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I can't remember was the choir on the original tv broadcast?
This is straight from ABC-TV to my VHS, so it's the original. No choir - and very little reverb.
First off, I am figuring that if you haven't got your DVD and you don't want any spoilers that your either not reading this thread or skipping over posts, so this is one you should stop reading now.....
Since getting the DVD, I decided to extract all the music and create a audio copy so that I could listen on the go and I found out that it really creates a great CD as well. When I had all the audio, I imported it into Audacity so that I could split up the tracks and label each accordingly. The main reason I decided to do this was that I could have an mp3 of Ave Maria since as we mentioned before I believe this to be a new edit.
At first I was going to remove Richard's overlay before each song so that I could just have a CD of the music only however after setting it up in Audacity I realized splitting up the tracks would create more harm than good as some of these overlay his words into and out of some musical notes and removing it would create less polished transition. There was a short piece I did not add since it wasn't complete and wasn't even mentioned on the DVD cover. There is one thing that sorta bugged me about the DVD back cover, the track listing is not in order, in fact I don't think we even have a set order of the exact flow in writing anywhere. So I decided to leave in the intro, however I decided to split up the intro before Ave Maria so that I could basically have that as a stand alone track.
Once I had the track listing the way I wanted it to flow, I immediately compared the Ave Maria rip from the DVD to my German Pressing CD of Ave Maria and I also compared it to Ave Maria from my Anthology set. So I opened each (individually) in Audacity...The DVD 2016 mix (no choir), the German Pressing 1978 mix (no choir) and Anthology 1984 mix (w/ choir) I'm still under the belief that DVD mix does sound like it has more reverb like the 84'remix yet it's missing the choir. What I did discover is that the audio is pretty compressed and that all the instruments and vocals appear to be at the same wavelength in Audacity, almost fighting against each other, there are no highs and lows like you see on other wavelengths for studio CD's.....meaning Karen's vocals seem to be just as loud as some of the strings and backing track which I wondered if could be creating some of this reverb I'm hearing. So I'm still not 100% in belief that this DVD mix is the 84 remix minus the choir. I'd need more listening hears to chime in.
Screen cap Ave Maria DVD version 2016 (no choir)
Back to my homemade audio CD of the tracks, here is what I came up with and it really flows quite nicely as an audio only set. Of course this is not perfect and not the way to really listen to these track but I have the original CD's for that, this is just a project for fun. I've labeled them (DVD) so as not to confuse these with all my other official CD tracks with the same name. Some of these titles I made up myself just for reference 11, 12 & 17.
Christmas Memories CD
1. Sleigh Ride (DVD)
2. Winter Wonderland, Silver Bells, White Christmas (DVD)
3. O Holy Night (DVD)
4. Christ Is Born (DVD)
5. The Christmas Song (DVD)
6. The Christmas Alphabet (DVD)
7. Merry Christmas Darling (DVD)
8. Santa Claus Is Coming To Town (DVD)
9. Carol Of The Bells (DVD)
10. Make Me Laugh (DVD)
11. Karen With Family Photos (DVD)
12. Christmas Special Time Of Year (DVD)
13. It's Christmas Time (DVD)
14. Richard Introduces Ave Maria (DVD)
15. Ave Maria (84'Remix No Choir Special DVD Mix)
16. Carol Of The Bells (Reprise DVD)
17. Merry Christmas from Richard And Karen (DVD)
running time 42 min
The difference was subtle but enough that I could hear the reverb most notable with her opening lines. Take a listen side by side with a good pair of headphones. The original 78' mix on CD doesn't exhibit this reverb. I can't determine if the compression on the DVD is causing this to sound this way. To me the opening on the DVD sounds more like the 84' mix than the original 78'.Other than the compression, I'm really not hearing much difference between this and the original '78 mix. Richard prefers the choir, so if he would have swapped any audio here like he did with Santa Claus Is Coming To Town, it would have been the version with choir and not an alternate mix without. Just my $.02.
The difference was subtle but enough that I could hear the reverb most notable with her opening lines. Take a listen side by side with a good pair of headphones. The original 78' mix on CD doesn't exhibit this reverb. I can't determine if the compression on the DVD is causing this to sound this way. To me the opening on the DVD sounds more like the 84' mix than the original 78'.
Yes! A day apart.For those who received theirs from Iowa, did the DVD arrive separately from the membership card?
Yes! A day apart.
The difference was subtle but enough that I could hear the reverb most notable with her opening lines. Take a listen side by side with a good pair of headphones. The original 78' mix on CD doesn't exhibit this reverb. I can't determine if the compression on the DVD is causing this to sound this way. To me the opening on the DVD sounds more like the 84' mix than the original 78'.
OK. I'm now confident that Chris May is right - that the DVD contains the original '78 recording and that no remixing was done for this DVD.
Here's what confused me - and I believe it IS due the compression on the track: One of the hallmarks of the remixes of the Christmas stuff is the reverb used on Karen's vocals, and as it turns out, the original '78 recording DOES feature reverb on her voice in the opening lines of the track. In fact, this has brought to my attention what now sounds like it was maybe an edit point. The opening line, "Ave Maria..." sounds like it has heavier reverb than the next words, "...gratia plena". With headphones, I can almost hear a change in mic presence at the beginning of "...gratia" indicating perhaps the editing together of two different takes.