perceived that way.  Aside from the addition of bass and the bits that had to be replaced using the '77 stereo mix, the vast majority of it is still just the 1993 version, which was made primarily as a direct downmix from the original 70mm printmaster and should be pretty much identical.  I avoided the use of DialNorm and dynamic range compression so that the overall volume would remain identical to the PCM tracks on the laserdiscs.  The LFE channel of course adds considerably to the loudness when present, and the replaced sections are unavoidably less dynamic than the original would have been, but on the whole it's about the same.  Different equipment may handling different formats in ways I don't know about, or individual perceptions may be colouring the results.

Do the DTS-HD MA encodes contain DialNorm, by any chance?  It is a part of the specification, unlike earlier versions of DTS, but I was under the impression that the option was turned off by default.  If it has been enabled, it may explain why they seem to be less loud than the AC3 tracks, but adjustment of the receiver volume would compensate for any discrepancy during playback.

Most of the feedback has been on SW, which is of course understandable since it's the most strictly authentic of the mixes I made, and the film that gets the most attention in general.  But I'm quite interested to hear any impressions of the mixes for ESB and RotJ, as well.  ;)

Dunedain said:

hairy_hen: Perhaps you can listen to the Star Wars DTS HD 5.1 soundtrack and see if everything is still at the correct volumes for that authentic full-range soundtrack Star Wars movie theater experience. :)

What is this supposed to mean, are you insinuating I do not know how to encode this file, there was NO tampering to the wav files in any way, and it was encoded using a DTS HD encoder, also how can he listen to it? it was not released, I guess he could just encode it himself and take a listen.

I may be reading this wrong, but I am not really liking this question, DAMN I will be glad when this is done so I can retire from this crap.

Dunedain said:

Whoa, wait a second, I'm not insinuating anything; as Mother pointed out, maybe DTS HD encoding does something to the sound that no one was even aware of. I'm certainly no tech expert on any of this, I was just wondering if the DTS HD encoding might have done something since you said it sounded less loud.

I'm sure you didn't delibrately alter the 5.1 soundtrack in any way, I just figured if the DTS HD encoding automatically did something to the soundtrack (that neither you nor anyone else was aware of), that hairy_hen could probably firgure out what it was easier than anyone else, since he spent so much time fine tuning the soundtrack restorations and so on. I was just curious what the cause might be, but it's no big deal. :)

OK, I will say this 1 more time, NOTHING was changed in the DTS-HD MA encoding, I even left the dialnorm alone, so it is still the same as his at -31, but I just think that this DTS-HD Encoding Suite does a much better job encoding than the "old school" DD encoders, especially freeware or cheap DD encoders(my opinion).

I like these files very much, these 5.1 files(Purist) are the ONLY audio I listen to, just on the V3 it was fucking loud as hell, and YES I understand you can turn the volume down with the remote or on the receiver LOL, but for the most part when switching between audio options on anything they are usually the same volume level, usually.

I still just can't friggin wait to be DONE with this and move on and retire from all this crap, between this and the V3, I have been messing with these files for well over a year and it is wearing my patience very, very thin.

That's true; it's definitely not as dynamically extreme as a lot of modern mixes.  The peak volume reaches really high at times but the average level is not absurdly low; you can set it at a decent level to hear the dialogue without having to turn down the action scenes.  If you have it cranked up to the point of being completely deafened by the action, then chances are people's voices are bordering on uncomfortably loud as well.

Part of this is because neither analogue Dolby SR encoding nor any of the present day digital formats yet existed, and so mixers at that time were not in the habit of using routinely and purposely using such enormous contrasts.  Even in SW's 70mm mix, which has a far broader and more satisfying dynamic range than any other version of the movie, a certain degree of general restraint is applied for the sake of the total balance.  There are some really powerful room-filling rear channel effects at times, such as the sound of Ben's lightsabre in the cantina scene and his earlier krayt dragon call, and often the high frequency response of spaceship engines can be very strong (although I do wonder if mixing for the X-curve in cinemas may have influenced this, since the highs decay much more in a large room than they do in a small home environment, but the EQ of the mix was largely unchanged for the 1993 laserdiscs).  But the concept of proper dynamic range is not simply a measure of how extreme the loudest and quietest moments are--it's also about how you use all the intermediate volume levels and what is appropriate where.  This is something they did exceptionally well back then, but like so many things it's easy to get it wrong.

I can't actually test the lossless versions, because I don't have them available.  I mixed in just three channels using the stereo tracks and the LFE, and then sent these to Satanika to be turned into 5.1 format.  He did upload the six-track wavs to usenet, but I haven't tried to download them since my access to it hasn't been good and I can't play multichannel PCM on my current equipment.  I'd be surprised if they actually sounded any different from the AC3 aside from the increased fidelity, but I can't say for sure myself.

Off-topic, but I'm still all verklempt after seeing the last Harry Potter movie.  Wow . . .

msycamore said:

hairy_hen, I have forgotten to ask you about this, in the cantina around the 45:16 mark, some creature vocalization was added in the Mono mix, (also added to the THX re-mix) I noticed that you got rid of some of it in your re-creation but not all. Any particular reason behind that decision or was part of it really heard in the six-track? I can't say I hear it in the in-theatre reference I have.

Oh, carp.  That's not supposed to be there, I evidently made a mistake and didn't listen carefully enough when I was choosing where to edit in and out of the 35mm stereo mix.  To tell the truth, I wasn't entirely satisfied with the edit at that point anyway, as I never found it to be completely seamless, but I guess I only heard the beginning part of the addition and missed the rest.  Blast . . .

I've given some vague contemplation to making another version that would correct this and a few other minor errors, but I'm not sure if it would actually be worth it.  If I do end up going to the trouble of doing so, I'd probably want to use the '85 mix in place of the '77 stereo as it may possibly have slightly better imaging and fidelity, so first I'd have to obtain a PCM copy of that and synch the relevant portions to the '93 mix.

Would have replied earlier, but I've been away and not looked at the site for a while.

Hey hairy_hen, I'm very late to this party, but as a 37 year old Star Wars fan, I have to bow at your feet! While most fans have every reason to be disgruntled this weekend with the release of the Blu-Rays, the incredible work yourself, dark_jedi and Harmy have accomplished has given us all a reason to be excited about Star Wars again! I owe all of you a great debt. I can't thank you enough for bringing the true sound of Star Wars back to the masses... I can't wait to check them out this weekend.

I plan to play them with Harmy's editions and unfortunately, I'll be watching at a friend's who has a giant screen, but doesn't have a 5.1 setup. I wanted to grab the stereo files, but the links all seem to be dead apart from the first one. Is there any chance of a re-upload? I'd really appreciate it! 

Thanks again.

As I've indicated elsewhere, the idea of re-doing the 70mm recreation track is something I've been giving more consideration lately, and finally I decided to go for it.  The existing version sounds quite good already, and I'm very glad that so many people have enjoyed hearing it, but since it does have a few small errors (some of which have been pointed out here, while others have escaped all notice except mine), it has become worthwhile for me to make the effort.

The main shortcoming of this project has always been the unavoidable necessity of replacing sections of the 1993 mix that contain added sound effects, and that these replacement sections are noticeably inferior in quality.  The only reason this works as well as it does is because the 35mm stereo and 70mm mixes were so similar on the whole, having apparently come from a common source for the most part.  The 35mm version's vastly restricted dynamic range makes the replacements stand out, and each time I make such an edit a part of me cringes a little bit at having to put up with this for the sake of eliminating the extra sounds.  I can partially compensate for this reduction with selective volume adjustment, but it can never be as good as the real thing.

Imaging is another concern.  The real 70mm mix had discrete channels, yielding excellent separation and clarity, while I am limited to upmixing of matrixed stereo tracks.  While this provides a convincing facsimile of the original, there is unavoidable crosstalk between channels, so it isn't really ideal.  Upmixers also tend to send too much information to the centre speaker, because they can't differentiate between information that was actually centrally located in the source and things that were phantom-centred in the left and right channels (which tends to include large room filling sounds that are more than what one speaker ought to articulate alone).  This also has the effect of making the replacement sections stand out even more, because with the 35mm mix having a considerably narrower stereo image than the 1993, more sound is being panned in and rather less sent to the sides and surrounds during those intervals.

This change in imaging is not really a major problem, but it is there nonetheless, and has been something I've wished I could improve.  By using the 1985 mix for the replacements instead of the '77 stereo, I can now reduce or eliminate this issue, since the '85 has a wider stereo separation.  This allows me to edit more precisely than I could before, and because of that I've been able to keep them to a shorter length and retain more of the dynamic range from the '93 mix, allowing it to more closely emulate the sound of the real thing.

My source is Darth Mallwalker's 44.1 khz rip of the 1985 mix, first converted to 48 khz using the high quality iZotope resampler and then synched to the 1993 version in small segments.  (I'd considered trying to synch the entire thing, but it quickly became clear that this would be more trouble than it was worth for my purposes.)

Improvements to sound quality and imaging will be the main benefits to this new version, but while I'm at it I will also be correcting the small errors that I made the first time around.  I've made quite a bit of progress with it in the past few days; most of the time I can simply duplicate my earlier work using the new source, but in some places I want to try to do things differently; again, for the sake of retaining more '93 dynamics.  Some of these ideas may not actually work, though, since there are limits to my skill and I don't have any professional equipment or training.  There will be some minor adjustment of the LFE channel as well, but nearly everything will sound just like it did before.

I do have to wonder exactly where the '85 mix came from.  Given its high level of similarity to the original stereo, it is most probably a derivation from that mix, but the wider imaging mystifies me.  I'm pretty certain that the theatrical version was narrowed in order to reduce crosstalk in the surrounds, but I guess they dispensed with that practise as Dolby improved their upmixing technology.  Was there an earlier generation copy that had the dynamic reduction but hadn't been panned in?  Or did they make a new downmix of the 4-track master, taking great care to match the EQ and dynamics of the theatrical stereo?  Or did they simply use some kind of processing to widen the existing stereo master?  I can't say, but its separation does seem to match up with the '93 mix pretty well.  Hmm . . .

Amusingly enough, as I've worked on this I've had the song "That's How You Know" from the movie Enchanted stuck in my head.  An odd juxtapositioning to be sure, but I do like me some Amy Adams.  ;)

So what areas are you not happy with, where are you going to edit? for those of us that don't know what is wrong with your version 1.

Well, basically I'm redoing pretty much all the edits for the sake of improving the sound quality and making it blend together more seamlessly, but the improvements will be subtle and probably only noticeable to people like me who have spent a lot of time listening to these things really closely.  Most of the track is going to sound exactly the same as it did before, and the rest will still be really close.

Earlier msycamore pointed out a remnant of an added sound effect that could still be heard, which I have already fixed, and there are a couple other little things I plan on addressing, such as improving the LFE a bit more.  There's some distortion in the opening Star Destroyer flyby that I noticed recently, which I think I introduced into the track accidentally, and that is going to be eliminated.

I've also given a bit of thought to making an alternate version that leaves in some of the less intrusive '93 additions and adds some elements of the mono mix, for people who miss those refinements, but this is only an idea and I'm not at all sure whether it's actually going to happen.