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Todd Ireland
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| Posted: 22 July 2008 at 9:26pm | IP Logged
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According to the database, commercial single copies of 38 Special's "The Sound of Your Voice" run 4:48. However, both of the song's CD appearances have run times of 4:55-4:56. Is the single's shorter run time the result of an edit, early fade, and/or speed difference?
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crapfromthepast
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| Posted: 27 July 2008 at 2:38pm | IP Logged
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Todd -
I have the LP version on Hot Hits Vol. 7, where it runs 4:56.
I have a version with an early fade on The Network 40 Tuneup #38, which begins its fade at 4:13 and runs 4:36. It's about a 48-beat fade - a very long fade-out.
That doesn't answer your question, but it points to an early fade on some CD that Charisma put out in '91.
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cmmmbase
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| Posted: 27 July 2008 at 6:59pm | IP Logged
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my cd promo for this tune on Charisma PRCD 050 mirrors the Network 40 version and is titled the AC edit...
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Todd Ireland
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| Posted: 27 July 2008 at 8:24pm | IP Logged
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Edtop40 graciously sent me a dub of his cassette single copy and here's what I've determined... The cassette single indeed runs 4:48, but plays at a faster pitch and fades out approximately :04 sooner than the CD/LP length. It strikes me as odd though that the cassette single was mastered this way given that the long DJ length and the CD/LP length both run 4:56 and are identical to each other in every way.
At any rate, my findings suggest that both database CD appearances of "The Sound of Your Voice" should contain the comment: (LP length and speed).
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Todd Ireland
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| Posted: 27 July 2008 at 8:40pm | IP Logged
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cmmmbase wrote:
| my cd promo for this tune on Charisma PRCD 050 mirrors the Network 40 version and is titled the AC edit... |
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Interesting... I wonder how this "AC Edit" differs, if at all, from the "Edit" version running 4:36 on the Charisma PRCD 046 promo CD. The tracks on the latter DJ disc are as follows:
1) Edit - 4:36 (printed time: 4:30)
2) Album Version - 4:56 (printed time: 4:57)
It was common for record labels to issue special "AC Edits" of rock-oriented songs on promo CD singles in the early '90s. This often simply entailed remixing the electric guitars to make them sound softer and more subdued in the overall mix.
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edtop40
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| Posted: 28 July 2008 at 11:00am | IP Logged
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paul.....i want to re-emphasize that my experience with cassingles is that they normally run at a faster speed than their lp/cd counterparts......my first hand estimate is that more than half of the cassingles i've reviewed run fast......that just may be because of degradation of the tape material over time (just a guess).......one shouldn't necessarily assume that the vinyl 45, was ALSO at a faster pitch......i think this is/was an issue exclusive to cassingles....
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crapfromthepast
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| Posted: 28 July 2008 at 1:25pm | IP Logged
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edtop40 - My experience with 45s in the cassingle era (late '80s/early '90s) is that the pitch is nearly perfectly matched to the CD counterparts, to within +/-0.1% or 0.2%. (I've seen variations on that order from CD-to-CD, and they're usually caused by variations from tape machine to tape machine at the record companies.) There are examples of deliberately pitching up the single (although I can't think of any in that time frame off the top of my head), but those are usually pitched WAY up, by 1% or more. I use a Technics 1200 turntable at home, where 45 RPM is EXACTLY 45 RPM, to within ridiculously tight tolerances. Same for 33-1/3 RPM.
My experience with cassettes in that same time frame is far more variable, as you've seen as well. Tapes should run at 3-3/4 inches per second, but there's no way to calibrate most cassette decks. I've seen good cassette decks be off by +/-1%, and no adjustment knob to fix it. To make matters worse, premade cassettes had relatively poor pitch control to begin with, creating even more variation on the playback side. Back in my recording studio days, it was a major headache to try and calibrate the cassette deck speed, and even then we'd see variations from deck-to-deck in our studios. We hated cassettes...
If you're seeing repeated instances where the cassette singles run too fast, I would guess that your cassette deck runs too fast. If it's too fast by 2%, which isn't all that uncommon, that would reduce your play time by about 1 second for every minute of song. A 4 minute song would run 4 seconds shorter on that deck, compared with the proper run time.
Mind you, there are many instances of the pitch being way off, even on LP records. For instance, the American Top 40 year-end countdown from 1981 was pressed onto vinyl running about 1 or 2% too slow throughout - both the music and talk breaks. (I timed it out once, but I don't remember the exact number.) Bottom line - I wouldn't really trust the timings on anything but CDs, the true 45s, the true LPs, or for new tracks, mp3s.
Just my 2 cents...
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Todd Ireland
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| Posted: 28 July 2008 at 3:12pm | IP Logged
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Thanks for the explanation, Ron. In my experience, many cassette decks I've used seem to play all pre-recorded cassettes at a faster than normal speed and therefore I tend to attribute the problem with the cassette decks being mis-calibrated, not the cassettes themselves. Whenever I clock cassette singles, I swear by the cassette deck in my '99 Ford Explorer because I've always found it to produce timing results that are consistent with vinyl and CD run times. Granted, Ed has timed far more cassette singles than I ever have, so if he's finding that some play at normal speed while others play too fast, then there may indeed be some inconsistencies in the way cassette singles are manufactured.
In the case of "The Sound of Your Voice", the playback speed of Ed's cassette single dub is, in my opinion, considerably faster than the normal 1% speed deviation and therefore I think it warrants a database comment regarding the pitch. If I can get my hands on a cassette single copy to play in my Ford Explorer's tape deck, I'd be curious to see if it times out to 4:48 like Ed's cassingle dub. For now, one thing we can definitely conclude is that the cassette single fades out :04 earlier than the CD/LP length and therefore I think at the very least an (LP length) comment would be appropriate for the song's two CD appearances in the database.
If anyone has a commerical 45 copy of "The Sound of Your Voice", I'd love to know the run time. However, Joel Whitburn's Top Pop Singles 1955-1999 book does not show this song as ever having been made available as a vinyl 45.
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cmmmbase
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| Posted: 28 July 2008 at 4:52pm | IP Logged
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correct! There was no 45 for "The Sound Of Your Voice" in the US....
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Yah Shure
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| Posted: 28 July 2008 at 5:21pm | IP Logged
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crapfromthepast wrote:
| My experience with cassettes in that same time frame is far more variable, as you've seen as well. Tapes should run at 3-3/4 inches per second |
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Alvin, Theodore and Simon might love that 3-3/4 IPS speed, but the last time I checked - and it HAS been awhile - cassette speed was still 1-7/8 IPS.
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crapfromthepast
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| Posted: 28 July 2008 at 6:22pm | IP Logged
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Oops...good catch, Yah Shure.
Our reel-to-reel decks had settings for 7-1/2 IPS, 15 IPS and 30 IPS, and for some reason I always associated cassettes with half the lowest setting on the reel-to-reel. Well, 1-7/8 IPS would explain why they don't sound so good...
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crapfromthepast
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| Posted: 30 July 2008 at 9:16am | IP Logged
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If you're still checking the cassette versions, I thought of a nice way for you to check the pitch.
The song is played with a live drummer playing to a click track, and the tempo is exactly 136.0 BPM throughout, with no drifts. It's the same 136.0 BPM on both Hot Hits Vol. 7 (4:56) and The Network 40 Tuneup #38 (4:36).
If you have the album version on cassette, that should be exactly 136.0 BPM. I think the single should be 136.0 BPM as well, but that's what we're trying to determine, and we should probably use the LP version as another data point.
BPMs are easy to check with a stopwatch and a counter, just make sure to start the counter at "0" when the stopwatch is 0:00. Since this song is played to a click track, use the longest stretch you can to do your counting - this increases the accuracy. (Don't try this if the song doesn't use a drum machine or a click track - the live drummer variations in tempo can easily be +/- a few BPMs throughout the song, and your measured BPM will depend on your start/stop points - not good.)
There is software that does this automatically for .WAV or .MP3 files, but I only trust its numbers for drum machines or click track songs. I use this free one - http://www.mixmeister.com/bpmanalyzer/bpmanalyzer.asp It gives resolution down to 1/100 of a BPM, but that's a little excessive. I trust it to 1/10 of a BPM, and I manually check afterwards to see if there is any drift from the beginning to the end of the song. Drifts of 0.1 BPM are common, drifts of 0.3 BPM are not unheard of, and an occasional jump of about 1 BPM turns up here and there, most likely due to use of a different tape machine during a particular part of the recording process.
Edited by crapfromthepast on 30 July 2008 at 9:23am
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edtop40
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| Posted: 28 May 2009 at 4:52pm | IP Logged
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after reviewing this track further, i've come to the realization that my cassingle runs 4:51 in length and is identical to the full length cd version just faded out to the 4:51 mark....the timing differences are because of the pitch on my cassette player and NOT the songs actual pitch...
Edited by edtop40 on 28 May 2009 at 4:54pm
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Top 40 Music on Compact Disc : Chat Board
Topic: "The Sound of Your Voice" - 38 Special
