As far as the tracking changes go, I really have no idea what the circumstances were--I can only assume that whoever put together the audio for the changed versions did not have access to the musical material they needed to recreate the original tracking sequences for the episodes in question. It's not a question of legalities, which was the reason for the "City on the Edge of Forever" music changes done for the video and laserdisc releases. There's no reason the studio would have lost the rights to any of the other recorded music for Trek, so it must have been an issue of not having the original music element or maybe not having the time to track it down.
In "Space Seed" (which was tracked only), there is a scene in the first act, with Marla McGyvers in her quarters, painting. I didn't recognize the background music from other episodes - is it some library stock music?
I'm interested in hearing that piece complete. It sounded pretty hacked up in the episode, to the point of "why bother?"
So here's an interesting question: Who came up with the idea for this set?
It seems an obvious one in retrospect, but someone must have broached the subject to someone.
I'd love to get a peek behind the curtain and get an idea how something this monumental comes about.
I think that the idea for the set is something that every movie music and/or Trek fan (a lot of overlap there) must have come up with as soon as these miraculous releases of long-thought-lost treasures of movie and TV music started seeing light of day as brand-new CDs, but that's been going on for a couple of decades now.
There was a particular obstacle(s) having to do with the "business model" of making a monumental release like this economically feasible which stood in the way. Ever since Jeff mentioned offhandedly in a post here that the obstacle(s) was NOT "the rights" (which he may regret ) I've been "broaching the subject" of what that obstacle(s) was, but never got it.
It may still be that divulging all the behind-the-curtain details would be considered "undiplomatic" or "counterproductive," but in truth I have no idea what I'm talking about. I'd love a little peek behind the curtain myself.
One Question for me is: What is a Library Cue? For not long ago, I thougt I know it. Now I think, it is a cue from another episode, but absolutely Star Trek, who used in an episode, not composed for? Or it is a real Library composition in the vaults of a studie (in this Paramount), like the many cues not composed by Barry Gray for Space 1999, but composed by famous Robert Farnon, or the legendary fantastic cue for the War Games Episode composed by Mike Hankinson or the Gustav Holst's "The Planets"-Suite for "Space Brain". This was Library Music for me: Music never composed for a specific TV Show! And then there is the term "Stock Music". It was used sometimes for the George Duning contribution for the (almost tracked) Episode "Patterns of Force". What means this?
Tracked Music, Stock Music, Library Music? Library Music prepared for ... All the same?
Here is the roadmap to it all in a nutshell. This is explained in greater detail in Jeff's book, but I'll just hit the high points here.
Each season, the show would record music for several episodes. Some would get a full score, some a partial score. All of this music could be tracked into any episodes in the same season.
Per AFM union rules, music from previous seasons could not be used in later seasons. Thus, there were what we call "library cues," cues of music from previous seasons recorded during either an exclusive session for library cues, or during the recording of another episode score from that season. There were such library recordings for season two and three of the show. (for example: the track from "The Naked Time", Captain's Wig, as used in "The Doomsday Machine" mentioned above was from the library rerecordings for season two.)
As has been noted before, Trek didn't necessarily play by these rules, which makes it all the more interesting.
As far as I know, Star Trek did not utilize anything from a pre-recorded music library. But, even I've been surprised with some of the details revealed so far, so anything can happen!
So here's an interesting question: Who came up with the idea for this set?
It seems an obvious one in retrospect, but someone must have broached the subject to someone.
I'd love to get a peek behind the curtain and get an idea how something this monumental comes about.
This project dates back a good 15 years or so when I started working at GNP Crescendo Records in the mail room.
I know that Ford Thaxton and Mark Banning wanted to do this box set back when Vol 1 of the 30th Anniversary of Star Trek came out from GNP, but GNP didn't want to go that route. Instead they stuck to a nice simple complilation that sold very well for them.
Fast forward a decade and now this lowly mail room clerk is running his own label and doing business with most off the studios in town, including CBS. Knowing the only way to do a set like this justice, we had to get get both CBS and GNP on board with the project. After a few years of back and forth negotiations it took an intrepid young lad by the name of Lukas Kendall to get GNP on board with us. Finally, in 2011, things started to move forward.
The day I had to write a nice fat check to GNP was one of the oddest moments in my life. It kinda felt like things came full circle. Here I am cutting them a check for more money than I used to make in a year or two while working in the mail room. lol It was surrea,l but HOT DAMN, it's worth it!
So here's an interesting question: Who came up with the idea for this set?
It seems an obvious one in retrospect, but someone must have broached the subject to someone.
I'd love to get a peek behind the curtain and get an idea how something this monumental comes about.
This project dates back a good 15 years or so when I started working at GNP Crescendo Records in the mail room.
I know that Ford Thaxton and Mark Banning wanted to do this box set back when Vol 1 of the 30th Anniversary of Star Trek came out from GNP, but GNP didn't want to go that route. Instead they stuck to a nice simple complilation that sold very well for them.
Fast forward a decade and now this lowly mail room clerk is running his own label and doing business with most off the studios in town, including CBS. Knowing the only way to do a set like this justice, we had to get get both CBS and GNP on board with the project. After a few years of back and forth negotiations it took an intrepid young lad by the name of Lukas Kendall to get GNP on board with us. Finally, in 2011, things started to move forward.
The day I had to write a nice fat check to GNP was one of the oddest moments in my life. It kinda felt like things came full circle. Here I am cutting them a check for more money than I used to make in a year or two while working in the mail room. lol It was surrea,l but HOT DAMN, it's worth it!
MV
Nice story, MV.
I am already proud of the work that has gone into this set, and of course proud of all those involved. Extra thanks to Mr. Kendall for his contribution. That said, I find it satisfyingly intriguing and professionally uplifting to hear how you worked in the GNP mail room and, over time, slowly levitated your talents to a label of your own making--in part. It's refreshing. With that in mind, I know the set will sell well. Good work.
So here's an interesting question: Who came up with the idea for this set?
It seems an obvious one in retrospect, but someone must have broached the subject to someone.
I'd love to get a peek behind the curtain and get an idea how something this monumental comes about.
This project dates back a good 15 years or so when I started working at GNP Crescendo Records in the mail room.
I know that Ford Thaxton and Mark Banning wanted to do this box set back when Vol 1 of the 30th Anniversary of Star Trek came out from GNP, but GNP didn't want to go that route. Instead they stuck to a nice simple complilation that sold very well for them.
Fast forward a decade and now this lowly mail room clerk is running his own label and doing business with most off the studios in town, including CBS. Knowing the only way to do a set like this justice, we had to get get both CBS and GNP on board with the project. After a few years of back and forth negotiations it took an intrepid young lad by the name of Lukas Kendall to get GNP on board with us. Finally, in 2011, things started to move forward.
The day I had to write a nice fat check to GNP was one of the oddest moments in my life. It kinda felt like things came full circle. Here I am cutting them a check for more money than I used to make in a year or two while working in the mail room. lol It was surrea,l but HOT DAMN, it's worth it!
MV
Nice story, MV.
I am already proud of the work that has gone into this set, and of course proud of all those involved. Extra thanks to Mr. Kendall for his contribution. That said, I find it satisfyingly intriguing and professionally uplifting to hear how you worked in the GNP mail room and, over time, slowly levitated your talents to a label of your own making--in part. It's refreshing. With that in mind, I know the set will sell well. Good work.
The hard work and dedication to this project by Matt, Lukas, Neil, Jeff, Chris, Doug, Mike, Joe, Cindy, Keith, Ford, Mark, Johnny "D" and the fine folks at GNP and CBS are making this dream come true for all the fans out there. They are the ones in the trenches. I'm just the fella that signs checks.
Ah, so I suppose it was a rights issue after all. If GNP had been convinced to do this set back in the 90s, when cleanup wasn't what it is today, there likely wouldn't be a market for it in 2012 (or perhaps any future point). It must be for the best that it's happening now.
This project dates back a good 15 years or so when I started working at GNP Crescendo Records in the mail room.
I know that Ford Thaxton and Mark Banning wanted to do this box set back when Vol 1 of the 30th Anniversary of Star Trek came out from GNP, but GNP didn't want to go that route. Instead they stuck to a nice simple complilation that sold very well for them.
Fast forward a decade and now this lowly mail room clerk is running his own label and doing business with most off the studios in town, including CBS. Knowing the only way to do a set like this justice, we had to get get both CBS and GNP on board with the project. After a few years of back and forth negotiations it took an intrepid young lad by the name of Lukas Kendall to get GNP on board with us. Finally, in 2011, things started to move forward.
The day I had to write a nice fat check to GNP was one of the oddest moments in my life. It kinda felt like things came full circle. Here I am cutting them a check for more money than I used to make in a year or two while working in the mail room. lol It was surrea,l but HOT DAMN, it's worth it!
MV
Seriously though, I do. Life sure is weird sometimes. Fewer times than it should be, it's weird in a really cool way. (This is one of them.)
As far as the tracking changes go, I really have no idea what the circumstances were--I can only assume that whoever put together the audio for the changed versions did not have access to the musical material they needed to recreate the original tracking sequences for the episodes in question. It's not a question of legalities, which was the reason for the "City on the Edge of Forever" music changes done for the video and laserdisc releases. There's no reason the studio would have lost the rights to any of the other recorded music for Trek, so it must have been an issue of not having the original music element or maybe not having the time to track it down.
Yes, that may be the case regarding the European broadcast material. I always was wondering how much work a foreign broadcast station had to invest when dubbing US tv shows, back in the 70ies, decades before they had digital transfers: first the video material (70mm copies?), then the various audio tracks for music and sound effects (on magnetic tapes), and then mixing all of that with the dubbed dialogue. So, maybe, in the case of "Space Seed", they even thought, well, that background music doesn't have enough emotion, so we'll instead replace it with this better sounding "Steiner" cue from "What Are Little Girls Made Of?". At least a possibility...
In the case of the "lost" Doomsday track ("The Captain's Wig", from the library re-recordings for season two, originally written by Courage for "Naked Time"), it's still a mystery why this single cue got lost, especially when considering that it's the only non-Kaplan cue in the whole episode, other than the main title and the end credits (correct me if I'm wrong). When putting the first DVD releases together, Paramount/Viacom or whoever was responsible, must have had access to all musical material. Would be interesting to go back to the earlier VHS release, to see if the cue is missing there, too! The question is: how did they put together the various releases (VHS/DVD/remastered/BluRay), meaning: what reference do they have as for which cue must be tracked to which scene? Have they always worked with original cue sheets? (Which, as were pointed out before, weren't accurate always to begin with!). The most accurate and authentic reference, of course, would be the original tape from the Paramount vaults, which should be the version as broadcast in 1966-69!
As far as the tracking changes go, I really have no idea what the circumstances were--I can only assume that whoever put together the audio for the changed versions did not have access to the musical material they needed to recreate the original tracking sequences for the episodes in question. It's not a question of legalities, which was the reason for the "City on the Edge of Forever" music changes done for the video and laserdisc releases.
Will the changed "source music", as heard on the VHS releases, also be part of the bonus material? Was it only the song "Goodnight Sweetheart" itself (as "heard" on the street by Kirk and Edith), which was replaced, or also the Steiner cues which did elaborate on the song afterwards in his partial score? In this case, there must have been some newly composed cues as was the case with the "Fugitive" DVD-releases (before they went back to the original version again!).
I always was wondering how much work a foreign broadcast station had to invest when dubbing US tv shows, back in the 70ies, decades before they had digital transfers: first the video material (70mm copies?), then the various audio tracks for music and sound effects (on magnetic tapes), and then mixing all of that with the dubbed dialogue.
Normally a foreign broadcaster would be supplied with a copy of the episode with a ready-mixed music and effects ("M&E") track (made by the production team), ready for them to overdub whatever foreign dialogue was required. It would be unusual if this differed from the fully-mixed (US) tracks, but it's possible that a wrong music cue was mixed in.
It's possible, I suppose, that the US version featured a late change, and that the overseas version was the original (uncorrected) version.
In the case of the "lost" Doomsday track ("The Captain's Wig", from the library re-recordings for season two, originally written by Courage for "Naked Time"), it's still a mystery why this single cue got lost, especially when considering that it's the only non-Kaplan cue in the whole episode, other than the main title and the end credits (correct me if I'm wrong). When putting the first DVD releases together, Paramount/Viacom or whoever was responsible, must have had access to all musical material. Would be interesting to go back to the earlier VHS release, to see if the cue is missing there, too! The question is: how did they put together the various releases (VHS/DVD/remastered/BluRay), meaning: what reference do they have as for which cue must be tracked to which scene? Have they always worked with original cue sheets? (Which, as were pointed out before, weren't accurate always to begin with!). The most accurate and authentic reference, of course, would be the original tape from the Paramount vaults, which should be the version as broadcast in 1966-69!
Are your questions rhetorical because I don't think anyone here is capable of answering them... LLL is producing a soundtrack set, not a DVD set.
There's no reason the studio would have lost the rights to any of the other recorded music for Trek, so it must have been an issue of not having the original music element or maybe not having the time to track it down.
I would also suggest the possibility that it was simple human error. Remixing and remastering a show (or movie) for DVD means gathering all the elements and putting them back together. There can be a lot of elements. Sometimes, nobody realizes that it hasn't been put back together properly. I've worked on shows where everybody listens and approves a mix in the sound studio, and by the time the show is broadcast, some element has somehow been lost. (This would happen in the layback, when all the approved sound elements are laid into the final master, a technical process done after anybody involved creatively has left. There are many, many tracks, and if somebody has neglected to click the check box next to a certain track, which may be utilized only once, say, fifteen minutes into the episode, that sound will be missing.) Of course, it shouldn't happen, but human beings are fallible.
It's been widely reported that some films have multiple mixes, all of which can claim to be the proper original. I believe "Star Wars" was mixed in several variants (mono, stereo, surround) in 1977, and each differs slightly, including a line here or there that's lost in one mix but not another. I'm sure there's no reason one would have this line and another would not, except that humans are responsible.
I've even done shows where I realize an error watching it broadcast the first time, and have it corrected for subsequent broadcasts. In cases like this, the "proper" mix is not the original one… at least, as far as I'm concerned.
It makes it difficult, perhaps impossible, to really decide what is difinitive with regards to the sound and music for each episode.
As far as the episodes themselves, I suspect that the broadcast episode's original mono mix might be the only way to confirm which takes were used, and that might be a guide as to what constitutes the score for a given episode, along with knowing which episode a piece of music was originally written and recorded for.
The other interesting one is probably the main and end titles.
Jeff & co., I do not envy you the task.
If I may ask, did you include or exclude William Shatner's opening monologue? Or perhaps, did you include versions both with and without (the absolute ideal)?
No, Shatner's narration isn't included (listen to the episodes for that!). And I agree with Schiffy that some of these anomalies are probably glitches and oversights that no one noticed (since most of the time the people doing this work are pros, not fans who have every second of audio from the show memorized). The McGivers' quarters cue heard in "Space Seed" is an oddball cue--it almost plays like source music in the episode, and the piece itself almost sounds like an attempt at a piece of futuristic source music a la "Space Radio." And in regards to library cues in general, while in Star Trek's case they often were rerecordings of cues from the previous seasons, there were also variations of cues from the same season (often but not always done during the recording sessions for the episodes the original cues were written for) as well as wholly original music written for a general purpose--a great example is all the cues Alexander Courage did for season two--generic action, dramatic cues, stings and play-offs, none written to specific sequences, but intended to be tracked and edited into episodes that needed music that season. That's the most fascinating stuff to me because how do you write a piece of dramatic music for a scene that doesn't exist? Then to see how effectively those cues actually DO work in the episodes is pretty exciting. Finally, I remember having coffee with Mike Gerhard in Burbank five or six years ago and him telling me that he wanted to do this...and then sitting on my hands in agony for the next half decade or so waiting for it to happen.
As far as the tracking changes go, I really have no idea what the circumstances were--I can only assume that whoever put together the audio for the changed versions did not have access to the musical material they needed to recreate the original tracking sequences for the episodes in question. It's not a question of legalities, which was the reason for the "City on the Edge of Forever" music changes done for the video and laserdisc releases.
Will the changed "source music", as heard on the VHS releases, also be part of the bonus material? Was it only the song "Goodnight Sweetheart" itself (as "heard" on the street by Kirk and Edith), which was replaced, or also the Steiner cues which did elaborate on the song afterwards in his partial score? In this case, there must have been some newly composed cues as was the case with the "Fugitive" DVD-releases (before they went back to the original version again!).
No, we are NOT including the ghastly replacement music from City of on the Edge of Forever's early video release, before they cleared up their synch license for "Goodnight, Sweetheart."
Incidentally would you believe these low-budget redos were by...J. Peter Robinson? They were!
Lukas
. . . Read the whole thread, Flint! It's a good one!
) I've been "broaching the subject" of what that obstacle(s) was, but never got it.
