People of the film score board have guessed Monday's release and the reaction to it has been great - until this afternoon, thanks to an obnoxious, self-serving series of posts on the Intrada board by the owner of that label and his second in command. The second in command's posts were unnecessary but fine. The owner's post was completely unacceptable - an attempt by him to make his own release of this score (the second of the previous three releases) seem like the best of the releases. This he did by making this huge deal that we're using the half-inch three-track mix downs done by the film's composer. He posited that the orchestra placement would be weird, that they wouldn't be true stereo mixes, and the synth stuff wouldn't be in the right place. All that positing without ever having heard one NOTE of what's on the half-inch mixes. Guess what? The orchestra placement is EXACTLY the same as the two-track digital mixes in every way, not a whit of difference. Oops. I mean, the same digital mixes (this score was recorded digitally in 1986, when digital was particularly awful) and the digital two-track that came from that was harsh, unpleasant and not that great. If I'd wanted to use those, I had the previous three CD releases and could have but I didn't want to and therefore I didn't. What I wanted was to create the best-sounding release of this score and for me the original half-inch three-track mix downs is what I wanted - because they went from the digital session masters and printed to analogue tape and the sound is so much more pleasant than the ugly all digital. There was never a question that that was my plan and how dare this person, this head of a label, do this, trying to sully our album before he's even heard it.
I posted a version of the above on his board and have no idea if he's come back at me - if he does he will not be a happy camper. I'll just start talking about his release of Dressed to Kill, a CD release that completely subverts the sound of Pino Donaggio and his music by presenting the score with 0 reverb - dry as the dessert and making an orchestra of at least fifty sound like twenty. Donaggio is known for a very wet sound and a simple comparison listen to the Varese release of Dressed to Kill, prepared by Pino, will tell you all you need to know.
