I’ve been looking through the FSM “physical archives” (the boxes I scanned in 2014) for fun stuff to post—things that are interesting but don’t take too long to explain (or reveal any confidences).
Here’s the playlist/mixing instructions for Jerry Goldsmith’s Coma (on our “Michael Crichton” 2CD set of The Carey Treatment, Westworld and Coma) that I left for Michael McDonald at Private Island Audio (then known as Private Island Trax).
Mike did the lion’s share of our mixes for the FSM CDs throughout the run of the catalog. I became acquainted with Pro Tools so I would often prep the editing sessions in a spare room (or later at home) and leave them for Mike to do on his own. I’d listen at home, and request revisions if necessary. Lots of happy memories spending time with Mike and his team at P.I.T.! (I would order East India Grill for lunch, and that is the heaviest, greasiest Indian food ever—but oh so good.)
Coma was a tricky score because we had 1/2'' tapes of the complete score, but the three-track mix wasn’t made for a stereo movie, so all the strings were in channel one. (Ideally you want the violins on the left, the low strings on the right.) So it required some manipulation of the frequencies to make it sound like the more familiar, and proper, stereo album mix (which we had to use in a few places).
Take a look at my comment by the double asterisk. I was trying to remember what this meant—was Mike sick that day? No, it refers to the version of the “Love Theme” with lyrics that are, shall we say...a little saccharine.