King Harvest - Dancing In The Moonlight

The reason for my comments of "mastered from vinyl" for all versions of this song come from my understanding obtained from industry sources that there is no master tape available. If anyone has information to the contrary please let us know. I guess it is an oversight that I did not add this comment to the Time-Life cd "Singers And Songwriters: Mid 70's".

Had a chance to sample the Have A Nice Day... version...it's a neither.

If you take the file from the parent Dancing In The Moonlight, run some slight hiss reduction, speed it up a tad and fade it by 2:53-2:54, it matches the 45, only in stereo. That's what I just did.

Gordon:

I guess what I mean to say was parent LP. On Napster, it's track 10 from Dancing In The Moonlight. The 'everybody' is clearly heard at 2:15.

I'll send you a file for observation...

Stereo mix (2:56, plus or minus a second)

Mark M supplied the following details, since he had to become a King Harvest expert when Eric Records licensed the song:

At the time Eric licensed the song in 2010, Musidisc in Paris (where this was recorded) was still in business but they had been purchased by Universal. Sometime in the last few years, the rights reverted to the band and now the song is licensed by their attorney. Musidisc in 1972 provided one master tape to Perception Records in the US and that was a copy of the stereo LP master.

Mark sent me a copy of the raw file that Musidisc-Universal sent to him back then, and Aaron K sent me a dub from the Collectables CD. I can confirm that one is a digital clone of the other. They sound virtually identical to my ears, even down to the fade at the end. In my null test, they cancel almost exactly, with the same levels and same EQ. But the null test leaves behind some odd static-y artifacts around -24 dB, which tells me that one of the two files has some small noise reduction applied. It's a very small amount, though, and I couldn't tell which file has it - I didn't hear any NR artifacts with my ears, even with a significant level boost on the fade. Edit: see post below

Eric's Hard To Find 45s On CD Vol. 12 (2010) is a digital clone of the Musidisc-Universal file, but with a pretty large amount of noise reduction applied. This is quite audible on the fade.

Note that all of the above are from a source tape, not from vinyl.

Aaron sent me a needledrop of the vinyl LP. Compared to the digital versions, the vinyl LP runs 1.3% faster, has its left and right channels swapped, and has the same dropouts on the intro (but in the opposite channel due to the left/right channel swap). The two-track mixdown tape even back in 1972 was pretty beat up. Plus, the vinyl LP sounds extremely muffled, compared to all the digital versions listed above - not good, and not really worth hunting down on vinyl.

For my own libary, I'm going with the digital version, at the speed of the digital version, and with the left/right orientation of the digital version.

Mono mix (2:56, plus or minus a second)

It's a fold-down of the stereo mix, same fade points and all. Mark confirmed that Perception folded down the LP version exactly as-is and released the 45 in mono. The vinyl 45 runs about 0.2% faster than the digital version on the Collectables and Eric CDs, which is an insignificant difference.

Previously unreleased mono mix (2:49)

Rhino's Have A Nice Day Vol. 17 (1993) uses a mono mix that was never released in the US, as far as I can tell. This mix buries the lead vocal at 2:15, so that the word "everybody" is barely audible. The same analog transfer is used on:

• Time-Life's Sounds Of The Seventies Vol. 31 AM Top Twenty (1993)
• Rhino's Have A Nice Night (1998)

All of the above use a tape source, and are not from vinyl. The intro on this version is much cleaner than the digital versions listed above, and lacks most of the dropouts that the digital versions have. I suspect that all the 2:49 mono versions are based on the mastering for Have A Nice Day Vol. 17, but can't verify.

One more stereo version

The stereo version on Time-Life's 2-CD Singers And Songwriters Vol. 8 Mid-'70s (2001) is a clever edit that fixes some of the dropouts on the intro. The first 15 seconds are grafted on from Rhino's Have A Nice Day Vol. 17 (1993). After 0:15, Singers And Songwriters uses the same analog transfer as the digital versions above. The transition point is on the first word "we". Clever!

But unfortunately, the mixes are different. On Have A Nice Day Vol. 17, the shaky instrument comes in too early. Based on this, I'd vote that Singers And Songwriters Vol. 8 Mid-'70s is also a "neither the 45 nor LP version".

Edited by crapfromthepast

aaronk wrote: crapfromthepast wrote: Aaron sent me a needledrop of the vinyl LP. Compared to the digital versions, the vinyl LP runs 1.3% faster, has its left and right channels swapped, and has the same dropouts on the intro (but in the opposite channel due to the left/right channel swap). The two-track mixdown tape even back in 1972 was pretty beat up. Plus, the vinyl LP sounds extremely muffled, compared to all the digital versions listed above - not good, and not really worth hunting down on vinyl. In an earlier post, I mentioned that the Collectibles CD (and therefore Universal digital master) sounded like it was a high generation tape. If you take the vinyl LP and give it a big treble boost, it basically sounds like the Collectables CD. So, yeah, Ron is right that it's not worth hunting down the vinyl if you're searching for a better source. I will, however, say that I prefer an EQ that is somewhere in the between the LP and CD. The CD is too harsh and bright IMO, and the treble boost really makes that tape hiss stand out.

Hey Aaron, Any suggested EQ settings to make the
Collectibles CD less harsh?