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Old 03-30-2014, 09:02 AM   #1
eddie_bowers
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Default Tecniques used for enhancing old songs in sountracks

I have noticed many times that when older recordings are used in movies (anything from the 50s to 70s)that they always sound fresh and exciting, but somehow exactly the same. These are usually songs im very familiar with so I think I would notice changes in the mix or recording.
Are these just compressed to enhance every detail or is it all in my mind?
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Old 03-30-2014, 10:05 PM   #2
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I have noticed many times that when older recordings are used in movies (anything from the 50s to 70s)that they always sound fresh and exciting, but somehow exactly the same. These are usually songs im very familiar with so I think I would notice changes in the mix or recording.
Are these just compressed to enhance every detail or is it all in my mind?
Are you comparing what you hear in the movie theater to what you hear at home?

Because most modern cineplexes have million-dollar sound-systems and acoustical construction, and are the closest most mortal people will ever get to hearing things as they were intended. It is basically impossible, at any budget, to get same listening experience in a bedroom as you get in an IMAX or TXH type theater.

OTOH, if you pop in a Blu-Ray or DVD, and think it sounds significantly different from your album version on CD, it probably has been processed to fit in with the movie's soundscape, although rarely in ways that most listeners would think of as categorical "improvements". If you want to hear what's really going on, try A/B'ing the soundtrack version versus the album version, and using the volume knob to get the same apparent loudness on the same system.

Everything in a movie soundtrack typically goes through at least one mix engineer who has control of the various stems such as dialogue, sound effects, score, music cues, etc. That person or others might certainly apply additional processing to make a licensed song sound different, including a sort of "re-mastering" with things like modern look-ahead limiters, etc. If you have a copy of the DVD or Blu-Ray, it should be pretty easy to compare with the record.
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Old 03-31-2014, 11:08 AM   #3
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Thanks. Yeah I have noticed even on Blue-Ray at home.
Its very subtle so I keep thinking its a dynamic range thing.
I will try to do a side by side sometime.
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Old 04-02-2014, 10:19 AM   #4
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I've often noticed that songs are slightly faster on films. if I have the soundtrack on a CD,it sounds fine. But on the DVD it's slightly faster.
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Old 04-02-2014, 10:52 AM   #5
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Many of the old-school labels are turning over tapes to universities and museums for restoration. They get the tax writeoff, reduce the cost of storing and maintaining millions of miles of tape, and retain intellectual property rights for licensing to movies and TV.

My dad did master tape resto and digital transfer for many years. From what he told me, most of those old tapes were beat to crap; in some cases, the only existing copy was a 3rd-gen safety (copy of a copy), or a dub from a clean vinyl disc. It's a wonder we have any music from before 1980.
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Old 04-02-2014, 09:03 PM   #6
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I've often noticed that songs are slightly faster on films. if I have the soundtrack on a CD,it sounds fine. But on the DVD it's slightly faster.
Interesting, perhaps they're letting it speed up instead of resampling from 44.1khz to 48.
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Old 04-02-2014, 10:17 PM   #7
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Ever listen to the music in the Forrest Gump running scenes? It speeds up and slows down constantly. I'm assuming it was because they had to fit a segment of music to a part of a scene.
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Old 04-03-2014, 05:00 PM   #8
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Originally Posted by Jeffsounds View Post
Ever listen to the music in the Forrest Gump running scenes? It speeds up and slows down constantly. I'm assuming it was because they had to fit a segment of music to a part of a scene.
If they wanted to do that, it would have been quite simple to adjust the pitch of the song accordingly. Perhaps a film editor's error?

/offtopic: on

Is there anything in REAPER that allows for the "music scrub" sound, like when someone hits the brakes on a turntable or tape deck?

/offtopic: off
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