I figured with all the newbies, this post would be helpful.


Soundtrack albums are usually Various Artist songs.

Score albums are the score release. Not all movies get them.

Official releases...Retail. These are albums that you can buy. At a store, on-line, whatever.

Bootleg...an album you cannot buy...unofficial albums. Bootlegs can be leaked sessions, homemade, whatever. Just means it was not the officially released album.

Expanded scores are just that. Scores that have extra material added to them. Whether in official form, or as a bootleg.

Some people consider an album that was mostly combined cues and suites, but has been split into the separate film cues to be expanded.

Complete scores are generally the entire score that is heard in the film. Well, to some. The industry also considers complete scores to be the score as a whole, as written. For example, the Star Wars Special and Ultimate Editions, while considered officially as complete, contains alternative takes, expanded cues not heard in the film, and many non-film edits. Also cues joined into larger tracks. Some do not consider this complete per se. Also, some consider complete to mean everything. Every track as heard in the film, every suite from the OST, every clean bit of music from trailers, dvd menus whatever. I am not one of those. I also do not feel filling in missing scores with ripped music qualifies, but that's just me.

Recording Sessions....trickier. But, at it's purest, Sessions are the music, as written by the composer, that is recorded for the film, before any editing or final mixing is done. Often, they will contain multiple takes of the same tracks, different tempo, etc. They often contain "inserts" which are patches or extra music to be "inserted" into various scenes. The Harry Potter and Batman recording sessions posted here are not truly sessions. They are edited and mixed, so I would call them more bootlegs. Or promos, which themselves would fall under the umbrella of a bootleg. The Avatar, Battle Beyond the Stars and Conan The Destroyer sessions posted are indeed recording sessions. An extreme example would be the Troy sessions, which contain a ton of music, but mostly repetitious tracks, and not the full score. Which makes the point that although it is a recording session, it does not make it "complete" in any way.

Promos..true promos..are albums or pieces of albums used by composers, or the industry, as a form of resume'. To advertise the score. As a special offer to a radio station, say. Or, to pass around to friends and colleagues privately or to trade with. FYC or Oscar promos are promos put together for the Oscar voting comity to get nominations, and hopefully, the vote. They are not ALWAYS a complete score, as they tend to be put together to best represent the score as a whole, and "complete" scores don't always do that.

Now, rips. Music extracted from dvd, blue-ray, and in olden times tape or offa the radio. Home-made usually. Contain sfx, volume issues, etc. We have many, many talented folks who can produce very good pieces. But even the best of them cannot completely extract clean music most of the time. These also fall under the title of bootleg, but in no way are they "recording sessions".

Isolated scores (ISO scores) are scores that are presented separately from the dialog channels in some dvd and blu-ray presentations. They allow you to watch the film, with just the score heard. This can be extracted. There are issues, though, First, it is the music as heard in the film, looped tracks, chopped tracks etc. Also, in most movies, the score does not play continuously, so there will be long gaps of silence. The skilled folks here are adept at editing these. Occasionally they will also use these tracks for commentary be directors and composers.

But it is far from complete as a tech guide. And, there is no "official" terminology on the site. So it is more of an old woman's ramblings than anything, but it is a start.

Better than idiots labeling their fan edits as promos and recording sessions.

Would like to add that isolated scores are a completely separate audio track on the laser disc/dvd/bluray and has nothing to do with rips of front or rear channels. And it would be nice if people would call them that - isolated scores - instead of "complete" or "expanded" or whatever.

To make it clearer, recording sessions are the original recordings as recorded by the recording engineer, untouched, with no filter at all, though maybe a minimum for listening experience. Also true sessions should be a direct downmix from the original to stereo containing all that has been recorded (including or not electro music, but most of the time electro comes from programming department, it's not played live).

The best guarantee of true sessions is to have the tracks uncut, you'll then hear the pleople or the conductor speaking, people taking their breath etc... I know very few true sessions actually, mostly Beltrami's Hellboy and Williams's Shindler's List.

I highly recommand searching on the net to understand how is recorded a score and prerared either for film soundtrack or for an album. Very instructive. :)

Nicely put, logical and extensive. Kinda sad that it was necessary.

Great guide. I agree, some of the published scores are indeed recording sessions (like King Kong, which it has a rough mix with the orchestra and choir very soft, compared to the CD. Same thing with The Amazing Spider-man) but most of it are almost complete recordings of all the music written for these films (example: X-Men The Last Stand, the full score for the first edit of the movie was leaked, it didn't included the alternate main titles, and the cues with wordless choir).

Does someone know what is the difference between a FIX, an Insert and a Pick-Up ?

Does someone know what is the difference between a FIX, an Insert and a Pick-Up ?

Usually a fix is a change to the ending of a cue that is either really different, or is very slightly different.

An Insert is a bit of music that is meant to replace a portion of cue.

A pick-up is a really late revised version of a cue.