Simon & Garfunkel-"Cecilia"

I have a later CD pressing (late 1990s) of S&G's Greatest Hits and, even by the standards of the pre-remastered Columbia CDs, it's one of the worst sounding CDs I have ever heard. Extremely high generation source tapes. It does have a full stereo "Cecilia".

Mono 45 version

Nope. As long as Paul Simon walks this earth, I'm willing to bet that this will never appear on CD or in digital form.

The vinyl dub that I have runs 2:38.

Hit 1970 stereo mix

I would think that any CD released before 1997 would have the original stereo mix, but there are different amounts of added stereo reverb on many of them. Not just the echo effect of the drum track, but real stereo reverb on top of that. I don't know what was on the 1970 vinyl LP.

The 1990 original CD release (Columbia C3K 45322) of 1981's Collected Works has what I'd call a medium amount of added stereo reverb. Warner Brothers' Paul Simon 1964/1993 (1993) is a differently-EQ'd digital clone of Collected Works, and therefore also has a medium amount of added stereo reverb.

The 1985 original CD release (Columbia CK 31350) of 1972's Simon And Garfunkel's Greatest Hits has what I'd deem to be a life-threatening amount of added stereo reverb. It's a big soupy mess.

Others:

I don't have the 1985 original CD release (Columbia CK 9914) of 1970's Bridge Over Troubled Water album.

The 1983 (?) original CD release of 1981's The Simon And Garfunkel Collection almost certainly has pre-emphasis, which boosts the very high end unnaturally. Even with the high end boost, it sounds pinched and weird, like the mastering added noise reduction that sucked all the life out of the recording. It's not the digital-era noise reduction, which shows artifacts on the fade, but it has the same effect of deadening the whole recording. I avoid this collection when I can; it's the one with two guys on the beach that are hilariously not Paul and Art. Literally everything is wrong with this disc.

Edit - the following is not a new remix from 1997 by Vic Anesini, but is a mastering without any stereo reverb; see the next few posts

Vic Anesini remixed everything (edit - no, not everything) on Columbia Legacy's Old Friends box (1997). The new mixes sound stellar, as you might imagine, as Vic Anesini is superb at what he does. The left and right channels are out of synch by 1 sample, which is easy to fix. The opening drum track is centered (after you resynch the L and R channels), and there's no stereo reverb. The song is basically mono until 0:05 when the shaker comes in slightly panned. When the vocals start, the only instruments that have any panning are the shaker and the vocals. This 1997 mix has essentially no added stereo reverb.    

Old Friends fades the last two beats of the song to silence. There are level-adjusted digital clones on:

• Columbia/Legacy's Best Of (1999) - fades the last two beats of the song to silence
• Columbia/Legacy's Bridge Over Troubled Water (2001 reissue) - last two beats are not faded to silence
• Columbia/Legacy's Essential (2003) - last two beats are not faded to silence
• TM Studios Goldwav track no. 00001008 - fades the last two beats of the song to silence

Legacy's Over The Bridge Of Time - A Paul Simon Retrospective (1964-2011) (2013) seems to use the 1997 mix, but fixes the left/right desynchronization. Well done!

My recommendations

For the 1970 stereo mix, I guess it depends on what's on the 1970 vinyl LP. I'm hoping someone will post what was on the 1985 original CD release of Bridge Over Troubled Water.

For the 1997 stereo remix, you can fix the desynchronization yourself on any of the above, or just go with Legacy's Over The Bridge Of Time - A Paul Simon Retrospective (1964-2011) (2013).

Edited by crapfromthepast - 17 hours 19 minutes ago at 7:24pm

Excellent work, LunarLaugh!

I can confirm that Old Friends (1997) is digitally exactly 0.9 dB louder than the Mastersound gold disc of Bridge Over Troubled Water (1993). Bridge tracks into the next selection and doesn't fade out the last two beats of the song, as is done on Old Friends.

The Mastersound disc also has the left/right desychronization of one sample - easy to fix if you should choose to do so.

So there's only one stereo mix (from multitracks) of "Cecilia", but three flavors of stereo reverb: None (Mastersound, 1993), Some (Collected Works), and Way Too Much (Greatest Hits).

I'd like to know what was on the 1970 vinyl LP, and what was on the 1985 CD of Bridge.

Edited by crapfromthepast - 16 hours 13 minutes ago at 8:30pm

I can also confirm that the 1985 CD of Bridge Over Troubled Water has no stereo reverb. Although this disc seems to use source tapes that are higher generation than the Mastersound, it sounds far better than I expected it to. Yay, early Columbia CDs!

So the stereo reverb was added after the song was a hit. For Collected Works, it was added either in 1981 for the LP release, or in 1990 for the CD release. For Greatest Hits, it was either 1972 for the LP release, or in 1985 for the CD release.

I don't want to stray from the topic, just to say that the compilation "The Complete Singles Collection 1965-1970 bootleg (2013)" contains the Cecilia [mono 45 mix] (2:40), I don't know the source

Edited by kaqueno - 4 hours 10 minutes ago at 8:33am