Aretha Franklin - Respect

"Respect" would have been a standout in any year, but that it stood out in the extraordinary field of pop in 1967 is even more remarkable. In my DJ sets from the '80s and '90s, it was a guaranteed floor-filler (for me, wedged between Stevie Wonder's "Signed Sealed Delivered" and Johnnie Taylor's "Who's Making Love"). The mono 45 and mono LP version have a fade starting about 2:18 and running to about 2:22. The stereo LP version runs at the same speed as the mono 45, with the fade starting about 2:18 and running to about 2:26.

Stereo

I'm not sure where the stereo version first appeared on CD. According to Discogs, it may be Atlantic's Aretha Franklin Best Of (1984). (This was one of a series of 1984 "Best Of" releases on Atlantic. The full series included collections from Joe Tex, Sam & Dave, Aretha Franklin, Booker T & The MG's, Otis Redding, and Wilson Pickett. I'm not sure how many of them made it onto CD.) Discogs shows the release date of this CD as 1984, but I'm skeptical that it came out at the same time as the LP/cassette.

The same analog transfer is used on just about all other CDs that include the stereo version of "Respect", including:

• Atlantic's 2-CD Aretha Franklin 30 Greatest Hits (1985) - digitally identical; it's possible (likely?) that this came out on CD before Best Of
• Warner Special Products' Atlantic Soul Classics (1985)
• Silver Eagle Records' 2-CD Rockin' Down The Block (1987)
• Time-Life's Classic Rock Vol. 5 1967 (1988) - fade is about 3 beats shorter
• Atlantic's Golden Age Of Black Music 1960-1970 (1988) - digitally exactly 3.4 dB louder, but fade starts too early at 2:12 and is about 6 beats shorter
• JCI's Soul Sixties (1988)
• Atlantic's Atlantic Rhythm And Blues 1947-1974 (1991 rerelease) - fade is about 2 beats shorter and has added noise reduction
• Time-Life's Rhythm And Blues Vol. 10 1967 (1991) - fade is about 4 beats shorter
• Time-Life's Solid Gold Soul Vol. 2 1967 (1991) - digitally identical to Rhythm And Blues Vol. 10 1967, fade is about 4 beats shorter
• JCI's Only Rock And Roll 1965-1969 (1994)
• MCA's 2-CD Soul Train 25th Anniversary Hall Of Fame (1995) - mastered a little loud

Some outliers that don't use the same analog transfer as the above:

• Heartland/Warner Special Products' 2-CD Real Rock (1987)
• Sony Music Special Products' 2-CD 35 Years Of Rock And Roll (1992)
• MFSL's full-length Aretha Franklin album I Never Loved A Man The Way I Love You (1993, UDCD 574) - EQ'd so that horns don't shine through as well as on 1984 mastering

If you must hear the song in stereo, 30 Greatest Hits is a great Aretha overview, which sounds just fine and is very inexpensive nowadays.

Mono

1985: The mono version first appeared on CD on Atlantic's multi-disc Atlantic Rhythm And Blues 1947-1974 (1985 original release). While my modern-day ears agree with Atlantic's choice to use the hit mono mix in their first multi-disc box, early adopters of the CD format wanted stereo. This set was not received well, to the point where Atlantic redid the entire set and rereleased it in 1991, replacing many mono tracks with stereo versions where available. Sonically, the 1985 set is OK overall. The EQ is a little flat-sounding, but there's plenty of dynamic range, the fades are left intact, and there's no added noise reduction. (The 1991 does indeed have added noise reduction on some tracks.) On this track, the left and right channels have some phase issues (showing up when out-of-phase-summed), but if you use just the left channel or just the right channel, you'll be fine. Other CD releases ignored the mono version until...

1992: Rhino did a new analog transfer for their Aretha Franklin box set Queen Of Soul (1992), which was mastered by Ted Jensen. This box set is stellar in every way, from the track selection to the sound quality to the packaging. The box uses some mono mixes, which is great. (Not all mono, though; some early tracks are in stereo.) There's a slight difference in volume between channels (about 0.2 dB), but no desychronization between left and right channels. The same analog transfer is used on:

• Rhino's Billboard Top Rock 'N' Roll Hits 1967 (RE-1 reissue, 1993) - digitally about 0.2 dB quieter
• Rhino Special Edition's budget Aretha Franklin collection Chain Of Fools (1993) - digitally about 0.2 dB quieter
• Rhino Special Products' 2-CD Entertainment Weekly Presents Pure Party (1993)
• Rhino's budget Soul Hits Vol. 1 (1993)

1994: Rhino did another new analog transfer for their Aretha Franklin collection Very Best Of The '60s (1994), which was mastered by Bill Inglot and Dan Hersch. This song is a little louder than others on the disc, so that the peaks are reduced a bit in the last half of the song (when compared to the earlier analog transfers). You can see it on the screen, but I doubt that you'll be able to hear any problems with it. The EQ boosts the high end, typical of the mid-'90s Rhino masterings. The same analog transfer is used on:

• Rhino's More Stadium Rock (1996)
• Rhino's Atlantic Ultimate '60s Soul Smashes (1998)
• Rhino's Instant Party Disc Regular Strength (1999) - differently EQ'd digital clone
• Rhino's New Millennium Soul Party (2000) - differently EQ'd digital clone
• Time-Life's Legends Of Soul Vol. 4 Aretha Franklin (2001) - digitally exactly 1 dB quieter

2018: Atlantic/Rhino did one more analog transfer for the 2-CD Aretha Franklin The Atlantic Singles Collection 1967-1970 (2018), which was mastered by Scott Levitin. It's pure mono (out-of-phase-sums down to dithering noise). The dynamic range is great, the EQ is great (no high-end boost), there's no evidence of noise reduction on the fade, and best of all, the fade extends about a beat longer than everything else listed above! "Respect" is superb here. Everything else I've heard from this CD set is also breathtaking - it even fixes the dropout of the intro of "Since You've Been Gone"!

My recommendation

Not to downplay the Queen Of Soul set, which is terrific, but I wholeheartedly recommend the 2-CD The Atlantic Singles Collection 1967-1970 (Atlantic/Rhino 571349, released 2018). The tracks are all mono, like the 45s, and the sound quality is exactly what I'd want from these tracks. I haven't seen better presentation anywhere of these essential 45 sides from the Queen Of Soul.

(From https://www.mixonline.com/recording/analog-tape-101-part-3-b ias-magic-373029: "Bias is a Radio Frequency (RF) signal - anywhere from 60 kHz (for cassette decks) to 432 kHz (for the Ampex ATR-100 Series) – that is mixed with the audio signal.")

The bias frequency is way higher than what we can hear (around 20 kHz), so it's usually ignored by the audio processing chain.

It's a pretty brilliant idea to use the tape bias itself as a synchronization device.

I have a bunch of FM radio airchecks that I originally recorded onto Hi-Fi VHS tape. If you look at a spectrum of the audio that comes out of the FM receiver, the audio ends cold at 15 kHz, there's nothing between 15 kHz and 19 kHz, and there's a very pronounced pilot tone at 19 kHz, which is used for FM stereo (in the US). I always thought that the pilot tone would be helpful for fixing the speed of a recorded FM broadcast (you just adjust the speed until the 19 kHz tone is truly at 19 kHz). It turned out that Hi-Fi VHS tape was extremely accurate and didn't need any speed correction. It also turned out that some receivers didn't output anything over 15 kHz, and a lot of cassette decks (which would benefit from the speed correction) didn't record up to 19 kHz. Oh well.

The Plangent Process people have gone well beyond using that pilot tone for speed correction. They're actually using the bias tone to do jitter correction, by reading the bias tone off the tape, and doing local speed corrections to set the bias tone off the tape to what it should be (like a 432 kHz sinusoid for the Ampex ATR-100 Series).

It's really a genius idea.