Anyone have this and care to elaborate?!

There are 64 minutes of music on the original and 31 minutes on the alternate score track. Also, you have the chance to see the movie with the original score (without sounds or dialogue), and IMHO the score works incredibly well. Don't get me wrong, despite of all the butchering of the score, the final movie works great for me, but I think with the original score, it would even top the final version.

And aside from the isolated score tracks, the disc features great THX-remastered image and DD5.1 sound, a commentary track by Ridley Scott (haven't checked this out yet), deleted scenes and tons of production images.

Highly recommended - this DVD was one of the reasons why I got a DVD drive! In fact, I simply ordered the "Alien Legacy" set, which includes all 4 movies on DVD.

How do I make a CDR of the isolated score?
I've got a DVD-ROM drive and a CDR-W drive in my computer.

The other way (for software information, see below):
1) Use DeCSS or a similar tool to rip the VOB files from your DVD. You'll need several gigabytes of free hard disk space! Still, you can do this one file at a time, to minimize the required disk space.

2) Start VOBSnoopy and extract the audio streams to AC3 files on your disk. In the case of Alien, you will get 5 or 6 AC3 files per VOB file. Only the last two are required, though, those are the original and alternate score tracks.

3) Once you have all those AC3 files, merge them. If you need a program to do that, mail me - I've written a small program that does this quite comfortably (I hope ).

4) The part that cost me weeks to figure out: Use Sonic Soft Encode to convert the AC3 files to high-quality WAV files.

5) Edit the WAV files with your favourite audio editor. Keep them in the 48KHz format in which they are stored on DVD as long as possible, and downmix them to 44.1KHz (CD format) after all changes to ensure maximum quality. You have to increse the volume a bit, and of course split the file into several tracks, and delete the silent parts (original score) and production sounds/alternate dialogue passages (isolated score).

6) Finally, use your CD recording program to write the CDs.

Software

• DeCSS and VOBSnoopy should be available at every DVD tools site.
  
• Sonic Soft Encode is a commercial program, quite expensive I believe. If you don't mind using pirate copies, you can find a link at /getdoc.xp?AN=584911927&CONTEXT=955415385.2061238272&hitnum=7]http://x29.deja.com/[ST_rn=ap]/getdoc.xp?AN=584911927&CONTEXT=955415385.2061238272& hitnum=7 . There are freeware programs to do the same, called AC3DEC and AC3DECODE, but they didn't work when I tried them.
  
• A very good audio editing application is Cool Edit Pro. There's a link to that program on the same page.
  
• Regarding the merging program: As I said, if you need one, mail me. I haven't yet put it on my homepage, therefore I can't simply give you a link here.
  

And, of course, use Corel Draw or any other tool to make cool covers! My CD looks really great. I put the original score on CD #1 and the alternate tracks on CD #2, by the way.

Good luck & thanks again to majestyx, who helped me a lot when I still wondered how to do this.

PS: Doing the same thing for the Matrix score is a bit difficult, as the VOB files on this DVD are corrupt. I found a link to a guide which explains how to repair this, but when I tried, the AC3 files still had errors. I'm thinking of buying a digital sound card to be able to directly record the score track.

The advantage of having both DVD drive and CD burner in your PC is that you can do it all completely digitally, without ANY loss of sound quality. And except for the Soft Encode tool (and that only if you don't want to use the pirate copy), it costs exactly nothing.

NP: I'd like to play Sinfonia antartica again, but I'm waiting for Monty Python Live at the Hollywood Bowl on TV.

Audio track 5 has the original score as written for the film. This is what is represented on the soundtrack album, although I've found the sound to be a bit better, and the removal of the segues is a good thing.

Audio track 6 has alternate cues, some of which ended up in the film, some of which didn't... but ONLY when they differ from what appeared in the film. To round out this track, the production (location) sound recorded on the set is included between music cues.

Unfortunately, my new computer completely crashed last night (won't even use the recovery disc.), so I'm sending it back for a replacement. It'll be about a week or two before I can try out the Alien DVD.

quote:

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Originally posted by Swashbuckler:
Audio track 5 has the original score as written for the film. This is what is represented on the soundtrack album, although I've found the sound to be a bit better, and the removal of the segues is a good thing.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Swashbuckler:
Anybody notice that sometimes you can hear Jerry Goldsmith and Lionel Newman talking before and after certain tracks?

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There's something like "Hey-Ho!" right before the track I called The Alien (the finale in the shuttle), which I included on my CDR. To be honest, I forgot that Newman conducted the score, and therefore always thought it's Jerry's voice.

There is, however, one exception for me. And that exception is his music for "Alien."

Most of the score is good, but I've never encountered a Goldsmith score with a theme that's so totally at odds with the film. When I hear the theme from "Alien," it seems so disconnected from the actual film. It doesn't bring to my mind thoughts of Ripley, or the alien, or anyone or anything connected to the movie.

In fact, I think this is the only time Goldsmith made a bad call and should've listened to the director. By that, I mean Goldsmith's disagreement with Ridley Scott over the main title music. I love the film version (which Cliff Eidelman recorded on Varese's excellent "Alien Trilogy") because it doesn't seem so out of place with the rest of the score and, more importantly, it actually gives me the creeps--which Goldsmith's bucolic main title has never done.

I feel like I'm missing something. It seems like every Goldsmith fan--and even many non-fans--love this score, but it just leaves me cold. As I said in the "lesser scores" thread, I much prefer Richard Band's "Mutant."

And, BTW, I've made my 2CD version of the Alien score from the DVD, and it has increased my appreciation of it infinitely.

One of the most startling yet satisfying aspects is the complete score's expansion of The Alien Planet, which ran about 2.5 minutes on the Silva Release. Here it runs almost 10, continually building and adding new subtleties and motivs, finally climaxing in a cruelly ingenious cacophony of echoplexed pizzicatto strings (which is also the chief thematic material of the cue, although never this wicked.) It's almost as if the alien larvae attacked the thematic material and spat it back out as a full-grown specimen. I know I'm not making much sense with this, but it's an effect that has to be heard to be believed.

And I agree with Andrew: The planet music is cool. But the whole score is fantastic. Talking about a Goldsmith score that doesn't fit the movie too well - I'd have to say The Omen. I LOVE the music, it sets a fitting mood for the picture, but unlike most Goldsmith scores, I don't think it really enhances the movie. What I am trying to say is this: A score like Williams' The Fury is great on CD, but much better when heard in the film. The Omen is great on CD, but it doesn't really impress me in the film.

In fact, I would go so far as to say that, with the exception of the Freud and Howard Hanson material, most of Ridley Scott's musical choices in the film were excellent (however much I may like "The Droid," I think that that scene as it plays in the film, with Derek Medding's grotesque close-ups, Sigourney Weaver's hysteria contrasted with Ian Holm's icy detachment and Jimmy Shield's eerie sound effects, is extremely effective).

I recently read, however, that Howard Blake would have scored this film if the studio hadn't been insisting on Jerry Goldsmith. I (of course) hold Goldsmith's scores to be among my favorites, but I can't help but wonder what this film would have sounded like with Blake's approach...

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