Star Wars 1977 70mm sound mix recreation [stereo and 5.1 versions now available] (Released) — Page 6

No, it was scored, but never included in any version of the movie (be it 70mm, 35mm, or Special Edition).  Hairy_Hen felt it added a lot to the scene, so he included the cue in his 5.1 upmix of Jedi.  It's available on various soundtracks, IIRC.

There are also several cues that were cut from Empire, but I believe Hairy_Hen isn't reincorporating those in his 5.1 upmix because he feels the scenes work better without the music (sorry if I'm putting words in your mouth, HH, I'm just going on what I remember).  He is, however, fixing music cue transitions that were badly done in the 1980 theatrical release, but fixed in the 1997 Special Edition.  I believe he's using the 1997 SE mix for those portions.

ChainsawAsh is exactly correct in his description.  Putting in the RotJ music isn't a theatrical restoration of any kind, though it does restore a part of how John Williams envisioned the film when he scored it.  I think it was a mistake for them to cut the cue for the Obi-wan/Luke conversation--I have always felt the scene was missing something ever since I first saw it.  It's the kind of scene that needs the additional emotional weight a well-written musical cue can provide (and hey, Obi-wan's ESB scenes all had music, and they were no emotional slouches).  There's a slippery slope involved in changing a film to one's personal preferences--preservation is definitely the worthier goal--but I guess since RotJ is the most flawed film of the three, I feel the least guilty about tampering with it.  ABC's remastered version was used as the source, converted to 48 khz with the high quality iZotope resampler.

Fixing a few botched music edits in ESB is also something I don't feel guilty about, because it makes the transitions smoother, especially if you're familiar with the music on its own.  RotJ has its share of bad music editing as well, especially in Jabba's palace--like ESB, some of these edits weren't necessary for timing purposes, and are thus nearly inexplicable.  I'd change them if I could, but it would be difficult to get a seamless result.

Anyway, what I've done is only a very minor series of alterations; and because they are not part of an original theatrical release, they will be presented in 5.1 format only, since those are fan-created hybrids anyway.  If I could, I would make exact 70mm recreations of those films to go along with Star Wars; but I'm quite hesitant to do so without having real recordings of them to use for reference.  Regardless, for the most part my versions still sound very similar to what they would have been like in terms of dynamic range, sound quality, bass response, and overall balance.

The departure of Boba Fett from Cloud City is the most important of the music edits that I'm using from the SE; the others are transitional elements from Dagobah to the Imperial fleet, the first after the cave scene and the second after the X-wing is raised from the swamp.  Both are unique statements of the Imperial march, rather than crudely splicing in bits of the concert version.  There are a couple other small musical editing differences also, but I'm not changing them since they aren't nearly as noticeable as these.

There is no 70mm stereo restored soundtrack for Empire or Jedi, since we don't know for sure what those 70mm tracks sounded like.  (Plus, it's possible that the video for the Empire 70mm version was different, as well.)

The 70mm track Hairy_Hen made for Star Wars is, however, a restoration made by comparing an in-theater 70mm recording to the 1993 mix, so it's as close to original as we can possibly get.  There are no music edits to this (though I'd love to see the Bantha/Tusken Raider music cue fixed as it is on ANH:R - it bugs me every time I hear that music edit after seeing it fixed).

I like the idea of the music-fixed Empire 5.1, but it'd be nice to have a 5.1 upmix of the 1993 mix with the speeder sound effect restored and the added 1997/2004 LFE track (edited to match the theatrical mix, obviously), but the music left alone.

I'm torn on the restored cue in Jedi, but I do like the scene with the music.  I'd like a pure 5.1 upmix of the 1993 mix, though (with the LFE track from 1997/2004 added as in Star Wars and Empire).

However, as these music-edited options are 5.1 tracks, which never really existed for the theatrical versions anyway, the purist in me can let it slide.

Dunedain said:

Is that the case with the stereo soundtracks for The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, no music changes/additions?

It's my understanding that Hairy_Hen isn't doing stereo tracks for Empire and Jedi, just 5.1 tracks.

Dark_Jedi is, however, working on making the original 1980 and 1983 theatrical stereo tracks available to us (that is, synchronized to the GOUT DVD) for the first time, which is very exciting!

(Though to be fair, we don't know if the 1993 Jedi track is different from the 1983 track or not - we'll have to wait until DJ is done with his sync to know that for sure.  Ditto with whether Empire or Jedi were remixed in 1985 or not.)

Correct, there are no music changes to Hairy_Hen's 5.1 Star Wars track.

I believe dark_jedi's releases will contain the following audio options:

Star Wars
- Theatrical (1977) 2.0 Stereo
- Hairy_Hen's 70mm Restoration 5.1 Surround
- Theatrical (1977) 1.0 Mono

Empire
- Theatrical (1980) 2.0 Stereo
- Hairy_Hen's music-edited 5.1 Suround

Jedi
- Theatrical (1983) 2.0 Stereo
- Hairy_Hen's music-edited 5.1 Surround

I think he's also considering including the 1993 2.0 Stereo soundtracks, but he hasn't decided.  He's also expressed interest in the 1985 2.0 Stereo soundtracks.  It all boils down to how much room is left on the disc after the video is encoded.

Right, but the 70mm theatrical track was never in stereo, it was in six-track surround.  So the 5.1 upmix more closely approximates the experience of seeing the film in 70mm.

And the earliest non-time-compressed LD releases of Empire and Jedi (both prior to the Japanese Special Collection, where the 1985 mix[es] first appeared if I'm not mistaken) are what Dark_Jedi is using for the theatrical soundtracks.

The theatrical soundtrack for Star Wars was synced by Belbucus a while back, from a similar early non-time-compressed laserdisc.

Well, you're describing exactly what IS going to be on the discs, but in stereo instead of upmixed to 5.1 surround.  I think it'd be a waste of bitrate to do that, honestly.  If anyone wants to use the stereo version of it, Hairy_Hen has uploaded it here for anyone who wants it (it's much easier than it sounds to mux it together with the video).

I believe that the upmix to 5.1 was done with the equivalent of a Dolby Pro-Logic II decoder, which is exactly what you'd hear if you played the stereo version through a PLII receiver anyway.  The added benefit you get is the LFE channel that Hairy_Hen meticulously created.

However, you're right that it's impossible to know exactly what the LFE channel should sound like - the whole thing's a judgment call.  But having heard it, it sounds simply amazing to my ears, and I can't imagine listening to the track without it.

Honestly, the only reason to use the stereo version (in my opinion, anyway) is if you'd be watching it on a stereo system that doesn't have a subwoofer.  If you're using a surround system, I'd recommend the 5.1 version wholeheartedly.

ChainsawAsh said:

I'd recommend the 5.1 version wholeheartedly.

LOL, then why do all the work preserving the stereo audio then?

hairy_hen do you have any kind of a guesstimate release date for the new ESB mix?

You'd have to ask Satanika if you want a precise answer about the exact nature of the upmix, since he was the one who actually did that.  In the past I tried numerous upmixing schemes, all of which refused to work properly on my computer.  (I love my Mac, but when software you want is only available for Windows it can be a bit problematic, I have to admit.)  I believe he used a Foobar2000 plugin called ATSurround; while not actually a Dolby product, the sonic results are very similar to what can be heard with Prologic II.  Actually, ATSurround almost worked for me; it installed and ran perfectly, but while my sound card is capable of multichannel audio, my limited WINE setup will only output 2-channel sound, so I could only record the front left and right channels, and the sound card wasn't receiving the others at all.  Because of that, I needed some help getting the thing into 5.1 format, so Satanika very kindly performed that part, and then substituted the LFE channel to replace the one generated by the program.

Since the 5.1 already has built in a rendition of the sound very close to what will be heard from upmixing at the receiver, with the significant added benefit of the LFE channel, I recommend that version be used if the proper playback equipment is available.  The stereo version will give better results if surround speakers and/or a subwoofer are not present in the system, since it contains no phase changes or time delays.  Such things could compromise the sound of the 5.1 if it were to be downmixed (though I suppose it's down to the individual listener how much a problem that would be).

I ran into a setback on the music edits for Empire, which is that the '93 and '97 mixes don't blend together as well as I thought they would.  It took me a while to notice, because on the surface they sound pretty similar a lot of the time, but the levels of background sounds are actually not the same at all, and this disparity made the transitions between sources very audible and jarring.  Clearly I picked the wrong switching points, so I have to go back and redo them.  Hearing the two versions back to back so many times I'm starting to get confused about which really sounds better for the film, and then questioning whether I should even be doing this at all.  Ugh.  Had to take some time away from it to clear my head.  Oh well, that means more time to work on my writing, lol.  I'll try to have it finished as soon as possible.  I know I keep saying that, sorry!  :)

There actually is a 5.1 version of Empire already that does not contain the music edits--it can be found on dark_jedi's earlier encodes.  Aside from the edits, most of the new one will sound exactly the same.  There isn't one like that for Jedi--it wouldn't be hard to make one, but since it's not actually me that does the upmixes, I can't provide it directly.

dark_jedi said:

ChainsawAsh said:

I'd recommend the 5.1 version wholeheartedly.

LOL, then why do all the work preserving the stereo audio then?

I was talking about Hairy_Hen's 70mm reconstruction.  All I meant was that, if you're putting it on a disc as a reconstruction of the 70mm six-track, I don't see the point in using the stereo version of the reconstruction, especially when the 5.1 sounds so good.

The stereo mixes are important because they're the original mixes, and what the majority of people seeing the films in their theatrical releases would have heard, unless they saw them in 70mm.

The only reason I would want the Empire and Jedi 5.1 mixes included on the disc is for the sake of consistency - why would one film have a 5.1 mix while the others don't?  Just make it clear that Empire and Jedi's 5.1 mixes are absolutely not intended to replicate the 70mm mixes - they're just there to give the option available to those who want it.

I also wouldn't make the 5.1 versions the default tracks when you just hit the PLAY button on the DVD menu.  That should go to the theatrical stereo mixes (possibly the theatrical mono mix for Star Wars, but stereo would be best for consistency I suppose).  The rest should be accessible via the audio options menu.

And in all honesty, even on a 5.1 system, my audio tracks of choice would still be the mono for Star Wars, and the theatrical stereo for Empire and Jedi.  The only time I'd ever put the 5.1 mixes on would be if I was watching the movies with friends, since most of my friends give me shit for being such a purist (I have to fight to not watch the 2004 SE, for Christ's sake).

I am just messin with you dude, I probably won't even listen to the stereo tracks that I am putting SO much time into, and I am pretty sure the 5.1 mix will be the default on all 3 because that is the version I will most likely listen to, I do have a very nice high end set up and DD 5.1 all the way for me.