Sinatra / Capitol Sound Quality (and general discussion): Singles, Soundtracks, Etc.

I am at home, and am reporting on my notes.

I have opined many times here that a dB or two difference in overall dynamic range is often not a big deal. It becomes more clearly audible at around 3 dB change, and once you get up to 5, 6, 7 or more in reduction (RMS over the course of the track), things are often sounding pretty slammed.

Re: There's a Small Hotel --

This is one of those "pick your poison" tracks. In order, from widest dynamics to most-smashed:
•The Norberg-mastered Pal Joey soundtrack CD and Select Rodgers and Hart CDs both clock in around = -21.5 dB RMS.
•The Australian Pal Joey CD and the German Sinatra's Greatest LP are both around -17dB RMS. (about 4.5 dB less dynamic -- definitely audible)
•The original USA "D" LP pressings will be somewhere around -15.5 dB RMS, depending on cut (6 dB less dynamic -- arguably "smashed" or brickwalled).

So.....you can choose "wide open," un-smashed mastering (presumably from the true session tapes) with some degree of Norberg processing,
OR
you can choose releases that have audible, heavy compression, but little or no processing besides that compression.

This choice is surprisingly common in the land of Sinatra non-album tracks. Here are the suggestions from my website, and it's no picnic either way:

I'll also add that this track has, to my ears, literally never had a good-sounding LP release (AND the CDs are not without flaws).

(You can listen to un-altered clips on the website linked above, and decide for yourself which you prefer. If you have a mono button, push it as you play the 1995 clip, and see if it helps -- and thank you to @Bob F for providing the clip from that CD.)

One more thing: I'd bet dollars to donuts that both of the Norberg CDs are sourced from the actual, raw SESSION tapes (not any later LP production tape). Sadly, they have been strongly tampered with by Norberg during CD mastering (more so on the 1989 CD than the 1995 CD), so they have their own set of problems, but the DYNAMICS are intact. The Australian CD is likely sourced from the LP production tapes, fairly "straight," i.e., not overly processed, not compressed during mastering. The LPs are likely all sourced from "running masters" for LP production, with EQ and maybe some limiting "baked in," possibly with another layer of limiting being added during the LP cutting process. Those releases all have some degree of "ugly" baked in. We saw a similar situation with the tracks on the compilation LP, "Look to Your Heart." MOST (nearly all?) of the releases of those 12 tracks stem from the "LP tapes" that are PROCESSED, so those tracks tend to "have the ugliness baked in," but once in a while, somebody at Capitol went the extra mile to find the SESSION tapes for those tracks, and, as a result, on those few releases they sound VASTLY improved over the majority of the releases, which stem from the tampered-with LP masters.

 

From five years ago:

Missed no more! I have a copy, and will get a clip posted.

 

....and here you go. A clip from the LP is posted on this webpage, or you can directly access the clip here.

By comparison, here is my "top choice" for this track, the 1973 Like Never Before LP.

It's a little hard to tell on these clips, but the left channel -- especially obvious during the opening string swells -- is not really over on the left. It is centered somewhat on all releases, EXCEPT the 1973 debut release.

By the way, I'm am pretty darned sure that every release of "version one" -- the version with the two corrective, intentional edits, as in these two LPs -- after 1973 is from a needledrop of the 1973 LP.

Trivial little side note: There were four releases of this track in 1984, tacked on to NO ONE CARES: The UK stereo LP; the Dutch stereo LP; the Dutch mono LP (fold-down for this track); and the 1984 Japanese LP. The Japanese LP puts the track as track 5 on side two, while the other three put it as track six on side two.

 

Don't Change Your Mind About Me has even more of a Pied Piper's vein to it, I think.

 

Well, it's at least partially an oversight on my part, as I should have, at minimum, included on the webpage a "top digital choice", which would have been that CD, no question about it.

That said, for the ten ALL THE WAY compilation tracks that suffer from backward presentation (strings on the right -- a major boo-boo, IMO), I don't recommend the backward versions as a top choice, simply because in their un-tweaked, "off the shelf" form, they are backwards, and that's kind of a big deal for anal-retentive, orchestra-centric me. Also, that 1988 remixed CD is the topic of discussion in the post that immediately follows the one that you quoted:

....so....the CD sounds very good (and should have been listed -- with qualifiers -- in my handful of top choices -- mea culpa), but 1.) the stereo is backwards; and 2.) the "hep 2, 3, 4" part is potted down in the remix, so it has a couple of big warts on its otherwise lovely visage.

By the way, the version that I have on my own CD-R is this:

(Yes, I have notes, and yes, you forced me to actually check them!)

 

...but occasionally nice.