Roy Orbison - Oh, Pretty Woman

On the Both Sides Now stereo chat message board there has been some discussion about the mono single vs. stereo album versions of Oh, Pretty Woman. A poster on there says that Pat lists the version on the 16 Biggest Hits cd:



as being the stereo album version, and that most mono copies on cd turn into stereo for the last two seconds. My copy of this cd, which is packed away somewhere right now, definitely is mono from beginning to end and is the exact single version. I had even sent an mp3 of the song to a friend of mine a while back and tonight asked him to confirm that the mp3 was mono all the way through and he said it was, and that it was the correct single version.

Just thought I'd bring that to your attention.

Tom

The single version of this track is a fold-down. In this case, the fold-down was the hit. There is no dedicated Mono mix.

Bob

But, Bob, isn't Pretty Woman the one that has a different vocal overdub at one point?

But, yes, the mono versions of his Monument recordings produced by Bill Porter were fold-downs, as were most of Bill Porter's work in the 1960s. That's the way he worked. Porter said so in his liner notes for the DCC "Elvis 24 Karat Hits" CD.

But beware -- many CDs contain remixes of Orbison's work. I've been told "All Time Greatest Hits" contains the original stereo mixes.

Edited by Brian W.

I don't have the 16 Biggest Hits CD but I've noticed that most "single" lyric issues of this song have two problems with them in comparison to the original 45. 1) The stereo imaging added at the very end. 2) The entire song sounds like a mono fold down of a duophonic (doubled) style stereo effect that somebody did to it at some point. Why put it in phoney stereo when it was also mixed to stereo? Who knows? But when the Oribson box was produced (unfortunately by Sony Special Products and NOT Legacy) it appears nobody could find the original mono mix but that doctored up version was lying around so maybe it"summed" to mono. But as Pat notes, it also is slightly in "electronic stereo" so maybe somebody ran it through a second simulator. Or, the first simulator was just really bad. In any event, my question: Does the 16 Biggest Hits version sound like it has some doubling going on or is it really the undoctored mono single version?

Brian W. wrote: But, Bob, isn't Pretty Woman the one that has a different vocal overdub at one point?

Brian, one vocal line was overdubbed, yes. Otherwise, the "hit mix" is a fold-down of the original 1963 Stereo mix. The common Stereo mix we have all heard was executed in 1969. The 1963 Stereo mix has never been released on CD but, it was issued on vinyl as mastered by Steve Hoffman for S&P records. The 1963 mix is not much different than the 1969 mix except that it is just a tad wider.

But, yes, the mono versions of his Monument recordings produced by Bill Porter were fold-downs, as were most of Bill Porter's work in the 1960s. That's the way he worked. Porter said so in his liner notes for the DCC "Elvis 24 Karat Hits" CD.

This is correct. There are many examples whereby a fold-down was the "hit mix". Bill Porter also engineered many of the Everly Bros. early 1960's recordings that were recorded in Nashville. These hits are also fold-downs.

Bob



Edited by Bob Lovely