Making sense of the 90s soundtracks and looking for better sources

[Krickis]

Am sure I’m not telling you anything you don’t already know, but the DVD release actually has the audio soundtrack separate to the documentary.

Which DVD release? The one I have (which contains multiple documentaries on fractals) does not. That said, there are a few DVD releases of this, so I'm certainly not saying you're wrong! The one that comes with the book, perhaps? Also is it the entire soundtrack? Very interested in this, as I did not actually know that at all, and it could of course save me a ton of work if it is the entire soundtrack (or even if it's just part of it, honestly)

Edit: Well now I just feel dumb! I searched for the answer on the Y! archives and found that the isolated soundtrack was indeed on my version of the film, under the name Infinit. I had always assumed that to be an entirely different documentary and never even looked at it. But sure enough, it says right on the thing that it's a "chill out film" with "music by David Gilmour"! I suppose this is the source of the 16 min version of the soundtrack that floats around, will have to take a closer listen to that. Huge thanks for bringing this to my attention!

[Krickis]

I'd love to see a proper attempt at cataloguing all those '90s film soundtrack tunes in their many variations. Maybe even.... a spreadsheet?

(Edit because I quoted the wrong thing...)

Ask and ye shall receive, I guess! I made a comprehensive spreadsheet of all songs. Best sources are highlighted in green. If there is no best source and multiple possible sources, then I highlighted in yellow.

Of note, I made my own rips of every film based on what I have and what was in the Y! archives. My rip of Ruby is slightly different than the Tree's, but contained the same music (the film itself seemed different), so I only included the Tree's track listing since people are more familiar with that. My rip of The Art of Tripping sounded better and was way more complete (I assume this is a better source than what was available when the Tree was compiled), so I included both. My rip of Colours sounds, well, different, but the track listing is identical, so it only needed one column

On another note, I've more or less hit a wall. The tech simply is not there for this job, I think. I plan on making composites of the couple songs that are only available in multi-source stuff (end credits of Art of Tripping, for example), but I'm under no delusions that I can make this listenable. More like, make it as complete as is possible, just so we can have an idea of what it sounds like.

As such, I'd like to share any work I've done with anyone who wants it. I have "stems" of all this stuff, the unedited rips of the audio from the sources, and all songs individually cut and edited for volume (the DVD rips come out fairly quiet; don't worry, I know what I'm doing and nothing at all clips haha) but otherwise unedited. But I feel making a torrent for an incomplete project is silly, and the rules forbid the sharing of Google Drive etc. links, so I'm not quite certain what to do there. I don't think there's anything to be done with these files, aside from perhaps the better version of The Art of Tripping than what the Tree offers being worthwhile on its own. The "stems" are useless, I think, but maybe someone who knows more than I do could work some magic on them... Idk, but I've no interest in holding onto all this for myself!

Anyway, here's the link to the spreadsheet.

[Floydophile]

What about 'Me & J.C.' by David Gilmour from the movie 'The Cement Garden' / 'Der Zement Garten' (1993)?

[Krickis]

What about 'Me & J.C.' by David Gilmour from the movie 'The Cement Garden' / 'Der Zement Garten' (1993)?

Interesting, that one I did not know of! I'll have to look into it, thank you for informing me of it.

[marksturdy]

Very good work on the spreadsheet! So there are quite a few snippets on the films not included in Infinit then.

I feel your pain regarding getting results that are good enough to actually enjoy listening to. Have you tried Lalalai? They have very recently launched a new algorithm which is apparently quite an advance on previous efforts. RipX is also supposed to be very good, but of course all these things cost.

I would love to take something like this on but I just don't have the time or resources at the moment. Hopefully someone out there can work miracles.

I wonder how much PF involvement there really is on these tracks. At least some of the drums sound programmed. And the title 'Me and JC' implies Jon Carin may have been involved...

[marksturdy]

There's some odd editing on the Infinit piece. For one thing, the last 36 seconds or so are a repeat of the tune that comes in at about 4m 39s. The tracks themselves are also clearly edited - either cut abruptly or cross-faded. Do any of the alternate versions that appear in the films themselves have longer or 'clean' endings?

You may have seen it but this guy's work may be of interest - he seems to have covered a lot of the same ground in terms of going through these films and stitching things together: https://soundcloud.com/nasnandos

[Kit Rae]

You may have seen it but this guy's work may be of interest - he seems to have covered a lot of the same ground in terms of going through these films and stitching things together: https://soundcloud.com/nasnandos

Those COT/RTAT/AOT tracks were test mixes I put together about 5 years ago. I was just trying to make something listenable out of the tracks to include in my own "The Big Spliff" album, using most of the DB era outtakes. It worked OK using the sources and software I had at the time, but I could probably do a better job at mixing them today, especially with the voice extraction tools I have now.

[Kit Rae]

I wonder how much PF involvement there really is on these tracks. At least some of the drums sound programmed. And the title 'Me and JC' implies Jon Carin may have been involved...

Other than David, I don't think any other members of PF play on those tracks. David is credited for copyright/music publishing, so I assume he wrote the chords or came up with the initial ideas in jams with Jon Carin or Anthony Moore. Jon has said that it is literally him playing all the instruments on Colours, with David playing guitar on top. This is JC, so take that with a grain of salt, but a lot of that sounds like JC to me.

The Colours director Nigel Lesmoir-Gordon said he thinks that music is actually Pink Floyd, but I think he is wrong. Colours did not come out until '94, so it was all old music by that point, and none of it is from the DB sessions. I think some of it dates back to the 1986-87 MLOR writing between David and Anothony Moore. Moore was working sessions 4-5 days a week with Gilmour. Calling certainly came from that time, as he got a co credit. The rest had to have been composed in 1991 or earlier, because a lot of it first appeared in Ruby Takes a Trip, which aired December 12, 1991 on the BBC2. The Art of Tripping aired on the BBC in February 1992. I suppose some of it may have been recorded when David and Jon worked on the La Carrera Panamericana soundtrack in November 1991, but I think it pre dates those sessions.

[Krickis]

Worth noting that one of the songs in Colours did wind up on The Endless River. Which either lends credence to Colours being Pink Floyd or River being not-actually-all-PF stuff, whichever way you want to lean. Of course, the rest of the songs on Colours do predate that film, so it's also possible that all the music except that one song (which became Calling) were older and just that song was from The Big Spliff sessions. I offer no speculation of my own, just noting the River song appearing here.

Also, noticed when working on this some more that what I had taken for one song was two; the spreadsheet has been updated.

[Krickis]

Whelp, life is back in this project. While looking into RipX, I discovered an acquaintance actually has the thing. He did one track for me as a proof of concept, and the results are quite good. Not perfect at all, but I'm going to continue to discuss this with him and see if we can get actual good listenable versions of these songs.

I am tentatively calling this thing "A Trip Through Infinity" and crediting it to David Gilmour, as per original credits. I continue to have no opinion on if this is really Dave or all of PF, I'm just going with Dave because it's the official story. I'll let those who know more and have better ears to determine who might be playing do the speculating haha

[Kit Rae]

Worth noting that one of the songs in Colours did wind up on The Endless River. Which either lends credence to Colours being Pink Floyd or River being not-actually-all-PF stuff, whichever way you want to lean. Of course, the rest of the songs on Colours do predate that film, so it's also possible that all the music except that one song (which became Calling) were older and just that song was from The Big Spliff sessions. I offer no speculation of my own, just noting the River song appearing here.

As I said above, Anthony Moore is credited as co writer of Calling and credited as playing keyboards. It pre dates DB, so that dates it to his 1986-87 MLOR sessions on the Astoria with DG. The backing track on the TER version is the same as the one in RTAT, but there are a few keyboard overdubs. In an interview from earlier this year Anthony said he only played a fragment of a keyboard part for TER, so that must be what he was referring to.

[Krickis]

I'm almost ready to release what I've made here, but I'm wondering, can anyone point me towards that "Me & J.C." song? I can't seem to find it on here or elsewhere, in part because the name is difficult to search. I can find credits for it on IMDB, but not the song itself... Because I haven't even heard it, I can't say if it's worth including in this project at this point.

[Floydophile]

It is, iirc, a very catchy pop tune, not very DG like, played on the radio, somewhere during the movie. Interestingly, a certain Edward Shearmur is providing the score to that movie.

[Kit Rae]

I'm almost ready to release what I've made here, but I'm wondering, can anyone point me towards that "Me & J.C." song? I can't seem to find it on here or elsewhere, in part because the name is difficult to search. I can find credits for it on IMDB, but not the song itself... Because I haven't even heard it, I can't say if it's worth including in this project at this point.

Apart from the film credit, it's just people claiming it exists on the internet. I have never found it, and no one has produced an actual sound clip that I have ever heard. There is nothing in the Cement Garden movie soundtrack that sounded like David to me, so it may have not even been used in the film.

[Floydophile]

Iirc, his name also appeared during the end credits.

And: Steven O'Rourke has been one of the producers of that movie