JediTray

Wow to the WOW.

I have finished listening and testing this wonderful recording.  Not only did A B C do it right, he really gets it.  It was fun to play my vinyl apples to apples with some of these tracks.  I have been remastering, remixing, and otherwise fiddling with recordings for years, and I can truly say that this goes beyond any run of the mill patch job.  There is no discernable wow and/or flutter issues from the vinyl rips by SeventiesFilmNut, which tells me that the rips were achieved on top-notch equipment, such as a direct drive turntable with pitch control and a DJ-quality stylus.  No ghost noise was detected on my equipment either, meaning the records were played in a quiet location with no noise from speakers or loud events.  One time I worked on a recording that picked up the person on the phone while ripping, so silence is golden.  All 3 parts of this collection held their own in every way on my THX-Certified speakers.  First, I played each track one at a time with Media Player Classic's FLAC encoding.  Second, I burned the FLAC files to CD and played them on my Blu-ray player via HDMI.  Then I came back to the computer and imported some of the files to ACID Pro so I could visually inspect the dB levels.  Lastly, for gits and shiggles, I used dBPoweramp to convert selections to 320 kb/s mp3's and played them on Windows Media Player.

The results?  Absolutely fantabulous on ALL fronts.  The brass is finally tempered to where it belongs and no longer blasts out the rest of the instruments.  The low-key and silent moments shine and find themselves appropriately in the mix.  The percussion is also noteworthy, as it confidently finds its place and no longer sounds like it was somehow imported from elsewhere or was an afterthought (as the original recordings sometimes did this).  The only so-called "complaint" I could come up with is that the tracks are not "properly tagged" to make things all nice and pretty on playlists.  This is frowned upon in BitTorrent circles, but I say big deal.  I don't have a problem putting tags and cover art in the tracks manually with dBPoweramp.

Many, many thanks to A B C for this.  What better way to spend my birthday than with one of my favorite scores of all time?  It was like revisiting an old friend, and while I will always love my vinyl and CD collection, this is absolutely the most definitive collection of the music from The Empire Strikes Back I have ever heard.

-JT

I'm late to the party again.  :)  The samples are fantastic!  I am a musician and consider myself an audiophile, so this is right up my alley.  Thanks for your passionate efforts, and I look forward to obtaining the entire 3-disc set.  Is there a release date yet?  Please pardon my ignorance if this was already discussed.

It was recommended to me to post this here instead of the "wishlist" thread, so here goes:

Remove the TIE Fighters from the shot where the Imperial fleet arrives at Hoth.  TIE's don't have hyperdrives, and it doesn't make sense to have them appear from behind the Star Destroyers.  They don't look natural in the shot anyway and are a distraction.  Plus, the TIE's aren't in any other shot around Hoth.  Perhaps a shot of them launching from under the Star Destroyers would be better, then they could be sent out to intercept the Rebel ships coming into their sector.

There are of course differing opinions on this, but that's what this place is about.  :)

Yeah I agree about ship orientation not being a very big deal in the end, but it would be nice to see things changed up a little.  Although I hate the prequels, the "upside down" arrival at Coruscant in AOTC was kinda nifty.

For TESB....

Remove the TIE Fighters from the shot where the Imperial fleet arrives at Hoth.  TIE's don't have hyperdrives, and it doesn't make sense to have them appear from behind the Star Destroyers.  They don't look natural in the shot anyway and are a distraction.  Plus, the TIE's aren't in any other shot around Hoth.  Perhaps a shot of them launching from under the Star Destroyers would be better, then they could be sent out to intercept the Rebel ships coming into their sector.

Oh yeah, a couple more things for Ady to consider for ROTJ.

Maybe a shot or two of ships arriving at a location and rotating to right themselves with the planetary system they arrive at.  I find it hard to believe that every single time someone goes from one end of the galaxy to the other, their vessel is straight up and down with the planets and such.

And here's a big one that really chaps my hind quarters.  The music has a "flanging" effect during the Emperor's arrival.  I have always been aggravated by this and would love to hear it fixed!

^^^100% agreed.  In the Hoth Hangar, as well as the Falcon in the Han/Lando shot.  There is not even a hint of the backgrounds having more than one dimension and it would be nice to have the level of realism that we have all come to expect from such shots.

Hey folks,

I'm a long time appreciator of the fan edits, and just recently started perusing the forums here.

I appreciate the ability to offer our wishlists, and I hope that Ady will consider mine as well.  Since I just recently watched some ROTJ material, I guess I will start there since it is freshest in my mind.

1. Opening scene.  Perhaps it would make more sense to have Vader leaving Executor in a Shuttle to the second Death Star, rather than a standard Imperial-Class Star Destroyer?  Also, the matte boxes around the ships need to be cleaned up, obviously.  As well as the matte paintings themselves.  They look too cartoony by modern standards.

2. In Jabba's Palace.  The B'Ommar Monk could use some additional articulation.  The infamous reverse shot of Boba pulling his blaster needs to be addressed.  Numerous creatures could use some tweaking to bring them to life.

3. Jabba's Sail Barge and Skiffs.  If they could be given a little more life and not look so static, that would be great.  Raising the Barge set from the ground would be good, as well as removing the bars that hold up the Skiff.  If they could look more like they are actually floating!  Also, it might be a good idea to add an extended overhead post with the rope hanging from it to all of the shots of the Barge, so it would make sense instead of just showing up for Luke and Leia to swing across.  Accurate blaster bolts, visible damage, and accurate lightsaber blade rotoscoping would be great as well.

4. Fixing the transparency of the Falcon and Luke's X-Wing as they leave Tatooine.

5. The Battle of Endor.  So, so many mistakes and things needing to be fixed.  Matte boxes, ships flying through each other, appearing from nowhere, disappearing, etc.  I'm sure Ady knows his work is cut out for him here.  I also suggest that the battle be extended, made more intense, and that THE B-WINGS BE ALLOWED TO FINALLY SHINE.  Their ion cannons and numerous other weapons are designed for assaulting and knocking out Star Destroyers, so now let's see it!  Since the B-Wing design was hard to shoot with 1980's tech, there is no excuse now to put them back into the battle.  Even as a kid I wondered what happened to those ships after their S-foils opened.

6. Endor.  The AT-ST's, Speederbikes, all of it need serious work.  If we could somehow have more violence to bring down the Stormies in a more realistic way, instead of like punks!  The go-motion and matte work needs serious fixing.  When Luke says "I'll take these two" the audio is out of sync.  Maybe an establishing shot of Rebel troops helping the Ewoks build and set their AT-ST traps for believability.

7. Aboard the Death Star.  The matte paintings of the troops are just terrible in this age of HD and higher resolution expectations from the audience.  The black, hand animated blobs on the Emperor's face must be removed.  The incorrect crossing of the lightsaber blades in front of the Emperor's face must be addressed.  Vader's blade is actually in FRONT of Luke's, which would not have stopped Luke's from slicing into the Emperor.  The starfields outside ALL of the windows must be fixed.  The stars are not properly focused, and they jog back and forth.  These must be stabilized, as well as moving in the proper direction according to each shot.  The squibbed and slightly crooked rail can be seen before Luke's blade cuts through it, ruining the impact of the shot.  There is also a moment when Force lightning leaves the Emperor's hands before they jerk from the recoil.  Then of course there are the matte boxes around the ships flying into the Death Star, also creating terrible discoloration around the ships as well.

I guess that's it for now.  I hope this wasn't too soap boxy and actually helps things.  :)

Hey everybody!

The Gonze is an old friend of mine.  We lost touch over the years and I came across this thread while browsing the site.  Thanks to his kind and sharing nature, he mailed all the discs to me at a very tough point in my life.  I also did not have high speed Internet or anywhere near the knowledge I have now.  I helped him with some of the design aspects of the 2-disc Star Wars: The Making of a Trilogy and I am still proud of it to this day.  If anyone is still looking for any of his work, let me know and I'll gladly get to work on sharing via torrent.  There are 6 discs in all.  The 3 movies, supplemental, and SW:TMOAT.

-JT