taco "puttin’ on the ritz"

i have a cdr copy of this song from somewhere and it is very hissy at the beginning and end.....do any of the 7 other cds containing the 3:25 45 version have a less hissy version?....

Ed, this doesn't answer your question, but just as an aside, this's song meteoric rise to Top 40 poularity in 1983 caught the U.S. division of RCA Records SO completely by surprise, that they didn't feel they could press up normal RCA promo 45s quickly enough to service U.S. radio, especially given its "novelty song" angle. So RCA decided to both quickly purchase and distribute stock copies of the song from their "RCA Canada" division, where it was already popular. They then affixed those small, black-and-white "NOT FOR SALE" stickers, that RCA would sometimes utilize, whenever they would happen to ship out a stock 45 copy to radio, as a "promo 45 substitute." To this day, I still only have 3 of those "stickered Canadian vinyl stock 45s, used as U.S. promo 45s" in my 1983 promo 45s box. I wonder if, later during its hit chart run, RCA might have went back and ever issue a "standard yellow label" RCA promo 45 for "Puttin' On The Ritz?" Does anyone know, or happen to have one? FYI, in all my years inside Top 40 radio, this was the ONLY time I can ever remember a label utilizing a "mass stock 45 purchase, from an international division of their own company" to more quickly service radio, rather than taking the time to press up a standard U.S. promo 45!

Todd Ireland wrote: By the way, I seem to detect some slight "crackling" vinyl artifacts on during the intro and outro on the CDs containing the 45 version that I'm not hearing during the same passages on the LP version. Is it possible the 45 version on the CDs listed above could've been mastered from vinyl???

Todd, I noticed this same thing many years ago; however, I don't think it's vinyl clicks. It sounds to me that there may have been a problem with the master tape. On occasion, I've heard this same kind of clicking on cassette tapes.

Aaron:

Now that you mention it, you're right... The artifacts heard on the 45 intro and outro aren't so much "clicking" noises, but rather intermittent short bursts of static. Otherwise, the sound quality on the 45 version sounds very crisp and clear, like one would expect from a tape source.


Fetta:

I too thought the pattern of static sounds heard at the end of the 45 version was just part of the fading vocal effect until I discovered today that the LP version outro doesn't have those static noises!

Edited by Todd Ireland

Puttin' on the Ritz

Regarding hiss:

Most of the hiss is just part of the recording. Part of the unique sound of the song is heavy use of effects on the electronic percussion and vocals. The boxes they used in that era added a lot of hiss anyway, and the
type of reverb they intentionally put on the hi-hat sounds was especially hissy by design.

Regarding clicks in the left channel on the CD reissues:

The clicks are not supposed to be there, and were not on the original records.

The clicks are not from vinyl. They're at somewhat regular intervals (though not to the millisecond!), are only in the left channel, and are not at the rates that would match the rotation of a record. They also have a
weird look in the spectrogram in Adobe Audition, not being a simple infinite spike like you get from debris in a vinyl groove, but rather a very brief tone with tightly packed harmonics which don't reach into the very highest
frequencies. So I say they're an artifact of a tape transfer gone wrong. What exactly went wrong, who's to say.

As already mentioned, it seems this same mastering, with additional noise reduction (which cleaned up some, but not all, of the clicks), was the
basis for the Hard to Find 45s On CD Vol. 14 release.

I've checked almost all of the CDs in Pat's database which have the 45 version, and they all use the same master. The only ones I didn't check were the Time-Life Club Hits and 80s Music Explosion discs, but
I don't hold out hope that those would be any different than the others.

So apparently the 45 version has yet to be released without some kind of problems. That said, if you remove the clicks from the Like, Omigod! CD version, it's pretty close to what it needs to be.

Anyway, I just ripped my US-distributed Canada-pressed 45 and did some detailed comparisons, so I can clear up some more things about it:

1. The 45 has noise reduction which is not on the After Eight CD album nor on the German or US 12" releases. This noise reduction is exactly the same as what you hear on the clicky mastering that's been showing up
on all of the CD compilations. So I don't think they actually added all that much noise reduction to most of the CD reissues; that's just how the 7" edit sounds.

Given that it was 1982, I expect they were using a dynamic range expander for this—the lower the volume level, the greater the additional reduction in volume applied by the device. An expander is typically used to remove
the extra hiss that gets added when copying tapes. If over-applied, it will mute reverb tails and create a kind of halting effect on the beat. It's on the verge of being over-applied on the 45, to my ears, especially when
you compare it side-by-side to the album. You primarily hear the effect in the intro, the outro, and the tap-dance break, as well as any other moment with mostly percussion.

I experimented with the CD album version and the dynamics processing effect in my audio editor, and was able to get quite close to what you hear on the 45, so I'm pretty sure I've nailed what we're hearing here.

2. The intro of the 45 has what I assume is tape print-through which makes it so that before each clap, you hear a faint, muffled clap. This pre-clap is not on the clicky 45 master that's been used on all the CD
compilation releases so far. It is possible it's not even on all of the 45s, maybe just the Canadian version; someone can check their US pressing in headphones and see.

3. The clicky remaster plays at the same speed as the 45.

But for whatever reason, maybe artistic intent, the song plays very flat, by over half a semitone. To get it into its true key (E flat), you have to play:
• the US 12" at +5.0%
• the After Eight CD at +4.8%
• the 45 or clicky remaster at +4.0%

Or, you can get it the rest of the way down to D if you play:
• the US 12" at -0.9%
• the After Eight CD at -1.1%
• the 45 or clicky remaster at -1.8%

[edited to fix incorrect analysis of the clicky remaster speed; it's the same as the 45.]

No matter what speed you play it at, though, it still sounds kinda weird. That's just part of the charm.

Edited by mjb50