Let's Listen to Star Trek: Season Three!

[Not Herbert]

For TOS music geeks only.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F5Ahf49fYbg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ivcCTB0YFw

 

[Not Herbert]

For example I have no idea when they recorded the third season titles or why there is a stereo version.

June 25, 1968

It seems now that anytime something was recorded with a vocal, it was done on multi-track tape, and not mono like the rest of the series. This would explain why "The City on the Edge of Forever" was recorded on 3-track tape (the episode featured the song, "Goodnight, Sweetheart"). Recording things this way would give greater flexibility to the mixer.

Season 2's main title recorded the orchestra monophonically, but there was a separate tape with a woodwind overlay and Loulie Jean Norman's vocal, so we could futz with it and make a "stereo-ish" version of that. The original mono is also presented for purists.

Season 3's main title was recorded live to 3-track. The intent of course was to mix down to mono (which was done for the series and our set) but also gave us the flexibility to present it in the stereo spread captured on the tape.

Neil

P.S. "Beyond Antares" from "Conscience of the King" was also recorded to multi-track tape, but as it was a harp on one channel and Nichelle Nichols on the other, it didn't lend itself to anything but mono.

In those days, there was the Presto 1/2" 3 track machine and the AMPEX 350 or 351 which could be rigged with 3 heads, but I wonder if the Trek scores would have used the old Westrex "mag" machines? They've been around a long time by the late '60s as they were used for dubbing movies and TV. You know, music on a track, dialogue on another track, and sound FX/foley on the 3rd track. Basically, a mag machine was 35mm film with no picture but 3 magnetic stripes. It ran at 24 frames/sec which equates to 18 1/4 ips, faster than the standard tape speed of the day 15ips.