"The Sound of Your Voice" - 38 Special

According to the database, commercial single copies of 38 Special's "The Sound of Your Voice" run 4:48. However, both of the song's CD appearances have run times of 4:55-4:56. Is the single's shorter run time the result of an edit, early fade, and/or speed difference?

my cd promo for this tune on Charisma PRCD 050 mirrors the Network 40 version and is titled the AC edit...

cmmmbase wrote: my cd promo for this tune on Charisma PRCD 050 mirrors the Network 40 version and is titled the AC edit...

Interesting... I wonder how this "AC Edit" differs, if at all, from the "Edit" version running 4:36 on the Charisma PRCD 046 promo CD. The tracks on the latter DJ disc are as follows:

1) Edit - 4:36 (printed time: 4:30)
2) Album Version - 4:56 (printed time: 4:57)

It was common for record labels to issue special "AC Edits" of rock-oriented songs on promo CD singles in the early '90s. This often simply entailed remixing the electric guitars to make them sound softer and more subdued in the overall mix.

edtop40 - My experience with 45s in the cassingle era (late '80s/early '90s) is that the pitch is nearly perfectly matched to the CD counterparts, to within +/-0.1% or 0.2%. (I've seen variations on that order from CD-to-CD, and they're usually caused by variations from tape machine to tape machine at the record companies.) There are examples of deliberately pitching up the single (although I can't think of any in that time frame off the top of my head), but those are usually pitched WAY up, by 1% or more. I use a Technics 1200 turntable at home, where 45 RPM is EXACTLY 45 RPM, to within ridiculously tight tolerances. Same for 33-1/3 RPM.

My experience with cassettes in that same time frame is far more variable, as you've seen as well. Tapes should run at 3-3/4 inches per second, but there's no way to calibrate most cassette decks. I've seen good cassette decks be off by +/-1%, and no adjustment knob to fix it. To make matters worse, premade cassettes had relatively poor pitch control to begin with, creating even more variation on the playback side. Back in my recording studio days, it was a major headache to try and calibrate the cassette deck speed, and even then we'd see variations from deck-to-deck in our studios. We hated cassettes...

If you're seeing repeated instances where the cassette singles run too fast, I would guess that your cassette deck runs too fast. If it's too fast by 2%, which isn't all that uncommon, that would reduce your play time by about 1 second for every minute of song. A 4 minute song would run 4 seconds shorter on that deck, compared with the proper run time.

Mind you, there are many instances of the pitch being way off, even on LP records. For instance, the American Top 40 year-end countdown from 1981 was pressed onto vinyl running about 1 or 2% too slow throughout - both the music and talk breaks. (I timed it out once, but I don't remember the exact number.) Bottom line - I wouldn't really trust the timings on anything but CDs, the true 45s, the true LPs, or for new tracks, mp3s.

Just my 2 cents...

correct! There was no 45 for "The Sound Of Your Voice" in the US....