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

[Tallguy]

Christopher wrote:

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Umm, second season of what show? I'm guessing you mean Galactica. I never paid much attention to its main-title music. I was thinking more of other McCreary-scored shows like Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, The Cape, and Caprica.

Yeah, BSG. I changed that sentence around a bit and never came back and made that clear.

The flip side is that Trek had ten composers for forty some episodes. BSG had ONE guy for the whole run with a new score every episode. Same for Lost. Kind of amazing.

Anyway: D'OH! Season 2 library music: Playoff on MT Theme. Courage.

[JimZipCode]

Christopher wrote:

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Finding out about Steiner's library versions of his episode cues has really cleared a lot up for me. I often noticed over the years that tracked versions of Steiner's cues sometimes had elements missing ... variations, like the long sustain on the alternate "Charlie's Mystery," or the version of "Standoff" that's a bit more up-tempo than the original. Knowing that Steiner did separate library versions, and experimented with these kinds of variations that I'm hearing here, explains so much.

It also puts me in mind of the Justman interview in Bond's book. Two things from that interview. One, Justman said that he liked to be on the floor during the recording, so he could point out a fragment and "put a button on it" to use later. I wonder how many of those variations were at Justman's prompting. And two, Justman went on at some length about what a sweetheart Steiner was. I wonder if Steiner had a natural feel for what TV music editors might need, and recorded some variations that seemed obvious to him.

Christopher wrote:

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Were the "Squire of Gothos" cues really played on a harpsichord, or was it the Hammond organ faking a harpsichord? Can Hammond organs do that? Because the tone quality of that instrument was not very pleasant to my ear, and I'm wondering if it's because it was a substitute for the real thing, or because the real thing genuinely sounds like that.

I don't know what was done in this performance, but the harpsichord is famously kind of harsh and dry. There's a reason we listen to the Well Tempered Clavier mainly on piano, now.

[ATimson]

Tallguy wrote:

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The flip side is that Trek had ten composers for forty some episodes. BSG had ONE guy for the whole run with a new score every episode. Same for Lost. Kind of amazing.

I think Richard Gibbs did one or two S1 episodes of BSG. But overall, it definitely is a remarkable achievement. Even later Trek tended to alternate between Dennis McCarthy and another composer, rather than having one person give it a go.

[Christopher]

Just finished "Catspaw"/"Friday's Child" (S2D1). I'm so used to hearing these cues tracked generically over everything that I hadn't realized how richly thematic they were. All these melodies that I just thought of as nonspecific tunes are actually leitmotifs for specific people or things. The motif that Fried used in all three second-season scores was his Kirk theme, which I never would've guessed since its minor key makes it sound kind of ominous to me, not like hero music. And "Friday's Child" had a Klingon theme and a Teer theme in addition to the obvious Capellan and Eleen themes, etc. Oh, and the baby's theme was Eleen's theme with a faster, less syncopated rhythm. I never realized the distinction before. You'd think I would've noticed the patterns in the episodes -- what was happening onscreen when a particular motif played -- but again, I was already so used to the cues being used generically that it didn't really occur to me. (So that's two recurring themes that I never realized were Kirk themes, one from Steiner and one from Fried.)

There was a lot of unused material in the "Catspaw" score! Mostly a somewhat harsh version of the Courage fanfare that I'm not surprised they omitted, but also a whole leitmotif for the castle with kind of an Olde-English, Robin Hood movie sound to it. That was replaced in the episode with the "Drugged" cue from later, as I recall (or one of the later cues that used the same "brainwashed crew" motif). Maybe it didn't come off as scary enough. So I can see why the substitutions were made, but it's so cool that this unused material is finally getting heard.

ATimson wrote:

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Even later Trek tended to alternate between Dennis McCarthy and another composer, rather than having one person give it a go.

Well, more than that. On TNG it was initially McCarthy and Ron Jones, then McCarthy and Jay Chattaway. On DS9 it tended to cycle between McCarthy, Chattaway, and David Bell (they had to add more composers when they had two shows on at once), and eventually they added Paul Baillargeon to the rotation as well for both DS9 and VGR. Those four continued on to ENT, with Velton Ray Bunch being added to the rotation, and Bell eventually dropping out. And in season 4 of ENT, budget cuts meant that McCarthy no longer worked with an orchestra and instead collaborated with Kevin Kiner on synth scores faking an orchestral sound. There were some TNG composers who were used just once, like Fred Steiner, George Romanis, and Don Davis, and some who did 2-3 each, like John Debney on TNG & DS9, Gregory Smith (conductor of the Remastered main title themes) on DS9, and Brian Tyler and John Frizzell on ENT.

[TREK_GOD_1]

Christopher wrote:

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I'm going to have to readjust to the original version of "The Enemy Within," since I've gotten so used to the Bremner/Label X suite version over the years. I mean, intellectually I know the difference between the suite version and the episode version, but I listened to the suite version a lot and it influenced my expectations.

I have the same issue with the Label X version of "Is There No Truth in Beauty," as that recording was so moving and arguably more melancholy than the TV score. I've watched the episode more times than I can recall, and loved the TV music, but the old CD score holds a special place with me.

On the other hand, I cannot say that about the VS versions of "Charlie X" or "The Doomsday Machine." No re-scored version can matched the original recordings.

[Christopher]

Still, it's nice to have the alternative versions. I wish I had the means to copy my LPs onto digital files so I could have them side-by-side to compare with the CDs.

That is, if I can figure out how to "rip" these things into my computer in the first place. I've only done that a few times, with Windows Media Player, so I don't have a lot of experience at it. And I'm not sure whether it would be better to use WMP, RealPlayer, or that iTunes thing that I've only used once to date (I only downloaded it because I missed a Merlin episode and couldn't watch it anywhere else before the next episode aired).

[Indysolo]

Christopher wrote:

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Was the audio for "Charlie Is My Darling" recorded on set?

Nichelle was recorded on set. The instruments were recorded at the Charlie X session. We got Nichelle's vocal off of the dialogue track of the DME, but that included the laughter of the crowd. It was the only thing we could get. It did allow Mike Matessino to re-mix it though.

Neil

[Christopher]

^Thanks for the answer, but I'm puzzled... wouldn't the on-set audio have included the playback of the prerecorded instrumentals? So wouldn't there have been a bit of a doubling effect if that was mixed together with the instrumental track? Or does it synch up perfectly enough that it isn't noticeable?

[Indysolo]

She didn't perform to any music that we could find. No pre-records turned up. As I said, the music was recorded at the Charlie X session, which obviously was done after the episode was shot.

Neil

[Christopher]

^Oh, I see. So she sang it a capella and then the musicians matched her vocals (and Nimoy's fingerings). That makes sense. Thanks.

[JimZipCode]

Christopher wrote:

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I wish I had the means to copy my LPs onto digital files so I could have them side-by-side to compare with the CDs.
That is, if I can figure out how to "rip" these things into my computer in the first place. I've only done that a few times, with Windows Media Player, so I don't have a lot of experience at it. And I'm not sure whether it would be better to use WMP, RealPlayer, or that iTunes thing

Exact Audio Copy, but you probably need to get CDs to use EAC. The CDs exist – I was able to buy them just a couple years ago. Two or three years.

[Tallguy]

Jim beat me to it: Christopher, go get Exact Audio Copy. I love iTunes, but I had some problems with ripping Star Trek: The Motion Picture. It was my computer that was the problem and not iTunes but EAC reports errors and iTunes does not. So I knew when I wanted to rip 15 CDs I wanted them to be right. Plus EAC will read the track titles right from the CD Text on the CDs.

As for the Label X and Varese re-recordings they are all available on iTunes. Or at least they used to be.

[cbspock]

This set is awesome. I am really enjoying hear the variants of the Star Trek Theme, also music in the library that wasn't used on the series. Season 3 sounded much different than season 1 and 2. You can easily pick out season 3 cues.


-Chris

[Dalen Quaice]

Indysolo wrote:

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She didn't perform to any music that we could find. No pre-records turned up. As I said, the music was recorded at the Charlie X session, which obviously was done after the episode was shot.

Neil

I've been wondering about...

(taken from the LALA Land track listing, btw - don't know if it is that way in the booklet as I haven't opened my set yet)

"SEASON 1, DISC 3
Charlie X
Music Composed and Conducted by Fred Steiner
Episode #8, Recorded 8/29/66
Aired #2, 8/15/66"

Does anything look out of place with the dates?

Charlie X was shot in mid July 1966 - the final script is dated 7/5/66 -- so something seems a bit off with these dates. The episode actually aired 9/15/66... so the question is when was the music really recorded?

[DonIago]

Aw man, I got home to a CD-box sized package, but it was just a gift I ordered for a friend.