I will try to see where to get hold of it.
I watched all the documentaries this morning from disc 2 as well, and the original student short movie where THX feature film was based on.
I like especially the Murch explaining, how they didn't want the usual sci-fi electronic sounds to the movie. I guess theremins and early synths making "futuristic" electronics beeps and zaps. But the explanations of how how created the soundtrack by slowing down and reversing fragments of classical music, and eventually the actual composer liked that early reference soundtrack so much, he just wrote down the notes as they were, and re-created it with actual orchestra.
And when Murch mentions, the opening sequence of film is actually 400% slowed down and reversed Stabat Mater by Pergolesi, it's like no wonder it sounds so good and no wonder others have seen the genius quality of this piece and adopted it.. wink!
His detailed analysis of specific spaces, sounds, sources, how to achieve specific tonality, harmonics and textures, and what kind of things he experiments to get these good effects. I know, that these days people will just say, why bother, when you can use reverb plugin or distortion, but I would believe there is certain unconscious feeling when you listen to sound, when it has the hidden qualities what aren't necessarily obvious. Lets say his technic to play audio 4 times the normal speed in room, to record it with recorder that runs at same speed, and then slow it down back to normal speed, when the talking sounds normal, but the natural room reverb has grown 400%. Whole process including magnetic tapes and actual space being somewhat different than plugin of computer. which can be useful and good, but not the only option.
Also the method that they transmitted the audio via radio, and then captured the material with another radio, occasionally slightly out of the accurate frequency, creating great distortions, which would be affected not only by random hand adjustments, but conditions of weather, location, etc. And the detail, it's not something you necessary consciously think of, but which has the certain effect to your brain when you hear it. I think, that piece, would be probably useful reminder for noise makers from the times when innovative experiments resulted great sounds. What a dark colossal atmosphere you could pull out from music-box and tape manipulation, as opposed to some cheesy digi synth and reverb plugin.
