La-La Land to release 15-disc original series score set

Discussion in 'Star Trek - The Original & Animated Series' started by Harvey, Aug 11, 2012.

  1. Methuselah Flint

    Methuselah Flint Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

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    Hmmm, I'm not sure. The "missing" cue seems to naturally fade, and sounds slightly different than the Spocks Walks cue, especially noticeable in, for example, the first few seconds of the scene in which Rayna plays pool in Requiem for Methuselah.
     
  2. JimZipCode

    JimZipCode Commander Red Shirt

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    I can't test it. I don't have any laserdiscs; and if I did, Lights of Zetar/Requiem for Methuselah would be among the last I would buy. :-)

    I'm not sure what a "16mm film chain recording" is, but it sounds pretty professional, and I guess early enough to be before the 5.1 remastering for DVD. That would shoot some holes in my beautiful theory, alas.



    Certainly. At least theoretically. I'll ask on the FSM forum. Jeff Bond and Neil both post in that thread (the "actual music" thread).

    Can someone (Dalen/SSOS/Warlord) tell me again: when in the Lights of Zetar trailer does the "Force Field" cue appear? Either approximate time or what is happening onscreen, or both.
     
  3. JimZipCode

    JimZipCode Commander Red Shirt

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    I find your theory just as complicated as mine. :)

    Mine has the advantage that we know that at leat some of what I described, happened. (Though not necessarily with Zetar.) And it accords with what the La-la Land guys said about the work they did.

    My theory has the disadvantage that it seems to be wrong! At least given what Dalen said about the 16mm film chain recording of Zetar. It could stand more checking.

    Your theory might well be correct; but I hope not. I would prefer that further investigation reveal that your & SSOS' and Dalen's complaints were mistaken, did not have real basis. I'm still hoping that every "missing" cue turns out to be either a composite created by the music editor, or a case of using a wrong reference (as per my theory above), or something similar.
     
  4. BeatleJWOL

    BeatleJWOL Commodore Commodore

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    Seems valid to me. That would indicate that the editing of the set was done a) for listening, not for hacking apart, and b) especially in order to prevent people splicing together episode scores and then distributing them as "complete score" projects online, as was happening with some DVD rips before this set came out.
     
  5. Dalen Quaice

    Dalen Quaice Lieutenant Commander Red Shirt

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    ^Beatle - that is an outstanding theory!!

    The Blu-Ray episode discs seemed to have the frame rate slightly adjusted so that when you ripped, they were slightly out of sync and had to be tweaked. The offset was different on each disc as I recall. I couldn't imagine why they would do that except to make it difficult to rip. I was merely doing it because I thought the disc navigation was annoying, especially the flashing icon when the effects sequences were changed.

    Following Beatle's theory, they would be able to match particular edits to this collection when they found pirate copies or another CD issue from another country, etc. I notice there are already rips on mediafire and uploaded.to - if you google it, you might find them.
     
    Last edited: Jan 8, 2013
  6. Ssosmcin

    Ssosmcin Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    To be accurate, I don't really have any complaints, per se. Even with the cross-fading, I'm thrilled with this box set and have really no measurable disappointment. I'm just trying to help find cues that may or may not be missing.
     
  7. Methuselah Flint

    Methuselah Flint Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

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    Agreed! Whilst I've picked up on things myself, I think this is a fabulous set.
     
  8. Ssosmcin

    Ssosmcin Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    Eh, nothing is gonna stop this set from being shared and sent around, edited or not. Sites aready have people posting links to it all over the place. But, I would agree with point a) it was created to be a listening experience, where the music works as an album, not an archive to create your own tracking mixes. Since Star Trek's tracked and edited scores are all part of the fun of the series, it's probably going to attracted more of that than most other shows. But it had to be created for the audience at large.

    If you want an example of a straightforward TV series music archive, check out the Network CDs of The Prisoner. Uttlerly unlistenable without major home editing.
     
  9. Christopher

    Christopher Writer Admiral

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    Interesting. What makes them unlistenable?
     
  10. Dalen Quaice

    Dalen Quaice Lieutenant Commander Red Shirt

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    I feel about this TOS set the way you felt about The Prisoner set (I don't have that set). I have the Dark Shadows set, which I quite love. It is complete and really has every cue for all 1225 episodes. I haven't noticed any problems with editing on that set. It came out a few years back, but it is still available from MPI.

    I actually wonder if my discs are defective?

    Can anybody else hear any glitches and abnormal volume level changes during some of the edits on this set? Well I find that mega-annoying to the point of having to go in and fix problems on the tracks. On a box set this expensive, I was expecting to be able to listen to the music off the discs without having to mess with it. It seems impossible for me, and this is a disappointment. I really don't have time to mess around with this, yet I've wanted a box set like this for such a long time.

    I'm glad that everyone is happy with the set; and although you may think I'm just trying to pick it apart to find fault, I am not.
     
  11. BeatleJWOL

    BeatleJWOL Commodore Commodore

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    One of the title alternate takes does drop off fairly suddenly in volume partway through, but that's the only thing I've noticed.
     
  12. Ssosmcin

    Ssosmcin Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    Well, they present every single cue in the library in order of recording, not in any episodic order. There are tracks and tracks of odd guitar strums, multiple takes of slide whistles, a rejected opening theme in three parts - again not in the order they would be musically, but in the order of recording. Many cues have the sound guy announcing "Prisoner 1 take 3" or whatever. There were about three composers, the first being Robert Farnon who had his music replaced. Wilfred Josephs, Farnon, Albert Elms and Ron Grainer's work were all separated and really, it's just a hash. Farnon's compositions come across like someone experimenting with sound. It's really a mess. Later Network CD sets were organized by episode.

    I get that with multiple composers creating music used for a single episode is an issue, but there had to be a better way to organize them to make it work on an album.
     
  13. Dalen Quaice

    Dalen Quaice Lieutenant Commander Red Shirt

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    ^Thanks Beatle - for me the worst tracks are Track 12 of The Empath and Track 19 of Spock's Brain.
     
  14. Ssosmcin

    Ssosmcin Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    I have had no problems with the sound at all. The Doomsday Machine has some distortion which was inherent in the original tapes as does the first cue in Spock's Brain, but other than that, I'm very impressed with the sound quality.

    If you suspect they are defective, email LaLa Land and see what they can do.
     
  15. Ssosmcin

    Ssosmcin Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    I've just listened to both of these cues and they are fine on my CDs. No issues at all.
     
  16. BeatleJWOL

    BeatleJWOL Commodore Commodore

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    I'll have a listen to both of those as soon as I finish celebrating Elvis' birthday over here... :p

    Nope, no problems here.
     
    Last edited: Jan 9, 2013
  17. Christopher

    Christopher Writer Admiral

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    My impression of The Prisoner's music, just from listening to it, is that it was all basically library music, with nothing actually written for a specific scene in a specific episode. So I don't think there actually would be an episodic order.
     
  18. Ssosmcin

    Ssosmcin Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    Well, that's not entirely true. While they did use a great many cues from the Chappell Music Library (more so as the series progressed), around eight episodes did have scores specially written for them, but like so many other shows of the day, they were recycled endlessly. The pilot, Arrival, had a score written for it, but it was rejected. Another score was written and used with some of the rejected score plugged in as well as Chappell Library music. The upshot is that, even out of order, none of these cues were arranged or presented as an "album listening experience." It is little more than a music archive. Once I took task of rearranging them at home, it became easier to sit through. And once I got the rest of the library cues, it became a very interesting listening experience. But until I did that - total chore.
     
  19. Dale Sams

    Dale Sams Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

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    Speaking of The Prisoner and Ron Grainer, I'm assuming everyone here knows this...but in case anyone doesn't, "The Omega Man" soundtrack is FANNNN-tastic.

    I think that, "Capricorn One" and "Wrath of Khan" would be my favorite Sci-Fi scores.
     
  20. Ssosmcin

    Ssosmcin Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    Yep, it's great stuff and was rereleased as an "unlimited edition" by FSM a few years ago.