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treknician1701

Star Trek sound effects, the back story

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Hello, everyone. My name is Greg Stone, and I had actually worked on the Next Generation series for the first three years, working under David Stipes, and my Supervisor was Kim Bailey. I know that over the past 20 some odd years, there's been a lot of rumors on the internet about me, and none of it good. None of it true.

I wanted to come onto this site, since it is rapidly becoming a major Star Trek site, and clear up a couple of pieces of misinformation regarding me that have been floating around the internet, since the internet became! Now, being a big Star Trek fan, and collector, I had come across several items that were VERY rare, and very precious, not only to Star Trek fans, but to the Hollywood crowd as well. One of these was a reel to reel tape of the music from the first pilot "The Cage" or "The Menagerie", and some other music from "Where no man has gone before". I had given these master tapes over to Neil Norman, at Crescendo records, so he could get them "out there" for the Star Trek fans. Prior to this, the only music that I had from Trek were horrible cassette recordings taken off of channel 5 here in Los Angeles, and edited so that only the music scenes were played, with all sorts of sounds cluttering up the music.

When I met Ralph Myron Miller, in 1976, we had a common love in Trek, and he had also recorded the series, but on reel to reel, so he started re-editing all the episodes, using only the music where little or no extra noise was heard. He had just cut the music, from one piece to the other, and I suggested to him to put the mono tracks from one piece on the left channel, and fade it out, and on the right channel fade in the next piece, thereby making a segue from channel to channel, and then re-record them into one channel, making a smooth transition from one to the other. This worked wonderfully, and we were both happy with the results, but I had to settle with only a cassette version of this music, but it was better than nothing. When I managed to get the Pilot music, and WNMHGB stuff, Ralph was out of his mind with joy, understandably. He re-recorded it from 7 7/8 up to 15 IPS, and did as much as he could, with what limited machines he had to clean up the old tapes.

Neil had told me that he didn't know if the project was "viable", and he needed to send the master tapes off to a company in Japan to see if the sound could be cleaned up enough for CD quality, which was just coming into it's own back at that time. It was about at this same time, waiting for about 6 months to hear back from Neil, that Ralph started wondering about the TOS sound effects, and if we could get copies of those. I was working in Los Angeles, as a fraud investigator for a major bank at that time, so I started using some free time to call around and make some inquiries.

The first thing I found out, that the original sound effects were "created" by a man named Douglas Grindstaff, and "Glenn Glenn sound"! Most of them were originally created by Doug, but some were old library sound effects, and I hear them from time to time. You can hear a communications background on an old episode of "Outer Limits" When I called the company, I found out two things. First, Doug Grindstaff was no longer there, and secondly, the young man I talked to said that the Trek TOS sound effects had gone missing MANY years before! I finally located Doug, thru the unions, working on "little house on the prairie", where Matt Jefferies was working, and after talking to him, he told me that the last he knew, the original sound effects tapes were sent over to another studio for the Star Trek Animated series! I found out that the company working on that, was "Horta Editorial" (I know, HORTA, heheheheh)

I called there, and was transferred over to Sam Horta himself! I explained the situation, and asked if I could come there and check to try and locate the missing tapes. He was really great to speak with and invited me over anytime that I wanted. Ralph and I showed up bright and early the very next day, not wanting to miss a chance to walk thru a massive sound effects library like that! After several hours, the only thing of interest that we came across was one reel of "Jetsons" sound effects, which Ralph wanted. I told him that we need to concentrate on the goal of this "mission", and about 45 minutes later, we hit GOLD! We uncovered three reels of TOS sound effects, and I wanted to look for more, but figured that we should not press our luck. We took the four reels (Ralph would not give the Jetsons sounds), and went back to Sam's office. He examined the reels and said "I totally forgot that we had these". He then had me sign a "notice of transfer" for the four reels, and I promised to get them back to him within 24 hours, and he replied, "No hurry, get them back to me in a week or two"! We drove home at break-neck speeds, and Ralph did the transfer from 7 7/8 up to 15 IPS, and made 3 copies each!

One set went to Neil Norman, who was living with the fact that his records, cassettes and CDs of the pilot and WNMHGB were doing incredible sales. He told me that we would get 5% of the total gross on the sale of the sound effects, but I found out that in Hollywood, a verbal agreement is about as good as the paper it's not written on!

Neil had asked me to write the "liner notes" for the CD, which I did, and basically told the story about Sam Horta, and how the sounds came about, telling about Douglas Grindstaff and the missing reels of tape, etc. However, Neil decided to write his own notes, and just add my name under a "special thanks to" as he had done on the Pilot music CD. When he called me up, and told me about that, I told him that he would have to add Ralph's name on the CD, since he had done all the transfers and was primary in locating the reels in the first part. Neil was totally opposed to including both Ralph's name and mine, so I told him to just include Ralph, since I had my name on the first album.

So, that was done, and the CDs came out to rave reviews by the fans, and everyone was happy! I had a friend named Mark Banning who had worked with Neil, and he told me, at one time, that Neil had just ordered the FOURTH set of CDs to be printed up, There were 10,000 copies printed, so that means that he had sold 40,000 copies, which cost him almost nothing to print up, and wholesale them for 8.95 each, with a sale price of 15.99 each! He made SO much money on the sound effects alone, he bought a new house in Malibu, California for CASH!!!! Ralph and I saw not a dime of that money, which is what I expected. The only thing I still have from this situation is the original notice of transmittal signed by Sam Horta for the transfer of the TOS sound effects, and the Jetson's sounds!

Ralph and I parted company about 10 years ago, and before that point, he gave me a CD copy of all of three reels. I put them in my computer, and discovered, on the "tags" on each sound, "Artist" was listed as "Ralph M. Miller"!!! Not a word about "Douglas Grindstaff" or "Glenn Glenn sound"! The recording studios was listed as "RMS studios, Inc", which really got me ticked off! About 5 years ago, Ralph had given an interview online, to the effect that HE (and he alone) got permission from Paramount to go into the studios and restore all the original TOS sound effects, and he was the supervisor of the Crescendo Records deal!!! What a stab in the back this was! Ralph had gone over to work with the new Star Trek fan production called "Star Trek: Phase Two", and was becoming good friends with James Cawley, who plays Kirk in the new production. He had always wanted to be on the "inside" of the Star Trek productions, but I never knew that his ego would become so bad that he would take credit for someone's else's work, and totally lie about how the Star Trek sound effects came to be out there, for all you fans.

Now, I am totally aware of what's been said about me before, that I am a "big-headed ego idiot with delusions of godhood" (Geee, I wonder where he got THAT one?) and that I would lie to my grandmother about the time of day, and if I didn't still have the original copy of Sam Horta's notice of transmittal, with his and my original signatures on it, then I wouldn't be here, telling you this story. I did not come here to say to all of you that you have to bow down to me, that without me, the sound effects would have never been found and that without my investigation into it, there would be none of them found. There were other copies, to be sure, and I know that someone would have dug them up. I am telling you this story because I want the truth to come out. The truth about the sound effects and the truth about the "Captain Stone" video on the STTNG sets. I will discuss later. This situation has gotten totally out of hand, and I'm tired of being harassed and banned from one site or another, simply for being "Greg Stone"! I am tired of the innuendo, misinformation, the verbal attacks on my life, and my friends and family, all of the gossip and the claims of me ripping off Star Trek fans. IT NEVER HAPPENED!

Sincerely, Greg R. Stone

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