SonicAdventure
01-05-2016, 07:55 PM
Beware: this is no Deluxe Edition ;)
Intro
Since this release is pretty similar in regard to the things I did, I just copied parts of the text I wrote for The River Wild (Thread 198485).
You probably don�t know it... but all CDs I buy are ripped to my PC to be "remastered". Literally everything, from Janet Jackson, Prokofiev or Jerry Goldsmith. I just don�t listen to something where I haven�t at least looked at the frequency response, spatiality or abusements of Loudness. It can be likened to an illness as I cannot enjoy the music unless I�ve worked on the sound or at least had a look. Suffice to say that I find flaws most of the time, in some cases so severe that one has to wonder how artists can allow their work to be destroyed on purpose. Well, my pain is your gain :D Wanna know another thing? I really don�t like to do Deluxe Editions. Sound issues aside, for me the worst thing to do is the cover. Writing the tracklist? Pain in the ass. So when an officially expanded release comes along I`m usually filled to the brim with joy. I don�t need to do the cover, sound alterations will not be necessary (often, that hope is crushed though). In case of Congo as released by Intrada (http://store.intrada.com/) last year however I had to do something about the sound as I didn�t like their take on it. And I don�t know why, but I return to this score often. I know it isn�t one of Jerry's best scores, I also know that the African music is very stereotypical... but for some reason I love it and I often find myself unusually touched by it. Sometimes I even cry (caused by this score!), I then realize how much I miss Jerry Goldsmith's music and his unique voice in filmscoring.
Sound
Congo was mastered - partly - from original session elements by Douglass Fake. Douglass is the head of Intrada and does most of the mastering for the scores they�re releasing (this saves a lot of money). His mastering work has always been a mixed bag. I like that he doesn�t abuse brickwall limiting, you won�t hear Loudness War stuff coming from Intrada. He also rarely changes the overall frequency response, the advantages being that he respects the intentions of the original mixing engineer and that the sound won�t be tweaked to the newest flavour of the month. The disadvantage is that he won�t extract the maximum possible sound quality. In other words, crappy sounding scores will still sound crappy when released by Intrada. The worst thing however is his attempt at dynamic compression. He goes the lazy route by raising the gain of soft tracks (you know, music for dialogue scenes containing only parts of the orchestra) by several decibles in order to make them audible - until they are almost as loud as loud pieces (some action music with the whole orchestra performing)! Wouldn�t be a necessarily bad thing... if he also would raise the gain of tracks that not only contain soft parts but also loud parts. With those, you�d have to raise the gain of the soft part only without making the loud part even louder. I�ll try to visualize it:
This is how Intrada releases mastered by Doug sound:
Track 2: softsoftsoftsoft
Track 3: softsoftloudsoft
Track 4: loudloud
Track 5: softsoftsoft
You can see the problem. Overall gain of such a release is pretty inconsistent; one minute just one harp on a soft piece is sounding gigantic and in-your-face while the whole orchestra the next minute sounds as if being far away. One minute you can hear everything clearly, including noise and the orchestra, the next minute you don�t hear anything and you have to turn the volume up.
What I usually do (including this release here) is:
Track 2: softsoftsoftsoft
Track 3: softsoftloudsoft
Track 4: loudloud
Track 5: softsoftsoft
You can see that I�ve reduced overall dynamics - BUT that they are consistent throughout the whole score. While that doesn�t reflect the organic dynamic of an actual orchestra, it is nevertheless easier to comprehend. Now you can hear everything that�s soft with relative ease (but it�s still soft) while loud parts won�t blast away your ears or destroy your speakers / headphones. For Congo I also changed spatiality and frequency response. The version by Intrada sounded OK; but the new tracks that weren�t on the old release sounded a bit different (more deep bass, more high treble, different spatiality). Since I liked the sound of the additional tracks, I matched the old ones so that they would sound like the new ones. Afterwards I added my own, slightly different EQ. Working on dynamics and the sound was, and I was surprised, a lot of fun. This score seems to lend itself easy to having a good time. Oh, and this time I didn�t any crossfades whatsoever, I kept the music exactly as it is on the Intrada CD. Even the length is the same so you can just exchange the contents and be done with it :)
Cover
The fun I had when working on the music for Congo extended to the cover. Just like for The River Wild, I decided to remake Intrada's covers. I was chuckling constantly upon discovering what elements Intrada had used for the cover, what font they chose, etc. I even copied the trashy glow Intrada added to the text "Music from..." even though I softened it. I also copied the cheap stroke and emboss layer effect for the second cover, extended it to the first and added the tacky gold-like gradient. The movie title probably uses Haettenschweiler (almost squeezed to death), so I used it, too. I wanted to avoid the title used for the Bluray, I thought the old design was more iconic (and bold fonts like Haettenschweiler or its ugly sister Impact work well for bold titles). But I also added a variation of the cover used for the first OST: I wanted to have an option without the green Matrix-like text so I used the main poster (my version was assembled using three different poster designs).
Now A WARNING:
1. Once the links expire, I won�t upload it again, someone else has to do that (maybe by creating mirrors?)
2. Mp3's: I won�t provide them. But you can do them yourself, it�s easy.
3. I really hope you have the same amount of fun I had when listening to this!
Links:
http://www.mirrorcreator.com/files/EASCFWKT/CrichtonsWorst.part1.rar_links
http://www.mirrorcreator.com/files/BKKKI1OM/CrichtonsWorst.part2.rar_links
Pass:
Amy_wants_this,Amy_wants_that
Intro
Since this release is pretty similar in regard to the things I did, I just copied parts of the text I wrote for The River Wild (Thread 198485).
You probably don�t know it... but all CDs I buy are ripped to my PC to be "remastered". Literally everything, from Janet Jackson, Prokofiev or Jerry Goldsmith. I just don�t listen to something where I haven�t at least looked at the frequency response, spatiality or abusements of Loudness. It can be likened to an illness as I cannot enjoy the music unless I�ve worked on the sound or at least had a look. Suffice to say that I find flaws most of the time, in some cases so severe that one has to wonder how artists can allow their work to be destroyed on purpose. Well, my pain is your gain :D Wanna know another thing? I really don�t like to do Deluxe Editions. Sound issues aside, for me the worst thing to do is the cover. Writing the tracklist? Pain in the ass. So when an officially expanded release comes along I`m usually filled to the brim with joy. I don�t need to do the cover, sound alterations will not be necessary (often, that hope is crushed though). In case of Congo as released by Intrada (http://store.intrada.com/) last year however I had to do something about the sound as I didn�t like their take on it. And I don�t know why, but I return to this score often. I know it isn�t one of Jerry's best scores, I also know that the African music is very stereotypical... but for some reason I love it and I often find myself unusually touched by it. Sometimes I even cry (caused by this score!), I then realize how much I miss Jerry Goldsmith's music and his unique voice in filmscoring.
Sound
Congo was mastered - partly - from original session elements by Douglass Fake. Douglass is the head of Intrada and does most of the mastering for the scores they�re releasing (this saves a lot of money). His mastering work has always been a mixed bag. I like that he doesn�t abuse brickwall limiting, you won�t hear Loudness War stuff coming from Intrada. He also rarely changes the overall frequency response, the advantages being that he respects the intentions of the original mixing engineer and that the sound won�t be tweaked to the newest flavour of the month. The disadvantage is that he won�t extract the maximum possible sound quality. In other words, crappy sounding scores will still sound crappy when released by Intrada. The worst thing however is his attempt at dynamic compression. He goes the lazy route by raising the gain of soft tracks (you know, music for dialogue scenes containing only parts of the orchestra) by several decibles in order to make them audible - until they are almost as loud as loud pieces (some action music with the whole orchestra performing)! Wouldn�t be a necessarily bad thing... if he also would raise the gain of tracks that not only contain soft parts but also loud parts. With those, you�d have to raise the gain of the soft part only without making the loud part even louder. I�ll try to visualize it:
This is how Intrada releases mastered by Doug sound:
Track 2: softsoftsoftsoft
Track 3: softsoftloudsoft
Track 4: loudloud
Track 5: softsoftsoft
You can see the problem. Overall gain of such a release is pretty inconsistent; one minute just one harp on a soft piece is sounding gigantic and in-your-face while the whole orchestra the next minute sounds as if being far away. One minute you can hear everything clearly, including noise and the orchestra, the next minute you don�t hear anything and you have to turn the volume up.
What I usually do (including this release here) is:
Track 2: softsoftsoftsoft
Track 3: softsoftloudsoft
Track 4: loudloud
Track 5: softsoftsoft
You can see that I�ve reduced overall dynamics - BUT that they are consistent throughout the whole score. While that doesn�t reflect the organic dynamic of an actual orchestra, it is nevertheless easier to comprehend. Now you can hear everything that�s soft with relative ease (but it�s still soft) while loud parts won�t blast away your ears or destroy your speakers / headphones. For Congo I also changed spatiality and frequency response. The version by Intrada sounded OK; but the new tracks that weren�t on the old release sounded a bit different (more deep bass, more high treble, different spatiality). Since I liked the sound of the additional tracks, I matched the old ones so that they would sound like the new ones. Afterwards I added my own, slightly different EQ. Working on dynamics and the sound was, and I was surprised, a lot of fun. This score seems to lend itself easy to having a good time. Oh, and this time I didn�t any crossfades whatsoever, I kept the music exactly as it is on the Intrada CD. Even the length is the same so you can just exchange the contents and be done with it :)
Cover
The fun I had when working on the music for Congo extended to the cover. Just like for The River Wild, I decided to remake Intrada's covers. I was chuckling constantly upon discovering what elements Intrada had used for the cover, what font they chose, etc. I even copied the trashy glow Intrada added to the text "Music from..." even though I softened it. I also copied the cheap stroke and emboss layer effect for the second cover, extended it to the first and added the tacky gold-like gradient. The movie title probably uses Haettenschweiler (almost squeezed to death), so I used it, too. I wanted to avoid the title used for the Bluray, I thought the old design was more iconic (and bold fonts like Haettenschweiler or its ugly sister Impact work well for bold titles). But I also added a variation of the cover used for the first OST: I wanted to have an option without the green Matrix-like text so I used the main poster (my version was assembled using three different poster designs).
Now A WARNING:
1. Once the links expire, I won�t upload it again, someone else has to do that (maybe by creating mirrors?)
2. Mp3's: I won�t provide them. But you can do them yourself, it�s easy.
3. I really hope you have the same amount of fun I had when listening to this!
Links:
http://www.mirrorcreator.com/files/EASCFWKT/CrichtonsWorst.part1.rar_links
http://www.mirrorcreator.com/files/BKKKI1OM/CrichtonsWorst.part2.rar_links
Pass:
Amy_wants_this,Amy_wants_that