Intrada Soundtrack Forum

I recently picked up Intrada's FOUL PLAY soundtrack CD and the song "Ready To Take A Chance Again" is indeed in real stereo, not mono (as it is on every Barry Manilow CD). However, it appears the audio levels are going up and down during the song. For example, at the 49 second mark, the audio jumps a little higher, then seems to stay there or go back a drop, and at the roughly the 2:00 mark, the sound gets louder again as the song is lifting. Even after I burned the CD into my computer and listened to the song back on mp3, I can still hear the audio levels changing throughout the song. Can anyone else confirm if they hear this also?

I heard from someone who only has the original FOUL PLAY LP, and he confirmed what I said, but he was also surprised to hear that this issue plagues the CD as well!

Also, there seems to be an issue with the sound quality in general, but it's more noticeable with the songs, and not as detectable with the score tracks. In a nutshell, the songs seem to have a more tinny sound overall...there is no richness or much bass to them. Another (and better) example of this is track 5, Copacabana...which sounds like it is almost devoid of any richness and bass, unlike the versions on Barry's regular CDs, where all of his songs sound firm, rich and have warmth.

On a last note, since "Ready To Take A Chance Again" appears only in mono form on all of Manilow's CDs, could this be because he wasn't happy with how the stereo version came out, since it appears to have audio issues on the FOUL PLAY LP and CD? I have to admit that the mono versions sound better and have no audio issues.

So while I'm happy to have this soundtrack for the rare music and score, the sound quality is a bit disappointing to me. Has anyone else who picked up Intrada's FOUL PLAY CD noticed this as well?

I can assure you that the somewhat tinny/shrill sound on the CD is just how it is. It never bothered me much as I just assumed that the way the original album was mastered did not allow for the most ideal remastered sound. It is what it is, not everything can be perfect, and so on.

I appreciate the comments, but unfortunately, the sound quality of the songs is practically night and day compared with how they sound on Manilow's regular CDs, especially "Copacabana" on the FOUL PLAY CD - it sounds terribly tinny/shrill. The main reason for my post though, was to ask if anyone else (who owns this CD) can also detect that the audio levels seem to go up and down during the first song..."Ready To Take A Chance Again"? It appears to be noticeable enough, and apparently, this is an anomaly which is also present on the original LP as well.

Yes, I'm sure there isn't anything that Sony or Intrada could do about it at this point, and believe me, when I bought this soundtrack CD, I suspected that the overall sound quality might not match Manilow's regular CDs, since the audio for the Intrada CD is from a "soundtrack master", but I wasn't too happy to discover the audio level issues present in the first song.

Actually, this might explain why Manilow's "Ready To Take A Chance Again" appears only in a "mono mixdown" form on all of his CDs! Perhaps, there is an issue with the stereo version afterall that he didn't like. The mono version by the way, smooths everything out...it sounds super and its hard to even detect that it's mono.

Sometimes, the only available master is the original film stems. We had this particular problem on the final cues in Hook (recently released by Lalaland). Labels have to work with the elements they have. When they can work from original multitracks masters that the coolest thing that can happen, but unfortunately that doesn't happen everytime.

In the end, while the stereo version of "Ready To Take A Chance Again" does in fact sound like true stereo - the overall tinny sound combined with the audio levels getting noticeably higher and higher throughout the song (which doesn't happen in the mono mixdown version), unfortunately, make me realize that this stereo version isn't the "gem" I had hoped it would be.

Yes, this soundtrack could definitely use a better sounding reissue one day, but I doubt we'll see that, but you never know.

I don't have the album, but what does Doug say in the "tech talk" section ?