Query about Del Shannon's "Runaway"

I’ve been reading a few accounts of the recording of “Runaway” and they all state that Del Shannon was singing flat (due to nerves) and that he had to be flown back to New York to re-record the vocals.

Quoting from “The Recording of Runaway” on the Del Shannon website:

“Again, Shannon was nervous and singing flat. Having spent a lot of money on studio time and expenses, Balk and Micahnik were very concerned. Balk and Big Top Records president Johnny Beinstock turned to the owner of Bell Sound for help and advice. The owner developed a machine, the size of a desk, that would enable the tapes to be sped up and slowed down. This allowed Balk to speed up Shannon's vocals to nearly one-and-a-half times it's original speed to bring him into key”.

Now, I’m not very well up on the subject but I would love to know if this story is true and if it were possible (in 1961) to change the pitch of the voice alone. Was Del recording with headphones and was his voice totally isolated on one track? A speed-up of one-and-a-half-times seems excessive.
Also one account states that Del never noticed the change and another says that he went ballistic and said it didn’t sound like him at all.

To confuse matters, on the stereo version of "Runaway" (which is a different take to the single release) his voice sounds exactly the same. Was that speeded up too?

Just wondering if anybody has any info on late fifties/early sixties recording techniques.

 

It wouldn't be nessasary to speed up the voice alone, the instruments could also be speeded up. Many Chuck Berry recordings were speeded up a half step to make him sound younger and the key of the song was also raised. Someone could check "Runaway" to see if it's in exact A minor.

 

That would not change the relative pitch of the vocal and the instruments. That is, if the vocal is flat and you speed up everything, it will still be flat in relation to the instruments.

As far as changing the vocal individually goes, it would have been non-trivial to speed it up, and then one would be left with the problem of the temp being too fast. Separately adjusting tempo and pitch is only possible digitally.

 

I slowed down the whole recording (on minidisc) and Del's voice sounded fuller and more like his later recordings. Something definitely has been done with his voice on the single release of "Runaway" but, again, how could it have been done in isolation without throwing the tempo out? It can be done digitally today but how was it done in 1961?

 

It couldn't have.

 

If I recall, it's in B-flat minor.

 

The song was written in A-minor, but appears in B-flat minor on the record. When Del played it live, it was always in A-minor.

Honestly, I think that they sped up the recording to make him sound younger.

 

A very good point. Del was about 26 when he recorded "Runaway" - an age that would seem positively ancient to his record-buying audience - so his publicity agents chopped five years off his age.

They also added a few inches to his height!

 

It seems to me as simple as you slow the backing track down and it's in a lower key and slower and you record the vocal which is easier to sing on pitch because it is lower and you're not straining to hit notes that are as high as the original. Then you speed everything back up to the original tempo or even higher/faster and you've got your finished record. It wouldn't be the only time that had been done,

 

He sings lower on the Demo version, and the key of it is a lot lower too. The fastest version though is the Single version (Take 2) with the Album Stereo version (Take 1) being in the middle speed wise.

The original demo is in the Key of A or A-minor, I confuse the two.

The album take (take 1) is slightly faster, and the Single version is like a 45 being played too fast, if that makes sense.

 

It's kind of both. Verse in A-minor and chorus in A.