David Bowie - Fame

There is a 1996 re-release of
Changesbowie which replaces
the 1990 remix of "Fame" with the
original version.

sbowie/release/2713732">https://www.discogs.com/change
sbowie/release/2713732

The single version of "Fame"I have and a few other
single releases from that period is from a CD titled
"Recall-2" from 2006. The sound is clean and punchy in a
good way. No NR or hiss.
Not sure where the version came from.
But "Heroes", Golden Years" and even the single edit of
"TVC 15" all sound very nice.

[QUOTE=David Pro] The 45 version of "Fame" running
3:31 has never appeared on any
Bowie compilations released on CD.
It was, though, included in a
European compilation by K-Tel
titled The Best of Bowie
(not to be confused with the 2002
compilation Best of Bowie)
which was released in 1980.

https://www.discogs.com/David-
Bowie-The-Best-Of-

David, my copy of "Fame" from the Recall 2 CD times at
3:34. First thought might have been pitched down, but
compared it to a 45 scratchy dub so pitch is the same.
The 45 times at 3:30 on fade out.
Not sure where the CD version I have comes from.


Edited by garye

Is there a mix difference?

garye wrote: The single version of "Fame" I have and a few other single releases from that period is from a CD titled "Recall-2" from 2006. The sound is clean and punchy in a good way. No NR or hiss. Not sure where the version came from.

Re:Call 2 is not from 2006; it is disc 12 of the 2016 box set Who Can I Be Now? [1974-1976]. I agree that it has no noise reduction to speak of. This means that it does have hiss. That's a good thing, because the reverb tails are in there too.

garye wrote: I compared a RCA 45 dub, up against the version of Fame from the Re:Call 2 CD version I have. Couldn't tell much of difference.

Unfortunately, you overlooked that the "Original Single Edit" they put on the Re:Call 2 disc is not the 45 version! It was first released in 2015 on a vinyl picture disc, and it's quite close, but the edit point they used at 2:09 involved cutting about one beat later on each end (slightly before the two beat, rather than the one), thereby eliminating the cymbal crash and guitar chord which is in the true 45 version at 2:09. It's a cleaner edit and really should've been the original single version, but oh well.

The beginning and ending of this "Original Single Edit" matches the original Young Americans LP (I checked) in that its fade-in begins early and loud at the very beginning, such that you can fully hear two studio noises which on other releases were barely audible or not included at all. The first noise is a man's voice saying something like "thurry" (sorry? thirty? alright?). Then you hear some kind of click or drop or tap; I'm not sure what it is. Based on scratchy 45 rips on YouTube, it seems the 45 begins its fade-in right before this second sound, but the fade is such that the click or whatever is obscured by vinyl surface noise.

Likewise, the fade-out at the end of the "Original Single Edit" is quite gentle and matches the original LP, so you can pretty plainly hear the cold ending of the final guitar riff and bass note. However, on CD they quickly fade it out in the last fraction of a second, so you don't hear the half-second of hum and hiss after the bass is done; I personally think it's too sudden.

Anyway, I agree with Ron that the album version on Rykodisc's 1993 Bowie compilation The Singles 1969-1993 has very little noise reduction and sounds great; it's a good source for recreating the 45 version. However, I disagree that the 45 version Rhino put on the 1999 Millennium Classic Rock Party compilation doesn't have noise reduction. The noise reduction on it is quite strong, to my ears, and it's the exactly the same as what's on my copy of EMI's The Singles Collection.

The type of noise reduction seems to be bandlimited dynamic range expansion, as one might get via a dbx 3bx unit. It's an effective technique for reducing tape hiss, but when over-applied, as it was here, it also has a muting effect (sudden fade-down) on some reverb tails, which imparts a sort of "halting" effect in the music. I think I mentioned this in a previous post about the Taco "Puttin' on the Ritz" transfers. A treble boost can help somewhat—EMI tried it on The Singles Collection—but it doesn't really fix the problem.

A slightly better option for making your own edit is to start with the mastering found on the 1996 reissue of ChangesBowie. This reissue has the album version instead of the 1990 remix. It's almost identical to what's on The Singles 1969 to 1993, but EQ'd just a hair brighter, and the ends aren't faded so much, which makes it a better match for both the album and the 45. In fact, the fadeout is perfect as-is.

Regardless of which album you start with, to match the single, you'll have to trim a little from the beginning and apply an extra fade-in. The song should start at 0.09 sec. before the click. Apply a 0.70 sec. linear fade-in from there. After this, the click will not really be audible, but should be visible on a spectrogram.

In my opinion, the database should be changed as follows:
• Have A Nice Decade - The ‘70s Pop Culture Box (45 version, but with strong noise reduction, and followed by a news report from the oil crisis era)
• Millennium Classic Rock Party (45 version, but with strong noise reduction)
• Who Can I Be Now? (Box Set) (failed attempt at recreating the 45 version)

The duration on Who Can I Be Now? should be listed as 3:31. The database currently says 3:30. When you guys said it was 3:34, you were including several seconds of silence at the end of the CD track.

As for the extra studio noises at the beginning of all three of these, that may deserve a note as well. The Who Can I Be Now? edit has the album version's fade in and thus has both noises plainly audible, as I mentioned. The Rhino releases start their fade-in after the voice, but still too early, so the second noise is pretty easy to hear, whereas on the 45 the fade-in starts slightly later so you can't really hear the noise.

All this to say that there's still no really well mastered 45 version on CD. You either have excessive noise reduction (in my opinion) or a close-but-wrong edit.


3/3/2022 - After more analysis, I've edited this post to change several details about the fade-in and fade-out, and to add the 1996 ChangesBowie recommendation.

Edited by mjb50