N/A: Blade Runner Westwood Edition

[Secret Squirrel]

What's a private release on a CDR? That doesn't sound like something that should qualify as an official release. Composers can (and probably do) give out samples of their music all the time, but they shouldn't be counted as a release.

[Myrkul]

I am agree, covers looks also pretty poor.. i would exclude it but..

matter is we have few other albums like this, that were given away by the composer himself to "very" few persons (or other "internal/private" releases), like Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance..

[Lich King]

Hey guys.

Here are a couple of several sites that contain info on this CDR.

http://www.anunna.net/vangelis-rarit...methode1&id=33

http://media.bladezone.com/contents/...eamt_music.php

Please remove it if you feel it does not qualify.

I have contacted Frank Klepaki himself about this music. Surprisingly enough, he actually reads his emails and answers them. Very nice guy

[Gigablah]

We had a bit of a discussion here:

http://vgmdb.net/forums/showthread.php?t=1693

Basically, we don't want to create album entries for every "sample" CD a composer gives out. However it seems this particular entry does pass the "distribution" criteria somewhat since there's 10 copies with consistent audio content and packaging.

[Lich King]

OK, cool...

The covers are actually not any worse looking than factory normal insert. My scanner is about 8 years old, so it's not that great. These inserts are on heavier stock, glossy paper than your normal insert. I would think they didn't use some industrial machinery to print them, as there are only 10 copies, it probably would've been very impractical. I'm assuming they were printed on a consumer printer.

And again, I'd really like to abide by the guidelines so as not to create any unnecessary work for you guys, so should I contact an admin on content that would be questionable, before posting it? I don't know if it's easier to decide wether to allow it before hand or to delete it after the fact.

[Secret Squirrel]

Well, you could contact an admin or you could post a thread about it in the Video Game Music Discussion section so that more people could weigh in on it.

[Lich King]

OK, gotcha.

[Valet2]

That's what Frank said me about this cd:

"On that CD, I can only speculate as I do not know for sure. But those might have been promotional press items that were scarcely given out, becuase a formal soundtrack was never made available."

here's the spectrogram: http://img686.imageshack.us/img686/2...spectrumcr.png

I've met him personally in Las Vegas this summer, actually

[ᄐv๑–X²]

OK found a copy on eBay, I'd like to buy it but don't know if it's real. What do you guys think?

Spoiler:

Edit: Never mind, everything on this copy screams fake. The biggest giveaway has to be 'Franck' on the disc lol.

[MiLO]

I think it's about as fake or legit as the one I got, Valet2, or Lich King.

Here's what my disc looks like:

Spoiler:

And the back:

Spoiler:

Here's what Valet2's copy looks like:

Spoiler:

As you can see the back covers of all 3 versions have slight variations. Valet2's CD looks clean like your pic from Ebay but with correctly spelled "Frank".
Several years ago Valet2 contacted Frank about this release and got a reply:

On that CD, I can only speculate as I do not know for sure. But those might have been promotional press items that were scarcely given out, becuase a formal soundtrack was never made available.

My personal opinion on this matter: it's a bullshit bootleg release. On all those cases it says Limited Edition bla-bla-bla, 3 out of 10, limited release and is not for public sale bla. Limited Edition my ass. Obviously there were more than 10 CDs made. And it says Westwood Edition, A 2000 Skinjob Release... who the hell is Skinjob? Some kind of official individual affiliated with Westwood Studious who got the rights to release these CDs? I think not. More like a nickname for a bootlegger who printed all this shit at home.
Matrix code on my CD says CD-R 80 CNLHM3950 0402. That's it. It's a plain simple CD-R with custom artwork printed on it.

[Foxhack]

Originally Posted by MiLO

And it says Westwood Edition, A 2000 Skinjob Release... who the hell is Skinjob? Some kind of official individual affiliated with Westwood Studious who got the rights to release these CDs? I think not. More like a nickname for a bootlegger who printed all this shit at home.

I can't tell if you're serious or not, but "skin-job" is a derogative term used to refer to a replicant in the Blade Runner film / game universes. (This isn't used in the novel.)

[MiLO]

Originally Posted by Foxhack

I can't tell if you're serious or not, but "skin-job" is a derogative term used to refer to a replicant in the Blade Runner film / game universes. (This isn't used in the novel.)

Interesting remark. Yes I was being serious and I didn't know about "skinjob" or at least didn't remember it.
I still think that all these Westwood Editions are not official and more of a fan-made nature if you will.

[Foxhack]

Originally Posted by MiLO

Interesting remark. Yes I was being serious and I didn't know about "skinjob" or at least didn't remember it.
I still think that all these Westwood Editions are not official and more of a fan-made nature if you will.

I own several film / album promotional CDs and they share traits from every example posted in this thread. (Crappy laserjet-printed artwork, black paint on CD-Rs, ink-jet printed CD label art.) I wouldn't personally discount ALL of these as bootleg editions.

-Someone- made these in a likely official form, in my opinion. The problem is, we'll never know who.

[MiLO]

Originally Posted by Foxhack

I own several film / album promotional CDs and they share traits from every example posted in this thread. (Crappy laserjet-printed artwork, black paint on CD-Rs, ink-jet printed CD label art.) I wouldn't personally discount ALL of these as bootleg editions.

-Someone- made these in a likely official form, in my opinion. The problem is, we'll never know who.

Here's another example of unofficial release made in official form for Blade Runner's game soundtrack. It is sort of a replica of this Skinjob's release as the track contents are identical. But the custom covers are different, of a higher res and overall better quality.
http://www.discogs.com/Frank-Klepack...elease/2534594

And another one:
http://www.discogs.com/Frank-Klepack...elease/2624944

And another one, which is a replica of an official release:
http://www.discogs.com/Tyrell-Bros-T...elease/2616672
http://vgmdb.net/album/6872 [official release from 1997]

All by the same author. As discogs' description says: CDr, Unofficial Release. I don't know if any re-mustering was done to improve the sound quality of these releases, but the albums are available for download on author's blogpost.
http://misterekis.blogspot.com/

Format is APE/Log/Cue but I don't think it's considered piracy because once again it's a fan-made release.

[Foxhack]

Those are just repackaged "expanded editions" which were originally made or compiled by several people.

The Blade Runner Esper Edition shown there was one of the most famous bootleg CD sets made for years. It should be either two CDs or 5 + 1 DVD, weird...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blade_R...ck%29#Bootlegs

[SimonJXZ]

So... why is this here? Seriously. We cover plenty of stuff in the database. It's a thorough database and that's good. But when we have to debate whether or not something is "official", isn't that a pretty bad sign? And on that note, what is "official"? An employee that worked on the game - a human being that has no soundtrack-publishing rights - personally made some CDs to pass around to the other guys on the project? So he got fancy and added some artwork with a jewel case. He had fun with it. If I was going to make CDs for my co-workers, I might do the same. It's still not official. Just because he worked on the project of the game doesn't make him any more of an official producer of the game's soundtrack CD than I am. If the so-called Quake Soundtrack would have been produced by a company member, would that have mystically made it a more valid release?

I'm with MiLO on this one, I really don't know what stuff like this is doing here. You can't even compare two copies and come up with the same looking CD. One has Frank misspelled, one doesn't, and one looks completely different than any of the others. Even better, only some of them have some weird random serial/catalog number on it, A2000 (which can't possibly be any sort of real identifier if it's just a promotional item, can it?). SonMay and Ever Anime bootlegs have more of a place in the database than this. If something was made just to be passed around by company employees and such, it shouldn't really count as any sort of soundtrack release, should it? This should at least be marked as a bootleg. Even Frank Klepacki doesn't know what's going on with this CD, according to Valet2.

[MiLO]

Originally Posted by SimonJXZ

If something was made just to be passed around by company employees and such, it shouldn't really count as any sort of soundtrack release, should it? This should at least be marked as a bootleg. Even Frank Klepacki doesn't know what's going on with this CD, according to Valet2.

I think this album has all signs of bootleg and should be marked as such, but it's not wrong to keep it in database. It's useful for information purposes at least. So that people in the future who might see it on Ebay for 500 bucks can look at this and know what they are getting for those money.

Speaking of CDs passed among employees, here's another example: Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance The Soundtrack. It's ok to have these things in database.

[SimonJXZ]

Conker's Bad Fur Day is another one. I never did like that entry. Actually, I remember the entry you linked as well, and always thought it was a little bit strange as well.

I suppose you're right though. Bootleg entries are helpful to people who are less informed about the existence of bootlegs, and it could help people not to be ripped off.

Did you shell out 500 bucks for this, or was that just an example?

[MiLO]

It was an example. The copy I got from ebay was around $150. Back in late 2011 or so.

[SimonJXZ]

Ah. Well, I would have believed the $500 price. With VGM, it's hard to know.