Star Wars 1977 70mm sound mix recreation [stereo and 5.1 versions now available] (Released) — Page 19

I am so close to being done with this that there is no way it won't be ready in time.  If by some chance it isn't, then I'll be very disappointed in myself.

Harmy's release date is the same day my classes start, so I pretty much have to complete it in a couple days anyway . . .

Right now I'm just tweaking a few last little details on the LFE channel, which is finally coming together to my complete satisfaction.  Then there's just a couple things in the upmix to attend to, and it'll be finished altogether.  I'm very happy with how it is turning out, and I have to say I'll be glad when it's finally done!  One of the things that's prevented me from finishing it as quickly as I'd like is simply having to rest my mind and ears for a while after listening to the same thing over and over again, but soon I'll just be able to hear it as part of the movie without needing to do any more work, so that will be nice.  ;)

I'm sure I'll be busy for a while after this, but I still intend to do the other two films as well, so that all three can have completely optimized 5.1 tracks.  Earlier I'd talked about wanting to use the 1997 DTS as a source for the first film's LFE, but I realized that since I've made so many customized edits (almost every single bass effect in the movie has been modified in some way; some quite substantially), it would be like having to redo all this work over again from scratch, and that would be more trouble than it's worth.  But with ESB and RotJ, fortunately, not nearly as much adjustment is required, so it should be relatively easy in comparison.

I'm pleased to report that I just finished the 5.1 mix this afternoon.  ;)

Been working almost non-stop the past few days to iron out all the little details, and it's definitely been worth it.  Every manner of phase shift error that I could think of has been accounted for, the LFE levels are just right, and in a few places the imaging has been tweaked to reduce the concentration of sound in the center channel and spread it throughout the front.  I'll be encoding and posting the final mix shortly.

Though the differences from the previous version may seem subtle, they represent a distinct improvement in quality and authenticity.  I've tried to make this as close to the actual 70mm mix as I reasonably could, and even though there are undoubtedly still differences (not the least of which being the lack of true discrete channels), to my ear this really seems like the way the movie is supposed to sound.  If I were in charge of mastering the audio of Star Wars for an official release, this is pretty much the way I would do it, and I hope you'll all enjoy hearing the result as much as I do.

Cool. Great companion pieces your work is.

What is the bitrate of the 70mm DTS-HD track, hairy-hen? Can it e venbe higher than regular DTS?

Anywho, a 1500kbs dts track will be amazing to go along with harmy's v.2

Can't hardly wait!

budwhite said:

Cool. Great companion pieces your work is.

What is the bitrate of the 70mm DTS-HD track, hairy-hen? Can it e venbe higher than regular DTS?

Anywho, a 1500kbs dts track will be amazing to go along with harmy's v.2

Can't hardly wait!

I believe the "DTS" track that was referred to is the S.E. stuff we've been working on (though I could be wrong). ANH & ROTJ (thanks to Silverwook and whomever he got them from) are in the hands of borisanddoris for processing in to separate channels so that ElDonante can process the DTS.HD tracks from those.  We are a ways off yet when it comes to completion as everyone has other commitments of their own.

In my downtime I've been searching out the DTS discs for ESB S.E..  I'm working on a good lead as I type this.   Maybe when we're farther along we can tie them to a project. I'm sure everyone would like the audio to have all the room it needs to breathe.

Patience will bring good things for all of us......  :)  :)

Thanks to Harmy and Hairy for ALL the work they've put in to what they're doing and thanks to all my com-padres for ALL their work and support.

Cheers

I'm not that impressed by 640 DD 5.1 so I'm gonna wait for the better one.

(have heard way to much DTS-HD MA on blu-ray so one gets a little picky)

Will the audio files be availalbe on usenet in a few days? Or just torrents?

Well, for starters, here are the links for the 640 kbps AC3 version:

part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5, part 6

Remember that since the DVD format restricts Dolby Digital to a bitrate of 448 kbps, this file wouldn't be compliant with the spec, though this should work with other formats, including HD.  I haven't posted the lossless files anywhere yet, since I haven't yet decided exactly how to go about doing that, but both they and a 448 version will be made available.

If you have high fidelity speakers and amplifiers I can certainly understand the aversion to lossy audio.  Aside from the new studio headphones I got for my classes, my subwoofer is the only component I own that I would consider to be truly hi-fi (got a good deal on it a few years back, just before they stopped making them), with the rest of my equipment being more of a mid-fi.  Generally I'm pretty satisfied, but I do wish I could afford to upgrade the rest.  The level of quality of many speakers is such that it is hard to tell the difference between uncompressed and lossy if the bitrate is high enough (though low bitrates should stand out immediately if it's any good at all).  I've noticed, when I've had the opportunity to hear better speakers, that lossy audio doesn't sound all that different from my setup, while lossless is able to reach its full potential, so perceived quality is very dependent on what kind of equipment you're using, although I would say that the characteristics of the recording itself are probably the most important of all.  Those without hi-fi will be more than satisfied with the AC3, I'm sure.

Also keep in mind that when people claim to hear differences between different formats, what they're actually noticing is that they're not playing back at the same volume.  AC3 for some reason is usually reduced by 4 db due to DialNorm by default encoder settings, but when everything is properly level-matched the differences become much harder to hear.  There is no level difference in my encode, so this will not influence the perception in any way.

That comparison of the 1993 mix and the 70mm version was invaluable to this project: without Belbucus' excellent work in making it, I could not have done any of it.

Once again I thank Satanika for taking care of the upmix, since my computer still isn't able to do the conversion.  He has been extremely helpful to me all along in making this essential contribution, and must be accorded the appropriate acknowledgement.  :)

I sent him the links right away before posting them here, but it is indeed the same file.  I also sent him the stereo mix and a level-matched mono mix, so the primary audio tracks in the DE 2.0 will all play back with the dialogue at approximately the same volume.

My first class starts tonight . . . it's funny, because doing this project is one of the main reasons I became interested enough in this kind of thing to want to actually study sound production.  It has made me all the more aware of how much I don't yet know about audio, and I'm kind of nervous about it, but looking forward to learning.  :)

Yeah i would love to see the lossless version for download some where soon.

Thanks for this hairy_hen

I downloaded the old 70mm lossless mix yesterday from usenet. But there were some files missing and I couldn't fix it with the PAR files either.

It's no big deal since the new one is coming but it would be nice to mux it with harmy's v2 if there are some delays or whatever.

Do someone know anything about it? Or was it just me having a problem?

The new version is saved on my computer as six individual mono files, so if I uploaded them directly, the end user would have to combine them on their own in some form.  Given that a DTS-HD MA encode would probably be most beneficial for HD formats, I'm leaning towards doing it this way rather than posting the source files directly.  I'll have to investigate the possibilities.

The 448 kbps AC3 should be posted later today, I think.

I'll take either one cause i can use DTS encoder to combine them, but if you upload the already done DTS-HD Master that would be awesome too. Most people will know exactly what to do with the DTS-HD Master encode. Plus the file will be alot smaller for uploading.

Thanks   hairy_hen

Any news on the DTS-HD MA encode release to the public?

I really want to watch the movie this weekend with the lossless audio.