I am wanting to get my Mountain of the Cannibal God to english sound track. How much would that cost and is anyone doing it? I got two of this film (and a half) ... Two complete 3x400' and the last miss a reel. One is working okay and has the German sound, the others are on and off with sound. Don't know if anyone tried to re-record it. I do have the unmentionable version for a complete soundtrack, but editing this onto the digest, isn't that just plain hell?

Any help appreciated

Hopefully someone can help you here Vidar, I have read posts of people transferring the soundtrack from the unmentionable to the mentionable.

LOL! You fellows are cracking me up!
I have a reel that could use a re-record (is that an actual word?), but would be scared to even attempt it. I don't know how to use the recording features of my machine, plus I don't have a microphone for it. With my luck, if I tried rerecording the soundtrack, I would completely wipe out what was there and have a 400' silent reel. I don't know how in the world you would sync the dialogue with the movement of the actors' lips.
Does the magnetic stripe ever wear down (like a cassette tape) to the point a re-record would be pointless? Sorry I mentioned something non-film. At least it's analog technology!

I do it all the time Vidar! It's one of the main parts of the hobby to me to perfect these prints to the very best they can possibly be.

All in Stereo, all from digital lossless source.

Argh... I've said the "D" word now!!
Please don't ban me!

Here is the gear I use to great effect for doing so:



The Bauer T610 Stereo, PCDJVJ Software, Dac 3 Hardware controller, professional 5ch AG Gigaport soundcard, Professional Stereo Mixing console c/w effects panel all self contained within a professional Kamcase for protection. Wonderful VJ DJing tool that served me well on the circuit for over 7 years

Works perfectly for my film needs nowadays, great great results on all decent striped stock!

Produce me a master digital copy to fit your film @24fps frame for frame, and I can do the rest Vidar if you like?

Timothy, a company in England used to sell a reel to reel tape recorder that kept in synchronisation with a projector. The only thing I ever did was add music to titles or mood music to my home movies. You had to be careful because one mistake and your film could be ruined, as I didn't have another copy of the soundtrack. I was using a 5 pin din plug connected either to a record player or a tape recorder to the projector.

I got a GS-1200 with a synch box, but still think it must be close to impossible to start it correctly

What makes your job harder is that you would be trying to add the soundtrack to a digest.

Vidar, it really shouldn't be difficult with the equipment you have there with even a little practice at getting the start point spot on....especially using a pc with a pulse tone generator to sync to.

As Robert correctly points out, the hardest part will be producing a frame by frame perfect digital master to replicate your film.

If you can successfully achieve that, the rest of it should be a breeze.

I used to rerecord the sound on various German releases, this was working with just a tape recording of the soundtrack recorded from
TV, wild sound. It was when I was a lot younger and had more patience then, it was a simple case of locating the scene, recording the sound to film a bit at a time until sync drift, going back to the last point of sync, start both machines again and press record on projector so that there was no click on soundtrack and work your way through the print. It worked, was tedious but no doubt today's methods with sync boxes is easier. I have an 8mm print of "City of The Living Dead" the UFA 2x400' that someone has re recorded into
English and it is perfect, also Korda's feature of "Thief of Baghdad" recorded from Italian to English and a brilliant job they've done.

Yes I've received films which I can tell someone "has had a go at them" recording wise.
All Dogs Go to heaven is perfect for 3 reels but because the it was mounted on 2x 1200ft spools both when I received it and obviously when someone had a go at recording it, it has a lag on reel 4. Dogs mouth move....one second later, you get to hear what was said.

The reason .... well baffled me first time I watched it as the other three reels are in perfect sync, but then I suddenly realized what had happened.

When the last reel had been spliced in, whoever had done the splicing had left around one second of the lead in from the leader in place.

It's easy to do on this scene as it is a fade in scene, but basically the last reel image wise, starts to soon and contains about 20 extra frames so it doesn't marry up with the soundtrack when synced.

I have now broken the film back down to 3 x 600ft reels as original and placed it in my cupboard on the "To Do" shelf.

I have that one to do and "Hello Dolly" to also complete in the next few weeks or months.

The last one I completed a few months back now was "Girls Girls Girls" which was a complete mess when I received it despite the seller claiming he didn't know such!!

Anyhow all perfect now, far better sound than the original and given these films are musicals, they become greatly enhanced when the hard work is over.

Full of admiration. I will do this re-record on my Tom & Jerry: The Goldfish. There's a couple of seconds or three delay on the sound and mess it up more than that, I won't :-)

With real actors, it gets more obvious if you miss just a tad

I just wish I could show you the results Vidar, I am certain it would give you added confidence.
I run the digital image side by side with the projected film image, if any frame drift even begins to occur, (which is rare over a 600ft reel once the projector has been run for 5 minutes first) I have the facilities to either advance or retard the digital image by tiny incremental amounts "on the fly" so to speak.

This, in turn, gets things back perfect again. If you mess up at any stage, simply begin recording again from the very start of the drift. Recording many times is possible on magnetic stripe if everything is healthy.

Perhaps we need a video posting section here to be able to show you the results.

That would be great, but I asked and no support for video files. Youtube links would work I suppose

Must set up an account with them one day or Vimeo or someone.

Many's the time I have received prints from distributors where the sound is out of sync, reel one of "Curse of Frankenstein" springs to mind, one of the reels of "Carry on Again Doctor" missing sound for about ten minutes, rectified myself, sometimes the sound of one reel would have the sound from another recorded, oh it was fun, quality control obviously not as high on the list as the prices asked by Derann for their titles.

Often it is the sound quality rather than the print quality that let some of Deranns later blockbusters down. It's great when like Hugh you can remedy a blunder of the quality control dept and better still if you improve the original sound quality along the way!

This is a part of the hobby I have tried many times but failed miserably.I just can't get to grips with it.
A few years ago. I received a 400ft copy of young frankenstien with Germany sound. I also had a cd with the English sound already edited to the cut down. I was very fortunate to have the help of John clancey who hosted me for an evening and very kindly. Re recorded it using one of his GS 1200s. The results were outstanding. I just wish I knew how. I also have the feature of the texas chainsaw. Massacre in which part 4 is out of sync by just a few frames but I know if I played it would ruin the film.

Even though only reel 4 is out of sync, just as can be said of my print of "All Dogs Go To Heaven", I suggest the entire film is recorded again despite the obvious extra work involved Tom.

Why...well whenever I've been forced to record a single bad reel from a feature, the sound quality is that much improved from the work, then the rest of the once perfectly acceptable reels suddenly sound vastly inferior alongside the new recording, especially if you join your reels on features.

So, though a lot of work Tom, that's the way to go if you should ever decide to do so or have it done for you.

Why not get in touch with Keith Wilton Tom, he will sort out your problem, and if you want to go down the road of a complete rerecording of the feature as Andrew suggests, no doubt he can do that too. Vidar, I think Lee Mannering does rerecords of films
too, he might be worth getting in touch with.

Andrew obviously has the gear to do this type of job, although it does sound very involved with computers etc.

And of course Tom, as you're a friend, if all else fails, I can of course always do it for you and to a very high standard, just so long as you have the DVD and you're not needing it in a weeks turnaround.

This type of film almost certainly will be on pre striped laminated stock I would guess which virtually eliminates any risk from doing so.

This job should be very easy to do by ANYONE who owns a GS1200 and a Pulse Sync unit.

Thanks for making me feel like an idiot ;-) I have those, but can still not understand how to get it in sync. From what I understood, it only keeps the projector going at a steady speed as the DVD, but when do you start? If there was a sync mark you could set, then you could try removing a little sound, add a little bit to make it start exactly. But since you need to press REC by manual hand, it's really not something i can fix. If it's milliseconds off, it feels wrong

That was certainly never my intention Vidar.

Have your projector warmed up by running a film first.
Then practice counting down the exact start to your soundtrack by using the numbers on your leader which are equally spaced.

With a little practice, you should soon get the hang of it, especially if you use a digital timer from your projector pulses to time in with the one from your digital soundtrack.

This way you gain a visual aid to synchronicity before your film begins.

There are many methods Vidar, it's just a case of finding the one that suits you best.

The Pedro box was the very best tool to use when they were available.

Then practice, practice and more practice before suddenly it becomes a new skill you possess.

It was far harder in 70's and people made a good job it then just through practice

If all else fails Vidar, I have the film if you wanted to re-record back into German, it is mounted on a 1200' spool.

Thanks, and don't worry, Andrew :-) I used the smiley intentionally. I am a real lamer at things like this. And Hugh, if I do record it, I would first move the main track to the second track. Keep both in mono. And it's hardly any worse with English out of sync than German dubbed, so no matter how bad it gets, it's still better than German :-)

I figured I record the whole film onto video, then edit the DVD to fit the edited version and have a complete 1200' soundtrack to have one go at it. Also want to test with a couple of Tom & Jerrys. One with 3 seconds or more off, which can't be worse after I'm finished with it. And one of my Posse Cat's has sporadic sound only, will also be better, even if it's not 100% in sync