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

[Christopher]

And we have another disc whose entire contents are brand new. "Catspaw" and "Friday's Child" are the only Fried scores that have not been featured on any prior release, though "The Paradise Syndrome" is only represented as a suite on one of the Label X albums.

And this is the shortest total disc time yet. The longest so far was Vol. 1 Disc 5.

 

[Warped9]

Anticipated some samples and these are indeed outstanding! Even more so solidifies this purchase.

The music was such a huge part of what made TOS so good. Listening to those samples I simply can't wait to get hold of this set. Along with Round2's 1/350 scale Enterprise (which I've ordered and is on its way) this set is another thing I've been waiting forty years for.

 

[cbspock]

An excellent audio interview with La-La Land Records heads MV Gerhard and Matt Verboys, album producers Lukas Kendall and Neil S. Bulk, and Trek music expert Jeff Bond, all about this upcoming release can be found here:

http://www.filmmusicmag.com/?p=10295

Good interview, very informative. It answered some of my above questions about sound effects and library cues. (I'm recalling a sort of actiony variant of the "song" part of the Courage theme that was heard only once, during a scene in "Shore Leave" where the characters are running to investigate the sound of gunshots, I believe. Based on what they said in the interview, I'm now thinking that was one of Mullendore's library cues. Perhaps "Impension?")

The process Jeff Bond described for how he got TOS's music drummed into his head as a kid by constant daily reruns in the '70s is exactly how it happened for me.

Vina's Dance by Wilbur Hatch is indeed the pre-record and is the earliest piece of Star Trek music recorded.

Intriguing. That would mean that the total number of extant Orion dance cues is four -- this Hatch piece, the Courage ones from "The Cage" and "Whom Gods Destroy," and Jay Chattaway's more sedate one from Enterprise: "Bound."

That is how I got to know the Trek music as well. Re-runs in the 70s. This is the set I have wanted all those years ago.

-Chris

 

[OneBuckFilms]

So far, each disc looks great. I really can't wait to get my hands on this set.

17 hours of listening. Lots of commute music.

 

[cbspock]

I have been trying to keep up with this thread but there is a lot of info here. Are the episodes on the discs complete, or are "library tracks" put at the end of a season set, and not edited into the soundtrack for an episode?


-Chris

 

[Christopher]

Are the episodes on the discs complete, or are "library tracks" put at the end of a season set, and not edited into the soundtrack for an episode?

All that's included for a given episode are the original cues that were written for that episode and recorded as part of the recording session for that episode. Library tracks that were recorded separately are included at the end of each season set.

After all, "complete" soundtracks including all the recycled stock and library cues as well as original cues for every single episode would be something like 30-40 hours of often-repetitive music, and the set would have to be twice as big and twice as expensive for no reason. Each distinct cue is only included once on the set, in its complete and original form, either as part of the episode it was written for or as a separate library cue if that's what it was.

 

[cbspock]

Are the episodes on the discs complete, or are "library tracks" put at the end of a season set, and not edited into the soundtrack for an episode?

All that's included for a given episode are the original cues that were written for that episode and recorded as part of the recording session for that episode. Library tracks that were recorded separately are included at the end of each season set.

After all, "complete" soundtracks including all the recycled stock and library cues as well as original cues for every single episode would be something like 30-40 hours of often-repetitive music, and the set would have to be twice as big and twice as expensive for no reason. Each distinct cue is only included once on the set, in its complete and original form, either as part of the episode it was written for or as a separate library cue if that's what it was.

That's what I thought. So are we getting the "cue" sheets for the episodes so we could re-assemble the episodes say using itunes playlists.


-Chris

 

[Christopher]

So are we getting the "cue" sheets for the episodes so we could re-assemble the episodes say using itunes playlists.

I doubt it. But Jeff Bond's book The Music of Star Trek does contain cue sheets for a number of episodes, including a few tracked ones, on pp. 40-55.

 

[cbspock]

So are we getting the "cue" sheets for the episodes so we could re-assemble the episodes say using itunes playlists.

I doubt it. But Jeff Bond's book The Music of Star Trek does contain cue sheets for a number of episodes, including a few tracked ones, on pp. 40-55.

Good thing I have that book, ill have to dig it out of the collection..lol

-Chris

 

[22 Stars]

Cbspock, you bring up a good point and fun challenge. This could be looked at as a 'toolkit' to go and make your own, or recreate any Trek score using a tool like itunes.

 

[Christopher]

I remember there was this one time back in the '80s where I put together my own version of a tracked ST episode score by recording different cues from the various LPs onto my cassette deck -- not trying to replicate an existing tracked episode score, but trying to concoct one of my own for a hypothetical episode. I don't think I had any specific story or scenes in mind; I was just trying to convey the impression of a story progression, experimenting with the process of how a music editor might create a tracked score. (I don't have the tape anymore, however.)

I suppose with this set, one could do that same kind of creative exercise much more authentically, since you'd have the same full repertoire of original tracks that TOS's music editors would've had to work with. Maybe one could assemble playlists to accompany one's TOS novels or comics.

However, I think my personal preference now is just to hear the cues and scores as they were originally written, and not mix and match different composers, different themes. Heck, it was my preference then; my experiment was as much about exploring the process as hearing the result. And these days, with modern tools for constructing "playlists," the process would just be too easy to interest me much.

 

[doubleohfive]

17 hours of listening. Lots of commute music.

So, basically, enough for Burbank to Culver City.

 

[cbspock]

Cbspock, you bring up a good point and fun challenge. This could be looked at as a 'toolkit' to go and make your own, or recreate any Trek score using a tool like itunes.

In the audio interview posted a view pages back, they mentioned that they actually went back and retracked all the episodes to make sure they had all the right cues. They used the laser discs of TOS to compare it to.


-Chris

 

[cbspock]

I used to do the same thing with my trek music back then, create my own trek cue mix tapes.
"Stealing the Enterprise" works great with the book "My Enemy My Ally" when they escape the Romulan Space Station


-Chris

 

[Christopher]

I always used to wish that Jerry Goldsmith had scored more Trek movies so that one could assemble a library of cues you could use to assemble "soundtracks" for novels or comics set in the TOS movie era. It's occurred to me that you could approximate that now -- take the complete soundtracks for TMP and TFF, pick out all the cues from the TNG Ron Jones Collection that use the Goldsmith theme (all handily marked by a dagger symbol on the online notes), and you'd have yourself a nice TMP-era music library. Might make a nice accompaniment for reading Ex Machina, Mere Anarchy: The Darkness Drops Again, and the latter half of Forgotten History.

Although the thing there is, in order to construct an effective tracked score to fit a particular new story, you'd need to use just portions of a lot of the cues instead of playing the whole things straight through. This TOS set apparently has some ready-made library cues using portions of longer ones, but for my TMP-era library idea, you'd need some way to cut out pieces of a lot of the tracks, and that's beyond my very limited experience with that kind of software.

Then again, the way I would've done it while reading a book wouldn't have been to actually create a soundtrack and play it while I read, but just to memorize the cues by listening to them a lot and then "play them back" mentally while I read. Not everyone can do that, though. I'm not sure I could do it anymore, since I don't seem to have as much time to listen to music these days.

 

[doubleohfive]

Cbspock, you bring up a good point and fun challenge. This could be looked at as a 'toolkit' to go and make your own, or recreate any Trek score using a tool like itunes.

In the audio interview posted a view pages back, they mentioned that they actually went back and retracked all the episodes to make sure they had all the right cues. They used the laser discs of TOS to compare it to.


-Chris

It's true. Those laserdiscs - of the entire series - are still sitting on a shelf behind my couch.

 

[cbspock]

I had some of the episodes on laser. Now I only have the 2 DVD sets, and the blu set.


-Chris

 

[22 Stars]

I remember there was this one time back in the '80s where I put together my own version of a tracked ST episode score by recording different cues from the various LPs onto my cassette deck -- not trying to replicate an existing tracked episode score, but trying to concoct one of my own for a hypothetical episode. I don't think I had any specific story or scenes in mind; I was just trying to convey the impression of a story progression, experimenting with the process of how a music editor might create a tracked score. (I don't have the tape anymore, however.)

I suppose with this set, one could do that same kind of creative exercise much more authentically, since you'd have the same full repertoire of original tracks that TOS's music editors would've had to work with. Maybe one could assemble playlists to accompany one's TOS novels or comics.

However, I think my personal preference now is just to hear the cues and scores as they were originally written, and not mix and match different composers, different themes. Heck, it was my preference then; my experiment was as much about exploring the process as hearing the result. And these days, with modern tools for constructing "playlists," the process would just be too easy to interest me much.

Sounds like great fun, and reminds me of projects I did with the first home computers, painting images one pixel at a time to reproduce iconic Trek images. Hopefully someone will have fun with this set in much the same way as we did.

 

[cbspock]

I have wanted a set like this since the first TOS trek albums came out. I think TOS's soundtracks are right up there with the iconic Star Wars soundtracks. TNG, DS9 and VOY... not so much. None of them had any memorable cues, except maybe for the episode Booby Trap and Inner Light.


-Chris

 

[Indysolo]

Cbspock, you bring up a good point and fun challenge. This could be looked at as a 'toolkit' to go and make your own, or recreate any Trek score using a tool like itunes.

In the audio interview posted a view pages back, they mentioned that they actually went back and retracked all the episodes to make sure they had all the right cues. They used the laser discs of TOS to compare it to.


-Chris

I only used the laser discs to compare with the scored episodes, never a tracked one. I did watch tracked episodes (on Netflix) while taking a break, but only because I wanted to watch Trek but not the ones I was working on. I had to stop though because it made me crazy because I got paranoid about having every cue. It's how I found the brief percussion overlay in Journey to Babel that we talk about.

Doubleohfive, thanks for letting me store those LDs there. Now that the discs are being produced I guess I don't need them anymore. I'll return them soon.

Neil