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How long does it take to download a score? Well,
it depends on the score.
With DSL, the score for Sherlock Jr.
is around 52MB should download in about 7 minutes...or even less if
you're on cable internet...and if you're on a T1 line at work, even
faster. (Hey, what are you doing downloading music at your
job?! Get back to work!). A 75-80 minute feature might take
10-12 minutes to download. [back to
top]
How
do I know when to start
playing the DVD or "altscore" track?Generally
speaking, fire when you see
the whites of the titles...meaning the fade in of the film's main
title. However every DVD release is a little different -- one may
have hardly any time between your hitting 'enter' on the remote and the
picture start, and another may have a couple of minutes of introductory
titles. Put down that nutcracker, kiddo...each downloaded MP3
track from altscore.com begins with spoken instructions telling you
where and how to find and line up the start point of the DVD.
Then hit the pause button on your CD or MP3 player, and then start both
together. [back
to top]
Will the DVD and the
music stay in synch for the whole film?Absolutely. My scores do not used sound effects or musical 'hits' etc that work like sound effects (smacking the keys when someone falls down) and so if you're off by a half-second or so one way or the other you'll still be fine. [back to top] How do I pay for the altscore.com soundtrack, and is it safe? You pay securely with a credit card through PayPal. Our buy now button takes you to a PayPal login page, and the add to cart button takes you to a shopping cart page with a checkout button that will take you to a PayPal login page. If you've already got a PayPal account, you're one step again of the game. [back to top] No.
It's not. I'm not saying
it isn't possible, it's just not cool (or legal). These scores -
both the music and the recordings - are copyrighted © and all
rights are
reserved for all territories throughout the world and universe in all
existing formats and any to be created in the future. Now...heck,
we've all copied CD's for
friends. If you purchase and download a score from
altscore.com and make a copy for someone, please pay for it or have
your friend pay for it.
Remember, every time someone gets a copy of one of my scores for free instead of buying it and downloading it, it means sales will go down...which will only serve as an incentive for me to stop providing more scores or even to shut down the site altogether. So, c'mon folks...after all, we're only talking about a couple of bucks. [back to top] Do you sell CD's of these scores? These scores are currently only
available for download. If you are not comfortable or tech-savvy
with the process of downloading music and making a CD of it, see if
there's someone you know who is who can help you with this.
Why are you making these scores available? The
idea came from several years of hearing
comments from film buffs and
general audiences about the musical scores on DVDs of silent
films. I've heard everything from favorable comments about a
release that has multiple or alternate scores (like the recent
Pandora's Box), to rants about tracks so awful the mute button was
quickly found three minutes into a DVD. I also read something
last year on a 16mm film posting forum that someone had been playing
the audio from the "American Slapstick" DVD set (nearly all those
scores are by me) to accompany their 16mm silent comedies at home
screenings. I figured the majority of film and DVD collectors
could figure out how to run two pieces of equipment at the same
time. It turns out one of the guys from MST3K has already been
doing this with downloadable commentary tracks -- go to Rifftrax to see.
It's expensive to produce a DVD, and a silent film DVD comes with the additional price tag of producing the musical score. If there was money - and in some cases, room on the disc - to produce multiple musical scores for silent film DVDs, they'd all have them. When you go to silent film show the music is always different, and that's part of why you go. Why shouldn't you have a choice when you watch a silent film at home? The scores are here so the home DVD collector has a choice, a variety. [back to top] Are these all piano scores? I
plan to record scores on either piano
or theatre organ. In some cases I may do both. Check the
site from time to time, as I may record a piano score for a film, and
then do an organ track for it some months later. I may also
revisit the film and re-record the piano or organ score...an alternate
score to my alternate score. [back
to top]
I need help figuring out how to burn a CD from my downloaded files! Where did my downloaded file go? And once I find it, where should it go? How do I move my downloaded MP3 score onto my iPod? We
do not provide tech support or
computer help. Please do not e-mail us with computer
questions. If you need help or instructions on how to do any of
the above, please ask the tech-savvy friend, nephew, neighbor etc. you
usually ask for computer help. [back
to top]
Do
you take requests?It
depends. If there's a title that
I feel will yield a sufficient number of downloads so it's worth my
time to record a score for it, then I may honor a request. There
may be an occasional film that it would be fun to score for the handful
of people that may own it (or have taped or DV-R'ed it off TCM). [back
to top]
Will altscore.com offer alternate music tracks by other silent film accompanists? Maybe, but there are no plans for this currently. This site/service launches in March 2008, and so let's see how well it does, and then we'll look into offering scores by other accompanists. [back to top] Go to the downloads page, take a look at what's available and what our new releases are, find something you want to purchase and download, and click on the "add to shopping cart" button. Ready? Click here to jump back to the top of this page, and click on the button to go to the page with the available scores. |
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