‘Francis Albert Sinatra & Antonio Carlos Jobim’ Expanded 50th Anniversary Edition

Re: The "ching-chings" and who is singing them

As @Steve Hoffman says, the two vocalists are on separate tracks, and, beyond that, the two tracks are panned to different locations in the stereo mix. Frank's vocal is, on every mix, solidly centered. Jobim's contributions -- guitar AND vocal, which shared the same track on the 4-track tape -- are panned elsewhere in the resulting stereo mixes. For the newest release/remix:

Everything (guitar and vocal) that Jobim contributes is, sonically, left of center. Sinatra is solidly in the middle. Especially on headphones, it's easy to spot who is doing what on the new remix. On computer speakers or something, it may be a little hard to spot.

On the Concord CD, Jobim's contributions are panned a little to the right, but again, Frank is centered.

Point being: on any stereo release, headphones will make it obvious who is doing what.

 

Nice knowing you!

 

Let's be sure we understand what we are talking about here. Frank adlibs "chings" at :50 and 1:56 on this crappy sounding YouTube video of I CONCENTRATE ON YOU.

I find it quite charming but the original LP release of this album removes them. The remixes from the late 1980s on leave them in, going against the wishes of the original producer, Sonny Burke. I'm sure they were left in by accident on the first remix and then every mix after left them as well.



Are we in sync now?

This is simply HOW to tell an original mix from the various pointless remixes over the years. If Frank "chings" it's a remix. If he doesn't, it's the original Lee H. mono or stereo mix from 1967

Are we together now?

 

And Frank ad libs chings at the end of this, only on the remix. Start around 2:14. Once again, not correctly matching the intent of the original 1967 album. Frank's chings clash with Jobim, mainly because they couldn't hear each other.

So on the remixes, either no one ever noticed that the original had been mixed in a different way or someone in power said "that's cute, let's leave them in."

I hope it was the latter but most likely the former. One is an editorial revision, the other just carelessness or indifference.

 

Regarding a comment I made about the new release:

I just stumbled upon an old post that confirms my suspicion:

 

So do you think they didn't notice that Jobim was dry? Are you sure Larry Walsh did the new mix? He's usually really good about recreating vintage mixes (Capitol, etc.). Maybe he was instructed to "do something different this time" or whatever? Doesn't sound like Larry would let a thing like that slip.

 

I am always very reticent to place blame at Larry's feet for this stuff. There are lots of butts in the New Sinatra Releases kitchen, and he does answer to people above him. He's a very skilled and experienced guy; he's not infallible (nobody is); but he also has bosses and needs to prepare things in ways that meet their requirements/expectations/directives. As long as there are credited executives and producers, I think it's a good bet that Larry Walsh is not the one with kingly powers over the final release.

 

A bit of important stuff before the usual drivel: If I said ANYTHING that seemed to denigrate the judgments of @Ronald Sarbo in any way, shape, or form, 1.) I apologize, and 2.) that was certainly not my intention. I have way too much respect for Ron to ever say anything critical of his abilities, knowledge, ears, etc., and I sure hope nothing was taken that way, and if it was, I'm sorry for that.

As far as the ching-ching stuff goes: The "confusion" (or whatever we want to call it) here is not just from Ron, as I got a PM about the same thing from somebody else just a few days ago, so clearly there is something behind all the questions that are coming up. The confusion seems to be from the "chings" that have been under discussion -- those being, in may cases, the ones from The Girl from Ipanema, specifically -- and the "chings" in Baubles, Bangles, and Beads and I Concentrate on You.

The very first mention of the "chings" is here, from 2008:

Now…no mention is made of Ipanema by name, but the reference is squarely to FRANK's "chings" being eliminated. Nobody else's chings are mentioned as being faded down.

The second-ever "ching" reference was in February of 2010:

Again, the reference is to Frank's "chings," specifically. To my knowledge, there was never any question that Jobim did some ching-ching stuff, but his stuff was not edited out in the original mixes.

May of 2010, regarding the LP that Kevin Gray cut:

Again, Frank's ching-chings are mentioned, not Jobim's.

Next stop: August, 2012:

Next mention came in June of 2016, in a reply that was specifically related to audio clips that I posted that contained FRANK's adlibs (not Jobim's):

Anyway, as this stuff got talked about more and more, things got conflated a bit, and I "get" where the confusion (for lack of a better word) is coming from.

To clarify: It's Frank ching-chinging on The Girl from Ipanema, but only on the remixed versions. On I Concentrate on You, Jobim is ching-chinging, except for two spots where Frank ching-chings. Both men ching-ching about equally in Baubles, Bangles and Beads.
On the original mixes, it's all Jobim, right? I think so. (EDIT: Yes, just Jobim on the original stereo mix.)

 

Just for the record, @MLutthans , I mixed JOBIM/FRANKIE three times, gave them all to WB on analog tape (because of the edits needed to combine the takes and the "fader down" ching sections). First, a work part version, Frank's chings intact in all songs. I think I burned a CD-R of this for MMM back in the day.

Second mix, Frank's chings gone, third mix, chings still gone but Frank louder in the mix.

So, let me just say this about that.

This album is very tricky to mix. If you use any kind of compressor on his vocals, even a beautiful vintage LA/2A, he will go into overload distortion on peaks. It's right there on the tape, recorded that way, but becomes way noticeable with any squashing of any kind.

We need a bit of squashing on him or else he won't fit properly into the music tracks which were limited/EQ'd and echo'd right on the multi-track (listen to the flutes distort on GIRL FROM I.) So, the music is in stone and Frank has to be fit in around it. Very difficult. If Frank is too quiet, he fades into the background and becomes just another musician in the orchestra. Too loud and he sounds like he's doing karaoke over some pre recorded tracks. He just has to be right in the groove with the music but since the music was limited and Frank wasn't (much) it's almost impossible to do right.

Just sayin', it's a brutal recording, made sweet sounding by the efforts of us mixing dudes who take it for a spin... The original mono mix is really the only one that gets it just right....

The reason that the mono gets it right more convincingly is that the vocals are "dipped" during mixing compression and naturally, the music dips in sync with them, like a Top 40 DJ talking over a record on the radio. Works nicely in mono but in stereo you can hear it happening and it sounds fake. The mono hides that...

 

Are you listening to an original release, Ron? If so, then, to misquote an old song, "Yes, we have no ching-ching-chings."