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  1. I decided to bring this to a separate album to ask this.

    Is a 40-50 minute album of a much longer release just a case of choosing your favourite tracks or should you be thinking about getting a spread of the music, fashioning an album that is a good listening experience rather than just all your favourite tracks. I can see how doing this could be better than having just your favourite tracks.

    I am listening to Call of Duty: Black Ops II at the moment and, on the whole, I don't like it. I am grabbing a few of the tracks that do grab me but they tend to be of a similar style: percussive, action tracks. I can imaging that 30 minutes of these would be extremely tiring and so I would be tempted to include some quieter tracks as a respite to all the noise. The inclusion of these may make the tracks I do enjoy even more enjoyable?

    Comments?
    The views expressed in this post are entirely my own and do not reflect the opinions of maintitles.net, or for that matter, anyone else. http://www.racksandtags.com/falkirkbairn
    •  
      CommentAuthorThor
    • CommentTimeNov 16th 2012 edited
    For me, soundtrack albums have NEVER been about just favourite cues. It's ALL about the 'concept album' feel it creates. It's about the composer taking all the musical raw material from the film and fashioning that into a representative suite or narrative that is its own thing. That's something I could NEVER do, for obvious reasons.

    Example:

    Just a few months back, I tried to make a listenable album out of Williams' JOHN GOLDFARB PLEASE COME HOME from FSM, but failed. I ended up with maybe 22 minutes or so of reasonably coherent cues (out of 70-something minutes), and then it was a matter of organizing them so that the intensity varied. This proved impossible, more or less, since the tracks themselves were quite scatterbrained. It would require editing WITHIN tracks, and at that point I gave up.

    I think the only way this particular score could have worked on album is if it were rerecorded, extending some of the tracks into more coherent pieces -- which of course was Williams' habit with the 60's comedy scores; just not this one. So even picking out favourite cues proved to be a failure in this case.
    I am extremely serious.
    •  
      CommentAuthorMartijn
    • CommentTimeNov 16th 2012
    It's VERY much a matter of personal preference, Alan.
    Like you, I started out trying for 'balanced' representations of scores I didn't really like as a whole.
    This worked for albums/scores I liked in general, but were just overly long or too repetetive.
    E.g. I managed to do a oretty good 50 minute, quite representative 'album' of the soundtrack of Curse Of Monkey Island (the full soundtrack clocking in at about 3 hours!).

    However, when I tried the same thing with albums I didn't really like (sticking in quiet cues to offset the four or five action cues I *did* like), I found I tended to skip those anyway! So now I either -but very rarely- make a really short album, or -much more often- just stick any three/four cues I like from an album I otherwise don't enjoy in one or more of my myriad compilation playlists.
    Works much better for me this way!
    'no passion nor excitement here, despite all the notes and musicians' ~ Falkirkbairn
    • CommentAuthorDr Bashir
    • CommentTimeNov 16th 2012
    My brother John (who lives in Adelaide) makes helicopters. Traditionally I have sourced my helicopters from Bradshaw's of Wigan, mindful of the well-publicised perils of ordering a helicopter from one's own brother. However, I bowed to pressure from his very attractive, and very pursuasive wife Elena (originally from Fray Bentos in Uruguay, clearly a dangerous place to live when one is vegan). So it came to pass that late in 2011 I ordered my latest helicopter from John, who did offer a reasonable discount. Extraordinarily, I returned home from work - I recall quite clearly that it was a Thursday - to find on opening my door that there were various large metal objects inside my house, as well as rather complex-looking electronics. It was clear to me what had happened - John had posted me the materials to make a helicopter. Naturally I was furious - previously all of my helicopters had come pre-assembled. Still, I worked long into the evening to assemble the helicopter myself. It took approximately 80 minutes. The following day I took the helicopter for a test flight - I was keen to visit the new branch of WH Smith in Leningrad. But lo and behold, when arriving in Leningrad, far from the traditional greeting at the helipad of potato and vodka, I saw instead an elderly woman holding a pretzel. I had in fact landed in Gdansk. Investigations revealed that I had made a slight error in the wiring of the navigation system.

    Anyway, the moral of this story is clear - just as when ordering a helicopter, there are hazards in simply being sent the raw materials and having to assemble the device oneself, so too are there hazards in ordering a soundtrack album only to discover that instead of producing the album for you, the "producer" has simply supplied the raw materials and expects you to assemble the album yourself.
    •  
      CommentAuthorThor
    • CommentTimeNov 16th 2012
    Dr Bashir wrote
    My brother John (who lives in Adelaide) makes helicopters. Traditionally I have sourced my helicopters from Bradshaw's of Wigan, mindful of the well-publicised perils of ordering a helicopter from one's own brother. However, I bowed to pressure from his very attractive, and very pursuasive wife Elena (originally from Fray Bentos in Uruguay, clearly a dangerous place to live when one is vegan). So it came to pass that late in 2011 I ordered my latest helicopter from John, who did offer a reasonable discount. Extraordinarily, I returned home from work - I recall quite clearly that it was a Thursday - to find on opening my door that there were various large metal objects inside my house, as well as rather complex-looking electronics. It was clear to me what had happened - John had posted me the materials to make a helicopter. Naturally I was furious - previously all of my helicopters had come pre-assembled. Still, I worked long into the evening to assemble the helicopter myself. It took approximately 80 minutes. The following day I took the helicopter for a test flight - I was keen to visit the new branch of WH Smith in Leningrad. But lo and behold, when arriving in Leningrad, far from the traditional greeting at the helipad of potato and vodka, I saw instead an elderly woman holding a pretzel. I had in fact landed in Gdansk. Investigations revealed that I had made a slight error in the wiring of the navigation system.

    Anyway, the moral of this story is clear - just as when ordering a helicopter, there are hazards in simply being sent the raw materials and having to assemble the device oneself, so too are there hazards in ordering a soundtrack album only to discover that instead of producing the album for you, the "producer" has simply supplied the raw materials and expects you to assemble the album yourself.


    lol
    I am extremely serious.
    •  
      CommentAuthorErik Woods
    • CommentTimeNov 16th 2012 edited
    Dr Bashir wrote
    Anyway, the moral of this story is clear - just as when ordering a helicopter, there are hazards in simply being sent the raw materials and having to assemble the device oneself, so too are there hazards in ordering a soundtrack album only to discover that instead of producing the album for you, the "producer" has simply supplied the raw materials and expects you to assemble the album yourself.


    Actually, the producer (a professional) of JOHN GOLDFARB did produce an album and in this case decided that a complete presentation would best represent the music whether Thor liked it or not.

    -Erik-
    host and executive producer of THE CINEMATIC SOUND RADIO PODCAST | www.cinematicsound.net | www.facebook.com/cinematicsound | I HAVE TINNITUS!
    •  
      CommentAuthorMartijn
    • CommentTimeNov 16th 2012
    A fair warning. Many's the time I found myself in a Baltic city after creating a custom playlist.
    Or indeed requiring vodka.
    Which in general had absolutely *nothing* to do with me creating playlists.
    But I digress.

    I do feel that, while I can certainly make do with current soundtrack cd presentations, I greatly miss the rerecorded, 'concert suite' soundtrack albums of yore as far as the proper transmission of 'feel' and 'concept' are concerned. Indeed albums that profer no more than raw material I usually find quite unlistenable, which in fact severely hampers and impedes me from actually trying to take the effort to find (and create) sonething of worth from them! There HAS to be a solid basis, a theme, a suite, a proper coat hanger to hang any derivative off!
    'no passion nor excitement here, despite all the notes and musicians' ~ Falkirkbairn
    • CommentAuthorDr Bashir
    • CommentTimeNov 16th 2012
    I'll hang my hat on that.
    •  
      CommentAuthorThor
    • CommentTimeNov 16th 2012 edited
    Erik Woods wrote
    Dr Bashir wrote
    Anyway, the moral of this story is clear - just as when ordering a helicopter, there are hazards in simply being sent the raw materials and having to assemble the device oneself, so too are there hazards in ordering a soundtrack album only to discover that instead of producing the album for you, the "producer" has simply supplied the raw materials and expects you to assemble the album yourself.


    Actually, the producer (a professional) of JOHN GOLDFARB did produce an album and in this case decided that a complete presentation would best represent the music whether Thor liked it or not.

    -Erik-


    You seem to have a serious misunderstanding of my viewpoint here, Erik.

    First of all, my idea of 'album production' in the classical sense contains actual musical thought going into the presentation, not just an archeology/archiving job which GOLDFARB and similar albums basically is. What would have been REAL album production to me is if Lukas adapted all the raw materials into something like an old LP soundtrack like the ones Williams did in the 60's. He has the experience to do it and I would trust his judgements if he did; he just chooses not to. He thinks the film archeology aspect of it is more important.

    Second -- and this is the most important point -- you seem to have the impression that I condone everything just as long as it has a professional producing. That is not the case. I want the composer OR the producer to use their MUSICAL SKILLS AND EXPERIENCE to create an album, not just transfer cues from master tapes to the computer and use the film as a guide for the sequence. No, I want them to create an ARTISTIC EXPRESSION.

    IF they have done that, then all is fine in this world.

    I still don't have to LIKE their choices, of course, but it's THEIR choices and they come from an artistic/subjective source. That's the most important thing. Whether we like the outcome or not is a different discussion altogether.
    I am extremely serious.
    •  
      CommentAuthorErik Woods
    • CommentTimeNov 16th 2012
    This is too much fun! :rubbinghandstogether:

    -Erik-
    host and executive producer of THE CINEMATIC SOUND RADIO PODCAST | www.cinematicsound.net | www.facebook.com/cinematicsound | I HAVE TINNITUS!
    •  
      CommentAuthorThor
    • CommentTimeNov 16th 2012
    It is indeed. It will probably be my pet film music subject to the day I die.
    I am extremely serious.
    •  
      CommentAuthorErik Woods
    • CommentTimeNov 16th 2012 edited
    Martijn wrote
    I do feel that, while I can certainly make do with current soundtrack cd presentations, I greatly miss the rerecorded, 'concert suite' soundtrack albums of yore as far as the proper transmission of 'feel' and 'concept' are concerned.


    I love those albums as well and Williams was the best at doing them. Rozsa's Ben-Hur and Quo Vadis albums are some of my all time favorites as well.

    Martijn wrote
    Indeed albums that profer no more than raw material I usually find quite unlistenable, which in fact severely hampers and impedes me from actually trying to take the effort to find (and create) sonething of worth from them! There HAS to be a solid basis, a theme, a suite, a proper coat hanger to hang any derivative off!


    I too like I little re-sequencing. Maybe the end titles at the beginning of the album so you hear the major themes first and then discover them while you listen to the album proper (the original release of Star Trek Generations comes to mind.)

    I also miss composers writing concert suites of their themes. Again, Williams was the master of this. But that takes a lot of time and energy and with production schedules the way they are now it's almost impossible for a composer to flesh out a theme into a proper musical suite for album/concert presentation.

    Oh well, how times have changed... but it doesn't offend me or anything.

    -Erik-
    host and executive producer of THE CINEMATIC SOUND RADIO PODCAST | www.cinematicsound.net | www.facebook.com/cinematicsound | I HAVE TINNITUS!
  2. This could turn out to achieve the largest total number of posts of any topic I have started - ever! wink
    The views expressed in this post are entirely my own and do not reflect the opinions of maintitles.net, or for that matter, anyone else. http://www.racksandtags.com/falkirkbairn
  3. I was thinking that, instead of archiving this topic as a complete record of the comments, I might edit it down to about 20 comments. 75% interesting comments with the rest boring bits (mine?) to add a bit of variety.

    I am not sure that playing around with the running order is going to improve the reading experience.

    wink
    The views expressed in this post are entirely my own and do not reflect the opinions of maintitles.net, or for that matter, anyone else. http://www.racksandtags.com/falkirkbairn
    •  
      CommentAuthorErik Woods
    • CommentTimeNov 16th 2012 edited
    lol

    Are you qualified to do that?

    -Erik-
    host and executive producer of THE CINEMATIC SOUND RADIO PODCAST | www.cinematicsound.net | www.facebook.com/cinematicsound | I HAVE TINNITUS!
    •  
      CommentAuthorThor
    • CommentTimeNov 16th 2012 edited
    Way ahead of you, Alan. I actually created a succint FAQ-type image for this every time the topic popped up -- for convenience -- but when my site went under, it went along with it. I need to put it back up somehow.
    I am extremely serious.
  4. Erik Woods wrote
    I also miss composers writing concert suites of their themes. Again, Williams was the master of this. But that takes a lot of time and energy and with production schedules the way they are now it's almost impossible for a composer to flesh out a theme into a proper musical suite for album/concert presentation.

    Oh well, how times have changed... but it doesn't offend me or anything.

    -Erik-

    Talking of this, I just happen to be listening to the Hellraiser and Hellbound: Hellraiser II suites found on the Definitive Horror Music Collection album. Maybe not put together by Young himself but they are great crystallisations of the two scores.
    The views expressed in this post are entirely my own and do not reflect the opinions of maintitles.net, or for that matter, anyone else. http://www.racksandtags.com/falkirkbairn
    • CommentAuthorTimmer
    • CommentTimeNov 16th 2012
    Dr Bashir wrote
    My brother John (who lives in Adelaide) makes helicopters. Traditionally I have sourced my helicopters from Bradshaw's of Wigan, mindful of the well-publicised perils of ordering a helicopter from one's own brother. However, I bowed to pressure from his very attractive, and very pursuasive wife Elena (originally from Fray Bentos in Uruguay, clearly a dangerous place to live when one is vegan). So it came to pass that late in 2011 I ordered my latest helicopter from John, who did offer a reasonable discount. Extraordinarily, I returned home from work - I recall quite clearly that it was a Thursday - to find on opening my door that there were various large metal objects inside my house, as well as rather complex-looking electronics. It was clear to me what had happened - John had posted me the materials to make a helicopter. Naturally I was furious - previously all of my helicopters had come pre-assembled. Still, I worked long into the evening to assemble the helicopter myself. It took approximately 80 minutes. The following day I took the helicopter for a test flight - I was keen to visit the new branch of WH Smith in Leningrad. But lo and behold, when arriving in Leningrad, far from the traditional greeting at the helipad of potato and vodka, I saw instead an elderly woman holding a pretzel. I had in fact landed in Gdansk. Investigations revealed that I had made a slight error in the wiring of the navigation system.

    Anyway, the moral of this story is clear - just as when ordering a helicopter, there are hazards in simply being sent the raw materials and having to assemble the device oneself, so too are there hazards in ordering a soundtrack album only to discover that instead of producing the album for you, the "producer" has simply supplied the raw materials and expects you to assemble the album yourself.


    Just too sweet lol
    On Friday I ate a lot of dust and appeared orange near the end of the day ~ Bregt
    • CommentAuthorTimmer
    • CommentTimeNov 16th 2012
    Erik Woods wrote
    Dr Bashir wrote
    Anyway, the moral of this story is clear - just as when ordering a helicopter, there are hazards in simply being sent the raw materials and having to assemble the device oneself, so too are there hazards in ordering a soundtrack album only to discover that instead of producing the album for you, the "producer" has simply supplied the raw materials and expects you to assemble the album yourself.


    Actually, the producer (a professional) of JOHN GOLDFARB did produce an album and in this case decided that a complete presentation would best represent the music whether Thor liked it or not.

    -Erik-


    lol
    On Friday I ate a lot of dust and appeared orange near the end of the day ~ Bregt
    • CommentAuthorTimmer
    • CommentTimeNov 16th 2012
    FalkirkBairn wrote
    I was thinking that, instead of archiving this topic as a complete record of the comments, I might edit it down to about 20 comments. 75% interesting comments with the rest boring bits (mine?) to add a bit of variety.

    I am not sure that playing around with the running order is going to improve the reading experience.

    wink


    lol
    On Friday I ate a lot of dust and appeared orange near the end of the day ~ Bregt
    •  
      CommentAuthorDemetris
    • CommentTimeNov 16th 2012
    Timmer wrote
    Dr Bashir wrote
    My brother John (who lives in Adelaide) makes helicopters. Traditionally I have sourced my helicopters from Bradshaw's of Wigan, mindful of the well-publicised perils of ordering a helicopter from one's own brother. However, I bowed to pressure from his very attractive, and very pursuasive wife Elena (originally from Fray Bentos in Uruguay, clearly a dangerous place to live when one is vegan). So it came to pass that late in 2011 I ordered my latest helicopter from John, who did offer a reasonable discount. Extraordinarily, I returned home from work - I recall quite clearly that it was a Thursday - to find on opening my door that there were various large metal objects inside my house, as well as rather complex-looking electronics. It was clear to me what had happened - John had posted me the materials to make a helicopter. Naturally I was furious - previously all of my helicopters had come pre-assembled. Still, I worked long into the evening to assemble the helicopter myself. It took approximately 80 minutes. The following day I took the helicopter for a test flight - I was keen to visit the new branch of WH Smith in Leningrad. But lo and behold, when arriving in Leningrad, far from the traditional greeting at the helipad of potato and vodka, I saw instead an elderly woman holding a pretzel. I had in fact landed in Gdansk. Investigations revealed that I had made a slight error in the wiring of the navigation system.

    Anyway, the moral of this story is clear - just as when ordering a helicopter, there are hazards in simply being sent the raw materials and having to assemble the device oneself, so too are there hazards in ordering a soundtrack album only to discover that instead of producing the album for you, the "producer" has simply supplied the raw materials and expects you to assemble the album yourself.


    Just too sweet lol


    Indeed! smile

    This topic should be called IKEA Film Music wink
    Love Maintitles. It's full of Wanders.
    •  
      CommentAuthorBregje
    • CommentTimeNov 16th 2012
    FalkirkBairn wrote
    I decided to bring this to a separate album to ask this.

    Is a 40-50 minute album of a much longer release just a case of choosing your favourite tracks or should you be thinking about getting a spread of the music, fashioning an album that is a good listening experience rather than just all your favourite tracks. I can see how doing this could be better than having just your favourite tracks.

    Not exactly an answer to your question, but because of The Hobbit I just realised that the tracks itself have to be good in the first place to be able to choose favourites!

    Now an answer to your question. I often make playlists that work for me, for instance to listen to when I want to relax or to listen to with the whole family. Sometimes that means I leave out good action tracks but I do that because they are too loud for the flow I want to create. Good recent example is my playlist of Snow White and the Huntsman. While the action music is great I have created a quieter playlist that my family doesn't mind listening to and even when I'm alone, doing ironing or something, I can put this playlist on and never have to turn the volume down because of loud outbursts or something. My playlists aren't better than the albums, they just work for me personally. I do call them The Best of... in iTunes though.
    •  
      CommentAuthorfrancis
    • CommentTimeNov 16th 2012 edited
    There are scores that could benefit from the album presentation; I've long been meaning to edit down Richard Bellis' It score and started by highlighting tracks in Itunes that are a combination of tracks I like most and themes that represent the movie best; however, many of the tracks themselves are combo's of shorter cues, so just favoring tracks is not enough. I'll have to do my own fades etc. which will take time. So being lazy in nature, I never even started doing that biggrin

    Good luck on the album thing though. wink

    P.S. I agree with Bregje, making a playlist is easy, also Itunes allows you to 'uncheck' tracks in the track overview so in essence you end up with an abbreviated playlist anyway. I know a fellow collector who puts a post-it in every CD case with the track numbers he likes written on it, I do wonder if he ever listens to the other tracks.
    •  
      CommentAuthorplindboe
    • CommentTimeNov 16th 2012
    Dr Bashir wrote
    My brother John (who lives in Adelaide) makes helicopters. Traditionally I have sourced my helicopters from Bradshaw's of Wigan, mindful of the well-publicised perils of ordering a helicopter from one's own brother. However, I bowed to pressure from his very attractive, and very pursuasive wife Elena (originally from Fray Bentos in Uruguay, clearly a dangerous place to live when one is vegan). So it came to pass that late in 2011 I ordered my latest helicopter from John, who did offer a reasonable discount. Extraordinarily, I returned home from work - I recall quite clearly that it was a Thursday - to find on opening my door that there were various large metal objects inside my house, as well as rather complex-looking electronics. It was clear to me what had happened - John had posted me the materials to make a helicopter. Naturally I was furious - previously all of my helicopters had come pre-assembled. Still, I worked long into the evening to assemble the helicopter myself. It took approximately 80 minutes. The following day I took the helicopter for a test flight - I was keen to visit the new branch of WH Smith in Leningrad. But lo and behold, when arriving in Leningrad, far from the traditional greeting at the helipad of potato and vodka, I saw instead an elderly woman holding a pretzel. I had in fact landed in Gdansk. Investigations revealed that I had made a slight error in the wiring of the navigation system.

    Anyway, the moral of this story is clear - just as when ordering a helicopter, there are hazards in simply being sent the raw materials and having to assemble the device oneself, so too are there hazards in ordering a soundtrack album only to discover that instead of producing the album for you, the "producer" has simply supplied the raw materials and expects you to assemble the album yourself.


    While it's timeconsuming to assemble the helicopter yourself, you can assemble it more to your liking. Also, John has the nasty habit of leaving out essential parts.

    Peter smile
    •  
      CommentAuthorSteven
    • CommentTimeNov 16th 2012
    What usually works for me 99% of the time is 1) put them in film order (since this is how scores generally work!), and 2) keep the interesting, exciting tracks and delete the not-so-interesting and exciting tracks. Whether it comes out as 10 minutes long or 100 minutes long isn't really the point; as long as it makes a decent listen. Couldn't be more simple!
    •  
      CommentAuthorJim Ware
    • CommentTimeNov 16th 2012
    Second -- and this is the most important point -- you seem to have the impression that I condone everything just as long as it has a professional producing. That is not the case. I want the composer OR the producer to use their MUSICAL SKILLS AND EXPERIENCE to create an album, not just transfer cues from master tapes to the computer and use the film as a guide for the sequence. No, I want them to create an ARTISTIC EXPRESSION.


    If their musical skills and experience deem the best artistic expression to be presenting the score in chronological order (possibly even complete), surely that is perfectly valid from your perspective? This re-conceptualisation is not required in all circumstances.
    •  
      CommentAuthorThor
    • CommentTimeNov 16th 2012 edited
    Jim Ware wrote
    Second -- and this is the most important point -- you seem to have the impression that I condone everything just as long as it has a professional producing. That is not the case. I want the composer OR the producer to use their MUSICAL SKILLS AND EXPERIENCE to create an album, not just transfer cues from master tapes to the computer and use the film as a guide for the sequence. No, I want them to create an ARTISTIC EXPRESSION.


    If their musical skills and experience deem the best artistic expression to be presenting the score in chronological order (possibly even complete), surely that is perfectly valid from your perspective? This re-conceptualisation is not required in all circumstances.


    Not in all, but in 99% of the cases if it's going to work for me. As I said earlier, it doesn't really qualify as proper album production to me if they haven't re-conceptualized their music somehow. If they've just decided to more or less 'transfer' the music from film to CD, that is not album production; it's more like archiving/archeology/whatever. So it doesn't really matter if it's Joe Schmoe, the composer or the pope's grandmother who's behind it in that case.

    What Shore did with the new HOBBIT albums seems to lie closer to a C&C ideology than a "proper", professionally and artistically created A&A one, which is why I get my knickers in a bunch (correct phrase??).
    I am extremely serious.
    •  
      CommentAuthorSteven
    • CommentTimeNov 16th 2012
    uhm

    You're crazy.
  5. Thor wrote
    What Shore did with the new HOBBIT albums seems to lie closer to a C&C ideology than a "proper", professionally and artistically created A&A one, which is why I get my knickers in a bunch (correct phrase??).

    "Knickers in a twist" is the more common phrase.

    Let's not forget that there is a level of professionalism and artistry in the "C&C ideology", it comes under the umbrella term 'film music composition'.
    The views expressed in this post are entirely my own and do not reflect the opinions of maintitles.net, or for that matter, anyone else. http://www.racksandtags.com/falkirkbairn
    •  
      CommentAuthorThor
    • CommentTimeNov 16th 2012
    Steven wrote
    uhm

    You're crazy.


    If I am, I'm not alone. Seems like there's a pretty even 50-50 balance of the two preferences here (which is unusual, but very refreshing).
    I am extremely serious.