Some of the AF quad mixes were in fact mastered from analog tapes by Steve and his partner S. Marsh. Authoring for SACD by G. Skinas.
4 more Quadio titles coming in May 2024!
- Thread starter ForagingRhino
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The likelihood of Turnstiles coming is strong, the likelihood of DV stepping up to the plate with several top rock, etc. titles is also very strong. The missing BOC quad is looming, some label is going to grab that winner if DV does not.
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Do any of these come under the category of "knock yer socks off?" I'm not sure.
I'm guessing...and, of course, total guess....that the box set might include an album that was never released in quad. Joni has one (I think). Does Carly? Or Seals and Croft? The Doors? (Although there have been box sets --not quad -- of Doors stuff already)
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Seals and Crofts have two albums that fans can remember a few tunes from. They should be heard in quad I guess. Carly has a few albums some can’t remember any tunes from. But her hits collection is impressive and she has an unissued quad master with absolutely stunning production quality. So there are four albums right there for the quadio series. That’s plenty to be grateful for!
Now moving right along - I can imagine Foghat Energized being released with Strombringer or Bloodshot. Two rock and roll titles plus another jazz, maybe this is where Carly’s Passenger fits in since the backing is rock oriented?
https://www.worldradiohistory.com/Archive-All-Audio/Archive-Audio/70s/Audio-1974-05.pdf#page=72
Might be a little OT...I had heard "You're so Vain" on the radio, but I hadn't considered buying the No Secrets album until I read the above review (I was looking for albums that made CD-4 look good), after listening to the album (CD-4 > stereo downmix) several times, I like all of the songs and I also bought the stereo CD and DVD-A (remix?).
Kirk Bayne
Might be a little OT...I had heard "You're so Vain" on the radio, but I hadn't considered buying the No Secrets album until I read the above review (I was looking for albums that made CD-4 look good), after listening to the album (CD-4 > stereo downmix) several times, I like all of the songs and I also bought the stereo CD and DVD-A (remix?).
Kirk Bayne
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I like Carly Simon a lot but Seals & Crofts would be my preference for a QUAD Box Set. Joni Mitchell, not my cup of tea.
Kind regards brother,
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I see interest in both Carly and Joni box sets. Yeah, both would be instant no-brainer buys for me, but if that happens who will be in the next four?
If (and a big if) Carly or Joni is the next box set, then one from the other one who didn't get the box could be in the next bundle. Female solo. But let's not forget Roberta Flack and Bette Milder. I'd be fine with either of them, too
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omnipotent1
Senior Member
Carly would be fab but I hope Rhino considers at least remastering some of these old quads.
I think they would really benefit from it.
I think they would really benefit from it.
JediJoker
Audio Engineer/Enthusiast
All quad and stereo mixes in the Quadio series—at least since the Chicago box set—are freshly mastered by Craig Anderson. These are not flat transfers from the quad/stereo master tapes.
omnipotent1
Senior Member
Really because the Billion Dollar Babies Quadio sounds really brittle compared to the earlier dvd-audio version.Granted it's a different mix but still the DVD-A sounds so much better.Maybe it's more the mixing then
Seriously? I hate to complain but, there was an opportunity to fix Ozzy being absolutely drowned on the Paranoid quad and it wasn't taken?
I have no complaints whatsoever about the sound quality of the Quadios that have been released to date. Only praise .
A remaster is not a remix. Drowned vocals are a function of the mix.
kwd kwd
Member
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only one was ever mixed that way
yeah, same here, i suspect those who complain should examine their equipment, or their ears, no intention of offending, I think the quadio's sound great. I have the regular stereo "remastered re issues" of some of the quadio titles and the quadio's are head and shoulders above them.
There was no opportunity to alter the mix, thankfully it was presented exactly like it was completed in the 70s.
While the first sentence is strictly true, the second one isn't.. Different elements in a mix "live" in different areas of the frequency spectrum, and by cutting or boosting via EQ you can absolutely bring things up or down in the mix.
This chart isn't perfect, but it gives you a rough idea of how EQ in different places can affect different instruments and vocals.
Mike Butcher, who did this quad mix along with Spock Wall (an associate of the band who ran their live sound) was a really good engineer, and the man behind the board for the stereo mixes of Sabbath Bloody Sabbath and Sabotage, widely considered to be two of the best-sounding (if not the best) in the band's whole catalog.
The quad mix of Paranoid was done in late 1973 in between these two albums at Morgan Studios Brussels, the same place that some of Sabotage was recorded, so it doesn't track to me that the two stereo albums would sound great, and the quad mix would have buried vocals. If there was one guy that knew what Sabbath "should" sound like in 1973, it was Mike Butcher.
The thing is, while you can calibrate a tape with tones and so on to make sure the playback on one deck is the same as another, the tonality of a mix isn't something you can legislate for in the same way. The size and shape of a rom, the types of speakers, mixing desk and other equipment (along with a million other variables) can affect what the mix engineer, producer and other people in the room are hearing, and as a result, what the mix put to tape sounds like. If the room you're mixing in has too much treble response, the mix (flat from tape) will have more bass because you'll be inclined to roll it off to compensate from what you're hearing from the speakers. If you want evidence of this listen to the quad mix of the Best of the Guess Who from the Audio Fidelity - like many of AF's early quad releases, it was basically mastered flat from tape, and it's super murky, thanks to the fact that it was mixed in RCA's studios, which used a type of speakers that had a famously exaggerated treble response above 12kHz. Now you can either compare those quad mixes to the Steve Hoffman-mastered stereo mixes on the same disc, or the Mike Dutton-mastered quad mixes on the various D-V SACDs, and you'll see that 'flat' doesn't equal 'better'. Sabbath themselves were also similarly affected on their 1983 Born Again album - they inadvertently blew some speakers playing back some of the backing tracks, so when it came to mixing the album - and we all know what blown speakers sound like, very little bottom end - and so the mix is super bassy as a result.
Not only were Sabbath Bloody Sabbath and Sabotage two of Sabbath's best, they also represented some of their most extensive studio sessions the band had ever undertaken, so I just refused to believe that Butcher - who'd been there for all of that - would simply dash into the studio for a day and reel off something that didn't meet those standards, especially in light of the fact that they sent their live sound man to work with him.
With that belief in mind, I set out to remaster the quad mix of Paranoid to suit my own tastes, which is to say I wanted it to have the same tonality as the best stereo version. In that pursuit I ended up listening to somewhere north of a dozen different versions of the album, from the '80s Warner US, Castle UK and various Japanese CDs, to the '90s Castle remasters, and through to the Sanctuary/Vertigo Japanese SACD and the 24/96 digital downloads from 2014. While all the stereo masterings present a slightly different take on the material, one thing they all universally agree on compared to the quad is that the quad has too much bass below 300Hz, and too much top end, starting at about 5kHz and escalating upward.
Take, for example, this screenshot of the first track on Paranoid, War Pigs The pink spectrum is the stereo mix, and the green is the quad mix, and that line through the middle is an EQ curve that illustrates the difference between the two, ie. how to make the quad mix sound like the stereo mix. As you can see the stereo mix has considerably more midrange energy - go back to the Sweetwater frequency spectrum graph and you'll see that the 'presence' band for electric guitar is 1kHz - 3kHz, and the 'presence' band for tenor vocals is 3kHz - 5kHz. Now look at the graph above, and pay particular attention to that combined range (1kHz - 5kHz) and you'll see the stereo mix,(pink waveform) which everyone agrees sounds right, has much more energy in that range, which is why in the stereo mix the guitars and lead vocals aren't 'buried' at all. Conversely, a mastering (or transfer) that has more bass and treble will feature the instruments that live in those frequency bands, which in the case of this album is the bass guitar and bass drum in the low end, and the cymbals and hi-hat in the top end, which is exactly why they're predominant in the on-disc mastering of the Quadio release of this album.
If you have access to a 30-band equalizer, or something that can even replicate roughly the curve it illustrates, give it a try on War Pigs and you'll see that the vocals sit perfectly in the mix, identical to their stereo counterparts. Though every track on the album requires a different EQ, all of them reveal themselves to be similarly well-mixed once properly calibrated with EQ.
It seems to me that we've been fed this line for so many years now (primarily by the humble guy next door who named a forum after himself) that somehow "flat transfers" are better and more pure than something that's been attended to by a mastering engineer. While I'd prefer a flat transfer to one that's been wrecked by heavy-handed EQ or unnecessary dynamic range compression, there's a lot to be said for having a talented and experienced mastering engineer in your pipeline between transfer and authoring, though I know not every reissue budget or timeframe allows for this. For every album that sounds great 'flat' there's another one that needs serious sonic surgery or a real spit-shine to sound its best. I know this for a fact being on the "other side of the glass" from my work with D-V - there are quad mixes where Mike Dutton has had to make serious alterations to what came off the tapes in order to make the album sound the way people expect it to, but oftentimes that work is so "right" that it's transparent to the end listener, which I think is the goal of mastering. A great mastering engineer isn't just a guy with good taste, or a "particular set of skills", he or she is also something of a recording historian - sort of like how Steven Wilson is with regards to vintage remixes - who knows the inherent sonic signature of various studios, mixing desks, engineers, and even tape formulations and speeds and can marry all of that technical and artistic intelligence together when they're making decisions about how a 40 or 50 year old album 'should' most likely sound.
Well put , Steely.
But in my case I tend to avoid the stereo mixes that accompany the quadios , and others in the same category be they surround or quad.
I spend my dough on obtaining a good quad mix , or surround mix , period.
To this day I don't understand complaints about a particular stereo mix that accompanied a quad one , especially on QQ.
You might say I'm pretty much convinced that a surround mix is superior in listening pleasure , something I discovered back in 1973 , when I first entered the quadraphonic program.
But in my case I tend to avoid the stereo mixes that accompany the quadios , and others in the same category be they surround or quad.
I spend my dough on obtaining a good quad mix , or surround mix , period.
To this day I don't understand complaints about a particular stereo mix that accompanied a quad one , especially on QQ.
You might say I'm pretty much convinced that a surround mix is superior in listening pleasure , something I discovered back in 1973 , when I first entered the quadraphonic program.
Re: Paranoid Quadio & vocals issue:
There's a section in QQ for discussing demix/remix/upmix tech, perhaps someone with knowledge about demix software can specify a software package and settings within to extract the vocals and then increase the volume of the vocals without affecting the rest of the Paranoid Quadio original 1973 quad mix.
Kirk Bayne
There's a section in QQ for discussing demix/remix/upmix tech, perhaps someone with knowledge about demix software can specify a software package and settings within to extract the vocals and then increase the volume of the vocals without affecting the rest of the Paranoid Quadio original 1973 quad mix.
Kirk Bayne
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Owen Smith
2K Club - QQ Super Nova
An important addendum to Steely Dave's excellent post is if the album is going to be matrix decoded you want a flat transfer of the encoded stereo to feed into whatever matrix decode process is being used. Any EQ to cleanup the album for release is better done on the decoded quad channels. That's partly so the 4 channels can be EQ'd differently if desired, and partly because if not done carefully with zero phase EQ it can mess up the matrix encoding.
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