Discovered a little "oops!" gem in old Engelbert Humperdinck recording
- Thread starter Polkasound
- Start date
QuiteAlright
Gastronomer
You've got better ears than me! I can't hear anything out of place here using headphones. But it always amazes me what little details people pick up on.
OP
OP
Polkasound
Senior Member
Engelbert sings "I will be remembering..." and then the flutes play A - G - F#, and it's right after they hit that F# you can hear someone quickly saying "The shadow!"
Technostica
I AM
After listening to his cover version of "Careful with that axe, Eugene", that would be the logical conclusion.
We will hopefully never know why he chose to yodel all the way through a version of that Pink Floyd instrumental.
Dietz
Space Explorer
Most likely print-through of an analog tape that hasn't been stored properly (i.e. "tail-out"). This leads to pre-echoes.
-> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Print-through
-> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Print-through
devonmyles
Senior Member
Haha, yes...I heard it! It's at the 0:04 mark.
For some reason, I thought it was a Trombone player, playing when he shouldn't have been...
For some reason, I thought it was a Trombone player, playing when he shouldn't have been...
Rob
stale member
isolating the voice makes this thing audible, though I'm not sure that's someone saying "the shadow"
View attachment the_shadow.mp3
View attachment the_shadow.mp3
doctoremmet
Senior Member
I hear Laurel.
OP
OP
Polkasound
Senior Member
Verbally nudging someone is a legitimate (albeit not recommended) studio technique for aiding performers who keep tripping up in the same spot due to a brain block, but it's usually kept isolated in headphones. If that's what happened here, then I'm guessing Engelbert recorded live without headphones.
This one will be easier to hear because it's panned hard right. It's a tiny "eghh!" vocalization coming from the banjo player.
View attachment polka poppers.mp3
Here's another gem, but it was intentional.
View attachment pnp.mp3
It's very subtle, but once you finally do hear it, you can't un-hear it... kinda like seeing the 3D image in a stereogram. Engineers like me enjoy these little gems because they're like little secrets that nobody knows.
This one will be easier to hear because it's panned hard right. It's a tiny "eghh!" vocalization coming from the banjo player.
View attachment polka poppers.mp3
Here's another gem, but it was intentional.
View attachment pnp.mp3
It seems to be doing the opposite. Can you isolate and then remove the vocal track? I think that might make it easier to hear because it doesn't sound like it was picked up by the vocal mic, but by one of the instrument mics panned slightly to the right.
It does sound reminiscent of print-through, but I don't think that's the case here because it's not echoing anything that exists earlier or later in the audio, and it's just in that one spot.
Yes! It took me 4 times to finally hear it and now I can't unhear it. Thanks.
OP
OP
Polkasound
Senior Member
It's kind of a curse, sorry!
I'm parsing the music because I need to hear what each instrument is doing, but now I'm going to be distracted listening for people talking in the background. LOLIt's kind of a curse, sorry!
No problem. The weird thing is, it's not whispering but shoutin' ...
Rob
stale member
sure, here is the remaining instruments, still can't hear it though... but with age I have lost very high frequencies so that might explain it
View attachment The shadow no voice.mp3
tc9000
Absolute Member
I can hear it! Or maybe its the power of suggestionIt's kind of a curse, sorry!
OP
OP
Polkasound
Senior Member
Unfortunately that didn't help. It's apparently too buried to enhance in any way. But even with high-frequency hearing loss you should still be able to hear it.
Exactly. To me it sounds like someone sitting near or among the woodwind players leaning toward Engelbert to discreetly shout "the shadow," and it got picked up by one of the section mics. No professional musician would sabotage a take by talking that loudly during recording, so my theory is that Engelbert maybe had a habit of singing "the sunshine of your smile" and someone helped save the take by cuing Engelbert to sing "shadow."
LOL! Been there, done that!!!
The most embarrassing case of coaching a musician happened about ten years ago. A band had hired a tuba player, who lives about two hours away, to come to my studio to lay down tracks on a few of their songs. He was unrehearsed and unfamiliar with the material. I had to feed him the chords through his headphones while he was playing. It made for an unnecessarily long session and some rather uninspiring tracks. From then on, the band just had me play tuba on their recordings.
I couldn't hear it in the full mix. I could hear it in the example given where it was just the voice isolated. But, I heard was "this..", in a low pitched garbled voice.
After listening again, I hear a "this.." but twice, the first time very faint, and the second time pretty loud immediately before when his vocal says "the shadow..."
So some kind of pre-echo, like someone mentioned, I got some Blue Note vinyl re-issues where that defect is really obvious.
After listening again, I hear a "this.." but twice, the first time very faint, and the second time pretty loud immediately before when his vocal says "the shadow..."
So some kind of pre-echo, like someone mentioned, I got some Blue Note vinyl re-issues where that defect is really obvious.
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