Top 40 Music on Compact Disc: taco "puttin’ on the ritz"

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edtop40
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Posted: 05 April 2008 at 10:25am \| IP Logged

i have a cdr copy of this song from somewhere and it is very hissy at the beginning and end.....do any of the 7 other cds containing the 3:25 45 version have a less hissy version?....

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Todd Ireland
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Posted: 05 April 2008 at 12:04pm \| IP Logged

Ed:

I have the 45 version of Taco's "Puttin' on the Ritz" on the following CDs:

Ultimate New Wave Hits (Flashback 72714)
Like, Omigod! The '80$ Pop Culture Box (Totally) (Rhino 78239)

I have the LP version on these CDs:

Rock of the 80's Volume 11 (Priority 53767)
Nipper's Greatest Hits - The '80s (RCA 9970)
Hits of the 80's (Box Set) (Columbia River Entertainment Group 310001)

Unfortunately, the hiss you speak of is present on all of the above CDs and therefore it's probably safe to conclude this is reflective of the master tapes. (I actually find the hiss to be slightly louder on the LP version CDs than on the 45 version discs!)

By the way, I seem to detect some slight "crackling" vinyl artifacts on during the intro and outro on the CDs containing the 45 version that I'm not hearing during the same passages on the LP version. Is it possible the 45 version on the CDs listed above could've been mastered from vinyl???

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Posted: 05 April 2008 at 12:18pm \| IP Logged

Ed, this doesn't answer your question, but just as an aside, this's song meteoric rise to Top 40 poularity in 1983 caught the U.S. division of RCA Records SO completely by surprise, that they didn't feel they could press up normal RCA promo 45s quickly enough to service U.S. radio, especially given its "novelty song" angle. So RCA decided to both quickly purchase and distribute stock copies of the song from their "RCA Canada" division, where it was already popular. They then affixed those small, black-and-white "NOT FOR SALE" stickers, that RCA would sometimes utilize, whenever they would happen to ship out a stock 45 copy to radio, as a "promo 45 substitute." To this day, I still only have 3 of those "stickered Canadian vinyl stock 45s, used as U.S. promo 45s" in my 1983 promo 45s box. I wonder if, later during its hit chart run, RCA might have went back and ever issue a "standard yellow label" RCA promo 45 for "Puttin' On The Ritz?" Does anyone know, or happen to have one? FYI, in all my years inside Top 40 radio, this was the ONLY time I can ever remember a label utilizing a "mass stock 45 purchase, from an international division of their own company" to more quickly service radio, rather than taking the time to press up a standard U.S. promo 45!

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Posted: 05 April 2008 at 4:01pm \| IP Logged

I worked at a one stop at the time this was released and the stock copies were also the Canadian issue.

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Posted: 05 April 2008 at 7:56pm \| IP Logged

Todd Ireland wrote:

By the way, I seem to detect some slight "crackling" vinyl artifacts on during the intro and outro on the CDs containing the 45 version that I'm not hearing during the same passages on the LP version. Is it possible the 45 version on the CDs listed above could've been mastered from vinyl???

Todd, I noticed this same thing many years ago; however, I don't think it's vinyl clicks. It sounds to me that there may have been a problem with the master tape. On occasion, I've heard this same kind of clicking on cassette tapes.

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Posted: 05 April 2008 at 10:29pm \| IP Logged

I always just thought it was an effect at the end of the song. Sorta goes along with the fading vocal effect.

Todd Ireland
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Posted: 05 April 2008 at 10:39pm \| IP Logged

Aaron:

Now that you mention it, you're right... The artifacts heard on the 45 intro and outro aren't so much "clicking" noises, but rather intermittent short bursts of static. Otherwise, the sound quality on the 45 version sounds very crisp and clear, like one would expect from a tape source.

Fetta:

I too thought the pattern of static sounds heard at the end of the 45 version was just part of the fading vocal effect until I discovered today that the LP version outro doesn't have those static noises!

Edited by Todd Ireland on 05 April 2008 at 10:45pm

edtop40
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Posted: 07 April 2008 at 8:17am \| IP Logged

the clicking i hear is only in the left channel and occurs every second and a half......almost like a scratch on a record, but it doesn't sound to me as if the track is copied from vinyl.....it must be something in the mastering or from the original source tape....

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mjb50
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Posted: 13 May 2021 at 9:02pm \| IP Logged

Puttin' on the Ritz

Regarding hiss:

Most of the hiss is just part of the recording. Part of the unique sound of the song is heavy use of effects on the electronic percussion and vocals. The boxes they used in that era added a lot of hiss anyway, and the
type of reverb they intentionally put on the hi-hat sounds was especially hissy by design.

Regarding clicks in the left channel on the CD reissues:

The clicks are not supposed to be there, and were not on the original records.

The clicks are not from vinyl. They're at somewhat regular intervals (though not to the millisecond!), are only in the left channel, and are not at the rates that would match the rotation of a record. They also have a
weird look in the spectrogram in Adobe Audition, not being a simple infinite spike like you get from debris in a vinyl groove, but rather a very brief tone with tightly packed harmonics which don't reach into the very highest
frequencies. So I say they're an artifact of a tape transfer gone wrong. What exactly went wrong, who's to say.

As already mentioned, it seems this same mastering, with additional noise reduction (which cleaned up some, but not all, of the clicks), was the
basis for the Hard to Find 45s On CD Vol. 14 release.

I've checked almost all of the CDs in Pat's database which have the 45 version, and they all use the same master. The only ones I didn't check were the Time-Life Club Hits and 80s Music Explosion discs, but
I don't hold out hope that those would be any different than the others.

So apparently the 45 version has yet to be released without some kind of problems. That said, if you remove the clicks from the Like, Omigod! CD version, it's pretty close to what it needs to be.

Anyway, I just ripped my US-distributed Canada-pressed 45 and did some detailed comparisons, so I can clear up some more things about it:

1. The 45 has noise reduction which is not on the After Eight CD album nor on the German or US 12" releases. This noise reduction is exactly the same as what you hear on the clicky mastering that's been showing up
on all of the CD compilations. So I don't think they actually added all that much noise reduction to most of the CD reissues; that's just how the 7" edit sounds.

Given that it was 1982, I expect they were using a dynamic range expander for thisthe lower the volume level, the greater the additional reduction in volume applied by the device. An expander is typically used to remove
the extra hiss that gets added when copying tapes. If over-applied, it will mute reverb tails and create a kind of halting effect on the beat. It's on the verge of being over-applied on the 45, to my ears, especially when
you compare it side-by-side to the album. You primarily hear the effect in the intro, the outro, and the tap-dance break, as well as any other moment with mostly percussion.

I experimented with the CD album version and the dynamics processing effect in my audio editor, and was able to get quite close to what you hear on the 45, so I'm pretty sure I've nailed what we're hearing here.

2. The intro of the 45 has what I assume is tape print-through which makes it so that before each clap, you hear a faint, muffled clap. This pre-clap is not on the clicky 45 master that's been used on all the CD
compilation releases so far. It is possible it's not even on all of the 45s, maybe just the Canadian version; someone can check their US pressing in headphones and see.

3. The clicky remaster plays at the same speed as the 45.

But for whatever reason, maybe artistic intent, the song plays very flat, by over half a semitone. To get it into its true key (E flat), you have to play:
the US 12" at +5.0%
the After Eight CD at +4.8%
the 45 or clicky remaster at +4.0%

Or, you can get it the rest of the way down to D if you play:
the US 12" at -0.9%
the After Eight CD at -1.1%
the 45 or clicky remaster at -1.8%

[edited to fix incorrect analysis of the clicky remaster speed; it's the same as the 45.]

No matter what speed you play it at, though, it still sounds kinda weird. That's just part of the charm.

Edited by mjb50 on 14 May 2021 at 2:40am

mjb50
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Posted: 13 May 2021 at 9:28pm \| IP Logged

Oh wow... I just took a closer look at the spectrogram for the mastering on Hard to Find 45s On CD Vol. 14, and found that not only was it subjected to excessive noise reduction (as
crapfromthepast already mentioned in the thread about that CD), but this one track is also taken from a lossy source! It's all sparse and dotty above 16 kHz, and lowpassed at about 19.6 kHz. LAME -V1,
I think. Also they faded it out about 2 seconds early.

Edited by mjb50 on 13 May 2021 at 9:31pm

crapfromthepast
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Posted: 14 May 2021 at 12:28pm \| IP Logged

Nice detective work from mjb50!

Here's some mastering info:

LP version (printed 4:36)

The LP version first appeared on CD RCA's Taco album After Eight (copyright 1982). This disc was among the very first batch of CDs released by RCA. It's crazy rare, to the point where I've never seen one out in the wild. Safe to say that you probably won't encounter one unless you go looking for one online, and then it'll run you about $30 (as of May 2021). I don't have this disc myself.

The earliest compilation to include the LP version is RCA's Nipper's Greatest Hits The '80s (1990), where it runs 4:36, runs at 98.7 BPM, and also sounds pretty good overall. There's a differently-EQ'd digital clone on:

Time-Life's 2-CD Modern Rock Vol. 8 Early '80s (2000)

I think, but can't confirm, that Priority's Rock Of The '80s Vol. 11 (1994) and the Nipper disc above both use the same analog transfer (possibly both based on After Eight?) The Priority disc is signficantly hissier than Nipper, also runs at 98.7 BPM, and runs 4:37 (extends longer than Nipper by exactly three footsteps). There's a differently-EQ'd digital clone on:

Time-Life's 2-CD Modern Rock Vol. 21 Club '80s (2001)

There's a different analog transfer somewhere in the EMI vaults overseas, which runs 99.1 BPM and has a slight desynchronization between its left and right channels (sounds a little swooshy when summed to mono; the RCA and Priority discs don't have this swooshiness when summed to mono). It appears on:

EMI Australia's 5-CD Pop Complete (1999)
Disky's 8-CD Greatest Hits Of The 80s (2002) - left/right channels swapped

45 version (printed 3:25)

The 45 version first appeared on CD on Rhino's Just Can't Get Enough Vol. 10 (1994), where it runs 3:24, runs at 99.6 BPM, and sounds pretty good overall. There's a glitch in the left channel on the fade, which repeats like a record scratch, but isn't a record scratch. The same analog transfer is used on:

Time-Life's Sounds Of The Eighties Vol. 11 1983-1984 (1995; I have a RE-1 reissue but I don't know if that differs from the original release) - differently EQ'd digital clone
Rhino Special Editions' cheapie New Wave Hits Vol. 2 (1996) - digitally identical
Rhino's promo Selections From Like Omigod (PRCD 400056, 2002) - level-shifted digital clone, about 0.5 dB quieter
Rhino's 7-CD Like Omigod (2002) - absolute polarity inverted (insignificant; it just means that the waveform looks upside down)
Eric's Hard To Find 45s On CD Vol. 14 '70s And '80s Pop Classics (2012) - digital clone of Like Omigod but with added noise reduction; avoid

As far as I know, there are no other analog transfers of the 45 version on CD. All the masterings trace back to Just Can't Get Enough Vol. 10.

My recommendations

For the LP version, go with Priority's Rock Of The '80s Vol. 11 (1994).

For the 45 version, go with Rhino's Just Can't Get Enough Vol. 10 (1994).

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mjb50
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Posted: 14 May 2021 at 6:39pm \| IP Logged

Thanks for the concise summary.

I wasn't going to mention it, but I did stumble across a foreign mastering out in file-sharing land, on a custom compilation, and can't figure out where it came from. Sadly, it's not perfect either:
it has a lengthy tape dropout in the right channel during the intro, resulting in almost the same kind of effect as the NR on the 45 masterings mentioned above. But the rest of the song does not have
excessive NR; it sounds like what was probably intended for the 45 all along.

We could re-create the 45 mix from the album version easily enough, and it would sound better (IMHO) than how it was ever heard in the '80s. But is that inauthenticity desirable?

When evaluating or making my own transfers and remasters, I'm always having to decide how much authenticity I really want. Do I want this song to sound like it did when it was played from a 45? Do I
want to faithfully reproduce what is on the record by undoing as much of the playback system's coloration as possible? Do I want to go further and try to make it sound like the best master tape (or
what I think is on such a tape)? Do I want make it sound competitive and good, by today's standards? Do I want it to match a particular CD mastering? Am I willing to reconstruct any of it using
CD/digital sources?

These are all competing "sounds"! And regardless, the authentic sound of the past is even more complicated because many of us would still mess around with tone controls/EQ to get it sounding "just
right" on our sound systems when we played the records, or we were listening to it on the radio, which has its own aesthetic.

Anyway...

Edited by mjb50 on 14 May 2021 at 6:45pm

EdisonLite
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Posted: 15 May 2021 at 1:12pm \| IP Logged

mjb50 wrote:

Thanks for the concise summary.

We could re-create the 45 mix from the album version easily enough, and it would sound better (IMHO) than how it was ever heard in the '80s. But is that inauthenticity desirable?

Yes.

Well, to me it is - as long as it's the same mix, but just altering the mastering to try to match the mastering of the 45.

Or is the 45 and LP actually 2 different mixes (and not just mastering approaches)? I know it's edited obviously.

mjb50
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Posted: 15 May 2021 at 4:01pm \| IP Logged

I'm 95.7% sure it's not a different mix.

They just used razor blades and tape, but of course they did not cut up the precious original tape; they used a copy to
work on, and probably also made a copy of the finished edit. Who knows how many copies were made, what decisions were made
along the way to reduce noise and preserve fidelity, and how well calibrated their equipment was.

In the end, at the very least, we can say the Canadian-made 45 ended up with the exact sound and speed as what we hear on
the CDs. The only difference is the unwanted clicks on the CDs. It's easier to remove those clicks than it is to figure out
the exact expander settings they used...although I have a pretty good guess that they were using the dbx 3BX; I used to
have one and it does what I am hearing in this track (basically concentrating the expansion effect in the upper midrange,
affecting drums and cymbals more than vocals and other instruments).

Edited by mjb50 on 15 May 2021 at 4:02pm

Jody Thornton
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Posted: 15 May 2021 at 5:50pm \| IP Logged

Is it just me, or does some of the LP version seem "added to" or "appended to" in some way? During the parts where he goes "Up .... Down" and "Move to the ...." I'll have to check the times, but it sounds kludged in to the single mix.

EDIT: Just dug up a video - so between 3:10 and 3:45 is where most seems to sound unnatural, and I think it's more than just my being more familiar with the edit.

Edited by Jody Thornton on 15 May 2021 at 5:55pm

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mjb50
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Posted: 15 May 2021 at 10:25pm \| IP Logged

Not sure what you mean.

The last 1:30 of the LP version is a medley which incorporates parts of Broadway Rhythm, Always, White Christmas, Alexander's Ragtime Band, and There's No Business Like Show Business. 35 seconds of this medley were
cut out for the 45 by removing several short sections, but I don't think there was any change to what was left.

Edited by mjb50 on 15 May 2021 at 10:25pm

EternalStatic
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Posted: 16 May 2021 at 8:28am \| IP Logged

EDITED POST: Never mind -- I went back farther in the
conversation and see that the difference in reverb has already
been addressed, and is likely down to the overuse of NR. Wild
the amount of difference that can make!

Edited by EternalStatic on 16 May 2021 at 8:33am

Jody Thornton
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Posted: 17 May 2021 at 2:52pm \| IP Logged

mjb50 wrote:

Not sure what you mean.

The last 1:30 of the LP version is a medley which
incorporates parts of Broadway Rhythm, Always, White
Christmas, Alexander's Ragtime Band, and There's No
Business Like Show Business. 35 seconds of this medley
were
cut out for the 45 by removing several short sections,
but I don't think there was any change to what was left.

I just mean to say that the various parts on the LP
version don't sound like they merge as naturally, whereas
the single sounds more merged together naturally.

For example, go to https://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=TMstTM01m28 (or pull out an LP version). At 3:31 and
3:42 sound like awkward junction points. I recall the LP
version of Loverboy's "When It's Over" sounding a hair
clunky on "cause ... deep deep down inside" where on the
45-rpm disc the song is edited by jumping to the chorus.
So I wonder if sometimes, content is actually added
rather than edited out.

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aaronk
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Posted: 17 May 2021 at 11:24pm \| IP Logged

mjb50 wrote:

The 45 has noise reduction which is not on the After Eight CD album nor on the German or US 12" releases. This noise reduction is exactly the same as what you hear on the clicky mastering that's been showing up on all of the CD compilations. So I don't think they actually added all that much noise reduction to most of the CD reissues; that's just how the 7" edit sounds.

This is a very keen observation and one that I hadn't noticed until doing an A/B with the 45 and LP version. The 45 version does, indeed, have noise reduction applied, which totally changes the sound of many elements in the song. The "snare" hits (or electronic handclaps) have quite a bit of reverb on the LP version, but the NR on the 45 has shaved much of it off. The synthesizers also sound noticeably different. Another giveaway is the "tap dance" passage that starts around 1:54. On the 45, the tap dancing sounds gated, whereas there is noticeable reverb on the LP. The reverb (or lack of) is not something that was added or subtracted from each mix. It is most definitely a result of noise reduction.

That said, the 45 still has an audible layer of hiss. My guess is that the LP version was recorded without NR. Then, when it was transferred to another tape to edit down for the 45, the NR was mistakenly turned on. (Alternately, it could be that the wrong type of NR was turned on when copying the tape.)

mjb50 wrote:

Given that it was 1982, I expect they were using a dynamic range expander for thisthe lower the volume level, the greater the additional reduction in volume applied by the device. An expander is typically used to remove the extra hiss that gets added when copying tapes. If over-applied, it will mute reverb tails and create a kind of halting effect on the beat. It's on the verge of being over-applied on the 45, to my ears, especially when you compare it side-by-side to the album. You primarily hear the effect in the intro, the outro, and the tap-dance break, as well as any other moment with mostly percussion.

I actually think you're more accurate by describing it as noise reduction. If it were just reducing/gating the volume, I wouldn't expect the loud volume passages to sound different, but they do. Take a listen to the synths on each version starting at 0:05. The 45's synths are muffled from the NR, whereas they are clear sounding on the LP version.

Regarding the "clicking" or "static" noises on the 45 master, it appears they are present throughout the entire song but are mostly overpowered by the music. The first appearance is just before the 4th beat on the intro, and then again just before the 6th beat. I can also hear it at least once in between beats during the "tap dance" segment.

As I've gone through my collection of '80s tracks, I've often edited an LP version to match the 45 whenever the 45 version on CD doesn't sound as good. This one is tricky, though. I'm tempted to call the NR a mastering/engineering "mistake," but it's a goof up that has drastically changed the sound of the song. Editing the LP version to match doesn't give you "better" sounding 45 version. It simply gives you a "different" sounding 45 edit that is not true to the original.

Edited by aaronk on 17 May 2021 at 11:37pm

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mjb50
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Posted: 18 May 2021 at 5:53am \| IP Logged

aaronk wrote:

Yep! Well, we're both right, because it's noise reduction for tape, which was achieved in that era mainly by way of dynamic range expansion. Ideally you'd compress the dynamic range and maximize the SNR when recording, and then expand the dynamic range in a complementary way on playback; this would reduce the relative level of the tape hiss and keep the music mostly the same. Normally one Dolby, dbx, or Telcom "compander" unit would do both functions for you (you'd press a button to say which mode you wantedrecording or playback), but there were also standalone expanders (by dbx and others) which were intended to improve the sound of any hissy, clicky, or overly compressed audio, not just audio that had been pre-processed in exactly the opposite way.

My first experiment just involved using the built-in Dynamics Processing effect in Adobe Audition, which as I mentioned, got me pretty close, and reminded me of how my old dbx BX3 expander sounded.

Your comment spurred me to do some more experimenting, though, and I remembered I have the Satin VST plugin (not free), which emulates the classic tape noise reduction systems Dolby A, Dolby B, dbx I, and dbx II (all without mentioning them by their true names).

Playing around with the plugin, I found that applying Dolby A decoding to the After Eight CD album version got me even closer to the 45 version's sound right away, so it seems that's probably the mistake they made (leaving Dolby A decoding on during playback of a non-Dolby-encoded tape).

For fun, I ended up doing a reconstruction of the 45 like this:

1. roll off the high end (simulating a mediocre tape copy)
2. apply Dolby A decoding (via Satin)
3. boost high end (undoing step 1, and then some)
4. apply more dynamic range expansion to 2 kHz+ range (Satin's Dolby A wasn't enough)
5. overlay a light amount of white noise (simulating final tape)
6. interpret sample rate as 44502 (~0.91% speedup)
7. make all the edits to match the 45
8. boost high end a little more
9. temporarily roll off 3 kHz+, reduce volume 40 dB, reduce right channel volume another 8 dB, copy to clipboard, undo all of that
10. starting 1.058s after beginning of first beat, mix-paste 60% clipboard + 100% existing audio (simulating the tape print-through!)
11. resample to 44100
12. more EQ to approximate the poor fidelity of the 45

I wouldn't blame anyone for not going to that much trouble to reproduce the noise reduction, though. I'd rather just make the necessary edits to the album version, set the speed either to match the 45 or to get the proper key, and enjoy how it was supposed to sound all along.

(I'm happy to share my files or detailed settings; just PM me.)

[this post edited in 2022 to fix word wrapping]

Edited by mjb50 on 08 November 2022 at 3:19am

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