Unlike most other 1960's soundtrack there is no subjective decision to make whether the 'Viva Las Vegas'
masters should be remastered from 3-track for release or not, simply
because there were no (final) original stereo masters produced for 'Viva Las Vegas' in the first place.
It is not an easy task because of dry sound and unrational use of the 3 tracks available.
How a mix should be done is usually too subjective to even argue about, but perhaps not in this case.
The title song with its intense arrangements has all the instruments on one channel, the vocals on another and
the only backup vocals on the third.
The following songs were recorded with backup vocals only on the third, "empty" channel:
Viva Las Vegas (master, takes
2-7), C'mon Everybody, Do the
Vega, Santa Lucia, Yellow Rose of Texas/The Eyes of
Texas, The Lady Loves Me and You're
the Boss.
These songs have an acoustic guitar on the third channel:
I Need Somebody to Lean On and Viva Las Vegas
(take 1)
These songs have brass instead of backup vocals on the third channel:
Night Life (saxophone) and If You Think I Don't Need You (saxophone/trumpets/trombone).
No effort at creating a stereo or even mono image can improve this situation and
it is considered necessary to keep the instruments on one stereo channel, the vocals centered and the backup vocals on the
other 2-track stereo channel. This will leave an almost empty right channel and a certain amount of
leakage from the instrumental channel may be necessary. It is a relief to find that exactly this approach has been
taken on the 2003 FTD 'Viva Las Vegas' soundtrack,
which is an ambitious attempt at remastering the entire 'Viva Las
Vegas' soundtrack.
M.G.M. soundtracks were recorded dry and the typical 60's approach would be to apply dynamic processing for record release,
especially utilizing dynamic compression and only light reverb of the vocal channel. Using just a little compression and hardly any reverb makes this modern attempt a success overall and so much better than previous efforts.
The result does not even sound alien beside the original 'Girl Happy' LP masters, which
were recorded in the same manner as 'Viva Las Vegas' and also by George Stoll and David Weichman.
Sadly, the amplitude level has been pushed up about 3-4 dB over the 0 dB limit
on the FTD 'Viva Las Vegas' soundtrack and this
distracts from what otherwise would have been an excellent release all the way. The title song
Viva Las Vegas (master) is for instance first clipped from amplitude overload and then limited to -3 dB, just to make sure that all reasons for the initial compromise
were eliminated as well - and leaving us with "the worst of both worlds". Having said that, it is a relief to find that
some similar major mistakes of the previously released outtakes have been rectified with this release. Most noteably,
Viva Las Vegas take 1 which sounded corrupt on 'Silver Screen
Stereo' due to poor reverb
and amplitude raise above the limit, now sounds fantastic and even has the dynamic range intact.
was present on the left instrumental channel are definitely gone forever.
Example of clipped peaks on Night
Life on the FTD 'Viva Las Vegas' soundtrack album after decreasing
the amplitude with 4 dB, compared to an example showing
that the clipped peaks can be repaired somewhat
using Fourier approximations. But who wants to spend
time doing this?
Too much digital echo (by any standard) on the Double Features versions of Night Life, Do the Vega and Yellow Rose of Texas/The Eyes of Texas. Too much noise reduction (by any standard) on the Double Features version of I Need Somebody to Lean on.