Charlene from 1982

crapfromthepast wrote: Discovered that the break that features the spoken part is longer on the commercial 45/LP version than on the promo 45 talk-removed version. It's what accounts for the difference in length between the two. The fade points are the same.

That's right. The non-spoken version is shorter by a third of the time. I reflected that in my custom edit I made using the instrumental. That's how I remembered it from CHSC back in 1982. I never found the LP so I'm making due with my own edit.

The only issue was making sure the "S" in her sung pickup "...Sometimes I've been to crying for unborn children...." didn't sound overlapped with with the end of the spoken portion, "That's truth; that's loooove"... So my "S" on "sometimes" may sound a little truncated.

Gordon,
Just FYI - this track was included on the Singing Machine
Karaoke set for Motown hits. It appears in 2 ways, one
track is the stereo instrumental backing track, complete.
The other track is a 2-Track version with the entire
instrumental in one channel, and the isolated vocal track
in the other.
So, a new mix without the spoken part can in theory be
easily created in any wav or multitrack editing software.

I should note though, that the overall mix is slightly
different than the hit because they made these Karaoke
cd's from the session tapes, so each mixdown on the set
is a little different from it's standard mix. Some things
are panned differently, etc.
But it would work real nice for a new clean mix from all
digital source material.

Oh, more interesting thing about the 2-track vocal
version on this set. Her entire vocal is totally
isolated, until you get to the spoken part. In that
segment, the backing track is suddenly in both channels.
They had to synchronize that part by dropping it in from
the standard mix. As soon as it finishes, it returns to
her isolated vocal. All that means is that the spoken
part was added later to the overall mix as an
afterthought, but it is missing from the original
session.

MM

The instrumental that I sourced was NOT a karaoke CD. It was a true instrumental. I will have to go find it on a backup, as I simply downloaded it after searching. This was some years ago now.

Oh dear, I was just about to mix the backing track and
vocal together.
I must report that the version they used for the Karaoke
set is an alternate vocal take. The backing track is the
correct hit, but it seems they didn't have a multi-track
with the hit vocal take, so they used an alternate.
I was aware they had this problem with 1 or 2 of the 60's
hits, but I didn't know it affected this one too.
All the others I've heard on this set are the correct hit
versions.
MM