Chat Board - Charles and Eddie - "Would I Lie To You"

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Charles and Eddie - "Would I Lie To You"

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=4276
Printed Date: 21 May 2025 at 3:49am
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Topic: Charles and Eddie - "Would I Lie To You"

Posted By: crapfromthepast
Subject: Charles and Eddie - "Would I Lie To You"
Date Posted: 01 October 2008 at 5:42pm

I have what my Top Hits USA CD calls a "Radio Edit" on the following CDs:

Hot Hits Vol. 16 (runs 3:42, clips a bit)
Now 1992 (UK; runs 3:39; clips a bit)
Now 23 (UK; runs 3:40; clips a bit)
Top Hits USA RH15 (runs 3:32 due to accelerated fade; doesn't clip but sounds worse than above three)

I have the album version on the following CDs:

Living In The '90s (Razor & Tie, runs 4:38; most likely a digital clone of Charles & Eddie CD; best sound of the bunch)
2 Awesome (PolyTel Canada, runs 4:38; level change from above CD, sound basically same as above but slightly higher dithering noise floor)
Sounds Of The '90s - 1992 (runs 4:38; overly compressed - don't care much for the sound)
Pop Complete (EMI Australian 5-CD set)
Greatest Hits Of The '90s (European Disky 8-CD set)

Since the only versions of the "Radio Edit" seem to be mastered too loud, with clipping, I edited down the version from Living In The '90s to match the "Radio Edit". Pitch/tempo is the same for all versions above (101.1 BPM).

Here are the editing instructions, based on the timing from Living In The '90s:

Keep the 224 beats from 0:00.0-2:13.3.
Edit two beats before the downbeat, at the first tom-tom hit in a short drum fill.
Remove the 64 beats from 2:13.3-2:51.2.
Keep the 114-1/2 beats from 2:51.2-3:59.1.
Find the bass drum beat at 3:59 that starts the beginning of the background singers singing "lie", then edit on the off-beat snare that immediately follows the bass drum beat.
Remove the 32 beats from 3:59.1-4:18.1. The removed portion should end right before the snare that begins the word "C'mon".
Keep 4:18.1-4:38.6 (end).

Your mixdown should run 3:40 (3:41.7 with outro silence), with edits at 2:13.3 and 3:21.2.

Replies:

Posted By: Hykker
Date Posted: 02 October 2008 at 5:52am

I have the radio edit on a couple of TM GoldDiscs...come to think of it, the song sounds a bit clipped there as well. Anyone have a promo single to reference?

Posted By: edtop40
Date Posted: 02 October 2008 at 5:57am

what do you guys mean by "clipping"?

-------------
edtop40

Posted By: eriejwg
Date Posted: 02 October 2008 at 6:13am

Ed:

It's when, at some points during the song, the audio become distorted

Posted By: eric_a
Date Posted: 02 October 2008 at 6:31am

eriejwg wrote:

Ed:

It's when, at some points during the song, the audio become distorted

I always figured that clipping bass drum was an homage to the Motown sound. I can try to dig out the promo single.

Posted By: crapfromthepast
Date Posted: 02 October 2008 at 7:19am

I should have been more clear with the term "clipping"...

For this particular song, it appears that at some point in the chain, someone sent the peak levels over 100%, so that the tops and bottoms of the waveform got shaved off. If you zoom in, you can see a hard cutoff for the waveform - it usually shows up on the drum hits first.

If you take this to its logical extreme, as is the case with most modern-day rock and pop song masterings, the audiophiles refer to this as "maximization" or "brick-walling". When you zoom out, the waveform just looks like one solid brick wall - no loud parts and soft parts, just LOUD start to finish. This is how virtually everything that hits the charts is mastered nowadays, and it really sounds horrendous.

"Would I Lie To You" is not brick-walled by any means, and the clipping that shows up in the single edits cited above aren't all that severe. Most wouldn't even notice it; I only noticed it because I had seven different versions of the song all open at the same time on my screen and I could clearly see the waveforms. The bass drum sound that Eric refers to is indeed deliberate, and isn't a result of the clipping.

As a sweeping generality, I've found that it's best if the waveforms peak all over the place during the song, and aren't hard-stopped at 0 dB (100%), -1 dB, -3 dB, or at any one particular level. Your results may vary.

Posted By: eriejwg
Date Posted: 02 October 2008 at 7:53am

I know most of you deal with WAV files and burn them to CD.
But, if you happen to deal with MP3's, as I do with my older DJ software, you may want to check out http://mp3gain.sourceforge.net/ - MP3Gain . It's free and can bring audio to a more evenly distributed point throughout the file. Besides, MP3Gain is FREE.

Posted By: Hykker
Date Posted: 02 October 2008 at 4:59pm

crapfromthepast wrote:

If you take this to its logical extreme, as is the case with most modern-day rock and pop song masterings, the audiophiles refer to this as "maximization" or "brick-walling". When you zoom out, the waveform just looks like one solid brick wall - no loud parts and soft parts, just LOUD start to finish. This is how virtually everything that hits the charts is mastered nowadays, and it really sounds horrendous.

An extreme example of this, if you follow contemporary music is Katy Perry's hit from a few months ago "I Kissed A Girl". This is compressed & hard-limited to the point where it's almost unlistenable. I haven't tried the program John suggested, but I did try some expansion with Adobe Audition and all it did was make the song "pump". I'm sure all this over-processing is to make Ipods sound "just like the radio", but no station I've ever set up processing on ever sounded this bad (though there are a few that I've come into where they were pretty close :-/)

Posted By: aaronk
Date Posted: 13 March 2010 at 4:04pm

There are a couple database CDs that note "edited" next to them. It appears that they contain the official "Radio Edit" that Ron mentions above.

Posted By: aaronk
Date Posted: 13 March 2010 at 4:05pm

One more thing: I noticed Amazon lists a US CD single with the "Radio Edit" as the lead track. Was the full album version on the cassette single, and is that why there is not a designator in the database? Certainly, the "Radio Edit" was the hit version.

Posted By: eric_a
Date Posted: 13 March 2010 at 7:18pm

On a related note, here's the track list for the promo CD single (Capitol 73979), which does not include the LP version. All times are as listed, but are within a few seconds of the actual CD track lengths (including any trailing silence).

1 - Radio Edit (LP Version)* (3:40)
2 - Funky Way Mix (3:42)
3 - Truth & Soul Mix (3:57)
4 - Funky Way Mix (Extended Version) (5:00)

* I gather this refers to it being the radio edit of the LP mix, since the LP Version is a minute longer.

Posted By: Todd Ireland
Date Posted: 31 March 2011 at 12:02am

For what it's worth, I have a commercial maxi-CD single of Charles & Eddie's "Would I Lie to You?" and it contains the following tracks and actual run times:

1) Album Edit - 3:40 (This is the same as the "Radio Edit".)
2) Funky Way Mix - 3:41 (printed time: 3:42)
3) Funky Way Mix (Extended) - 4:59 (printed time: 5:00)
4) Truth & Soul Mix - 3:56 (printed time: 3:57)
5) The Butcher Mix - 4:42 (printed time: 4:43)

Track 6 contains a song called "Unconditional".

The first four tracks of this maxi-CD single appear to be identical in every way to the promo CD single, as listed by eric_a, except for the chronological order and the description of Track 1.