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Topic: Announcing "Essential Ommadawn Lost Version", It fixes up the "I Say" annoyance< Next Oldest | Next Newest >
Tubular Val Offline




Group: Members
Posts: 8
Joined: Nov. 2015
Posted: Mar. 16 2017, 16:53

(Note to moderators: I hope this is the proper forum section as my post deals entirely with Mike's original music and this perceived problem has been discussed here. If not, please move where adequate).


Hi all, greetings from Tubular Val:

About seven years ago I created my "Essential Edition" of "Ommadawn's Lost Version" (titled "Essential Lost Version", what else) and, as I've finally decided to share it with everyone else as a service to the fan community, I've uploaded it to a web site where those of you interested can get hold of it securely and for free. Details follow but first a caveat is in order:

Caveat: if you're one of those fans who deem perfect every piece of Mike's music, and thus think that every attempt at edition or retouching is necessarily for the worse and in any case short of sheer heresy, then quite possibly you won't be interested in this edition and probably you won't like it either so I'd suggest it would be best for you to disregard it altogether.

At any rate, it's not my intention to upset anyone nor is it to substitute anything, it's just that I'm pretty sure that some other fans of Mike might possibly like it as well and thus I intend to eventually share my editions with all of you. Should it happen that you actually don't, nothing's lost, you'll always have the originals ready at hand.

Generally, my editions strive to offer a possible solution to some perceived problems with certain works of Mike, either the ones I've perceived myself or the ones that some persons brought to my atention, persons to whom I proselitized Mike's music with usually very good results. However, some particular pieces here and there rub them in the wrong direction and thus get quite disliked.

Just for instance, a frequent cause for the complaints is Mike's particular sense of humour, which at times gets to be quite puerile and unduly intrusive, tending to significantly defile some of his best works by sprinkling them with supposedly funny bits which actually detract from the wonderful underlying music's enjoyment.

Regrettably Mike's been doing this quite often and frankly, IMHO, the moment he'd consider including one of his absurd "jokes" on top of some sublime music he'd do well sitting in the middle of the highway till the urge to do it recedes. By the way, this kind of puerile behaviour is by no means unique to Mike, another musical genius, Mozart, did likewise once and again so Mike's certainly not alone in that regard.

After this long preamble let me tell you what I've done: with my first "Essential Edition" I strive to try and correct what Mike did with the so-called "Ommadawn Lost Version" which to everyone's surprise came out of the blue as part of "Ommadawn's Deluxe Edition" back in 2010. The "Lost Version" has unexpectedly good audio quality and is a very fresh, exciting version of the legendary "Ommadawn" but most regrettably it's marred by the inclusion of the infamous "I Say I Say I Say" drunk-duel parody right on top of the delightful girlie chorus at the beginning of the final part, ruining it completely and stopping on its tracks the musical enjoyment.

I don't know about you but when I listened to it for the very first time I felt as if someone had just kicked me you-know-where, and after having suffered it all a number of times I decided I didn't want to listen to that mood-killing insufferable annoyance anymore, all the more since that dumb thing is immediately followed by an excellent all-new climax and a beautiful ending.

As I was more than fed up having to skip that part each time I listened to "OM Lost Version" and also of having to try and justify it when playing the track to friends and acquaintances (everyone would put on a face like "What was he thinking ? Which kind of moron disgraces their own music like that ?"), I firmly decided to try and edit it to get rid of the perceived nuisance forever.

As it happens, I'm knowledgeable enough technically speaking to attempt the task but not having the multitrack to work with means that there's a narrow limit to what can be done and what can't. I nevertheless did what I could and when adequately satisfied with my edition (by the 2nd attempt) I uploaded it to the Multimedia section of this well-known (non-official) Spanish website fully dedicated to Mike and his productions (you might already know about it):

http://www.mike-oldfield.es/default.asp

I chose this particular site to share my edition because: (1) it is a made-for-Mike's-fans by Mike's-fans endeavour, (2) has one of the very largest sections on Mike Oldfield's multimedia available for download, (3) no piracy whatsoever, no commercially available materials at all, no malware or constant annoying adds, (4) registration is completely free and upon registration you're given 4 credits you can use to download contents and my "Essential Lost Version" is just 4 credits so you're ready to go and download it from the very moment you register, and last but not least (5) though the website is mainly a Spanish-language one there are forums (fora) in several other languages, English included of course.

The files I uploaded just a couple'days ago are these two:

Essential Ommadawn Lost Version.mp3  (41.228.668 bytes, 4 credits to download, the ones you're given upon registering)

Essential Ommadawn Lost Version.txt  (172 bytes, 0 credits needed to download)

where the .txt file is a plain vanilla text file (you can open it with Notepad, say) which contains the MD5 checksum of the .mp3 file so that, if you share the file with someone else, the recipients can verify that the .mp3 hasn't been tampered with and is actually my original edition. They just compute the MD5 checksum of the downloaded file and compare it against the one in the .txt file.

The .mp3 file itself has been created by me from my original .wav lossless edition as a 320 kbps MP3 for maximum quality, and it plays perfectly on any good equipment. During all the edition process I've strictly respected all the parts preceding and succeeding the "I Say I Say I Say" section, I haven't touched them at all, they are exactly as they were in the original but for a few frames just where the substituted section begins and ends, which I've carefully adjusted to make the transition as seamless as possible.

On the other hand, I've also carefully and adequately edited the replacement part to make it match the rest of the work as closely as possible, adjusting the rythm, the tonality and the length, so that the resulting whole track is the exact same length as the original, i.e. 17 min. 10 sec.

That's all, thanks for reading and I sincerely hope that you'll consider my Essential Edition as an adequate solution to the perceived problem with "Ommadawn's Lost Version", which now you'll be able to listen to or play to others without having to skip the annoying fake-drunkards part while trying not to skip too much and miss a bit of the awesome final climax.

Any and all (politely expressed) comments welcome.

Thanks and regards.
TV
.
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StrumDynasty Offline




Group: Members
Posts: 21
Joined: Aug. 2015
Posted: April 18 2017, 17:46

I appreciate that you did this since I too find this section to be annoying. I'm wondering, though, why you would upload this edition, meant to be a definitive correction, as an mp3 file and not simply upload the lossless file. If you upload a lossless file, it gives us, the listeners, the choice in the level of quality we want. With a lossless WAV file, those of us who want to hear the song lossless can play the original file, while those who want a compressed version can perform a simple conversion with their computers. However, since you've only made the mp3 file available, we, the listeners who care about audio quality, once again have to make another sacrifice to hear Mike's song the way we want it. Please upload the original lossless file.
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