.

Hi all, greetings from Tubular Val:

About seven years ago I created my "Essential Edition" of "Ommadawn's Lost Version" (titled "Essential Lost Version", what else !) and, as I've finally decided to share it with everyone else as a service to the fan community, I've uploaded it to the Multimedia section of this web site where those of you interested can get hold of it securely and essentially for free (4 credits, the ones you're given for free upon registering will do). Details follow but first a caveat is in order:

Caveat: if you're one of those fans who deem perfect every piece of Mike's music, and thus think that every attempt at edition or retouching is necessarily for the worse and in any case short of sheer heresy, then quite possibly you won't be interested in this edition and probably you won't like it either so I'd suggest it would be best for you to disregard it altogether.

At any rate, it's not my intention to upset anyone nor is it to substitute anything, it's just that I'm pretty sure that some fans of Mike might possibly like my editions as well and thus I intend to eventually share them with all of you. Should it happen that you actually don't like this one, nothing's lost, you'll always have the original ready at hand.

Generally, my editions strive to offer a possible solution to some perceived problems with certain works of Mike, either the ones I've noticed myself or the ones that a number of persons brought to my atention, usually persons to whom I proselitized Mike's music with suitably good results. However at times some particular works do rub them in the wrong direction and thus get quite disliked.

Just for instance, a frequent cause for the complaints is Mike's peculiar sense of humour, which at times gets to be quite puerile and unduly intrusive, significantly defiling some of his best works by sprinkling them with supposedly funny bits which actually detract from the wonderful underlying music's enjoyment.

Regrettably Mike's been doing this quite often and frankly, IMHO, the moment he'd consider including one of his absurd "jokes" on top of some sublime music he'd do well sitting in the middle of the highway till the urge recedes (by the way, this kind of puerile behaviour is by no means unique to Mike, another musical genius, Mozart, did likewise once and again so Mike's certainly not alone in that regard). 

After this long preamble let me explain what I've done: with my first "Essential Edition" I strive to try and correct what Mike did with the so-called "Ommadawn Lost Version" which to everyone's surprise came out of the blue as part of "Ommadawn's Deluxe Edition" back in 2010. The "Lost Version" has surprisingly good audio quality and is a very fresh, exciting version of the legendary "Ommadawn" but most regrettably it's marred by the inclusion of the infamous "I Say I Say I Say" drunk-duel parody right on top of the delightful girlie chorus at the beginning of the final part, ruining it completely and stopping on its tracks the musical enjoyment.

I don't know about you but when I listened to it for the very first time I felt as if someone had just kicked me you-know-where, and after having suffered it all a number of times I decided I didn't want to listen to that mood-killing insufferable annoyance anymore, especially since that dumb thing is immediately followed by an excellent all-new climax and a beautiful ending.

As I was more than fed up having to skip that part each time I listened to "Ommadawn Lost Version" and also of having to try and justify it when playing the track to friends and acquaintances (everyone would put on a face like "What was he thinking ? Which kind of moron disgraces their own music like that ?"), I firmly decided to try and edit it to get rid of the perceived nuisance once and for all.

As it happens, I'm knowledgeable enough technically speaking to attempt the task but not having the multitrack to work with means that there's a narrow limit to what can be done and to what extent. I nevertheless did what I could and when adequately satisfied with my edition I uploaded it to the Multimedia section of this web site. I chose this site to share my edition because:

1. It's a made-for-Mike's-fans by Mike's-fans endeavour,


2. It has one of the very largest sections on Mike Oldfield's multimedia available for download,


3. No piracy whatsoever, no commercially available materials at all, no malware or constant annoying adds,


4. Registration is completely free and upon registration you're given 4 credits you can use to download contents and my "Essential Lost Version" is just 4 credits so you're ready to go and download it from the very moment you register,


5. And last but not least, though this website is mainly a Spanish-language one there's an English-language forum, the one you're reading right now !

 The files I uploaded just a few weeks ago are these two:

Essential Ommadawn Lost Version.mp3  (41.228.668 bytes)

Essential Ommadawn Lost Version.txt  (172 bytes, 0 credits needed to download) 

where the .txt file is a plain-vanilla text file (you can open it with Notepad, say) which contains the MD5 checksum for the .mp3 file so that, if you share the file with someone else, the recipients can verify that the .mp3 hasn't been tampered with and is actually my original edition.

The .mp3 file itself has been created by me from my original .wav lossless edition as a 320 kbps MP3 for maximum quality, and plays perfectly on any good equipment. During all the edition process I've strictly respected all the parts preceding and following the "I Say I Say I Say" section, I haven't touched them at all, they are exactly as they were in the original but for just a few frames precisely where the substituted section begins and ends, which I've carefully adjusted to make the transition as seamless as possible.

Additionally I've also carefully and adequately edited the replacement part to make it match the rest of the work as closely as I could do, adjusting the rythm, the tonality and the length so that the resulting whole track is the exact same length as the original, i.e. 17 min. 10 sec.

That's all, thanks for reading and I sincerely hope that you'll consider my Essential Edition as an adequate solution to the perceived problem with "Ommadawn's Lost Version", which now you'll be able to listen to or play to others without having to skip the annoying fake-drunkards part while trying not to skip too much and miss a bit of the awesome final climax.

Any and all (politely expressed) comments welcome.

Thanks and regards.

TV

.