As one can imagine, assembling a Carpenters track was no easy feat. It often meant hours and hours in the studio working tirelessly to get just the right take on a particular track, or overdubbing vocals into the wee hours of the morning to achieve just the right blend.
During the taping of the rhythm track for one of the duo's hit singles -- with instrumentation provided by Richard on piano, Karen on drums and Joe Osborn on bass, the scenario arose where the first half of the take sounded perfect to Richard, but not the second half. Upon listening, he felt the trio could go back out into the studio and pick up at the top of the second half, and simply splice the two takes together.
The trouble was, there was no "click" track for reference -- a simple rhythmic meter audible to the musicians during the recording in order to play along in perfect tempo. This would prove to be tricky, to the point where bassist Joe Osborn even pushed back on the idea, saying that it could never be done seamlessly.
Standing around in the control room, all of them waiting for engineer Ray Gerhardt to splice the two takes together, proved to be well worth the effort. As Joe recalled, "We were all standing around the control room waiting for the engineer to put the two takes together, and when he did, it sounded absolutely perfect!"
Which song was was it?
During the taping of the rhythm track for one of the duo's hit singles -- with instrumentation provided by Richard on piano, Karen on drums and Joe Osborn on bass, the scenario arose where the first half of the take sounded perfect to Richard, but not the second half. Upon listening, he felt the trio could go back out into the studio and pick up at the top of the second half, and simply splice the two takes together.
The trouble was, there was no "click" track for reference -- a simple rhythmic meter audible to the musicians during the recording in order to play along in perfect tempo. This would prove to be tricky, to the point where bassist Joe Osborn even pushed back on the idea, saying that it could never be done seamlessly.
Standing around in the control room, all of them waiting for engineer Ray Gerhardt to splice the two takes together, proved to be well worth the effort. As Joe recalled, "We were all standing around the control room waiting for the engineer to put the two takes together, and when he did, it sounded absolutely perfect!"
Which song was was it?