Then You Can Tell Me Goodbye by Casinos

Pat:

I have the Casino's "Then You Can Tell Me Goodbye" in true stereo (S), electronically rechannelled stereo (E), and am presently working on aquiring it in mono (M). When you say "alternate take" are you inquiring about differences in the vocals only or in all of the instrumentation as well?

I just got done doing an thorough A/B comparison between the mono version of The Casino's "Then You Can Tell Me Goodbye" and the stereo version appearing on Dick Bartley Presents One Hit Wonders of the 60's Volume 2 CD (Rhino 70996). I can say with confidence that the vocal track is exactly the same on both. I found no evidence to suggest these are different vocal takes. Perhaps the "haunting intonations" the BSN message poster believed he was perceiving had more to do with the recording's sound quality than the vocal itself.

I also did not notice any instrumental differences between the two mixes either. Perhaps the reason why the organ may give the illusion of being slightly different is because it is much more prominently mixed on the mono version, yet sounds almost buried at times on the stereo version. I'm in agreement with you, Pat... I hear nothing on the stereo version to suggest it's an alternate take.

Reviving the question as to whether or not the single vs. stereo CD issues are different takes, I agree the vocal take is the same. However, on the original Fraternity 45 (I have two copies) the song ends after the word "goodbye" with the organ by itself, then the organ ends abruptly and the organ reverbs out. No fade down on the organ at the end.

The Dick Bartley One Hit Wonders CD stereo version ends with the ogran fading down all the way to zero, and no reverb trailing off.

So there IS a difference. If it's worth noting..

I have this song on a couple of different CDs and I just noticed this recently: The stereo version (on The Best Of...on the Verese label) has a slight glitch at about the (1:31) mark. The mono version (on AM Gold - 1967) runs slightly faster, but does not have the glitch. I'm just wondering if that's also the case for the other stereo/mono versions on CD?

Just doing some A/B comparing for myself, and I think that the mono is worth having a "45 version" notation. The organ has reverb on the mono, whereas it's dry on the stereo version. The organ reverb is especially noticeable on the solo that starts at about 1:30 and on the last note of the song.

Some other things to note about the CD copies I'm listening to:

- The mono copy on Time-Life's AM Gold sounds like a ton of noise reduction has been applied; it's very muddy.
- The stereo copy on the Dick Bartley CD has the first fraction of a second truncated.
- I disagree that the organ note fades to zero on the Bartley CD, but I do agree that there is no reverb on the organ.
- The Bartley CD runs too slow (about 1.5%).
- The Time-Life CD runs too fast (about 1.5%).
- There is no difference between the takes on the Time-Life and Bartley CDs.

Are there any mono CD copies that have good sound quality? (or any "E" copies that can be folded to mono with good results)