Carpenters-"Calling Occupants..."
Printed From: Top 40 Music on CD
Category: Top 40 Music On Compact Disc
Forum Name: Chat Board
Forum Description: Chat away but please observe the chat board rules
URL: https://top40musiconcd.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=1050
Printed Date: 17 July 2025 at 1:44pm
Software Version: Web Wiz Forums 12.07 - https://www.webwizforums.com
Topic: Carpenters-"Calling Occupants..."
Posted By: jimct
Subject: Carpenters-"Calling Occupants..."
Date Posted: 08 June 2006 at 10:55pm
| My promo 45 has the listed and actual (7:07) (ALBUM VERSION) on one side, while the other side has the (EDITED VERSION), with a listed run time of (3:59), but actual run time of (4:04), same as the stock 45 version. |
Replies:
Posted By: BillyDee203
Date Posted: 12 June 2006 at 2:09pm
I have two, one with Stereo/Mono of the edit and one of the Long/Short version, the short edit running about 4:04. I just made my CD edited version but I had to lift the front from the promo single since the CD version has a strings overlap on the front. |
jimct wrote:Posted By: jimct
Date Posted: 12 June 2006 at 2:41pm
| BillyDee, welcome to the Board! You're gonna fit right in with us. Didn't know about that Stereo/mono edit promo 45; outstanding job by you. Pat & Co. do an unbelievably fantastic job of documenting what no one else can or will, when it comes to what versions are on which CDs, and what was put out in the first place on regular/promo 45s and/or promo CD singles. I look forward to your help, as I'm the "unofficial" promo guy. |
Posted By: Grant
Date Posted: 12 June 2006 at 4:31pm
| I was able to cleanly recreate the exact edited stock 45 from the LP version... |
Posted By: edtop40
Date Posted: 12 June 2006 at 4:37pm
|
yes, grant's version is very good.... ------------- edtop40 |
Posted By: BillyDee203
Date Posted: 12 June 2006 at 7:17pm
I've been a radio guy since my high school days in the mid 70's (a small 330 watt community FM station located at a local high school in Fairfield County, Connecticut gave me my start). I later went on to do engineering for a handful of AM's and FM's including a local 50KW FM. I've been hooked on getting correct single and/or promo versions for a long time. Part of it is the collector's "bug" in me and part of it is to use them on my oldies webcast. On the occasions I can't get a hold of a promo or single edit I'll use old airchecks as references and I've lucked out on a few occasions. Thanks for the welcome, JimCT and I hope I can prove to be a resource to the other enthusiasts here. Bill |
Posted By: Todd Ireland
Date Posted: 12 June 2006 at 9:49pm
|
Grant:
Which CD containing "Calling Occupants of Interplanetary Craft" did you use as the basis for your homemade 45 edit? Bill: Welcome to the board! |
Posted By: Grant
Date Posted: 12 June 2006 at 10:09pm
Passage Bill: Welcome! |
Posted By: BillyDee203
Date Posted: 13 June 2006 at 6:35am
|
Thanks to all for the welcomes
This board is a great resource, as is Pat's wonderful work with the database. I still find my 10th edition one of the handiest books I've ever owned. Now, if we could make the online database "portable" that would be great. Best to all, Bill |
Posted By: EdisonLite
Date Posted: 01 July 2007 at 3:17pm
|
Bringing back an old post --
Yesterday, a friend asked me to make a 45 edit of "Occupants" and like Grant, I used the "Passage" CD, but unlike Grant, I couldn't duplicate the 45 from this version. I got it exactly like the 45 with the one exception that there are string overdubs in the 4-second intro of the song (as Billy Dee pointed out.) Grant, do you mean you took the intro from the 45 and took the rest from the "Passage" CD? If not, how did you edit the "Passage" CD and get a non-string intro for your simulated single version? Also, does anyone know of any import Carpenters CDs that use the single mix of this song? And has anyone researched them all and found out there weren't any? |
Posted By: Roscoe
Date Posted: 01 July 2007 at 3:25pm
The true 45 version appears on the ultra-expensive Carpenters Japanese Singles box from 2006. This set contains all the unique Carpenters 45 versions, including Please Mr. Postman, Ticket To Ride, I Won't Last A Day Without You, etc. |
Posted By: Brian W.
Date Posted: 02 July 2007 at 2:10am
That ultra-expensive box set contains a DISC DUB of "Calling Occupants." No kidding. Aaron and I created a much better 45 edit using a 45 copy for the intro, then editing down the album version. (Though I'm still not 100% convinced the 45 is not a very, very slightly different mix... some of the stereo separation seems to be ever so slightly different than the album version.) "Santa Claus is Comin' to Town" is also a disc dub on that box set. Aaron did a better 45 dub of that as well, using a sealed various artists Christmas comp I obtained from Ebay. The boxed set does contain the true 45 version of "Please Mr. Postman," though, from tape. |
Posted By: EdisonLite
Date Posted: 02 July 2007 at 2:14am
| Yes, I just read that review in Amazon and you beat me by a couple minutes. There are 4 disc dubs on that box set. That's disappointing. I bet the US vaults have the single mix of "Occupants". |
Posted By: eriejwg
Date Posted: 02 July 2007 at 6:56am
| Is there a known reason why Richard Carpenter has constantly tinkered with the original 45 versions of the Carpenters hits? |
Posted By: EdisonLite
Date Posted: 02 July 2007 at 9:28am
| I heard that he was unhappy with them. |
Posted By: Todd Ireland
Date Posted: 03 July 2007 at 10:44pm
|
Yes, it is also my understanding that Richard has never been pleased with the sound quality of the Carpenters' original hit mixes.
Incidentally, if the U.S. vaults do contain the single version of "Calling Occupants of Interplanetary Craft", I'm stunned that Richard and A&M always pass over the shorter, more radio-friendly single length in favor of the much longer and drawn out 7:07 version. |
Posted By: EdisonLite
Date Posted: 04 July 2007 at 9:58am
| ... especially when they'd likely be able to include another song on whatever compilation they're working on, with the extra space that would be added. |
Posted By: Todd Ireland
Date Posted: 04 July 2007 at 10:45am
|
Yep, Gordon. Not to mention that "Calling Occupants..." was not a very high charting single (#32 peak in Billboard), nor did it really have the "classic" Carpenters sound. One has to wonder why Richard and A&M keep electing to release the seven+ minute version of a song that was never all that popular to begin with. I would think the shorter single version would do just fine in many CD buyer's eyes (and ears), yet it's the album version that keeps popping up on compilation after compilation after compilation.
This all leads me to think that the master tape(s) containing the U.S. single mix must be lost... |
Posted By: EdisonLite
Date Posted: 04 July 2007 at 1:27pm
| The other thought is that maybe Richard considers this an artistic piece that shouldn't be edited. There are some songs, I feel, that are rather lengthy -- Paradise by the Dashboard Light, American Pie, Bohemian Rhapsody -- that should exist only as the artistic expressions they were meant to be. Maybe Richard feels this is his 7-minute epic. |
Posted By: Brian W.
Date Posted: 29 September 2013 at 3:21pm
|
Interesting anomoly I've discovered: The promo version (stereo) of "Calling Occupants" has about a 1 1/2 second longer fade than the commercial 45.
The fades are identical on both until the middle of the final line, "we are your friends," then the commercial version begins fading faster than the promo version, and it dumps a good second and a half earlier than the promo. The final four orchestral notes from the promo, that "da-da da-da," are not on the commercial 45 at all, at least not on the two copies I listened to. |
Posted By: Yah Shure
Date Posted: 29 September 2013 at 10:07pm
Same thing on my promo and stock, Brian. Chalk it up to different cuttings for the CSG stereo edited version on the promo and the non-CSG stereo edited version on the stock. The cutting on the CSG promo stereo edited version has an unusually high amount of rumble, which doesn't start until the beginning of the song. It is especially noticeable during the quiet beginning and the fadeout at the end (the stock edited version doesn't have this rumble issue at all.) Perhaps there was an earthquake underway when the promo edit was cut. ;) Unfortunately, with all of that rumble, the extra 1.5 seconds at the end of the stereo promo edit really gets buried in the rubble. The stereo CSG cutting process consumes more of the available playing area on a 45 than a comparable non-CSG stereo cutting. The "Calling Occupants" CSG stereo promo edit is a case in point: the song eats up so much real estate that there's hardly any deadwax space at all. Not surprisingly, 7:07 album version on the other side is cut in standard (non-CSG) stereo. The deadwax area on the 7:07 side is actually wider than it is on the 3:59 side! Deadwax edited version details on my copies: Short/long Columbia Santa Maria vinyl DJ pressing: "A&M 12335 (STEREO) (SHORT)-S3" Stock Columbia Terre Haute styrene pressing: "T A&M 12335S-T1" |
Posted By: Brian W.
Date Posted: 29 September 2013 at 11:59pm
| Ohh... The edit on the promo is CSG stereo... THAT'S why it sounds weird. I couldn't put my finger on it. |
Posted By: Brian W.
Date Posted: 30 September 2013 at 2:26am
|
Figured out how to fix CSG processing in Cool Edit, though. After reading on Wikipedia what CSG was and how it was done (which was simply shifting the phase of the right channel by 90 degrees, or some cases 120 degrees, but 90 was recommended), I tried "undoing" the CSG on the promo "Calling Occupants" with Cool Edit:
Click Generate--Filters--Graphic Phase Shifter Select "-90 degrees" in the Presets window, and BE SURE to select "Right Only" from the drop down menu next to it. Voila! The "Calling Occupants" promo now sounds normal. If you try it with another recording and it doesn't sound normal, try moving the bar on the graph to -120 degrees instead of -90, which was apparently used on some records. I suppose this technique could also be used to create a CSG-processed version, if you wanted, if the commercial 45 used CSG, since they're never issued on CD that way. You'd just have to use the +90 preset in the right channel instead of -90. |
Posted By: aaronk
Date Posted: 30 September 2013 at 2:21pm
|
Nice trick, Brian! I'll have to remember that one for other tracks with phase issues. ------------- Aaron Kannowski http://www.uptownsound.com" rel="nofollow - Uptown Sound http://www.919thepeak.com" rel="nofollow - 91.9 The Peak - Classic Hip Hop |
Posted By: Yah Shure
Date Posted: 30 September 2013 at 2:58pm
|
I'd run across this same CSG fix several years ago on a Steve Hoffman board thread. That thread's example song was the stereo LP version of Cream's "White Room", which was apparently processed with CSG during the mixdown stage. The 90-degree shift trick worked like a charm. It's a handy fix for some of the vinyl Atlantic/Atco CSG stereo tracks which have only appeared in mono on CD.
I also tried it on "Walk A Mile In My Shoes" and other things that have certain elements purposely mixed out of phase (the first Moby Grape album, Michaelangelo's One Voice Many LP) but it doesn't work in such cases. Brian: visually identifying a stereo 45 that's been CSG processed is a piece of cake. If you place your promo 45 edit and stock copies of "Calling Occupants" side by side, you'll notice a stark difference in the pattern of the grooves. The CSG stereo looks a heck of a lot "busier": the grooves appear to be deeper and you could swear that they're all colliding with their adjacent neighbors. It's as though the side has been cut super hot, with a tremendous amount of channel separation. It really looks like a rough sea. By contrast, the stock grooves are like a tranquil pond on a windless day. And yet, when you fold both wave forms to mono and compare them side by side, the stock is definitely the louder of the two. |
Posted By: Michaeldila
Date Posted: 25 April 2014 at 7:41pm
|
hi. i thought this was a good place for my very first post! firstly, i remember
reading years ago that richard carpenter did NOT want to edit down "calling occupants" in the first place. he was forced to. he himself said it was badly edited for radio. i, however, like the edited single version. but it's not possible to re-create it using the longer version as there is slight bleed on the first notes (as everyone here noted). however, i managed to create a slightly adjusted opening which, while not 100% accurate, sounds very very pleasing. if anyone would like to hear it, i'd be happy to share. PM me. thanks! |
Posted By: Yah Shure
Date Posted: 25 April 2014 at 9:22pm
|
Hi, Michaeldila. I saw your recent "single edits" question on the Hoffman board, so Pat must've fixed you up with a secret decoder ring. Welcome aboard!
Hmmm... new member... first post happens to be on a thread dealing with aliens.... ;) |
Posted By: Michaeldila
Date Posted: 25 April 2014 at 10:33pm
|
hi yah,
yeah pat hooked me up......but i promise...i come in peace :) |