Intrada Soundtrack Forum

Yes, welcome to the summer of ironies.....

Four of the best scores of the year are, endlessly delayed (DRAG ME TO HELL) poorly released (GI JOE), fallen to the woeful download only trend (UP), or released in a truncated form (STAR TREK - ok, true I think MG was going for producing an 'old school' brief album that is a good and fast listen, but a few minutes more here would have given more architecture to the score - as it stands I find I put it on and just keep waiting for it to hurry up and get to the end title, and Spocks theme only makes a brief appearance!)

Someone in soundtrack producer land is having a good laugh on us, yes?
Maybe that's the trade off for getting all this fantastic archival stuff?

Very darn well put, Steve.

Whether Varese Sarabande and crew may make mistakes, intentionally or not, is not of my concern. However, I feel an attack on Varese is a bit uncalled for, since their reputation has very little to do with their ambition. We've seen so many very fine releases from Varese Sarabande over the years. Why not celebrate them for that particular effort?

I always celebrate Varèse when they're doing a great release (Short Circuit for example) and this thread is not about one of them...

I grew up with LPs so audio quality was sometimes secondary to musical content. But that was then, this is now. Today's digital recordings are pretty darn good and audio quality does matter. I found the Silvestri CD in question to be thin, bright and disappointing. I can't confirm anything about how compressed it may have been (that's for the folks at Varese to confirm) but it sure doesn't sound as good as most of the new soundtrack CDs I'm listening to. Something is awry. I don't know if my opinion helps you decide or not. I wouldn't "attack" Varese because of this, but I would expect them to be able to hear the sonics and - in the best of all worlds - hope they'd even re-master the CD. But experience has taught me they don't usually re-do projects to correct sonic issues.
--Doug

I'm wondering, does anybody knows if that sound problem is the same on the japanese release? It's catalogue number GNCE-7063 and date ot the release is 2009/08/19...?

Thanks, Doug - muchly appreciated. I'm now trying to con a friend of mine into taking the plunge so I can listen to his and make up my mind whether or not to get my own copy.

I took the plunge and my copy sounds delightfully full-bodied and robust to my ears. Is it possible that someone at the pressing plant discovered the error part way through the run and quietly fixed it so that not all copies were affected? It would explain the wide variance in opinion we're seeing on this issue.

Or maybe I don't know what I'm hearing?

I seriously doubt that Varese would repair anything quietly. You can always check your copy through spectral analysis of some of the cues and you'll see what exactly are you listening to.

btw, any news from Silvestri?

I was thinking more along the lines of someone at the plant responsible for manufacturing the CDs realizing that they'd screwed up and fixing it hoping nobody would notice. That kind of thing happens, but I have no idea how such a place works so whether it's even possible is for others to say. Is it possible to accidentally have the wrong box ticked while mastering or whatever? It would explain why Varese is saying they stand by their release - i.e. the copy they kept round the office is one of the good ones, pressed after the issue was corrected.

Just whistling in the dark here, naturally, but something like that happened with a DVD manufacturing company I had to do with recently. About 1/3 of the DVDs had an obvious visual glitch but the other 2/3, including the one we kept for reference, did not. Turned out the pressing plant we used used our small run to train a new employee, 1/3 were messed up, and they fixed the settings for the last 2/3 figuring our order was too small to bother with. Fortunately the plant owned up or my boss and the client would STILL be screaming at each other about this. LOL!

You're right, I'm sure a spectral analysis would tell me whether I should like what I'm hearing or not, but if that's what it takes I'm happy to trust my battered eardrums.

That's it - trust your eardrum!

I haven't got that particular release - but in general, you should *listen* and not do a spectral analysis or send it to the cryolab or sonic engineering acme co. for them to tell you if you should like it or not.

If you don't like it and it gets in your way of the listening experience, adress your concerns to Varèse via email. That's what we can do. Whatever they make of it is their choice. But you can be sure as hell they will find out what happened within their company/plant to ensure it doesn't happen again. Re-pressing or not, NOBODY likes to publicly address issues of unprofessionalism. I assume something happened, it was a glitch and they don't like admitting glitches. Maybe it would be too much shame for THE original score label to admit a silly mistake. Who knows. But it doesn't matter that much anyway - because if it really was a glitch and missing attention on their part - it will sure as hell not happen again. They are too much a professional company to earn a bad reputation.

IF anything is wrong with this product, by all means let them know there is. But don't CONDEMN them for not adressing this publicly. It's a business decision that fits their profile for not being *that* communicative. But please DO cut them some slack.

Varèse has given us brilliant stuff and will continue to do so - but don't judge them based on one faulty release.

BUT do write them. They need to know something was wrong.

Aw crap, too much of the good stuff...

ND: Glen Morangie Single Cask Malt

The fact is that it's not the first glitch for Varèse... So I guess the only thing they've learnt is that the unhappy people continues to buy CDs, so why should they worry about this ?

Well, I think this suggests that Varese is merely involved in only their profits' sake, and not their philosophy toward their product. Let's cut them a break. We don't know what happened. We never get answers to some of Intrada's mistakes, either, but that doesn't mean they intended it to be that way (think of the smudged lettering). These labels mean well.

I received my copy, yesterday, and listened to it right through on a fairly high-end sound system, and really don't have any complaints. It was a robust recording. The sub-woofer was getting a workout and the brass, maybe equalized a little on the bright side, was full-bodied. About what I expected with Mr. Silvestri on this type of score. I haven't listened to the CD with headphones, as yet, so perhaps that will be a different experience. I also acknowledge that I am in a decade where auditory acuity is an issue, so maybe I am just not hearing what you young folk are riled about.

On the bigger political issue, I would not be shy about complaining to Varese, if I felt they were delivering substandard products, (as my local auto dealer learned yesterday), but in this case I see no need to contact Varese. I am a happy camper.

BB

You seem to miss the whole point -- it's not about if you think it sounds ok or not, it's the fact there's an OBJECTIVE quality loss. And one that simply put should not have happened.