SUMMERTIME White Label Promo

There was a far worse effect from standard stereo records when summed to mono and that's the phasing effect created whenever two sets of tape heads are just slightly out of alignment with each other - the high frequencies on the center track can get dulled, depending on the degree of phase misaligment.

Here's how the phenomenon manifests itself:

A stereo record, perfectly in phase, comes into the radio station and is to be played on air. Rather than play the actual record on a turntable on the air, the record is to be dubbed onto a continuous loop cartridge.

Jinglecart-Fidelipac-1972.jpg

Continuous loop cartridge. Tap winds around from the center hub, past the heads, then feeds to the outer loop.

In order to be recorded onto cartridge, you have to have a cartridge recorder, right? It has stereo heads that have some kind of vertical alignment. Theoretically, they are in perfect vertical alignment, but in reality can slip in one direction or another.

This cartridge is then played on another machine on air. That machine also has stereo heads that also have some kind of vertical alignment. Again, assuming perfect alignment, all sounds fine. But if that machine is even slightly misaligned from the one that the cartridge was recorded on, trouble ensues.

Actually, anyone listening to this cart play on air in stereo will hear everything sounding pretty much OK. That includes the DJ on air and the listener at home with his FM stereo radio. But for the listener with a mono radio - and there were many, and there still are - the sound could be dulled. The center vocals, arguably the most important part of a recording, ended up with high frequencies cancelling each other out, dulling the sound on those mono radios.

It was a constant challenge for the radio station engineers to keep the recorders and the many players in alignment, or in phase, at the same time. Chances are, the station had a couple, two, three, recorders, and maybe dozens of playback decks, depending on the type of operation it was. Automated stations had many playback decks, whereas a live operation maybe only needed five or half a dozen playback machines. Add to that any reel-to-reel recording and playback - some stations would have a giant reel of tape ready at a moment's notice to kick in if something happened with the main cart equipment, or it could have just been a beautiful music station with whole segments recorded onto reels.

So, in FM stereo, it wasn't the stereo listeners that suffered, it was the mono people. They heard the dulled sound - and were just as valuable as audience as anyone else. Programmers never wanted a listener to have any reason to tune out. Well, if your favorite record sounded like crap because of phasing on station A, you'd be happy to push the button and hear it correctly phased on station B.

Record company to the rescue!

This is where the invention of CSG comes in. By shifting the phase of one channel 90 degrees, it solved all of the above problems. The radio station didn't need to have such precise alignment on its tape heads for these records, so the theory was, let's make EVERY record this way and everyone will be happy. The mono listener never heard anything odd on those encoded records, and the theory was that the stereo listeners wouldn't hear anything odd either. And on standard stereo speakers, it was only slightly noticeable. A&M, WB, and other labels signed on to this CSG processing for stereo records, but it didn't go far enough. Not all were done that way, to the phasing problem remained, and ultimately, the system faded away.

Each record company had its own way of doing things. A&M issued whole albums in CSG stereo: THE BRASS ARE COMIN', FOOL ON THE HILL, most of the GREATEST HITS series, BOSSA RIO, BUTCH CASSIDY soundtrack, etc., and many more. After a time, they stopped doing the albums that way and just issued CSG singles. Many of the Carpenters singles have CSG processing on the stereo side of promo records. Stock records began to be un-processed.

Early on, there was a changeover period where some singles got processing, some didn't. And it may have depended on the fact that AM radio was ALL mono - but some of those used stereo equipment anyway! All very complicated. Those were interesting times at radio.

So I'd guess that while Sergio's full album of FOOL ON THE HILL got the CSG treatment, there were two instances where it wasn't applied. One was the rarer mono promo (LPX-4160), and the other was this white-label stereo promo single of the title track without processing mentioned above.
I have a box of these brand new in the basement...I was going to throw them away.
 
As I mentioned above, I can only theorize that there was a 45 issued with the compressed mono mix as heard in the above video. The reason I'm theorizing is that I remember hearing it on AM radio at the time it was a hit song for Herb and wondered why my copy of WARM didn't sound that way. It never occurred to me that record companies would put out special mixes for radio.

It wasn't until many years later - while working in a radio station - that I found this mix on a white label mono-for-AM-radio album of SOLID BRASS. That album wasn't released until 1972, three years after "Without Her" had been a hit, so what I remember from radio *must* have been issued to stations on either a special single or a special mono version of WARM - *neither* of which I've ever found or seen.

Other than that SOLID BRASS appearance, I have a number of copies of various 45s of "Without Her" with the standard mix. They include:

Without Her - white label promo single, standard uncompressed mono sound, AM 1065. Dead wax reads A&M 1725 (RE-1) - 16 - DJ circle MR delta 76391. The other side has an 18 instead of a 16. Label states that it's from "WARM".

Without Her - stock label, standard uncompressed mono sound, AM 1065, b-side is "Sandbox". Dead wax A&M 1725-7 and an upside-down T1.

Without Her - stock label, standard uncompressed mono sound, AM 1065, b-side is "Sandbox". Dead wax A&M 1725-1.

Without Her - stock label, standard uncompressed mono sound, AM 1065, b-side is "Sandbox". Dead wax A&M 1725-8 and an upside-down T1.

Without Her - stock label, standard uncompressed mono sound, AM 1337, b-side is "Zazueira". Dead wax reads A&M 1725 (RE-1) - 16 - DJ circle MR delta 76391. This one states that "Without Her" is from SOLID BRASS.

*All* of the above 45s sound like the album version, uncompressed - soft vocals, loud orchestral explosions. The only actual mono compressed version I have again is from the mono-for-AM SOLID BRASS. It's got a white label, reads SP-4341. Dead wax: A&M MP 4582-M1, circle MR, delta 17045-X (1).
Harry, I was just thinking, is it possible that the uncompressed "mix" of "Without Her" is not a new mix from the 1969 uncompressed mono mix, but is the same with simply more compression and reverb added during mastering for the Solid Brass mono WLP LP?

What differences, other than the compression and reverb, can we detect in the mix?
 
When the loud orchestral burst concludes, I can clearly hear Herb's "...TO spend another day without her." You can hear it on the YouTube video posted in message 14 of this thread.

On the stereo dynamic version, the word "to" is buried in the mix.
 
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