a couple of Turtles comments

thanks for your responses as usual Pat.

I listened to "Elenore" and can't find a difference bewteen the stereo and mono versions. What makes them LP vs. 45 version (other than the mix)?

Also on "You Showed Me", I believe this warrants versioning, as the stereo (from Rhino Greatest Hits, assuming this is the stero LP version) is longer and has drums before the :11 second mark. The mono (from Sunshine Days Pop Classics of the '60s Volume 1, assuming that's the 45) is shorter and does not have the drums (or it's so buried I can't hear it).

That's very interesting, Pat. Here's what I can share about why this phenomenon happens...

Imagine you have two identical, mono wave sound files. On one of the sound files, you invert the waveform. In other words, since the wave has an axis that it continually crosses back and forth over, you can "flip it vertically" over the axis (so that anything on top of the axis is now on the bottom). What happens when you sum the two wave sound files together (one inverted and one not) is that they cancel each other out.

Of course, I'm talking in terms of how we view it on a computer screen, but the same thing happens when you reverse the negative and positive wires of an audio cable. If you have the exact same audio going throuh two channels, except that one is hooked up in reverse, and then you sum the audio together (in other words, mono it), the result is that they cancel each other.

In the case of this song, the only logical conclusion I can come up with is that the hi-hat, which was in both channels, somehow got inverted in one channel. (Perhaps the sound engineer had the positive and negative wires reversed in one channel when mastering the hi-hat.) Therefore, when you fold down the two channels, they cancel each other out.

I'm no sound engineer, so this may not be the case, but it's at least what I do know about why sounds can mysteriously disappear when stereo is folded down to mono.

I had a chance to listen to both the original White Whale 45 copy of "Happy Together" and the version that shows up on CD in mono on Varese's Best Of compilation. While I cannot remember which one is the faster of the two, there is a significant pitch difference between the 45 and CD versions, even though it's the same mix. There is currently no notation in the database regarding this CD, but a pitch comment should probably be added.

Edited by aaronk

On Happy Together I've noticed at on the mono hits lp that there is very little reverb on the song, at all, until the couple of piano notes after "invest a dime". Those piano notes are almost buried in reverb. So that's significantly different than the stereo mixes. I don't have the original 45 though to hear if that matches with the mono LP version.

Has anybody else bought the most recent Turtles CD release, All The
Singles (FloEdCo/Manifesto MFO 48040)? It sounds great, but the only
Turtles 45 I have to compare is "She'd Rather Be With Me", but it sounds the
same, with the shorter 2:08 time. I'd be interested to see how the other
pertinent singles match up.