Compiling episode scores? Scotty, we have a problem.

BeatleJWOL · January 19 2013, 08:15 AM

Talk about the La-La Land Records complete TOS scores box seems to have slowed down somewhat, both here and on the FSM forums. That said, I think there are still a small amount of people interested in taking the box set and creating all 80 episode scores from it. This thread is for us.

So, what options do budding music editors have? Well, if you're fortunate enough to have audio rips from the laserdisc, as Neil S. Bulk did when working on the set, you're good to go. Start listening and matching.

Aside from that, the next best option may very well be the mono audio track from the TOS Blu-rays. There have been a few comments made that they are not 100% broadcast accurate, but only largely in reference to sound effects.

A third option would be the fan-made soundtracks, or the surround sound mixes they were extracted from over the last few years. Those, however, would incorporate some mistakes that have supposedly existed since the earliest post-laserdisc TOS releases, including wrong cues and some of the 1970s re-recordings being used in various episodes.

All that said, I would like for this thread first to document any incorrect cues used on either the TOS Blu-ray sets' mono audio (hopefully very few) or the DVD/Blu-ray sets' 5.1 or 7.1 surround audio (there should be several glaring errors there, for those familiar with the material). Second, I'd like this thread to be a jumping off point for those compiling the scores, if at all possible.

Thoughts?

SchwEnt · January 19 2013, 08:58 PM

I've got the La-La Land TOS box set. I enjoy it very much. I believe it contains *all* music from TOS, as advertised.

That said, the whole thing would be complete if I had a cue sheet for the eps, so that I might listen to complete eps scores.

As they are provided on the CDs, I have had some difficulty in finding tracks from eps where they might be located on each of the various discs. Eps cue sheets would be tremendous. I have no idea how to accomplish this myself and I must hope and rely on the talents and generosity of others.

BeatleJWOL · January 20 2013, 01:24 AM

The cue sheets, according to several individuals involved in working on the boxed set, are Paramount's internal property and not able to be released. Jeff Bond did say, however, that he included several in his The Music Of Star Trek book by typing up the information himself.

Of course he immediately followed up that information by saying something along the lines of "if any of you want to volunteer"... ha ha, very funny Jeff, you going to check them out of the Paramount library for us?

So, aside from the small handful in the book (which I could dig up, if anybody's interested), it's all up to listening. The other problem is that there were cues that were created from cutting up and editing together several different cues that are only presented in their original format on the box. Putting complete scores together is therefore a little bit more complicated than just making 80 playlists, unfortunately.

ssosmcin · January 20 2013, 04:19 AM

BeatleJWOL wrote:

There have been a few comments made that they are not 100% broadcast accurate, but only largely in reference to sound effects.

Largely, that's the case, but there are a number of episodes that have weird music changes, added cues and such. However, for the most part, going by the DVDs or Blu-Rays should be good enough.

Just keep in mind that recreating a tracked episode is a huge undertaking if you want to be accurate. It took me days to do The Corbomite Maneuver and it wasn't until I was well into the editing that I realized how repetitive the music choices were. The same cue from Charlie X was used three times. And the Fesarius and Cube cues were reused over and over.

Another person is putting together Balance of Terror and the edits between the multiple episode scores to create one sequence are insane. If anyone gets all the episodes done, I'd be VERY surprised.

BeatleJWOL · January 20 2013, 04:47 AM

ssosmcin wrote:

If anyone gets all the episodes done, I'd be VERY surprised.

Me too; although, maybe if a whole bunch of people get all the episodes done, it'll be much easier.

ssosmcin · January 20 2013, 05:31 AM

Well, when I did Corbomite, I had a copy of the laserdisc print which I had transferred to my iPad and kept it at my workstation while I compiled the cues. It took about three days, maybe an hour and a half a day. It turned out pretty good, but the sound guys on Trek got away with covering clumsy edits with sound effects once in a while. Without the benefit of that, I fudged a couple of edits to make them transition more smoothly. So it's not 100% accurate. It;s more like 98%, but it makes for a less jarring listening experience.

BeatleJWOL · January 20 2013, 06:25 AM

Neat! I'm sure the bridge sound effects background alone did wonders for questionable edits sometimes.

The problem's just having something accurate to work from; somehow, laserdisc rips just aren't that popular on the internet. (I kid, I kid.)

ZapBrannigan · January 20 2013, 11:48 AM

I'm not much of a music editor, so I would never attempt a project like this for even a single episode. But I have formed a couple of impressions lately of tracked episodes.

"The Lights of Zetar" struck me as a really good one. The music from WNMHGB seems, if anything, even more appropriate in this episode than the one it was composed for. It comes off as perfectly spooky and atmospheric in moments when "Zetar" is going for that rare thing in STAR TREK, horror. It really clicks.

But I just caught "Let that be Your Last Battlefield" on TV and the tracked music seemed clunky in places. "Elaan" works well enough when Bele's invisible (read affordable) ship is coming at us, but there's a use of "The Empath" in sickbay at one point that stuck out. Overall the tracking was kind of patchy and disjointed.

Maybe the uncut episode on DVD is better, but surely not that much better. LTBYLB would have been elevated to Fair or perhaps even Okay status if it had been given it's own score. But as a tracked ep it never gets off the ground.

My favorite tracked score would have to be "This Side of Paradise."

Christopher · January 20 2013, 04:03 PM

ZapBrannigan wrote:

LTBYLB would have been elevated to Fair or perhaps even Okay status if it had been given it's own score. But as a tracked ep it never gets off the ground.

The episode that I think was most undermined by its tracked score was "A Piece of the Action." The cues they had didn't really fit the gangster scenario. Just imagine if it had been given a full score in a jazzy Untouchables-esque style, perhaps by Fried or Fielding.

SchwEnt · January 20 2013, 05:37 PM

BeatleJWOL wrote:

The cue sheets, according to several individuals involved in working on the boxed set, are Paramount's internal property and not able to be released.

Putting complete scores together is therefore a little bit more complicated than just making 80 playlists, unfortunately.

It seems odd. Paramount will license/authorize/sell all types of ST material and media, but not the eps cue sheets? Not even transposed into a simple playlist?

Which leads me to say... yes, I suppose I am just looking for 80 playlists based on the TOS box set. Each eps complete score probably is more complicated as you suggest. But I'd be satisfied with simple playlists and eps track listings. I'll work on it.

BeatleJWOL · January 20 2013, 07:13 PM

SchwEnt wrote:

yes, I suppose I am just looking for 80 playlists based on the TOS box set. Each eps complete score probably is more complicated as you suggest. But I'd be satisfied with simple playlists and eps track listings. I'll work on it.

Even just getting all the tracked music into playlists in remotely the right order, without doing all the editing, would do wonders for such a project.

Christopher · January 20 2013, 07:28 PM

BeatleJWOL wrote:

Putting complete scores together is therefore a little bit more complicated than just making 80 playlists, unfortunately.

Quite right. As with many soundtrack CDs, some of the tracks on the discs combine several consecutive cues rather than keeping each one isolated. Not to mention that a lot of the tracked scores edited down the cues and only used portions of them. So recreating them would require a lot more work than just creating a playlist. You'd need software that would let you edit music tracks rather than just play them.

BeatleJWOL · January 21 2013, 12:33 AM

Christopher wrote:

So recreating them would require a lot more work than just creating a playlist. You'd need software that would let you edit music tracks rather than just play them.

Easy! Audacity is a nice and fairly simple free audio editor, and Adobe has Audition 3.0 available for a free download from their site, complete with serial number.

Now, just what to cut... I'm hoping the few people that are interested in doing such a thing are getting rolling on this.

The Warlord · January 21 2013, 04:42 PM

ssosmcin wrote:

there are a number of episodes that have weird music changes, added cues and such.

Which episodes in particular? The only music changes I know of are during The Menagerie, Part II. That episode's DVD [Region 2, both original and remastered] version uses a re-recorded cue in the opening fly by shot, and again later in the episode. After the opening titles, during the episode titles/Capt's Log, a cue from The Doomsday Machine replaces The Enemy Within. Also, the truncated Max's Factor cue when Vina is returned to beauty is slightly modified on the DVDs.

I also *think* some of the instruments from Kaplan's Doomsday Machine are added into some of The Enemy Within Enterprise cues.

Other than that, I'm not sure...

Dalen Quaice · January 21 2013, 06:13 PM

There are issues with just about every issue of Trek on video. The laserdiscs are not perfect because they were taken from the syndication masters. In syndication the opening/ending theme music was changed for a number of the early episodes that had the electronic sounding theme. Also, the original opening of The Man Trap with Gene Roddenberry's name in the opening credit (looking similar to Season 2) was changed along with the music. Some of William Shatner's opening VO's are not correct for the episodes. The VO was re-recorded a number of times over the course of the series, and often times they use a generic version instead of the episide specific version as that cuts the costs of doing multiple film transfers and restoration. As I recall, some epsiodes also lack "Also Starring" before Leonard Nimoy's name originally. The Desilu/Paramount logo is often slightly different at the end - sometimes with incorrect music or logos from other seasons, etc. Again, trivial to some but changes are changes...

Documenting all the changes over the years and comparing every version available is a huge undertaking and would require you to have very old copies of TOS as first syndicated by NBC (that still had the NBC logo intact at the end after the Desilu/Paramount logo) before the later late 70's changes were made. The problem is that most people may not have ever seen these early syndicated versions nor the original air copies -- and even if you have, you are going from memory from years ago unless you happen to have a copy.

As far as the cue sheets go -- I saw them for sale at a convention in the 70's. I should have bought them, but they were really very poor xerox copies bradded together... and I didn't realize I'd never see them again.

We will likely not see these from LA LA Land as you would instantly be able to notice music missing from their complete set. I also doubt that Jeff ever publishes a new book with more than 10 of the cue sheets -- and they are re-typed there so you still don't see the originals as apparently the cue sheets are considered legal documents which is why they can't be distributed as actual reproductions legally. However the data on these can be distributed if retyped... assuming someone has them? I have seen copies of William Shatner's contract around... someone must have them?

January 19 2013, 08:15 AM	#1
BeatleJWOL Lieutenant Commander Location: Winston-Salem, NC	Compiling episode scores? Scotty, we have a problem. Talk about the La-La Land Records complete TOS scores box seems to have slowed down somewhat, both here and on the FSM forums. That said, I think there are still a small amount of people interested in taking the box set and creating all 80 episode scores from it. This thread is for us. So, what options do budding music editors have? Well, if you're fortunate enough to have audio rips from the laserdisc, as Neil S. Bulk did when working on the set, you're good to go. Start listening and matching. Aside from that, the next best option may very well be the mono audio track from the TOS Blu-rays. There have been a few comments made that they are not 100% broadcast accurate, but only largely in reference to sound effects. A third option would be the fan-made soundtracks, or the surround sound mixes they were extracted from over the last few years. Those, however, would incorporate some mistakes that have supposedly existed since the earliest post-laserdisc TOS releases, including wrong cues and some of the 1970s re-recordings being used in various episodes. All that said, I would like for this thread first to document any incorrect cues used on either the TOS Blu-ray sets' mono audio (hopefully very few) or the DVD/Blu-ray sets' 5.1 or 7.1 surround audio (there should be several glaring errors there, for those familiar with the material). Second, I'd like this thread to be a jumping off point for those compiling the scores, if at all possible. Thoughts?

January 19 2013, 08:58 PM	#2
SchwEnt Fleet Captain	Re: Compiling episode scores? Scotty, we have a problem. I've got the La-La Land TOS box set. I enjoy it very much. I believe it contains all music from TOS, as advertised. That said, the whole thing would be complete if I had a cue sheet for the eps, so that I might listen to complete eps scores. As they are provided on the CDs, I have had some difficulty in finding tracks from eps where they might be located on each of the various discs. Eps cue sheets would be tremendous. I have no idea how to accomplish this myself and I must hope and rely on the talents and generosity of others.

January 20 2013, 01:24 AM	#3
BeatleJWOL Lieutenant Commander Location: Winston-Salem, NC	Re: Compiling episode scores? Scotty, we have a problem. The cue sheets, according to several individuals involved in working on the boxed set, are Paramount's internal property and not able to be released. Jeff Bond did say, however, that he included several in his The Music Of Star Trek book by typing up the information himself. Of course he immediately followed up that information by saying something along the lines of "if any of you want to volunteer"... ha ha, very funny Jeff, you going to check them out of the Paramount library for us? So, aside from the small handful in the book (which I could dig up, if anybody's interested), it's all up to listening. The other problem is that there were cues that were created from cutting up and editing together several different cues that are only presented in their original format on the box. Putting complete scores together is therefore a little bit more complicated than just making 80 playlists, unfortunately.

January 20 2013, 05:31 AM	#6
ssosmcin Commodore Location: New Yawk	Re: Compiling episode scores? Scotty, we have a problem. Well, when I did Corbomite, I had a copy of the laserdisc print which I had transferred to my iPad and kept it at my workstation while I compiled the cues. It took about three days, maybe an hour and a half a day. It turned out pretty good, but the sound guys on Trek got away with covering clumsy edits with sound effects once in a while. Without the benefit of that, I fudged a couple of edits to make them transition more smoothly. So it's not 100% accurate. It;s more like 98%, but it makes for a less jarring listening experience. __________________ "Tranya is people!"

January 20 2013, 06:25 AM	#7
BeatleJWOL Lieutenant Commander Location: Winston-Salem, NC	Re: Compiling episode scores? Scotty, we have a problem. Neat! I'm sure the bridge sound effects background alone did wonders for questionable edits sometimes. The problem's just having something accurate to work from; somehow, laserdisc rips just aren't that popular on the internet. (I kid, I kid.)

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January 20 2013, 11:48 AM	#8
ZapBrannigan Commander Location: New York State	Re: Compiling episode scores? Scotty, we have a problem. I'm not much of a music editor, so I would never attempt a project like this for even a single episode. But I have formed a couple of impressions lately of tracked episodes. "The Lights of Zetar" struck me as a really good one. The music from WNMHGB seems, if anything, even more appropriate in this episode than the one it was composed for. It comes off as perfectly spooky and atmospheric in moments when "Zetar" is going for that rare thing in STAR TREK, horror. It really clicks. But I just caught "Let that be Your Last Battlefield" on TV and the tracked music seemed clunky in places. "Elaan" works well enough when Bele's invisible (read affordable) ship is coming at us, but there's a use of "The Empath" in sickbay at one point that stuck out. Overall the tracking was kind of patchy and disjointed. Maybe the uncut episode on DVD is better, but surely not that much better. LTBYLB would have been elevated to Fair or perhaps even Okay status if it had been given it's own score. But as a tracked ep it never gets off the ground. My favorite tracked score would have to be "This Side of Paradise."

January 21 2013, 06:13 PM	#15
Dalen Quaice Lieutenant Commander	Re: Compiling episode scores? Scotty, we have a problem. There are issues with just about every issue of Trek on video. The laserdiscs are not perfect because they were taken from the syndication masters. In syndication the opening/ending theme music was changed for a number of the early episodes that had the electronic sounding theme. Also, the original opening of The Man Trap with Gene Roddenberry's name in the opening credit (looking similar to Season 2) was changed along with the music. Some of William Shatner's opening VO's are not correct for the episodes. The VO was re-recorded a number of times over the course of the series, and often times they use a generic version instead of the episide specific version as that cuts the costs of doing multiple film transfers and restoration. As I recall, some epsiodes also lack "Also Starring" before Leonard Nimoy's name originally. The Desilu/Paramount logo is often slightly different at the end - sometimes with incorrect music or logos from other seasons, etc. Again, trivial to some but changes are changes... Documenting all the changes over the years and comparing every version available is a huge undertaking and would require you to have very old copies of TOS as first syndicated by NBC (that still had the NBC logo intact at the end after the Desilu/Paramount logo) before the later late 70's changes were made. The problem is that most people may not have ever seen these early syndicated versions nor the original air copies -- and even if you have, you are going from memory from years ago unless you happen to have a copy. As far as the cue sheets go -- I saw them for sale at a convention in the 70's. I should have bought them, but they were really very poor xerox copies bradded together... and I didn't realize I'd never see them again. We will likely not see these from LA LA Land as you would instantly be able to notice music missing from their complete set. I also doubt that Jeff ever publishes a new book with more than 10 of the cue sheets -- and they are re-typed there so you still don't see the originals as apparently the cue sheets are considered legal documents which is why they can't be distributed as actual reproductions legally. However the data on these can be distributed if retyped... assuming someone has them? I have seen copies of William Shatner's contract around... someone must have them?