Star Wars 1977 70mm sound mix recreation [stereo and 5.1 versions now available] (Released) — Page 27

Well folks, it turns out the rumors of my doings are true: I have indeed produced a new version of the 70mm soundtrack, which can be found on the just-released 4K77 project.

Though the fundamental sound is still quite similar, this latest version represents a significant step forward in several ways. For a long time I put off revisiting this soundtrack as I felt the previous version was good enough that an update was not needed – unless I could make it a really major improvement that would justify the amount of work needed to redo it.

Everything in this third version is brand new, having been done over again essentially from scratch, all the way back to GOUT-synching the laserdisc audio and then building from there.

Improvements over the previous version include:

• Increased audibility of midrange detail and reduction of high-end harshness due to global EQ adjustment.
• Clipping and occasional clicks in the source laserdisc tracks have been repaired.
• More seamless transitions between the 1993 base and the 1985 replacement material.
• Elimination of phase issues during downmixing and bass management.
• New, fully lossless LFE channel that no longer uses the special edition as a source.
• Improved channel separation and sound field stability due to use of a Shure HTS-5300 for the upmix.

All of these are worthwhile improvements on their own, but together they add up to form a very nice update. The 1993 mixes all have a cut in the midrange at 2 kHz and a treble boost around 8 to 10 kHz. By reversing this EQ change, the tone of the mix becomes closer to how it was originally heard, and sounds smoother in the louder passages. Hiss and occasional crackling distortion are also reduced without needing to use noise reduction tools. The edits between sources are now seamless enough that I have a very hard time hearing that anything was even done to them in the first place, which is exactly how it should be. Use of iZotope’s Ozone and Insight plugins allowed for more precise matching of level and EQ than I had previously been able to achieve. Now, even the hiss does not change between edits.

The low end present in the 1993 mix has been removed from the center and surround channels and mixed solely into the left and right. This was done using a Linkwitz-Riley type crossover and preserves phase coherence between the channels. With a delay setting of 24 milliseconds on the surrounds, there is no longer a noticeable phase problem when this version is downmixed back down to stereo. Doing this is certainly listenable, if not stellar. I still recommend using a real stereo mix for 2-channel systems, whether it is the 35mm stereo mix or the non-upmixed version of this one. It just sounds better that way.

The LFE channel has been newly created by sending the front channels of the mix through a subharmonic synthesizer, the levels mixed in real time with a fader. Some manual editing was later done to prevent musical elements like timpani and bass drum from leaking into the LFE. The result is mostly similar to the previous version, but more tightly integrated with the main channels since it now has a closer harmonic relationship and the timing is locked in precisely. The goal was not to stand out, but to sound as if the new bass had been there all along. It is not possible to precisely replicate the boom channels of the real 70mm mix without adequate references, but it should be a close approximation given the material that is available. One bass effect, namely that of the Millennium Falcon struggling to escape the Death Star’s tractor beam, comes directly from the 1993 soundtrack; there are no longer any phase cancellation issues with this sound effect since it is now confined exclusively to the LFE channel.

The real draw here, of course, is the Shure HTS-5300 Acra Vector logic decoder used for the upmix. Having sought unsuccessfully to find one of these gems for some time, I finally located one on eBay earlier this year. Unfortunately, the seller wanted local pickup only, and since I was unable to travel to that area, it seemed I would have to let it pass me by. Thankfully, however, TServo2049 was able to obtain the 5300 locally and then mail it to me, and he has earned my everlasting gratitude for doing so, in addition to being credited in the 4K77 project for that reason. Indeed, I may well not have bothered with making a new version at all if it hadn’t been for this, so everybody give him a huge thanks for this invaluable contribution!

Since the Shure is an analog surround decoder, it necessitated sending the mix out into the analog domain and then recording its output back into digital again. Having been around plenty of audio engineers who routinely use analog gear in a digital environment, I’ve learned to embrace this hybrid method since the benefits more than offset any minor loss incurred by the extra conversion. The edited stereo track was played in Pro Tools through the line outs of a Universal Audio Apollo Twin and into the 5300, with the 5300’s output routed to an Audient ASP800 preamp, which handled the A/D conversion and sent the upmixed channels back into the Apollo through the ADAT connection, recording into the Pro Tools session as it played. Pro Tools’ initial output needed to be reduced in level due to the issue of sending a +4 dBu pro-level signal into -10 dBv consumer equipment, so the finished recording was then measured with Insight and its gain increased to get it back to its original level. Only the most minor of limiting was needed to prevent clipping in the center channel. A modest amount of noise reduction was used at the very beginning and end of the film since the Shure’s noise floor was noticeable there, and some de-crackling was needed on the surrounds; default settings in iZotope RX took care of this and produced no noticeable artifacts.

These changes were done at 32-bit float and then dithered back to 24-bit. The final result is 24-bit, 48 kHz and has been encoded to DTS-HD MA at this resolution. Both the 1080p and UHD versions of 4K77 contain this same file. I saw no need to make a 16-bit version since file size and bitrate were not an issue, but one could potentially be made if a smaller version was needed for another project. A 640 kb/s AC3 has been made, encoded from the 24-bit files.

The benefits of upmixing through the Shure are immediately apparent. When I heard what it sounded like for the first time, I was surprised at how different it was since I was so used to the sound of Prologic II. There is less crosstalk between channels and the sound field is more stable since the Shure detects panning and signal dominance along more vectors than any version of Prologic. Front channel sound effects do not get pulled to the rear as they sometimes are with PL2, nor is there any side wall imaging for the music. It comes across as being a fully front-oriented soundstage, with discrete-sounding surround effects making themselves known from time to time. The surrounds are monaural, as was the standard for Dolby Prologic decoders in the 80’s and 90’s, but Shure did Dolby one better by adding an “Acoustic Space Generator” to its surround output, which widens the mono signal through a custom comb filter designed to sound like it is being played through many speakers at once, as it would in a movie theater. It sounds awesome, much better than I’ve ever heard these mixes sound before, but it does come with the caveat that in order to experience it at its best, you must ensure that your sound system is calibrated correctly, with the rear speakers exactly matching the front in level at the listening position. If they are set to play too loud, as they invariably are in most home setups, then the filtered surrounds will overwhelm the front, and it will be weird and bad. So get out those SPL meters and calibrate your systems again, or else.

Initially I was reluctant to embrace the idea of a mono surround being better than multichannel, but for films of this era it is absolutely more appropriate, since that is how they were actually mixed. It gives a more diffuse and ambient effect and does not have any kind of pinpoint imaging as is the fad now. Additionally, it helps prevent crosstalk from pulling to the side, keeping the viewer’s attention on the screen where it belongs and not out in the room. The 5300 is also able to avoid the center channel pileup of other decoders, where too much of the soundtrack is pulled into the center speaker since they default to decoding in that position; rather, the 5300 preserves panning of signals even if they occur simultaneously in opposite directions. In short, I’ve never heard the positioning of effects in this mix sound so good before, and having experienced it this way, I don’t want to go back. Fortunately, even though the 5300 is rare and long discontinued, you won’t have to own one to experience how good it can sound. Naturally, I plan on recording Empire and Jedi in the same way.

For anybody who has obtained 4K77 and watched it with the 5.1 soundtrack, let me know what you think of this version. I really hope you guys will like this one as much as I do. Hell, even if you don’t like it, let me know what’s wrong so I can fix it, if there’s something I’ve overlooked.

Wow, that lfe on the tractor beam shot is wonderful!

Haven’t gotten a chance to check out the new 5.1, but sounds like it’s something special! Any plans to redo ESB and ROTJ with the new decoder?

Yeah, I’m definitely going to redo the other two movies using the same methods.

For receiver settings, I suspect that letting it play in standard 5.1 mode is best. The Shure has already added its own processing to the surround channels, so compounding this with additional processing in a receiver may yield a result that doesn’t sound that great. I can’t fully comment on this, since my system is 5.1 and I don’t know what this mix would sound like in 7.1 or Atmos firsthand, but I can’t imagine it would fit very well with what the 5.1 is already doing.

If you absolutely must upmix it further, try Prologic IIx in music mode, rather than movie mode. This should spread the surround channels out among the speakers rather than trying to specifically pan things like movie will do.

That tractor beam bass was always one of my favorites. It is essentially a sine wave starting at around 60 Hz, passing through an LFO (low frequency oscillator) and being varied in pitch and speed as the ship struggles to escape. This sound can clearly be heard on the in-theater 70mm recording, although it distorts because the microphone on the tape recorder was overdriven. Only the 1993 mix contained the correct version of this sound; the special edition mixes have versions of it, but they’re not nearly as good. In previous versions of this soundtrack I tried to boost what was in the '93 source by adding a copy of it to the LFE channel, letting it play along with what was already in the main channels. Unfortunately, bass management settings in receivers can cause correlated signals like this to become out of phase, even if they are in phase in the mix itself, causing this kind of duplicated bass to cancel itself out rather than get louder. I’ve heard it played correctly on some systems and completely wrong on others for this reason. The solution ended up being to use the '85 mix for the main channels here, and putting the low-pass filtered '93 bass separately into the LFE, so that there is no correlation between them. This way there will be no possibility of cancellation regardless of what the playback system is doing.

Hi Hairy_hen,

I just want to thank you for this amazing work!

So I assume we can and should replace the existing 5.1 mix on DeD 2.7 with this one?

Fantastic work on this Hairy Hen, thanks so much.

Thanks so much for the hard work Hairy Hen! Even more excited to watch 4K77 now!

Finally got a chance to watch 4K77 and the new sound is absolutely amazing. I’m loving it!

Does anyone know if this will sync to Despecialized 2.7?

Despite how good the DNR version looks I still prefer the Despecialized for my go to version of Star Wars and I would love to mux in this audio track if at all possible.

Thanks

Mackey256 said:

Finally got a chance to watch 4K77 and the new sound is absolutely amazing. I’m loving it!

Does anyone know if this will sync to Despecialized 2.7?

Despite how good the DNR version looks I still prefer the Despecialized for my go to version of Star Wars and I would love to mux in this audio track if at all possible.

Thanks

yes it will, as both are GOUT synched

dahmage said:

yes it will, as both are GOUT synched

That’s great. Thanks for the quick reply.

I recently received a request for information on the new 5.1 soundtrack included with 4K83, and I realized that while I had posted a detailed explanation of its contents on williarob’s forum, I had neglected to put that information here. There are actually two versions of it, which I discuss below. So without further ado, here it is:

I have never been able to call my mixes for either Empire or Jedi ‘70mm recreations’ as I have for the first movie. The 1993 mix of Jedi, which must be used as the main source since it is the most dynamic mix for the unaltered version of the movie, was remixed entirely from stems and often sounds quite different than the earlier mixes did. (Its balance actually resembles the '97 SE in a number of ways.) Since it was mixed direct to digital, and not to tape as the original mixes were, it suffers from what I call “digititis” — the tendency to have too wide a gap between loud and quiet elements in a mix.  Mixing to tape requires that the average level always be high enough to avoid the quieter parts of the mix getting buried in tape hiss, and it prevents you from pushing the levels too high for long periods since it will saturate and blow up quite obviously when its headroom is exceeded.  But digital doesn’t do that; it sounds exactly the same no matter how loud or quiet you go, until you reach the very limits of its performance.  Then you will hear some truly hideous distortion as the mathematics break down beyond their proscribed boundaries.  But you can stay just short of those boundaries and maintain the same quality throughout.  While that sounds like a good thing (and of course in some ways it is), it has the unfortunate effect of allowing the user to easily abuse its available headroom.  With nothing stopping you from going too loud or too quiet, it is inevitably the case that many film and television soundtracks turn out with far too wide a dynamic range to listen to comfortably.  Loud scenes are unrelentingly loud for far too long, and quiet scenes are turned down so far you have to strain to hear them.  In the acoustics of a smaller room, and with higher levels of background noise, typical of a home environment, this is particularly unbearable.  We’re all familiar with the syndrome of having to turn up our volume to hear speech on various programs, only to turn it way down again because the action scene comes along and is suddenly deafening.  Blame a combination of poor judgement by content producers and the lack of sufficient standards and safeguards for digital mixing levels.  Analog mixes, with their inherent limitations, just so happened to fall into the range of what is comfortable for people to listen to over long periods.

The 1993 mix of Jedi does not suffer from this to anywhere near the extent that many modern soundtracks do, but nonetheless it does take steps in that direction.  Its average levels are too high for too long in several places, mainly because the music has been turned up a lot in those scenes, and its quieter scenes can be harder to hear than the original version of Jedi was.  One of my goals for making this new 5.1 was to constrain these wide shifts in level, keeping them closer to how they would have been on tape, and how they are for the other two movies.

I used the 35mm stereo mix as a guide here, first adjusting its level so that the dialog was approximately equal between the 35mm and 1993 versions for the majority of the film.  Then I went through the '93 version and adjusted its loudness on a scene by scene basis to match up any part where there was a significant variation of dialog level between the two.  As I expected, this resulted in a number of louder scenes being turned down somewhat, and some boosting of quieter sections.  Having done this I was able to make the '93 sound a lot closer to the '83 much of the time.  I also adjusted the EQ to sound more like the original; this mainly involved reversing the cut at 2 kHz which has been applied to all the 1993 soundtracks. Since 2 kHz is right in the most sensitive range of human hearing, this made many parts of the track sound significantly louder, making the level reductions even more important.

However, in certain sections the balance between the two was so different that no amount of editing, EQ, compression, or other tricks could make them resemble each other any more closely.  In these cases I had to decide which of the two sounded better and then use the one I preferred for that scene.  I think it went through about four different iterations of which version was used for which scene, but generally it ended up being whichever one presented the music to its best advantage.  Quite often this was the 35mm, but not always. Switching back and forth between the two so frequently I came to notice a great many differences that I had never noticed or been only peripherally aware of. Aware from the start that I was not recreating any particular version, I felt a greater degree of freedom to make the track sound the way I preferred, which was actually kind of refreshing after having meticulously sought accuracy above all else for so long. Most of it is still the 1993 version, but about 50 minutes of the movie’s runtime comes from the 35mm; specifically the US laserdisc from 1986, being the most dynamic version of that mix. That version is very shrill by default but its EQ is adjusted to sound like the print audio.

Here is a list of the edits:

• The main title music is reduced by 1 dB since it was very loud to start with. It served as the primary EQ reference for the rest of the 1993 sections, once it had been matched to the original. (The only known difference in content for the 70mm version of Jedi is that it used the main title music from Empire, for some reason, but I did not attempt to edit this in.)

• The droids going to Jabba’s palace comes from the 35mm, because there is a noticeable sound of wind in this section that is harder to hear in the ’93.

• Leia unfreezing Han from the carbonite is the 35mm, due to the music being much more prominent in the scene. The 1993 version has the music pulled down in level significantly here, which sounded much less cool. A tiny dropout in the 35mm was repaired using the ’93 during this section.

• The Rancor scene is ’93-based turned down a bit since it was fatiguingly loud — especially after the EQ adjustment. The cheers of the crowd were especially in need of reduction here.

• In between the Rancor and Sarlaac scenes, many adjustments have been made to the level of the 1993 version, to keep the dialog at the same level as the 35mm. This also prevents the track from being too loud before the Sarlaac scene begins, allowing it to be louder in comparison.

• The beginning of the Sarlaac scene was much too loud, and the rest of the scene slightly so. In comparing this with similar action scenes in the other films I could immediately spot the difference; the average level was just too high. Believe it or not, reducing the average level can increase the perceived dynamic range because then transient peaks are able to reach higher in comparison to the average, which is what I aimed to achieve here.

• The Emperor’s arrival on the Death Star is ’93-based but has been reduced by a 3.5 dB — an enormous difference. The music was unpleasantly loud here and badly in need of this. The 1993 version has a different edit in the music than the 35mm; the edit itself transitions between the different takes less abruptly than in the 35, but the difference in loudness between the takes was too great to be seamless. My level adjustment had the additional benefit of enabling this music edit to transition more smoothly because it no longer jumps obviously from loud to quiet.

• Dagobah is mostly 35mm-sourced, except for the very beginning (the ’93 version has some extra thunder which I kept in). Yoda’s scene sounds very similar between the two, but using the 35 made subsequent edits easier to manage. After Yoda dies and Luke goes back to his X-wing, some of Artoo’s beeps are panned hard left in the 35, to match his position on screen, whereas in the ’93 and the special edition they come from the center channel like the rest of the dialog. The Obi-wan scene is 3.5 dB louder in the 35mm than in the ’93, making the dialog easier to hear. Obi-wan’s voice also sounds more natural in the original, whereas in the remix his voice is thinner and more distant.

• The music. Yes, the first released version of this mix has extra music in the Obi-wan scene, which was not present in official releases. John Williams scored this scene but for some reason it ended up not being used. I can’t imagine why: to me the scene plays far better with music than without. There are some heavy topics of anger and betrayal and startling revelations being discussed, and every other emotional dialog scene of this type in the movie has music except this one, which feels weirdly empty. Even as a kid I knew something was wrong with it, though I couldn’t explain what. I added the music back using the soundtrack CD, and as soon as I heard the result I knew immediately that this was what had always bothered me. The level had to be varied throughout the scene to ensure it did not ever obscure the dialog, but I was amazed at what a positive difference it made. Nonetheless I knew that others would not all see it the same way, so this was intended to be only for my own use. But I was obliged to work quickly due to lack of time, and with so many other edits to keep track of, it ended up being left un-muted when I recorded the track. So what should have remained my personal tweak to the scene ending up reaching a wider audience. I later corrected this error and issued a second version without the added music.

• The Emperor’s first throne room scene, Shuttle Tydirium approaching Endor, and Han trying to ambush the Imperial scouts all come from the 35mm. The music is significantly more prominent throughout this section. When the action starts it’s back to the ’93 for its dynamics, but as soon as the speeder bike chase ends I returned once again to the original mix, and this continues all the way until the rebel fleet jumps to hyperspace. Pretty much all the Endor scenes in the middle of the film sound better in the original, both because of the music level being higher by several dB and because the foley tracks are more controlled and varied. The 1993 version has some bird and insect tracks that play more or less continuously and are quite noticeable, while in the original these are usually mixed lower and only become prominent in certain places. This is especially obvious during the Luke and Leia scene. There is also some more dialog panning in the original: once during the scene of Leia meeting Wicket, where her line about being stuck is panned half-left during a wide shot, and once when Han calls to Luke from off screen, he is panned hard right. In the remixes, of course, these are all centered.

• Most of the rest of the film uses the 1993 soundtrack because of all the action scenes, but some of the leadup to the battle uses the 35mm again, due to its better music and foley levels. Luke’s first scene with the Emperor is also 35mm for the same reason. Some control of levels was needed during the action scenes, but not to the extent of earlier in the movie.

• Luke defeating Vader is 35mm, because the ’93 version is decidedly inferior at this point. The ’93 mix plays up the lightsaber sounds too much, making them irritatingly loud, while the music is only at a moderate level. In contrast, the original allows the music to carry the scene in a way that no remix even come close to. It is more glorious by far, and I can specifically hear that the sound effects were deliberately pulled back and the music pushed up even more about halfway through the scene. I increased the whole thing by 2 dB over its level in the 35mm to make it stand out compared to the dialog scenes before and after. It is helped by the laserdisc source being both less compressed and of greater fidelity than the print audio during this part. Strangely, Vader’s voice during the leadup to this scene was stronger and more bassy than in the remix.

• The Emperor electrocuting Luke is the ’93 version, but turned down by 2 dB because it was obnoxiously loud. The scene is not dynamic at all, and there was no reason to have the average level turned up this high for so long. It reverts to its original level when he explodes at the bottom of the pit.

• The ’93 mix has some extra sounds of the Millennium Falcon zooming away from the exploding Death Star, which I considered taking out but ending up keeping.

• Vader’s funeral pyre and the Ewok celebration are turned down to match them to the 35mm.

• The LFE channel is completely new, except for one effect that uses the SE bass since I couldn’t get it to work otherwise. Some of it follows the existing low end of the original mix, other parts are based on how the special edition did it, and others I just followed my own sense of what sounded good. It was nice to be able to exercise my own creativity as a mixer, and doing it fresh this way was actually quicker and easier than trying to re-edit any previous tracks.

As before, the soundtrack was upmixed through the Shure HTS-5300 and then combined with the LFE. The Shure did an excellent job, arguably sounding even better here than it did for the first movie. All in all I’m pleased with how it turned out, and I hope you guys are too.