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Carpenters - click sounds on recordings

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Topic: Carpenters - click sounds on recordings

Posted By: EdisonLite
Subject: Carpenters - click sounds on recordings
Date Posted: 24 March 2013 at 12:38pm

I've been upgrading a lot of Carpenters singles lately and noticed a TON of clicks on these recordings - an inordinate amount, really. It's really weird but I think that a lot of them are on the vocal take, and that Karen made a lot of clicking sounds while singing - either moving her mouth in between words or even during the words. Another aspect may have been that the engineer was switching between takes or simply turning off a vocal track after Karen was done with a line, causing a click sound when pushing the button to turn it off. A third theory is that the tapes just got crackly over time, from wear and tear and degradation. Any one have any knowledge or theories as to what happened? Markie, maybe you can chime in? Guys, listen to the single version of "Solitaire" (or probably any version of it) - it's really noticeable throughout. But it's on many of the hits.

Replies:

Posted By: Glenpwood
Date Posted: 24 March 2013 at 6:08pm

That clicking noise is the saliva in her mouth or her wetting her lips
before/after lines while singing. Check out the first click before she
sings the opening line of Weve Only Just Begun for example. Karen
was never a belter by nature despite her range and sang very close to
the mic and quietly according to several books of the Carpenters hence
why this is on her vocal tracks. The only album I don't notice it as much
is the solo album but those Phil Ramone productions are rather
different than what Richard was doing.

Hope this helps....