Dr. Hook - "Sharing The Night Together"
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Topic: Dr. Hook - "Sharing The Night Together"
Posted By: crapfromthepast
Subject: Dr. Hook - "Sharing The Night Together"
Date Posted: 26 February 2009 at 8:29pm
I found left/right issues with this track, as well. (Like the Pointer Sisters' "Fire".)
My 45 is the commercial release, purple label Capitol 4621, printed 2:53, actual 2:54.
The most obvious panned characteristic is the wispy female background vocals around 2:30. On my 45, those are panned to the right.
The following CDs also have the wispy vocals panned right, which is consistent with the 45:- Mystic Music Presents Mellow Gold (Cema Special Markets CD2L 57392, 1991; for some reason the sound on this version was substantially better than all of the other versions below - odd, isn't it?)
- Time-Life's AM Gold - 1979
- Time-Life's Body Talk - On My Mind
- JCI's Only Rock 'N Roll 1975-1979
The following CDs have the wispy vocals panned left, which is the opposite of the 45:- Time-Life's Sounds Of The Seventies - Late '70s
- Time-Life's Singers And Songwriters - The '70s (digitally exactly 1.592 dB louder than Late '70s)
- Madacy's Rock On - 1978 (digitally exactly 1.7 dB louder than Late '70s)
- EMI Australia's Seventies Complete Vol. 2 (5-CD box, 1999)
I don't have any Dr. Hook CDs, although I should probably pick up the Ten Best Series collection if I find it for $1.
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Replies:
Posted By: eriejwg
Date Posted: 26 February 2009 at 9:10pm
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On the Greatest Hits (And More), the female vocal is also in the right channel.
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Posted By: EdisonLite
Date Posted: 01 March 2009 at 10:45pm
So does this mean the "panned left" wispy vocals are what's on the LP?
If that's the only real noticable difference between the single and album versions, then my reaction is the same as that of "December 1963" (where there's a tiny bit of phlanging on the background vocals of the line "when she walked in the room" and there's one second where two instruments are not panned left and right but rather in the same channel) -- which apparently are the only differences in that single mix -- Anyway, my comment is this:
WHY DID THEY BOTHER? Some single mixes are like night and day compared to the LP mixes, but the differences in the single mixes of "Dec 1963" and "Sharing the Night Together" are mind-boggling petty to me, like a record company A&R guy said, "go in there and move the wispy vocals to the left track and THEN we'll release this as a single. I don't think the public will react to the song if it's in the other channel! It won't be a hit the way it is!"
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Posted By: EdisonLite
Date Posted: 01 March 2009 at 10:53pm
And as far as the slight phlanging of the backing vocals in one line of "Dec 63" -- if none of us audiophile experts that pay attention to the most intricate of details noticed the phlanging in the 15+ years since the Downey books came out, then how on Earth is anyone else going to pick up on it??
I can sorta understand the editing out of 4 seconds in an intro, like "All Out of Love", because maybe the record company wanted to get to the 1st verse sooner -- and maybe the "single" tape of "Sharing the Night" was just an alternate mix lying around and accidentally used for the single -- but the changes on "December 1963" seem deliberate, yet being as minor as they are I can't believe they spent the effort or money in making them.
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Posted By: crapfromthepast
Date Posted: 02 March 2009 at 8:54am
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Sorry if I wasn't clear in my original post - what I heard was that the left and right channels were reversed on some CDs. Same mix for everything, but the left and right channels were swapped. I only singled out the wispy female vocals because they're the easiest to detect; the rest of the mix is pretty well centered.
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Posted By: crapfromthepast
Date Posted: 26 October 2014 at 7:55pm
Revisiting "Sharing The Night Together", five years later. (Disregard everything I said above; we're starting over.)
I discovered that the original version of the song was by Arthur Alexander, released on Buddah 602 in 1976. (If anyone has a better dub of the Arthur Alexander version than what's available on YouTube, please let me know.) Back to Dr. Hook...
The oldest version on CD is Capitol's Greatest Hits (And More) (1987). It sounds quite nice here, with plenty of dynamic range, very nice EQ, and no evidence of noise reduction on the fade. Overall, this Dr. Hook collection sounds excellent. The same analog transfer is used for:- Cema's Ten Best Series (1991)
- JCI's Only Rock 'N Roll 1975-1979 (1994; fade shortened by about two seconds)
- Cema's Rock-N-Roll's Greatest Hits Vol. 5 (1994; differently EQ'd digital clone of Ten Best Series)
- Time-Life's 2-CD Body Talk Vol. 8 On My Mind (1996)
- Time-Life's AM Gold Vol. 26 1979 (1997; digitally exactly 0.8 dB louder)
- Madacy's Rock On 1979 Heart Of The Night (1998; digitally exactly 0.477 dB quieter than R&RGHV5)
- EMI Australia's 5-CD Seventies Complete Vol. 2 (1999; left/right channels reversed and truncated fade, but no NR)
There is a new analog transfer on Time-Life's 4-CD Great Love Songs Of The 70's And 80's Vol. 2 Let Your Love Flow(1991), which sounds just about as good as GH(AM), also with excellent dynamic range, good EQ, no NR.
All the CDs I listed thus far sound quite nice, and I can wholeheartedly all of the digital clones of GH(AM).
And now is where things start to go off the rails; avoid all the CDs that follow.
A 2-CD set from Cema Special Markets called Mellow Gold (1991) seems to be based on Great Love Songs Of The 70's And 80's, but with added noisereduction.
Time-Life's Sounds Of The Seventies Vol. 34 Late '70s (1993) seems to be based on Mellow Gold, but additionally with its left/right channels swapped. So that's a L/R channel reversal on top of the added noise reduction - bad news.
There are a few discs that are based on Sounds Of The Seventies Vol. 34 Late '70s, all of which have added noise reduction and a L/R channel swap:- Madacy's Rock On 1978 (1996; digitally exactly 1.7 dB louder)
- Time-Life's 2-CD Singers And Songwriters Vol. 15 The '70s (2001; digitally exactly 1.592 dB louder)
- Time-Life's 2-CD Classic Soft Rock Vol. 8 Ordinary World (2007; digitally exactly 3.57 dB louder)
Best Bets
Go for Capitol's Dr. Hook collection Greatest Hits (And More) (1987), although any of the digital clones I listed above will sound just as good for "Sharing The Night Together".
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