RE:Fanderson UFO CD arrives!

"lunadude2001" wrote:

> I think the analogy between the mono - stereo and the
> colourisation of black and films is a good one. The
> colourisation was an abomination.
>

Without wanting to stray too far off topic, colourisation works
much better now that it's done digitally. In the old days when
it was done by tinting black and white film, the effect was a
little unsatisfactory because the 'greyness', if you will, was
visible underneath the translucent colour. But now that the
original monochrome is transformed rather than tinted, the
effect is a lot more natural.

I'm sorry you are wrong again, if you go to the credits page [the
second to last] It states, and I write verbatum:

Stereo tracks remixed and Re-engineered by Tim Mallett

Please be aware I'm not having a pop at Mr. Mallett just pointing out
that Fanderson are admitting that the the stereos are remixes.

I think those are wanting stereo recording are missing the point.
Barry Gray finished work here was the mono versions. If Barry Gray was
around today and he decided to remix the stereo 4 tracks into stereo
for CD release that would fine with me - I'm not against stereo
per-se. As he is not his finished work should be respected a being the
mono recordings. As he undoubtedly put a LOT of work getting them to
soumd how he wanted and in sympathy with the visuals.

I'm with Marc I'm glad the UFO DVD's have the original mono sound
track. I don't have the Thunderbirds DVD's but I do have the Captain
Scarlet DVD's were there are options to have the soundtrack in stereo
and 5.1 as well as the original mono, the 5.1 and stereo are awful.


As reagards colourisation, yes techniques have come on to make the
conversion better, but it is the principle that sucks.


The Lunadude.





--- In [hidden email], "the_connoisseuruk" <peter.tessmer@n...>
wrote:
> The word "remix" is never used in
> the Fanderson notes to this CD.
> Also, the suggestion of a 3 disc set
> was mine, not Marc's, so they could
> have included all of Barry Gray's
> original music and the
> Supermarionation library tracks used
> in the show

>I'm not against stereo per-se.

Neither am I. I probably would have been happy if Barry Gray was the
one who created the stereo versions, as he was a very talented man
and knew what he wanted in the first place.

As for the surround sound on the DVDs, the biggest problem for me in
the case of the Gerry Anderson discs is that they really didn't have
the original separate sound effects, vocal, and music tracks to
create a proper surround sound track. So instead, you can tell that
someone is merely panning an effect from the left speaker to the
right speaker. Also, I object when they start adding in their own
new sound effects to make it "better" than the original.

I discovered that I wasn't such a purist when I purchased the DVD of
the Rocky Horror Picture show. There was a similar mono/stereo
controversy here, where the film was originally in mono, but after it
became popular someone sloppily put together a stereo version, and
then for this DVD they started all over from scratch with the
original elements to create a 5.1 soundtrack. But in this case, I
felt the new soundtrack WAS better than the original mono. They
obviously had all of the proper elements to do it right, and they
obviously spent a good deal of time, effort, and money to do it
right. And for the purists, they included the original mono
soundtrack as a separate audio track. But in the cases of the Gerry
Anderson DVDs, the 5.1 soundtracks are the equivalent of having one
of your friends violently turning the balance control left and right.

The Japanese UFO DVDs advertise themselves as having a 5.1 stereo
surround English soundtrack. That's the first UFO DVD release to do
that, so it should be interesting to see what they've done. Since
they don't have the needed elements to create a proper
stereo/surround soundtrack, and since they probably didn't spend a
lot of time/effort on it, I'm sure I'll hate it...

Marc

There's one print error on the back cover of the CD2:
23-24 THE LONG SLEEP
27 UFO End Titles
The error is the track number.

Thomas

> There's one print error on the back cover of the CD2:
> 23-24 THE LONG SLEEP
> 27 UFO End Titles
> The error is the track number.
>
> Thomas

Yes, and there is another one in the booklet:

CONFLICT
21. Space Junk
22. Ambush
23. Washington Square
24. Shallow Re-Entry
25. Complete Shutdown

E.S.P.
23. Extra-Sensory Perception
24. UFO End Titles

Again, the error is the track numbering.

Christian

>I'm sorry you are wrong again, if you go to the credits page [the
>second to last] It states, and I write verbatum:
>
>Stereo tracks remixed and Re-engineered by Tim Mallett

Someone sent me a excerpt from a different part of the booklet,
where it states the following:

"Sourced from Gray's own multi-track master tapes, the majority of
cues are presented in full stereo, as originally recorded. For
completists, the main theme and end titles are presented in both
stereo (as recorded) and mono (as mixed down for television
presentation)."

So the booklet itself in inconsistent. In one part it says the
stereo tracks are remixed by Tim Mallett, and in another it says
that the stereo tracks are the way they were originally recorded.

For those of us "in the know", we know which of those 2 statements
is true (i.e., they were remixed last year by Tim Mallett). However,
that error in the booklet is going to confuse some folks, as we've
already seen here.

Marc

--- In [hidden email], Marc Martin <marc@u...> wrote:

Frankly, this is so confusing. I fell puzzled about it.
Who can we believe? Too many contradictions.

Thomas

>Frankly, this is so confusing. I fell puzzled about it.
>Who can we believe? Too many contradictions.

I can see how it can be confusing if this Fanderson UFO CD is your
first encounter with music from UFO. However, for me, who has been
seeking
information about and even acquiring music from UFO for over a decade,
it's pretty clear what's going on.

Note that a copy of one of the original studio sessions for the UFO
main theme surfaced a few years ago and was used for a track on a
Sci-Fi Channel compilation CD. This sounds completely different
than what you're hearing on the Fanderson CD. Why? Because on
the Sci-Fi Channel CD the original master tape was sloppily mixed
down to stereo, while on the Fanderson CD a lot more care was
taken to mix it down to stereo. But the fact that these two
recordings are so different should make it clear to you that
the original recording was NOT in stereo.

Marc

> >I'm sorry you are wrong again, if you go to the credits page [the
> >second to last] It states, and I write verbatum:
> >
> >Stereo tracks remixed and Re-engineered by Tim Mallett

Sorry, but that's a small mistake from Lunadude (who obviously jumped
over a line). It should read:

Stereo Tracks Remixed and Re-engineered by MIKE COX
Digital Editing and Restoration by TIM MALLETT

Christian

The liner notes may appear to be contradictory - but the truth is
simple, the studio originals were NOT recorded in stereo and the
stereo's that appear on the CD are remixes and it was ALWAYS the
intention that the mixdown masters be in mono. Therefore the
definative recordings are unquestionably the mono mixes.

Marc's pointing out that another source produced a sloppily sounding
[stereo] version of the UFO signiture just underlines, that if extreme
care is not taking in mixing the 4 track to stereo it is very easy to
alter history. Although, it obvious that Fanderson took as much care
as they practically could in producing the stereo's that appear on
thier CD there are limitations to what can be done as regards
authenticity, and no matter how much care is taken by the sheer virtue
of what is being carried out, they always going to sound different.

This is doubly dissapointing if Marc's ascertation is correct, in that
more of the mono masters exist an where available for use on the CD.

Although, it was good to hear the "unreleased" 10 minute Identified
suite that time in my opinion should have been used for adding more of
the mono mixes. Only a brief listen to that reveals why Barry Gray [or
anybody] else discarded it.


The Lunadude.


> Frankly, this is so confusing. I fell puzzled about it.
> Who can we believe? Too many contradictions.
>
> Thomas

Hi all,

Just received my Fanderson UFO CD, although at the moment I don't
have time to listen to it!

Packaging is excellent, as expected. I listened to the stereo main
theme, and truthfully didn't like what they had done to it.
IDENTIFIED sounded fine -- better than any of the bootlegs. Also
listened to some of the "Unidentified" stuff, which is great merely
because I've never heard it before!

But my wife's telling me we've got to leave, so I'll have to listen
to this later!

Marc

>Just received my Fanderson UFO CD, although at the moment I don't
have time to listen to it!


So am I the only Fanderson member that hasn't received the CD? What did I
do to them?

Jess

>So am I the only Fanderson member that hasn't received the CD? What did I
>do to them?

It was that overnight shipping you ordered! :-)

Okay, in between errands, I've listened to a little more of disc 1.
My feelings towards this CD is similar to my feeling towards the
Space:1999 CDs. That is, most of the tracks are acceptable to me
with the new remixes, but every once and awhile there's a remix that
falls flat. To me, the worst case of this so far is the music from
EXPOSED where Foster gets roughed up by some thugs. This is one of
my all-time favorite pieces of UFO music, and it sounds great on the
bootleg CD I got a few months ago (and is on my website as an MP3).
However, the remix is HORRIBLE! If it wasn't for the fact that I
already owned a perfect copy of that track in mono, I'd be really mad
right now...

This CD seems to have a lot more music that was never used in the
series than the Space:1999 CDs did. I rather like this aspect...

Marc

>
> So am I the only Fanderson member that hasn't received the CD?
What did I
> do to them?
>
> Jess

No - I am still waiting for my shipment - patience... patience..
ARRRGHH!!! Where is it??!!

KP

Whoops !! skipped a line, so much for verbatum - but the essential
point remains they stereo's even by Fandersons admission are remixes.

The Lunadude




--- In [hidden email], "Christian J." <memorymetropolis@w...>
wrote:
> > >I'm sorry you are wrong again, if you go to the credits page [the
> > >second to last] It states, and I write verbatum:
> > >
> > >Stereo tracks remixed and Re-engineered by Tim Mallett
>
> Sorry, but that's a small mistake from Lunadude (who obviously
jumped
> over a line). It should read:
>
> Stereo Tracks Remixed and Re-engineered by MIKE COX
> Digital Editing and Restoration by TIM MALLETT
>
> Christian

> So the booklet itself in inconsistent. In one part it says the
> stereo tracks are remixed by Tim Mallett, and in another it says
> that the stereo tracks are the way they were originally recorded.


It seems to me that the bulk of the liner notes was written by
somebody who is very knowledgeable about about the programme itself,
but less so, about the processes involved in recording the music. As
there are statements and phrases in the main body of the copy that are
wrong.

The credits towards the end of the notes are obviously written by the
people who were involved in the music, an those are correct view.

Fanderson might have nipped some of this discussion in the bud, had
the put a statement/caveat in the notes clearly stating that the
stereo's are remixes. But every effort had been made to be faithfull
to Barry Grays original intentions, but due to the limitations of
mixing 4 track to stereo there will be differences between the music
that appears on the CD and the recordings featured on the soundtrack.

Had they done that there would be no doubt and would have shot many a
fox !

The Lunadude