World Wide Web James Horner Shrine

[Nick]

I've uploaded 5 cues I edited for a customized expanded score.

I chose these five specifically because they are clear examples of what I was talking about - extending album cues to make the longer film versions, creating new cues (like on an average soundtrack album) by blending disparate elements together, and working around the more obvious hard cuts and looped segments, though I did leave a few in there because I thought they worked well and was nice hearing them again. I made my own track titles for some cues.

EDIT:

I've added a few more, and everything is 320kbps AAC rather than mp3 because remember, I'm editing a combination of WAV from the actual Avatar CD, and mp3 of those expanded tracks and didn't want the compression to suffer any more than it does.
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(saying it as trailer-trash as you can...) Ya dun goof'd and the consequences will NEVER be the same!

[Nick]

So...should I put up more of these customized tracks or is what everyone got from the megaupload link enough?

Just want some feedback so I know if it's worth putting more of these up or not.
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(saying it as trailer-trash as you can...) Ya dun goof'd and the consequences will NEVER be the same!

[Nobli]

Be sure it is worth.

I plan my weekend to be devoted to this very special Avatar expanded.
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[AndreM]

Your edits are great. And it's wonderful to have "Viperwolves" in stereo now. Apart the opening without the synth tone, the second half is very different from the 3-CD version. I wonder which one is in the film. I'm also wondering about your "War" edit. You left off the last 1:44 minutes from the 3-CD version. Do they belong elsewhere? There's also a 20-second snippet in the "War" version of the Atlantic CD, right before "A New Beginning" starts that I can't place (and which is not in the "War" cue on the promo). I'm still in middle of the complete score analysis, so maybe it belongs in another track. Sorry if this has been asked before, but all these new version boggle my mind

[AndreM]

By the way, are you sure about the placement of "Into the Na'vi World"? You combined the official version with the promo recording. I know that the titles are identical, but since the length and overall feeling are so different, I wonder if maybe the official version belongs more at the end of the film, regardless of its title. I haven't found it elsewhere in the score yet, and it just feels right as an ending, but maybe that's just me. As I said earlier, I'm still in the middle of the whole analysis...

[Nick]

Regarding "Into the Na'vi World":

The film version is in the right place, but I had nowhere to put the online/bonus cue of the same name so I put them together. I could separate them and use the online version as an ending to the whole score or something, but I wanted that big celebratory feeling and wonder in there early on.

Remember I can revise things very easily and replace what's in the upload folder.

As for "War":

I wanted to eliminate all those wailing vocals that were just repeated phrases of "Shutting down Grace's Lab", which is why the cue is different now. I also wanted it to play more-or-less as on the album, without all the haphazard in-film edits. Parts of the album version of "War" I had to leave off because they didn't seem to make any sense in the larger scheme of things.

The follow-up cue is where I put that Pandora brass theme insert and used that cue to fit the smaller battle cues that were just stuck in there. I retitled it "The Power of Eywa", but it's made up of parts of "War" and "Quaritch Down". My intention with that cue was to create a reasonable listening experience that made sense.

I have been fixing volume levels and will replace some of these cues, including "The Power of Eywa" with ones that have better volume.
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(saying it as trailer-trash as you can...) Ya dun goof'd and the consequences will NEVER be the same!

[karim]

[Nick]

Every cue I've put up so far will be replaced as I work out the levels, and I'll try the "Into the Na'vi World" online cue as an ending.

What I'm doing is editing my source WAVs I put together, and then encoding them as AAC (again because I'm not convinced mp3 would work) because it'd be mp3s created from mp3s which could severely compromise the quality, whereas AAC has more efficient compression, at least that's been my experience.
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(saying it as trailer-trash as you can...) Ya dun goof'd and the consequences will NEVER be the same!

[Etienne]

that's terrific as always! But why do you rename the title tracks?

[Nick]

Three reasons.

One, I had to because some tracks are made up of several cues cut together to form longer sequences (like most of Horner's cues are on his albums)

Two, I wanted to give the longer cues names that had an overall idea - like "The Power of Eywa" is what that second battle sequence boiled down to in the film - Eywa has heard Jake's request / prayer and responded with incredible force. I also wanted to use more specifics in what was going on in the film with the shorter cues. One example is "Bonding with Leonoptryx", which I haven't uploaded yet but I wanted to give a more appropriate title, so I renamed it "Toruk Makto", which is the Na'vi term for what Jake becomes in that scene of the film.

Three, "From 4M1 Quaritch Speech" or "Start The Floating Mountains part 1" just don't sound very good and in some cases weren't accurate. The third "Floating Mountains" cue which for whatever reason comes first, isn't part of that sequence at all. It's really for the scene when Neytiri rides her Banshee and tells Jake he will eventually ride one when he is ready. I retitled it "Neytiri's Ikran".
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(saying it as trailer-trash as you can...) Ya dun goof'd and the consequences will NEVER be the same!

[Etienne]

Great! that makes sense!

I enjoy these new cues even more than the official soundtrack album.

There is a lot that should have been included in the CD as there are so many musical effects that we seldom hear with Horner (i.e. Quaritch Down/The Power of Eywa, that defines the claimed epic side of the score, or The Fight to Death/Finale Showdown, which is so Cameronian).

[Nick]

All files have been removed, and are currently being replaced as I type this.

The first "disc" is being transferred now.

There are 40 tracks that would fit two CDs, 20 per disc.
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(saying it as trailer-trash as you can...) Ya dun goof'd and the consequences will NEVER be the same!

[Nobli]

This is gonna be more than awesome.
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You teach me how to see all that's beautiful

[Nick]

The first 20 tracks are up and ready.

The next 20 will be uploading now.
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(saying it as trailer-trash as you can...) Ya dun goof'd and the consequences will NEVER be the same!

[karim]

this is so cool! thanks nick!