Wang Chung - "Everybody Have Fun Tonight"

mjb50 wrote: Thanks for the update. I'm unable to verify the tape drag issue. I have a couple of BPM counters, but I find they disagree with each other, as well as themselves, so I'm hesitant to place much faith in them. John, that YouTube clip you linked is using a CD source, I think the Totally '80s mastering. I would not infer anything about the actual 45 length from that. People have a habit of misrepresenting things like that, showing pictures of vinyl records as the audio from a CD plays. I much prefer the clips where there's obvious vinyl noise or where you can see the record on the turntable. However, I made a mistake when I said my 45 plays 4:11. It plays 4:17! It's the 12" that fades out at 4:11. What I said about the overall speed being almost identical to that of the CD mastering, though, is correct. I'm happy to share my transfer for further analysis. David, to be fair, since the only differences are in how certain elements are panned, it's quite understandable that no one would notice. In fact, I feel I'm being quite the nitpicker here!

Many of us don't mind the nitpicking. Feel free to point out all differences when you can. It is appreciated.

The tape drag Ron is referring to is a difference in speed when you compare the beginning vs. the end. It's not something I would've noticed with my ears, as it doesn't get to the point of sounding slow.

Given mjb50's observation that his 45 dub stays pretty well synced up, I wonder if that's not a problem with the CD but rather recorded on the single master that way. Also, the sound quality of this song on After Hours is pretty nice, in my opinion.

Revisiting my post from a mere 13 years ago...

I'd played my commercial 45, Geffen 28562, on my Technics 1200 turntable, and discovered that it ran 4:16 and 128.8 BPM throughout. There's no tape drag on the source tape two-track mixdown.

On After Hours, it starts off at 129.3 BPM and ends at 128.5 BPM. That's a drop in speed of about 0.6%, which is not really noticeable over the course of the song. If you're beat-matching, you'll notice, but if you're just listening by ear, it'll sound just fine.

mjb - I still can't believe you found the difference between the LP and 45 mixes! That's an impressive piece of listening, especially since the rest of the mix sounds basically the same for the LP and 45.

I can't believe I'm being this OCD, but I guess we're all in this boat together...

Would it be correct to say that to match the original promo 45, you'd want to slow the entire "After Hours" copy down 0.364%, then starting about 2 minutes in to the end, use a dynamic speed increase (what Adobe Audition calls a "Gliding Stretch") to go from the reduced speed to a 0.6% increase in speed by the end of the file?

...yes, I'm really trying to get THAT close. No, nobody will notice or care but me. :-D

NightAire wrote: I can't believe I'm being this OCD, but I guess we're all in this boat together... Would it be correct to say that to match the original promo 45, you'd want to slow the entire "After Hours" copy down 0.364%, then starting about 2 minutes in to the end, use a dynamic speed increase (what Adobe Audition calls a "Gliding Stretch") to go from the reduced speed to a 0.6% increase in speed by the end of the file? ...yes, I'm really trying to get THAT close. No, nobody will notice or care but me. :-D

The trouble I ran into is that it's not a gradual slowdown. What I noticed is that there are spots where it slows down just a tiny bit and then remains constant for a while. I tried to correct the CD version as much as possible, but I'm sure it's not 100% perfect.