Talk:The Planets

Pluto

It's not a planet so the reference in the introduction to "all the planets except Pluto" has been deleted. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.67.168.194 (talk) 4 April 2011

Inspiration for music in Star Wars

It's said in the Adaptations->In Popular Culture section that it was used to inspire the Imperial March from Star Wars. It's probably worth adding that it was used in "The Battle of Yavin" as well, such as around 13:15 in this video of the Death Star attack https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2WBG2rJZGW8

Modifications to USAF/US Marine Band recordings

Currently we have:

Mars --> Korean Orchestra (CC) (complete orchestra, needs no further editing)

Venus --> US Air Force Band (PD) spliced with Omega13a's MuseSounds (CC) (some sections are only USAF, some only MuseSounds, and others a combination)

Mercury --> US Air Force Band (PD)

Jupiter --> New York String Quartet recording re-synced and overlaid on top of USAF (PD)

Saturn --> US Marine Band (PD)

Uranus --> US Air Force Band (PD)

Neptune --> US Marine Band (PD)

The only downside of the US military recordings is that they are concert band (no string instruments) and thus the pieces are missing quite a large part of the emotional impact (then again I'm kind of biased because I played violin in grade school for many years). Tim riley gave me a "thank you" when I merged the USAF recording with the String Quartet and got a more complete-sounding copyright-safe version of Jupiter. I did something similar with Venus (merging the USAF recording with a synthesized recording that Omega13a made) a couple months ago and that has been on the page since. Now that I've got some time, I tried doing the same today with Mercury and Saturn and Tim reverted it.

Reiterating: I am taking short clips (mostly cues) from the synthesized version and overlaying them on top of the real-life recordings so that the strings play when they should. What's the issue? (And why is this okay for Venus but not for Mercury and Saturn?) Ee100duna (talk) 20:02, 18 May 2026 (UTC)

I'm all for adding the best free-use clips available, but the version on the recent substitution chez Mercury was so clumsy and clodhopping and unHolstian that I think the previous - not wonderful - version preferable. Happy to go with any consensus here on this, Tim riley talk 20:54, 18 May 2026 (UTC)

The ones I'm trying to add:

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_Planets_Op.32_Mercury_The_Messenger_Mix_USAF_and_Omega13a.opus

The first version of Mercury I made probably used the wrong approach - it used Omega13a's MuseSounds version as the basis, and then I overlaid the missing band instruments (as it too is missing a couple) from the USAF recording onto it. That was what got reverted, and probably for good reason.

What I then tried to do was the opposite - I used the USAF recording as the basis, with some string cues from Omega13a's version attached to it. I think this version sounds better and I had reuploaded the second version to replace the first version (same link). (not sure if you replayed it / if it sounds any better to you)

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_Planets_Op.32_Saturn_The_Bringer_Of_Old_Age_Mix_USMarineBand_and_Omega13a.opus

Then I tried the same thing with Saturn. The strings are less prominent in this one so most of the duration of the audio is just the US Marine Band recording, only overlaying the Omega13a version when there is an important part being played by strings.

Here's when the strings are playing:

Mercury: 0:12-00:21, 0:23-00:29, 0:43-0:58, 1:37-2:09, 2:32-2:42, 2:45-3:27, 3:40-3:50, 4:06-4:19

Saturn: 0:29-00:55, 2:22-2:44, 4:23-4:27， 4:36-5:04, 5:43-6:19, 6:42-end

If listening closely you'll probably tell because the two recordings are not exactly the same speed. But I tried to get it really close to the original tempos of the USAF/US Marine Band recordings/ not altering the real-life recordings. Ee100duna (talk) 21:15, 18 May 2026 (UTC)

Whoa, it's been a month already and no one else has chimed in. Do you want to try listening to those two links?

TLDR: I took the original USAF recordings and added the synthesized strings on top of them Ee100duna (talk) 16:40, 19 June 2026 (UTC)