"Could It Be Magic" - Barry Manilow

The one CD with the single mix/edit of Could It Be Magic does indeed have a glitch at 0:55, right during the transfer between verse 1 and chorus 1. I believe it's 'cause they spliced the tape there. I have the 45 and it has the same exact glitch, which would make sense if it's on the master tape, and is there because they literally spliced the tape between the verse section and chorus. (The 1st verse may come from the original mix, and chorus 1 may be where the mix radically changes.)

So I don't understand how a cassette single reissue wouldn't have the glitch. Did you listen closely under headphones? It's not really noticeable on speakers or the radio.

It's possible that they digitally removed the click, like I did from the CD, but I really doubt they'd go to that trouble.

Gordon, your custom edit removing the glitch sounds
fabulous. Too bad the record company didn't do the same.

The only video I could find of the 45 being played on
YouTube is from WABC77 and he has added compression to his
audio chain. But, you can hear some sort of glitch at :55
so, like you said, it's on the master tape.

BTW, the glitch you are referring to is the tape splice
where it switches from the LP mix to the 45 mix. The intro
and first verse are taken from the LP version. Then at :55
they spliced on the word "come" to the remixed portion
which is the rest of the 45.
MM

Edited by MMathews

sriv94 wrote: I hear now what you mean. However, the glitch is much more pronounced on the Essential version. I could hear that one without the headphones. It's a little smoother on my cassingle.

Doug, I listened to your cassette version. Interesting. You're right. The splice is there, too. You can hear it. But there's no click after the "baby I love you", like there is on the "Essential" CD. At the time I got the "Essential" CD, I recall checking my 45 and hearing it had the same loud click. Your cassette, though edited at the same spot, sounds like a much smoother edit. The edit on the cassette just sounds like one of those things where he came back on another day and the vocal tone didn't match up on the next spot, whereas my 45, and the Essential CD, has a definite click in that spot. As Mark points out, this is where the LP mix gets spliced into the new 45 mix. So maybe there are 2 single master tapes at Sony (??) ... that only differ in this one spot. Seems hard to believe. But I can't understand why your cassette would sound so much better. I'm sure it was released before we had all this digital software to clean things. So if it was released long ago, the only conclusion I can come to is that maybe there are 2 master tapes. Even though I'm working on a potential Barry Manilow digital release with Sony right now, unfortunately I can't ask my contact to search for an alterate single mix.

Are you saying this is the case for your 45 and the single version on the Essential CD??