Unlike most other 1960's soundtrack there is no subjective decision to make whether the 'Viva Las Vegas' masters should be remastered from 3-track for release or not, simply because there were no (final) original stereo masters produced for 'Viva Las Vegas' in the first place. It is not an easy task because of dry sound and unrational use of the 3 tracks available. How a mix should be done is usually too subjective to even argue about, but perhaps not in this case. The title song with its intense arrangements has all the instruments on one channel, the vocals on another and the only backup vocals on the third. 

Do The Vega, Santa Lucia and Viva Las Vegas (Takes 2 - 7) were recorded with backup vocals only on the third, "empty" channel, whereas I Need Somebody To Lean On and Viva Las Vegas (Take 1) have an accoustic guitar on the third channel, and If You Think I Don't Need You has saxophone, trumpets and trombone instead of backing vocals on the third channel.

No effort at creating a stereo or even mono image can improve this situation and it is considered necessary to keep the instruments on one stereo channel, the vocals centered, and the backup vocals on the other 2-track stereo channel. This will leave an almost empty right channel, and a certain amount of leakage from the instrumental channel may be necessary. It is exactly this approach has been taken on the 2003 FTD 'Viva Las Vegas' soundtrack, which is an ambitious attempt at remastering the entire 'Viva Las Vegas' soundtrack. 

M.G.M. soundtracks were recorded dry and the typical 60's approach would be to apply dynamic processing for record release, especially utilizing dynamic compression and only light reverb of the vocal channel. Using just a little compression and hardly any reverb makes this modern attempt a success overall and so much better than previous efforts. The result does not sound alien beside the original 'Girl Happy' LP masters, which were recorded in the same manner as 'Viva Las Vegas' and also by George Stoll and Dave Weichman.

Sadly, the amplitude level has been pushed up about 3-4 dB over the 0 dB limit on the FTD 'Viva Las Vegas' soundtrack and this distracts from what otherwise would have been an excellent release all the way. The title song Viva Las Vegas (master) is for instance first clipped from amplitude overload and then limited to -3 dB, just to make sure that all reasons for the initial compromise were eliminated as well - and leaving us with "the worst of both worlds". Having said that, it is a relief to find that some similar major mistakes of the previously released outtakes have been rectified with this release. Most noteably, Viva Las Vegas take 1 which sounded corrupt on 'Silver Screen Stereo' due to poor reverb and amplitude raise above the limit, now sounds fantastic and even has the dynamic range intact. 

There is too much digital echo (by any standard) on the 'Double Features' version of Do The Vega and too much noise reduction (by any standard) on the 'Double Features' version of I Need Somebody To Lean On.

The movie version of I Need Somebody To Lean On (2403) has a prominent saxophone throughout, that is not present on the record version.

The movie version of Viva Las Vegas has an extra instrumental intro.

In March of 2007, Sony decided to go through all of Elvis' masters. They retransferred everything and remastered all tracks including repairing as many clicks, pops, bad edits and dropouts as they could. They have used these newly mastered recordings on their new releases since 2007 including budget soundtracks, 'Legacy' releases, the 30 disc 'Complete Elvis Presley Masters' collection and the Franklin Mint package.