Worst Edit you've ever heard...

A Cantina man, that makes me SMiLE and I am one too!

 

Listened to the single version for weeks and weeks when it first came out (and got used to it). The single version(of course) suited the fast flowing format AM radio was using in'71 and I rather liked it.
When they started playing the LP version late at night I thought the keyboard solo bits went on a bit long... but over time I got used to it... and like it!
I think there's a place for both versions.

Unfortunately though, because of this infatuation we all have (me included) to listen and appreciate the 'near perfect' recording/version of a song.. when we hear edited versions of songs our attention is nearly always directed to the edits, whether good or bad.

 

Someone should be in jail for that one.

 

"Magic Garden" - Dusty Springfield [1968]

2' 29''


If that's how it was on the original EP then it must be a mistake, surely...

Looking on an editor at the 1998 stereo mix which has the same gap, it looks like a diagonal splice with a short piece of leader inserted - it sounds terrible, I can only assume they were matching it to the original EP:

2' 24''
Dusty Springfield - Magic Garden [1998 stereo mix]


This version from a 1973 compilation (details here) seems to be correct (no leader inserted) although you can hear the edit point offset between channels as the splice goes by indicating that it is from a stereo transfer of a diagonally spliced mono tape:

2' 23''
Dusty Springfield : The Magic Garden [1973 mono]

After all that, the end is a mess - the fade is too quick after the strange choice to bring the drum intro/chorus back in, unlike the 5th Dimension original:

1' 49'' for the transition
The 5th Dimension - The Magic Garden (Remastered 2000)

Dusty considered this song for her next single in early 1968 but maybe they gave up on it during the editing phase leaving the assembly of the "master" unfinished and this was put out as is on the 1968 If You Go Away EP anyway?

 

You know what your problem is, you're too damn courteous. Nah, it makes sense to resent when an artist has to change his statement to get the suits to go along with it. It's probably one of the first things we all heard that makes us realize, not everything comes out of a studio just as intended.

The only thing that I hate about makin' love in the green grass, is how it messes up my corduroys.

 

My mistake, it's the mono mix on The Legend Of Dusty Springfield [1994] that shows the splices to and from silence occurring approximately 0.009 seconds apart between channels (Right channel ahead of Left channel), consistent with 45º splices on a 1/4" mono tape transferred at 15 ips using a stereo headstack.

This suggest that the original mono master has this short blank section physically inserted.

The 1998 stereo mix replicates this gap but with the edits occurring simultaneously in each channel. Presumably the gap is considered "correct" if, as it seems, it is present on the mono master and was used for the original EP.

I made my own repair to the mono mix a while back and had forgotten how well it works - it seems as if, on the mono master, the gap was inserted into what was originally a smooth transition. Simply removing the inserted gap restores what appears to be the originally intended transition. The sudden fade-out at the end of the song is still an issue though.

With the history of this song being slated for A-side single release (29th March 1968 - cancelled), maybe it was a little long given the alternative singles considered at the time ("It's Over" - 2' 35'' and the winner, "I Close My Eyes And Count To Ten" - 3' 15''). Maybe the edit is where the A-side single version of "Magic Garden" might have ended? Or, at least, maybe they tried that. The ending that happens after the edit seems like an alternative rejected experiment involving cross-fading the coda with the intro/chorus edit piece and trying to find a suitable fade-out. Presumably they had an ending more like the 5th Dimension version originally but maybe attempts to reduce the length for single release proved unsatisfactory and the half finished mono master assemblage ended up becoming the standard edit.

 

From what I recall that was about some computer graphics thing that a faculty member with Brodax were to make some Beatles animated film. That was after my time at NYIT. Take care, John M.

 

Renaissance on the instrumental sections of Spare Some Love from 1972 and Ukrane Ways from 1982. Both have clunky edits of hi hat/drum rhythms.

 

The edit of Rosalita by Bruce Springsteen is pretty bad:

 

I don't know about the worst edit ever, but this was pretty bad, no matter how much I still like this song:
'Showing Out' - Mel & Kim.
I'd read the first original version made was the extended release, and only later
this longer version was shortened so as to become the single/video song. The edit was done in a hurry,
probably too quickly because the 7' had to be ready to be promptly dispatched to the record stores ...

 

I detest the cartoonish censor sound effects in the radio edit of “What It’s Like”.

 

How about the poor editing in trying to replicate the US single, “I am the Walrus”, with the extra beats, from the RSD Beatles singles box, a few years back?

 

The edit for "Won't Get Fooled Again" is pretty horrible. It's so abrupt.

 

Bowie's Young Americans single

 

The re-edit of "Fashion" on David Bowie's Nothing Has Changed is very appalling. Instead of using the edited single master and just using that, they tried to recreate it and re-chop it up and it sounds absolutely awful. Thankfully when Legacy came out in late 2016 (which uses the same exact remasters as Nothing Has Changed) it's back to the regular single edit. Jeez, doesn't anyone listen to these things more than once before they're put out?

 

I agree. A lot of Bowie single edits are bad. Whoever cut the first verse out of "Heroes" needs a asswhuppin

 

I thought "negative threads" were illegal. I'm glad this conversation hasn't been shut down.

 

Two that instantly spring to mind:

Hotel California by The Eagles. Just before the "mirrors on the ceiling" line in the breakdown you hear everything cut out where they made the edit a little too early.

Alright Now by Free. May be a single edit thing but when the drums start up again after the bass kicks off the instrumental you hear the sustain from a cymbal that was hit a bar before the edit point.

 

Santana's "All The Love In The Universe", a fantastic song that never fails to lift me up, has a pretty blatant edit early on (here at 1:38 ). But I wouldn't have it any other way!

 

I always thought I was 'counting' the beats wrong in the intro. Still weird nobody noticed this before giving this edit the 'OK' to be pressed and released.

 

The UK single edit of Kraftwerk's Autobahn is pretty bad. The US version is far more successful.

 

Frank Sinatra's 'My Way'.
2:24

 

A guy in a former band I was in was notorious for learning the edited single version of songs, while everyone else was playing the full version. It got to the point where we had to send him youtube links of the correct version we wanted him to learn.

 

I refuse to read this thread.

Once you're notified of a horrible edit (that you may have never noticed), you can't un-hear it!