Karen Carpenter on the radio in 1979
- Thread starter Harry
- Start date
Matthew S
Well-Known Member
What, it’s not “all hit radio?”
Yes, all through Audacity.
Step 1 is to reduce your file to mono. You can do a simple >Tracks >Mix stereo down to mono operation to make a fold-down. Most radio stations would have done that if they didn't have a dedicated mono source.
Step 2 is to use the Compressor tool to do an aggressive compression like an AM station. This is the setting I've used that sounds fairly authentic to me:
Step 3 is to use the "Filter Curve" tool. In that tool, I found in the Manage settings, Default, an AM Radio curve. If you can't find that, this is what the curve looks like:
And that's it.
Having worked in radio, I find it's sometimes fun to play with some obscure record figure out what it would have sounded like on the radio. For an FM setting, the compression would be somewhat less, and you wouldn't need a mono signal or the EQ curve, so it really almost sounds just like the record with a bit of compression.
jaredjohnfisher
Well-Known Member
There is NO way this could have done poorly. It’s charismatic and catchy!
Nemily
"I'm goin' way down south to Baton Rouge, tonight"
If We Try is my favorite track from the solo album. It was arranged and written by Rod Temperton (Phil Ramone produced it). Temperton also wrote Thriller, Off the Wall and Rock With You. I really wish Karen had recorded Rock With You on the solo album when it is offered to her first before MJ. She would have ‘rocked’ it. I too loved the direction Karen was going in on the entire album.
Proudofyou
Well-Known Member
Omg I just got teary. In a good way but also.....well emotional. Thank you for this. It's so cool. I know exactly where I would have been and what I would have been doing. This is so my childhood.
newvillefan
I Know My First Name Is Stephen
Yeah…there’s just no way this wouldn’t have been a hit back in 1979. I don’t care what Richard or John Bettis say. It should have been released and would have served as a perfect litmus test for the album as a whole.
JohnFB
She was born to belong to the lines of a song...
I wonder if it would have passed that "litmus test"...one really good song can sell lots of albums, no matter what the critics say about the album as a whole. But the album had more than one really good song - it had two, the other one being "If We Try", which was another definite single. Beyond those two there were several just good songs such as "Make Believe It's Your First Time" and the cover of Paul Simon's "Still Crazy After All These Years". Others have varying opinions about the rest of the Disco-related songs on the album, although at the time (1979) that wasn't such a bad thing (or was Disco dying about then, I forget) - so at least about half the album was worthy and listenable and probably had a decent chance of being somewhat successful...or not...(this is about the most definite and positive I can get here...)
newvillefan
I Know My First Name Is Stephen
The album’s fatal mistake was not the lack of worthy material. It was the timing. Had she released it in mid to late 1979, it would likely have given her a decent hit album. By early 1980, after the whole Bee Gees backlash and Disco Demolition Night at Comiskey Park in Chicago, it was too late. She missed her chance.
I still to this day don’t know why it took her a year to record it. Carpenters albums were usually done in three months. Phil Ramone can’t have been that busy and there was zero Carpenters activity. Surely if this was sanctioned as a big project for A&M, they would have ensured it could be delivered on a timely basis before they assigned Phil as producer.
Harry I can’t believe you initiated a thread about the solo album. This can only go one way but I’ll enjoy it while it lasts
I still to this day don’t know why it took her a year to record it. Carpenters albums were usually done in three months. Phil Ramone can’t have been that busy and there was zero Carpenters activity. Surely if this was sanctioned as a big project for A&M, they would have ensured it could be delivered on a timely basis before they assigned Phil as producer.
Harry I can’t believe you initiated a thread about the solo album. This can only go one way but I’ll enjoy it while it lasts
Hey, I've always "liked" the solo album. I just never thought it was a world-beater that would have elevated the low public images of Carpenters or Karen Carpenter at the time. And I always thought the tracks lifted by Richard for LOVELINES were among the best for sure, and even really like a few of the others. I'll take Karen singing that phone book over just about all of today's singers any day.Harry I can’t believe you initiated a thread about the solo album. This can only go one way but I’ll enjoy it while it lasts
And I had fun playing with Audacity and its settings and thought I'd share it with my fellow Carpenters fans.
jaredjohnfisher
Well-Known Member
Kudos to Harry for having the audacity to do this in the first place! LOL
newvillefan
I Know My First Name Is Stephen
I tell you who I wish had produced Karen in 1979. Benny Andersson and Bjorn Ulvaeus.
JohnFB
She was born to belong to the lines of a song...
That would have left two pretty good backup harmony singers...
Personally - since we're fantasizing here - I would have heartily recommended Bob James and several other hard-core members of the thriving Smooth Jazz community at that time - albums being cranked out by the likes of Patti Austin & Michael Franks and Al Gerreau then were loaded with highly appealing songs that were well produced and accompanied by the SJ crowd of musicians...too bad, so sad...
Personally - since we're fantasizing here - I would have heartily recommended Bob James and several other hard-core members of the thriving Smooth Jazz community at that time - albums being cranked out by the likes of Patti Austin & Michael Franks and Al Gerreau then were loaded with highly appealing songs that were well produced and accompanied by the SJ crowd of musicians...too bad, so sad...
newvillefan
I Know My First Name Is Stephen
Mark-T
Well-Known Member
I address a similar idea in my upcoming look at Passage.
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