¤ THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK ¤ The "OPTIMUM EDITION" Score Reconstruction, Remixing & Restoration Version 3 (Released) — Page 6

ABC said:

Ok, you'll have this version. Now I'm wondering where it is going because I don't think I'll replace the first one for now, and having the end titles two times on the CD may be a little too heavy... Or if I'm going to put it in a special file for you with an alternate backcover (if needed). What do you think? (everyone is invited of course).

That is very kind of you, an alternate backcover is not necessary. I'm glad to just get the track, in wich way that suits you best;) I know I'm a little late with the suggestions but I noticed you were going to post an improved set so...  Thanks in advance:)

msycamore said:

I know I'm a little late with the suggestions but I noticed you were going to post an improved set so...  Thanks in advance:)

"Late"? I hope you'll read that, man: THANK YOU !

I mean it. Thank you fro speaking and sharing your knowledge about this score. And the consequences of this "innocent" suggestion are many:

• You made me discover this alternate version I didn't notice (the edit is done and I expended it with the "Yoda and The Force" bit as is the film version).
• I finally want to have it in the set, so I thought why not make this "film versions suite" and I tried some new remixings on the other two film version tracks I hesitated to place since the beginnig... Ans now I want to have them too.
• But mostly, this new "Alt-Finale" edit made me noticed I hadn't dealed with some necessary stereo corrections on some RSO tracks. Such a correction is very important as it allows surprisingly more accurate EQ's, and the sound gets even more clean, EQ's or not. "The Asteroid Field", "Vader's March" and "Yoda's Theme" are now... How can I say? Achieved?

Then I'm now at a point where the true sound recovered here and there allows me to see something I'm about to watch closer on the entire score. Nothing I can explain in detail here so I won't speak further (and I know DJ will thank me for that)... I suggest you keep preciously for now the current version "2" as an "archival step", and watch for the 2010 version:

disc 1

 
1. MAIN TITLE/ICE PLANET 8:15
2. THE WAMPA'S LAIR 3:36
3.VISION OF OBI-WAN 3:37
4. SNOWSPEEDERS 1:48
5. ABOARD THE EXECUTOR 3:12
6. DRAWING THE BATTLE LINES 4:07
7. BATTLE IN THE SNOW 3:49
8. LUKE'S FIRST CRASH 4:16
9. THE REBELS ESCAPE 3:03
10. THE ASTEROID FIELD 4:15
11. CRASH LANDING ON DAGOBAH 3:38
12. A FAMILIAR PLACE 1:22
13. LUKE'S NOCTURNAL VISITOR 2:34
14. HAN SOLO AND THE PRINCESS/VADER AND THE EMPEROR 3:31
15. JEDI MASTER REVEALED/MYNOCK CAVE 4:46
16. THE MAGIC TREE 3:36
17. ATTACK POSITION 3:08
18. YODA AND THE FORCE 4:08
19. IMPERIAL STARFLEET DEPLOYED 1:17
20. THE CITY IN THE CLOUDS 4:47

disc 2

1. LANDO'S PALACE/LUKE'S PROMISE 3:51
2. LEIA'S WORRIES 1:00
3. LANDO AND HAN 0:39
4. BETRAYAL AT BESPIN 1:02
5. CAPTIVES 0:59
6. DEAL WITH THE DARK LORD 2:34
7. CARBON FREEZE 2:40
8. DARTH VADER'S TRAP/DEPARTURE OF BOBA FETT 8:27
9. THE DUEL 4:06
10. THE REVELATION/ESCAPE FROM BESPIN 5:20
11. HYPERSPACE 4:00
12. THE REBEL FLEET/END TITLES 6:25
THE "EMPIRE STRIKES BACK" MUSIC SUITE
13. THE IMPERIAL MARCH (DARTH VADER'S THEME) 3:00
14. YODA'S THEME 3:27
15. THE ASTEROID FIELD* 4:12
16. HAN AND LEIA'S THEME* 4:25
17. THE MAGIC TREE* 3:38
ARCHIVAL BONUS TRACKS:
18. MAIN TITLE/PROBE DROID OVERTURE (FILM VERSION) 4:06
19. SNOWSPEEDERS (FILM VERSION) 1:02
20. TRAPPED IN CARBONITE (UNUSED) 0:41
21. DEPARTURE OF BOBA FETT (FILM VERSION) 1:51
22. THE TRAINING OF A JEDI NIGHT (UNUSED) 1:38
23. THE REBEL FLEET/END TITLES (Film version-Alt March) 6:52

RUNNING TIME: DISC 1 72:52 - DISC 2 about 75min

:)

looks very cool. Just when I think I've have the best I can of Empire's Score I discover there is more!

"Blabla" removed.

Wow ! Having a bunch of new mixes now I can tell the actual "Optimum" version is quite too shouting.

Anybody noticed that?... Or anybody dares?

"shouting" - What do you mean exactly?

I'm visiting this thread on a daily basis but I'm busy with other things, unfortunately. Otherwise I would have laid back and had a sound check. When you're 30+ days are getting shorter. :-/

Obi-Wan said:

"shouting" - What do you mean exactly?

The translation of the word I was searching for that was "loud", but for me "loud" would much mean "strong".

To make it short, I think the sound is too "open", idea that obvioulsly involves  mediums and high frequencies (the "resonnance" I mentionned before). It's mostly noticeable on tracks from 3 to 12 on CD1 and a little less on the other ones. - Said in another way it lacks a basis or background, something strong on what these highs and mediums can stand. Of course you could conclude then it lacks basses, but things are not so simple. There's a tight equilibrium to be respected, more the fact low frequencies are harder for me to deal, question of sensitivity. Oh but don't worry, the recovery follows its course ;)

... CD2 has perhaps less this problem.

When you're 30+ days are getting shorter. :-/

Oh, well... May I mention the first movie that striked me when I was a kid was justly "the Empire Strikes Back" that I watched in a theatre :) ... And it was not in 1997 !

Burdokva said:

Sorry for the late reply...

Oh, there's no hurry ... Though I must say I'm amazed with the silence over this topic, once again. And to tell the truth it was frustating enough for I removed for the moment the way to find the set.

I was thinking about writing a detailed feedback, but considering I'm not very knowledgeable in music and audio (and my English suffers when it comes to music terminology), that would be rather pointless...

Ah, you too? That's why I'm so much talkative: because I don't have the good vocabulary neither, mostly in English ! lol !

I've listened to some of these tracks in a live performance of the Sofia Philharmonic Orchestra as part of a "Star Wars Suite" concert; your edit is the closest thing to capturing the feeling and detail of that concert.

Thank you! I'm touched with such a comparison! :) And I would have loved to witness such a performance.

 ... I'll be looking forward to the 2010 version you mentioned.

 It's almost ready but I can't tell if it's better. It's a little more what I intented to have as result though. Perhaps it is more a matter of taste here. And the appreciation (comparison) will also depend of your equipment I think.

What I really think is that the current version is a little light, and I as said before, has a too "opened" sound that I restrained somehow on the 2010 version notably by feeding most of the tracks with a little more lows... You could think it's not as important as it looks while actually it took me more than two weeks to find this new equilibrium (my Seinheiser headphones are not so accurate with lows). In the end I believe there's a little more depht and consistancy in that one.

PS. Dare I hope RotJ gets a similar treatment? Your previous effort was great, but the source scores (eh, the Anthology...) were less than spectacular and could benefit from a total overhaul. :)

 I think it's a crazy dream :) Though I could now do much better only starting from my own work on this. By the way, I'm amazed I've let go this set with so much noise remaining, even though it was not so much meant to be a restoration, but only a finally listenable version.

Anyway, the 1977 Star Wars score would have the priority if I decide to go on. And will I decide to " share " it through the forum?... Is another matter.

...

Thanks for your words. It's really my reward to know how it is caught by your ears :)

hairy_hen said:

It's funny how review sites tend to favour the SE's as having better sound quality than older releases, when clearly that's not the case.

 Yeah, it is the eternal problem between medias and self-judgement. If you check for exemple a 19th century chemistry book from "Google book", copy a sentence concerning an experience or discovery and copy that sentence in the search field, you may be amazed to see how many books of the same period contain the exact same sentence, most of the time written by authors wanting to make it their own... This of course, without making the experience for themselves or checking an other method.

... Ignorance exploiting the general ignorance while pretending to dispense knowledge. Nothing new.

The "2010" Optimum version is on the launch. Post 2 has been updated (no edit changes, only the tracklist).

The major mixing changes are for CD1 and mostly the first half, and only if you had time to listen it well you may appreciate the difference. What is the difference by the way ? On the previous version I mostly wanted to show the clarity of the tracks in general, what was not the best particularity to focus on. So on the new one I tried my best to restrain and concentrate the sound from these mixings to the essential. This may be more obvious to catch on the SE and Anthology tracks, though some subtle improvements were still possible on the RSO ones.

CD2 doesn't offer so much potential for the remixing, due to the average quality of this part of the score (SE and Anthology). No big changes then, just tried to make all this sound as good as I could again. However some tracks changes, and more film versions film edit (mostly from a previous project, so you may note a difference in the mixings).

Everybody here: I recommend quickly switching back and forth between tracks from this and the Sound Salvage release, or just the SEs. The difference knocks you out like faster than a ton of bricks. 

-e

… PUNCH IT !

NOTE: It is recommended that you burn with "No pause between the tracks".

ABC said:

… PUNCH IT !

 

 

J

 

 

 

SWEET!

DL'ing now...

just downloaded everything. I began listening to a couple of tracks, and as always, your work shows, ABC. Bravo! These tracks have great presence to them, they're powerful and clear.

There is just one thing...   (Columbo moment)

I hate to be so picky... but I opened these two tracks in Cool Edit Pro 2.1, and noticed that in the highest peaks there is some clipping, it goes briefly to zero db. Perhaps it would help to set the equalizer's master level just a bit lower, say -1 db.

I know you're gonna cut my hand off for this, please be gentle

Leonardo said:

I know you're gonna cut my hand off for this, please be gentle

If you would have post three words just to say "this is amazing!" I would have been (just a bit) disappointed. Critiscism is more than welcome.

I hate to be so picky... but I opened these two tracks in Cool Edit Pro 2.1, and noticed that in the highest peaks there is some clipping, it goes briefly to zero db. Perhaps it would help to set the equalizer's master level just a bit lower, say -1 db.

 -1db would have been yet quite a lot. And to notice you can't deal with a track here while ignoring the others. Do you remember the first version I shared was too low, much much lower than the actual one ?... Despite this, a couple of tracks was already clipped !

I don't have the technical knowledge to explain the way this music has been managed since the 1980 recordings but what I can say is thas working on this has been full of contradictions all the way. If I say to sum up: "the worst tracks are the best ones", it would be quite close to the point.

I checked myself how much these tracks have been clipped of course, and it happens only in the highest crests of "rare" exploding moments. You probably noticed besides that these clippings occure mainly or only on very tight localisations and that the peak jumps incredibly high ton these. In my humble opinion, it has more to do with the original recording volume than with the way I dealed with them.

...

The weakest point of the ESB score I'd like to point here to finish (it is more or less related to that peak matter) is to have somewhat a "dribbling" sound. It's a real problem cause you can't have anything completely clean, or... Yes you can: it will give you something very cold approaching the lifeless side of the SE's, and with a lot of relief gone, that will only -look- clean.

Just so to say this peak matter was one of the several little sacrifices necessary to obtain an equilibrated set... Ok you could say the Main Title could have been a bit lower, but it wouldn't have removed the clipping at all.

dark_jedi said:

... I am going to wait this time before jumping on.

 :)

thanks once again. I shall give this version a listen. I can't imagine it sounding even better!

JediMasterFisher said:

... I can't imagine it sounding even better!

 To be honnest, I can't myself...

... Now, having listened to the two last versions these days, I feel that there's a stronger cohesion on the previous one, but such a clarity lacks in return some relief. I mean OK you can hear quite everything, but it doesn't pop out from the orchestra. The new version may be a bit the contrary and you have to listen more carefully to catch all that happens.

- (Edit)

Explained more concretely, I think version 2 "looks" better: it's clear, very clear, and a lot of the sound is coming straight to your ears so you don't have to pay that much attention to catch the orchestra.

The new version deals in an other way: you ears have to (and are now able to) dive into the sound to catch what happens there. Now there's a distance, and you may catch several things you didn't before because you can pay atttention to the difference between them.

For exemple, "The Rebels Escape" features a far horn just after the first Vader theme (at around 40 or 50 sec). On version 2 the horn resounds without any distance as it somehow surrounds the music. On version 3 I hope your first reaction will be : "Hey, the horn is over there, in this direction, this distance!". That's exactly what I intented to do, making the choice to sacrifice (yep, one more) the way of what I consider as a flat clarity.

That's it. Hope I'll hear some people here about how they catch this difference, and what do they prefer.

Critiscism is more than welcome.

Without it our thinking and work would come to a standstill. In every matter you notice what IS and what IS NOT (thesis and antithesis) and come to a result on a higher level (synthesis). It's called dialectic (=> Hegel, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G._W._F._Hegel).

However, I just listened to Tracks 11 +12 on CD 2. Both have some crackle in it as this is material used from the RSO LP. The RSO LP is mentioned in the remixing-details of Track 11 (Hyperspace) only, while the LP was not used for Track 12 (Finale) according to the details.txt. This track also has some crackle noise in it. How come that the RSO CD used for Track 12 contains such noise?

Just a quick note regarding the clipping...
Well, there really shouldn't be any clipping/digital distortion, what you usually do if there are some 'outrageous' peaks is put a brickwall limiter at the end of your filter chain, it will catch anything over 0db (digital 0db) and avoid digital distortion.
Feel free to PM me if you need help with this or something.