I'm often asked how I make my soundtracks.

Actually, no, I've never been asked once, which kinda stinks, since I've always wanted to explain this to someone.

So you, the lucky reader, get to learn the ways of the music master.

I'm going to explain to you how I made my remastered TLR soundtrack (which is NOT the same as: http://www.bzpower.com/board/index.php?showtopic=5116&do=findComment&comment=286193)

Step 1) Get Audacity. Easy enough.

Step 2) Find a way to rip the DVD Audio. DVD Audio Extractor is one choice (for 30 bucks) but I go the hard (free) way and use Handbrake to rip the movie as a whole, and then use MKVTools to extract the audio. I delete the movie from my hard drive.

Step 3) Import the AC3 intro Audacity. You may need an add-on to do this.

Step 4) Right now you should have something like this:

You'll see there are six channels of audio, all mono. Channel 1 and Channel 2 are the "Front Channels". They often contain the music and, occasionally, voice echoes. Channel 3 is the raw voice and sound, the "Center Channel". No background music in this channel. Channel 4 is ambience. Totally useless. Channels 5 and 6 are the "Rear Channels." They're about the same as the front channels, except quieter and often containing fewer voice echoes/sound effects.

On to Step 5) Delete the unnecessary channels. On this DVD the rear channels had the same voice echoes and SFX as the front channels, so I deleted those both. I of course deleted the ambience channel. That leaves me with only Channels 1, 2, and 3. I made Channels one and two a Stereo track because they were meant to go together.

So begins Step 6) The editing process. I kept channel 3 (the voices) because I'll need to know when new scenes start and end, something I can't do with just background music. When I finish editing a track. I export all my tracks to 320 kbps (kilobytes per second) files.

Occasionally you'll run into some voice echoes in the Front Channels. Unless they're not in the rear channels (on this DVD the front and rear were just about the same) you'll have to include those. I believe the only times I encountered voice echoes were in "The Cave and the Collector", "Match Interruption", and "Prisoners of War", though there could be more.

Once you've made a soundtrack for the movie, congratulations! You may want to include some extra stuff like the Bye Bye Babylon instrumental or trailer music just for completion's sake.

So: expect this brand new TLR soundtrack sooner than later! Feel free to ask any questions.