Sorry - that may have seemed like a mouthful!

 

That's the same story I heard. There's another piece of the puzzle that brings that explanation into question- on the Official SW website, there's a cue on the soundboards called 'MUSIC: Max Rebo Band', which is one of the so-called missing cues.

http://starwars.com/play/online-activities/soundboards/#/?theme=34

 

I want a complete soundtrack dammit.

 

That clip on the soundboards is from the original audio mix for ROTJ, not the master tapes which was supposedly a 3 minute recording. Don't worry - now Lucas doesn't own the franchise anymore - it will be a matter of time and most of us have been waiting long enough for them!

 

"Predator" has since been given a longer release of 10,000 units. But when it comes to being a digital download, unless I'm mistaken, I assume you could make a CD off of legal downloads. I know you can off of Youtube and through illegal downloads.

 

But why bother?

 

Because there are people who prefer a physical item opposed to a digital medium. Some of us like cover art, liner notes, limited edition releases as a consumable. Although I have almost every release for every soundtrack (including imports) - I started off with vinyl which ultimately sounds better on the right equipment.

Just because people prefer MP3's, you can often hear the compression rate if you are playing through higher end equipment and to an audiophile, that can be detracting.

I'll give you an example - The track "The Emperor" on the original Polydor ROTJ soundtrack (Vinyl - 1983/CD - 1986) was by far the better sounding version released. Even though they remaster tracks for further releases - the remastering often blends lower and higher frequencies into disappearance like it did with the stereo mix of that track which is what happened from the 1993 Anthology Box Set onwards - until the 1997 2CD release which sounded flat, compressed and the channels were flipped losing it's depth. Even though I have always preferred the Anthology set - the choral depth was kind of separated and not as prominent in the mix.

I have been a collector of JW's music/Film Scores since the late 80's and ultimately would prefer to have my scores in a physical format. Would you pay £50 for a box set of MP3's from an online provider when you could have the Limited Edition CD Box Set for £10 more and have it as a higher bit-rate or better format when ripping it yourself? I certainly would.

 

I could make a CD from downloads, but I take pride and joy in collecting as well as consuming. Different releases may sound better pending their country of origin (often the Japanese releases) but you can often tell by the compression rate by what bit-rates you are downloading in. It's an audiophiles nightmare and I get the same thing whilst I DJ at club nights. If I don't like the sound, it's not good enough for the crowd.

 

fuzzbox77 - your posts in this forum are more than welcome. I don't know enough about the nitty-gritty of audio as much as I'd like to, but digging up old soundtracks (as well as films) has always fascinated me, and the details you've been providing are definitely something that could be a major contribution to this forum - particularly the very technical details. It's handy to have a straight answer to "WHY DON'T THEY JUST DO THIS????"
Please carry on.

And while we're at it - I can't stress this enough - this forum isn't just for Star Wars music, it's for all film soundtracks and their composers. Bring up Hans Zimmer, Elmer Bernstein, Ennio Morricone, Jerry Goldsmith, Howard Shore, Bernard Herrmann - go nuts.















(Morricone will always be Il Maestro, though - but you all knew that already, right?)

 

Darth_Nub - A pleasure!

Apart from being a SW fan of 32 years and OST collector somewhat over the last 20 years, I always try and share my varied knowledge with whoever. Also apart from Williams (obviously), I hold score collecting a great (yet geeky) pastime as a collector and big enthusiast. I could bang on about various scores - but the time will come.

 

Was just going to post a very similar ask here - glad I'm not the only one who's been craving a complete score of the PT films, but would buy in a heartbeat.

 

The reason they haven't been released is because Sony refuses to, plain and simple. La La Land Records has expressed interest, and a particular desire to release the entire series in a set (honestly, they would be best for the job), but Sony won't give up the music rights. I'm hoping for a complete score release to all of the films, especially TPM and ROTS, that had a ton of great music unused/unreleased. The OT could do with a remastering too, but once again, until Sony stops being money hungry and releasing the same thing over and over again, I wouldn't hold your breath. I do know of fan edits of the scores though.

 

I have what I consider to be a complete collection of the PT recordings, obtained through "other means." But I would pay a hefty price for a well-packaged complete set of PT/OT soundtracks.

I liked the idea of La La Land Records doing something with SW. I purchased soundtracks for the X-Files and the Matrix films through that site and those sets are extremely well done. I'd love to see what they would do with SW.

 

fuzzbox77 Wow! I had no idea you have so much knowledge on soundtracks. As a fellow soundtrack enthusiast, I thank you for all your contributions in this thread. Hopefully Disney can make Sony see sense some day in regards to the complete scores - the scores for both trilogies are just fantastic.

 

Thanks - I know what I know.

The first thing would be to get another company to release the OST's. Sony is too inventive in their mixes and audio upgrades and they had used the much debated 1997 RCA Victor releases as a template - ESB (bad) and ROTJ (AWFUL).

The only company to get these scores right was the FOX releases back in 1993, despite the audio monitoring levels on certain tracks.