I'm listening to the score right now and it's cinematic fanfare we've grown accustomed to by Silvestri. If you're looking for hints at the Rob Walsh score to the cartoon, I'm afraid there's none to be found at least to my knowledge. Not surprising, giving that it's a reboot of the franchise and Silvestri scores some magnificent material of his own. The music is also more serious than I expected given the nature of the cartoon and comics.
At times it sounds as big as Judge Dredd and Predator 2 and even in the sentimental/melancholic moments it still impresses (Something Elfman's Terminator Salvation failed to do for me outside of the action material).
The first half of the score the electronics do dominate, at times they sound a bit too... 'glitter' for me (they are obviously there to play at the technological/industrial side), and there's the standard drum looping, but it rarely gets dull. The second half of the score they become less dominating and all around they sound much more controlled. The blend of the orchestra with the deep bass fluttering and a strong techno beat is downright cool
The action cues are filmscore 'gold'. It's like he pulled out the big guns: percussion, orchestra and pro tools are put to the test. It's the type of action film scoring I've missed in the last couple of years, and I only hope this franchise allows Silvestri to continue this music!
It basically shows you that not the full available range of frequencies is used. Notice how the spikes are cut off when they actually should reach up much higher. There's some data noise above them as well. It's what i call a piss-pour job! A 10 years old could have made a better CD if you explain to him the first rule of production: remain your material in lossless as long as possible!
I bet they needed to save space. You get over 75 minutes of music on that disc. It's not going to be full quality.
CDs DO NOT WORK THAT WAY.
Explain how they work then. Data takes up space. Music at 128 khz is smaller than music at 192 khz and so on. Don't tell me CD's magically let you put 80 minutes of music on. It simply does not work that way.
I bet they needed to save space. You get over 75 minutes of music on that disc. It's not going to be full quality.
CDs DO NOT WORK THAT WAY.
Explain how they work then. Data takes up space. Music at 128 khz is smaller than music at 192 khz and so on. Don't tell me CD's magically let you put 80 minutes of music on. It simply does not work that way.
Are you serious?
CDs are not encoded at 128 or 192, they are like huge uncompressed WAV files, regardless of what they are sourced from...and if its sourced from crap, it's still going to be just as huge of a file.
Explain how they work then. Data takes up space. Music at 128 khz is smaller than music at 192 khz and so on. Don't tell me CD's magically let you put 80 minutes of music on. It simply does not work that way.
True... when you are creating a DATA disc. But when you are creating a MUSIC disc 80 minutes at 128k is still the same length as 80 minutes as uncompressed wav. If I'm not mistaken the music, no matter what the bit rate is, is converted to 16-bit PCM at a 44.1 kHz sampling rate per channel.
Explain how they work then. Data takes up space. Music at 128 khz is smaller than music at 192 khz and so on. Don't tell me CD's magically let you put 80 minutes of music on. It simply does not work that way.
True... when you are creating a DATA disc. But when you are creating a MUSIC disc 80 minutes at 128k is still the same length as 80 minutes as uncompressed wav. If I'm not mistaken the music, no matter what bit rate is, is converted to 16-bit PCM at a 44.1 kHz sampling rate per channel.
It is a shame this score has been compromised on this CD and yes Varese should be doing something about it. But I don't think the problem spoils the general playing of this exciting score. I spotted the "gurgling" artifacts during fade out and one cue does suffer from it throughout but generally I think most will not notice anything wrong. This score is a lot of fun with Silvestri doing what he does best. Also, I like the fact the theme only appears at the end of the score.
1. Didn't Varese also use 'apocalyptic' in their blub for Star Trek: Nemesis? Just saying...
Don't use the N-word, you're gonna jinx this release!
Well... How do you feel NOW, Prospero? :-p
I can see how the lapse in quality of this release can be linked to the mentioning of Nemesis and the word "apocalyptic". I think this matter is up for investigation by Fox Mulder and Dana Scully.
But all kidding aside, I'm actually relieved. This score kicks ***.
Alan Silvestri is now aware of the problems with the album master and is looking into it, thanks to the webmaster of alan-silvestri.com. Maybe he can do something to solve this.
