Simon & Garfunkel-"Bridge Over..."

I tried a fold-down on this song from the Sony POP Music '51-'75 CD and it turned out terrible. Instruments just disappeared. That CD was from 1999. Has anyone done a successful fold-down of this song, maybe from the new remasters?

Maybe some earlier masterings were out of phase or something.

That's interesting, Bill. Nothing is noted in the database about that extra reverb. The copy on my computer is taken from my Essential CD, and the sound quality is really good. I can hear some faint crackle on the intro (not vinyl crackle, though), but overall it's pretty darn good for such a quiet recording.

Indy500, I did a fold down of the song from Essential, and I think I know what you mean. This is not a case where instruments are out of phase, though; it's just not one that folds down very nicely. If you listen to the strings at 3:45, you'll notice that they are only in the left channel, while the vocals and drums are centered. When you fold down the audio, the volume of the strings gets cut in half (as does all instrumentation that is panned hard left or right), so they get pretty buried in the mix.

Also, the piano sounds like it might have been miked using two microphones. The left and right channels are picking up different sounds from the piano, which is another reason it sounds so much more prominent in stereo than it does when you fold it down.

eriejwg wrote: Aaron, I can send you a mp3 vinyl dub I did from a clean 45. To me, the 45 just blows the LP away.

Is that from a vinyl 45 or a styrene 45? I've owned both over the years but had gotten rid of both before I paid attention to such things....

John, I'd love to hear what the mono 45 sounds like. Thanks!

eriejwg wrote: To me, the 45 just blows the LP away.

The 45 blew me away, too, along with my Realistic bookshelf speakers from Radio Shack, which were definitely the weak link my 1969 stereo system. The pronounced bottom-end cacaphony on the "Bridge" mono 45 blew out the woofers time and time again during the two years that I used them. Good thing they came with a lifetime warranty! They've performed much better as plant stands in the ensuing years. :)

There is a speed difference between the stereo side of my DJ 45 and my commercial 45. The Terre Haute stereo DJ runs two seconds faster (4:52) than the Pitman mono commercial 45 (4:54).

One of the great things about the mono mix is the definitive climax at the moment when the violins stop playing at the end, followed by the decay. But the extra-helping of reverb on the stereo mix - including the DJ 45's stereo side - completely obliterates the impact of that same moment.