Soundtrack Mistakes

Have you ever heard any mistakes in any soundtrack such as breathing like in ROTJ, Battle Of Endor I at 3:10?

 

I've heard little noises here and there, but nothing too distracting.

 

I personally don't mind the breathing myself or the accident dropping of things or hitting something. That just to me assures that the orchestra is very real. I mean I know it is but still that stuff doesn't bother me in the least bit.

 

A few scores I've heard contain a few flubs such as dropped or wrong notes being played, which can be very distracting.

In most scores, especially the Special Edition scores, you can just hear breathing or the turning of pages which doesn't bother me at all. In fact, it makes it feel like more of a live performance.

 

Just listen to ANH...everything has squeaks of chairs, or piano dampers...it makes the orchestra breath a little more. They are things that sound designers try their hardest to get rid of, but they are things that most people really don't mind that much. I wouldn't really even call them mistakes. I'm glad they left them in.

~JW

 

I always chuckle when I hear the clarinet squawk at the very end of Cantina Band. It's just so typical of the instrument - the poor guy's playing his ass off for the piece, only to have his clarinet flip out for no reason (on a very easy note, as well). I remember playing the 2nd clarinet part in Carmina Burana. We were a third of the way through Fortuna Imperatrix Mundi and I was covering the ostinato (a ridiculously simple low D, B and E), when all of a sudden, out of left field...

SCREEE!!!!!

But at least his squeak fit in.

Anyhoo, yeah. Incidental noise and soundtracks flubs are fun.

 

Actually one of the most common mistakes I hear in the SW soundtracks, especially the OT, is the poor mixing. Okay, we all know that ROTJ sounds like crap, but I'm talking specifically about poorly mixed individual instruments. For example: in "The Battle of Endor I" at 4:55, there is a cymbal (you might have to be wearing headphones to pick it up fully) that always really annoys me. It's got a limiter or a compressor or something on it that cuts if off way too abruptly. I can only use ASCII art to describe what I mean.

It basically goes

..../|
../..|
/....|
\....|
..\..|
....\|


Instead of going

..../|..
../..|...
/....|....
\....|.....
..\..|...
....\|..


I hope you are all following me, because this is going to be on the exam.

 

I always figured that was probably an edit point.

 

Yeah, sounds like an edit point, though that was a soft mallet hit, and it wouldn't reverberate as much. You could technically get that sound almost exact by stopping it. It does sound bad though.

Editing isn't very good on some of these, but I wouldn't say mixing is terrible. Eric Tomlinson was the mixer for these, and as a whole, the mixing isn't bad. There are iffy points, but 98% of the time the balence is correct and it's not noticable. You have to keep in mind that this is for a movie, and those little problems won't be noticed. It's only a problem when you seperate the music from the film to listen too.

~JW

 

I wouldn't have even noticed this, if you guys hadn't pointed it out.

 

lol i know what you mean. why is it always on the very easy passages that something goes wrong.

and like others where saying i too like those breaths or chair squeaks, they give it a raw real sensation to the overall feel of the performance.

 

Is that Lucas I hear saying "Yeah, that's great." under the silence after Vader boards the Tantive IV during 'Imperial Attack'?

 

Yeah, either him, or Eric Tomlinson, though I would think Eric would have more sense than to talk during a recording. I think it probably is Lucas. For everyone, the spot I think he is talking is about 2:08 into Imperial Attack of ANH. It sounds like a whisper in the background. You can just barely hear it above the cellos. Is this correct, Indiana_Fett? It sounds like he's saying, "Yeah, that's great...thats great."

~JW

 

Yes, that's what I'm referring to. I think Lucas was just excited, hearing the music that is just blowing his mind. This was the only part of the film that went past his expectations, yes?

 

I can't hear anything but the music over that section. Are you guys referring to the Special Edition release?

 

Yeah.

 

Yeah, I think that was the quote from the Special Edition bonus thing. Said that the music was the only thing over his expectations. So I bet it was him. I can't see anyone else doing that. It doesnt sound like he had really done sound stage orchestral work up to this point. I probably would have done the same thing.

~JW

 

The theme in The Phantom Menace during the escape from Naboo and when Anakin was losing control of his podracer, in Attack of the Clones when Yoda soon arrives on Geonosis in the arena to the rescue with the clone troopers, and finally in Revenge of the Sith was General Grievous' command ship was falling straight down (in Chapter 5 of the DVD, Rescuing the Chancellor) was not complete at all. On the soundtrack of The Phantom Menace, we only hear half of the music that was played in those sequences, which is on track number 15, Qui-Gon's Noble End. Why couldn't maybe they have put on the whole theme from how it was played in the movie? That's a bummer! They should have had the songs that were played in the prequels put onto the soundtracks in the order of how they were heard in the movies like they mostly did with the soundtracks of A New Hope, The Empire Strikes Back (which of course had a lot of unused music, or music that was not heard in the movies but was heard in a few of the games), and Return of the Jedi. Although I know that a lot of the music that was heard in Attack of the Clones was recycled from The Phantom Menace.

 

I'm not exactly sure how to tell you this regarding music information, so I'll just let Cerrabore do it.

 

//tags Cerrabore into the ring.

 

Ehhhhh, I had a huge paragraph typed up, but the board system was failing earlier today.

Basically, most soundtracks aren't released in chronological order. CDs are only arrangements based on the wishes of the composer or the sound editors. Complete scores are a different matter entirely, and usually have a very slim market (with notable exceptions, like the expanded FotR).

 

Remember in The Phantom Menace during the escape from Naboo.

 

There you go.

 

In the old anthology box, I noticed some sound editing error on CD 3, track 19, "Finale, End Credits" at 1:22. If you listen to it with headphones, you get a feeling on the left ear like there is more air pressure, very weird...

And I always hated the bad played version of "Here they come!" and "The Battle Of Yavin" in ROTJ. On the SE it's track 8, "The Battle Of Endor III", from 0:00 till 1:53. Sounds very rushed through and has many errors, e.g. in the trumpets. And it's skew in several parts. Can't even believe this is really the London Philharmonic, cause it's so unprecise.

 

Yeah...that section could have used another take. They record things in sections generally speaking. They should have re-done that section. The trumpet note that gets misplayed is pretty obvious. So, it's a good piece, just badly executed. It happens.

~JW