A TRIBUTE TO QUAD's UNSUNG HEROES

[fizzywiggs41]

Jefferson Starship -Spitfire RCA/Grunt BFD1-1557

Quote : Bert Whyte,
"Engineer Larry Cox has given us an excellent example of what to do right in a surround-sound quadraphonic recording."
(Volume 4 , Number 1 , page 4 , MAY/JUNE 1977)




That's it for the CD-FORUM

-fizzy

 

[fredblue]

Well I finally got around to perusing my copies of the CD-FORUM , with editors : John Eargle (JME Associates) , and then later on , John M. Woram of Woram Audio Associates as cheif editors .
Interesting stuff on the progress of CD-4 , fwiw.

I was chiefly trying to find out about who the quad mix engineers and quad producers were involved in the CD-4 Releases.

Interesting factoid on Arista Records entry into the quad playground .
Clive Davis , President of Arista announced in Jan 1976 they had picked CD-4 as their choice of quad.
Their first CD-4 Albums appeared sometime in February 1976 .
Mixing engineers for Arista are not mentioned , at least not in this publication of CD-4 .
but there were some other labels mentioned , with the quad mix Producers and Engineers.
I' ll start with the next post .

i think we know who most of the Arista Quads were done by?

Jimmy Douglass did the Brecker Brothers,
Michael DeLugg did the Manilow's with Ron Dante, Bob Schaper did the Melissa Manchester's.

 

[fredblue]

James Stern , Fantasy/Prestige/Milestone (FPM) Record Group of Berkeley whose duties included ; .. Director of Engineering and Producer for the label , announced in the Summer of 1975 that FPM was opting for CD--4 for their quad album format.

His first quad album as a Quad Engineer was the Woody Herman -Children Of Lima disc.
Quote from James Stern ;
"I chose to mix the Woody Herman album , Children Of Lima ..in quadraphonic . The album was done live with the Herman band (16 pieces) and The Houston Symphony Orchestra (94 pieces) for a total of 110 pieces."
(Volume 2 , Number 3 , July/August 1975 , page 1)

if James Stern also mixed Blackbyrds' "Flying Start" then he did a great job! its one of my all-time favourite Quads!

 

[fizzywiggs41]

if James Stern also mixed Blackbyrds' "Flying Start" then he did a great job! its one of my all-time favourite Quads!

FWIW... The stereo version of Blackbyrds was a quad matrix recommendation . Me thinks this was a stereo mixdown from the quad mix.

 

[fizzywiggs41]

Oh BTW , both you ...Frederico , and Steely , have done a fantastic job of gathering up all those Quad luminaries.
@steelydave & , @fredblue ...Congradulations !
Well done you two, and good job whoever else contributed.

It's a tough job trying to separate the Quad Producers , Quad Engineers , Quad Supervisors , and the Band members who monitored those quad mixes and gave the thumbs up to the finished product.
For those of you on QQ who haven't checked out the BIG listing ...I think you should.
It's an incredible piece of work. Well worth a good read.


Fizzio

 

[fizzywiggs41]

I spotted a few omisions and minor errors on the Engineers and associated quad personel quad listings .

I went with the "50" numbers in each page of listings . So here goes.

Page 3 , There were Three Tate SQ Live , performances on SONY/DIG-IT .

Lionel Hampton , Live Hamp E.P Sony/Dig-It Records available as VHS HI FI , BETA HIFI , and 8MM HI FI.
also two more on the Sony/Dig-It label ;
Rob McConnell & The Boss Brass , Live E.P. again available as VHS HI FI , BETA HI FI , and 8MM HI FI
Bill Watrous Refuge West Band , Live E.P. available as VHS HI FI , BETA HI FI , and 8MM HI FI

They are mentioned in MCS REVIEW , Winter 1984 .

They had an advertisement of all three of those TATE SQ E.P. 'S in an audio/video from the U.S.

And Sony lists all 3 as available in their 1988 Catalogue along with the Buddy Rich .

 

[fizzywiggs41]

More ;

Page 4

All the quad Jethro Tull 's are mixed by Robin Black with Ian Anderson , as QSS .

The Doors , Best Of , mixed by Bruce Botnick and Production Supervisor Jac Holzman and all but two songs are Produced by Paul A. Rothchild .


Page 5

All the Rick Wakeman quad records are QSS by the artist , Rick Wakeman.

Fisher Fidelity Test disc has a double listing on that page.

Stephen Desper quad mixed The Flame -The Flame ....in quad and encoded in DY-4D , not EV-4 .

 

[fizzywiggs41]

Page 8

All two of Chuck Mangione's quad recordings were QSS by Chuck Mangione .

Page 9

Evolution Quad Sampler s/b EV-4 , not QS.
....and there is a 2nd one known as ;
Supersonic Quadraphonic Sound Spectacular , A Stereo Dimenson/Evolution Sampler

 

[fizzywiggs41]

Page 11

John Coltrane - Live In Seattle , was a 4channel mix from the multi , by Ed Michel , with Alice Coltrane
and Pharoah Sanders . Ed Michel QS encoding in the early 1970's .
Paul Whalen did the original 1965 recording.

Bob Crewe Generation - Let Me Touch You s/b EV-4 , not QS .

 

[fizzywiggs41]

Page 14

Mike Oldfield -Tubular Bells , you have it in SQ and( QS??) ! s/b SQ and UD-4 .

Page 18

Quincy Jones was the QSS on all his A&M quad recordings .


Page 22

Frank Zappa , missing is his album Frank Zappa And The Mothers -Live At The Roxy (unreleased), and of course it was mixed in quad by Frank In 1973/74 .

 

[fizzywiggs41]

I spotted a few omisions and minor errors on the Engineers and associated quad personel quad listings .

I went with the "50" numbers in each page of listings . So here goes.

Page 3 , There were Three Tate SQ Live , performances on SONY/DIG-IT .

Lionel Hampton , Live Hamp E.P Sony/Dig-It Records available as VHS HI FI , BETA HIFI , and 8MM HI FI.
also two more on the Sony/Dig-It label ;
Rob McConnell & The Boss Brass , Live E.P. again available as VHS HI FI , BETA HI FI , and 8MM HI FI
Bill Watrous Refuge West Band , Live E.P. available as VHS HI FI , BETA HI FI , and 8MM HI FI

They are mentioned in MCS REVIEW , Winter 1984 .

They had an advertisement of all three of those TATE SQ E.P. 'S in an audio/video from the U.S.

And Sony lists all 3 as available in their 1988 Catalogue along with the Buddy Rich .



View attachment 68863

@Mark Anderson

Please take note of these Tate SQ recordings released in 1984 , on the Sony/Dig-It label .
And add them to the Surround Sound Discography.
FWIIW ; They've been missing for quite some time on your listings.

-Fizzy

 

[humprof]

James Stern , Fantasy/Prestige/Milestone (FPM) Record Group of Berkeley whose duties included ; .. Director of Engineering and Producer for the label , announced in the Summer of 1975 that FPM was opting for CD--4 for their quad album format.

His first quad album as a Quad Engineer was the Woody Herman -Children Of Lima disc.
Quote from James Stern ;
"I chose to mix the Woody Herman album , Children Of Lima ..in quadraphonic . The album was done live with the Herman band (16 pieces) and The Houston Symphony Orchestra (94 pieces) for a total of 110 pieces."
(Volume 2 , Number 3 , July/August 1975 , page 1)

Do you have a link to (or a scan of) that issue of CD Forum, @fizzywiggs41? It would be great to have documentation that Stern was indeed responsible for this quad mix (and perhaps others). All I can find is this short item in Billboard in which he confirms Fantasy's choice of CD4 and is ID'd as Fantasy's "director of engineering."
https://books.google.com/books?id=UigEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA10&lpg=PA10#v=onepage&q&f=false

 

[fizzywiggs41]

 

[MidiMagic]

How are there Tate SQ recordings? I though the Tate was a decoder.

 

[Sonik Wiz]

How are there Tate SQ recordings? I though the Tate was a decoder.

The "Tate" was not a decoder but a Directional Enhancement System. It was designed by Martin Willcocks of England & the patent assigned to Wesley Ruggles in the USA. As shown in the patents it was applicable to either SQ or QS decoding. Obviously only used commercially for SQ gear. So "Tate" was actually a company so the Tate SQ recording would be correct.

Elsewhere in this thread the Buddy Rich recording by Tate Reber productions was mentioned. More detail from Disclord here:

https://www.quadraphonicquad.com/forums/threads/buddy-rich-sq-encoded-laserdisc.14897/

 

[steelydave]

As @HomerJAU mentioned in the other thread, the Quad Engineers Database has been updated for the first time in almost a year. Not a ton of new entries, but some interesting ones nevertheless:

Engineer Name	Artist	Title	Formats	Notes	Catalog #	Year
Bruce Botnick	Kenny Loggins	Alive!	SQ LaserDisc		PA-82-019	1982​
Baker Bigsby	Various Artists	Perspectives - The New Sound of Koss	QS	with Ed Michel	KQD-75	1975​
Ed Michel	Various Artists	Perspectives - The New Sound of Koss	QS	with Baker Bigsby	KQD-75	1975 ​
John Stronach	Various Artists	Perspectives - The New Sound of Koss	QS	Joe Walsh 'Falling Down' only	KQD-75	1975​
John Stronach	Joe Walsh	So What	UNRELEASED	credit per Koss Perspectives sampler	CQD-40017	1974​
Steve Friedman	Various Artists	Serendipity - Modern Concepts of Great Classics	SQ/Q8	P: Enoch Light	PR 5093 Q	1975​
Paul Goodman	Eugene Ormandy/Philadelphia Orchestra	Ives: Holidays Symphony	CD-4/Q8		ARD1-1249	1975​
Paul Goodman	Eugene Ormandy/Philadelphia Orchestra	Ives: Symphony No. 2	CD-4	P/QSS: Max Wilcox	ARD1-0663	1974​
Tameo Kawada	Jun Fukamachi	Fantastic Suite - A Dream On A Spring Night Based On "The Tale Of The Heike"	QS	P: Hideaki Takahashi	TP-72311	1978​
Bob Kovach	Rod McKuen	Emily (Original Motion Picture Score)	SQ	P: Rod McKuen	SRQ 4025	1976​
Eddie Kramer	David Bowie	David Live	UNRELEASED	P: David Bowie, Tony Visconti | per Billboard 1974-09-28	​	1974
Eddie Kramer	Led Zeppelin	The Song Remains the Same	UNRELEASED	per RE/P 1976-12 p.17-29		1976​
Dino Lappas	Bobby Womack	Facts of Life	Q8	UNCREDITED, per Billboard 1973-08-25	UA-DA043-H	1973​
Bob Lifton	Bhen Lanzaroni	Quadraphonic	EV/Q8		MCR 1002	1971​
Bob Lifton	Yank Barry	The Diary of Mr. Gray	EV?	P: Bhen Lanzaroni | only LP2 is quad	MCR 2-001	1971​
Yoichi Namekata	Akira Ishikawa & Count Buffalo	Dynamic Big Band Hit Sound	QS		TP-92009Z	1973​
Barney Perkins	Jim Croce	You Don't Mess Around With Jim	QS/Q8	UNCREDITED, per RE/P 1991-07 p.22	CQD-40006	1973​
Barney Perkins	Jim Croce	Life and Times	QS/Q8	UNCREDITED, per RE/P 1991-07 p.22	CQD-40007	1973​
Barney Perkins	Jim Croce	I Got a Name	QS/Q8	UNCREDITED, per RE/P 1991-07 p.22	CQD-40008	1973 ​
Barney Perkins	Jim Croce	Photographs and Memories: His Greatest Hits	QS/Q8	UNCREDITED, per RE/P 1991-07 p.22	CQD-40020	1974​
Ray Prickett	Yorkshire Imperial Metal Band	Superstar Brass	QS	P: Jed Kearse	TBX 3008	1976​
Ken Rasek	Dolly Parton	Dolly in London	SQ LaserDisc	UNCREDITED, per Billboard 1985-06-22 p.30	​	1983
Norio Yoshizawa	Jun Fukamachi 21st Century Band	Rokuyu	QS	P: Seizo Shimokobe, Shoro Kawazoe	ETP-72100	1975​

Most interesting for me personally was finding out that Barney Perkins (who did some mixing for Steely Dan) did all the Jim Croce quad mixes, courtesy of an interview (which starts on page 20) in the July 1991 issue of Recording Engineer/Producer:

 

[sjcorne]

Most interesting for me personally was finding out that Barney Perkins (who did some mixing for Steely Dan) did all the Jim Croce quad mixes, courtesy of an interview (which starts on page 20) in the July 1991 issue of Recording Engineer/Producer:

Fascinating, I wonder if Perkins also did the quad mixes of Can't Buy A Thrill and Countdown To Ecstasy? They have same 'wet' aesthetic as the Croce quads.

 

[steelydave]

I wondered that too, but you'd think he'd have mentioned that in the interview given that the Croce comment was given right in the context of his Steely Dan (stereo) mixing work.

ABC opened their own quad-equipped mixing studio in 1973 (I think) and there were only 5 or 6 guys that worked there, Phil Kaye (who was the chief engineer), Roger Nichols, Perkins, Howard Gale, and one or two others. I think the aesthetic you mention is probably the result of a shared approach (not to mention the equipment) between them as a result of working together.

I think it's kind of commonly assumed that Nichols did the Steely Dan quad mixes, but by the same token, if he did, why is the organ solo on Do It Again missing the punch-in at the end, and why the extra guitar fills in Reelin In the Years, and why the missing vocal overdubs on The Boston Rag? If he (and the band) were really the perfectionists we're told they are, it doesn't seem like the kinds of things that would be missed.

 

[Quadwreck]

I wondered that too, but you'd think he'd have mentioned that in the interview given that the Croce comment was given right in the context of his Steely Dan (stereo) mixing work.

ABC opened their own quad-equipped mixing studio in 1973 (I think) and there were only 5 or 6 guys that worked there, Phil Kaye (who was the chief engineer), Roger Nichols, Perkins, Howard Gale, and one or two others. I think the aesthetic you mention is probably the result of a shared approach (not to mention the equipment) between them as a result of working together.

I think it's kind of commonly assumed that Nichols did the Steely Dan quad mixes, but by the same token, if he did, why is the organ solo on Do It Again missing the punch-in at the end, and why the extra guitar fills in Reelin In the Years, and why the missing vocal overdubs on The Boston Rag? If he (and the band) were really the perfectionists we're told they are, it doesn't seem like the kinds of things that would be missed.

Yeah, that quad mix sounds like it was done in a hurry, or (more likely) it was sent to press before it was finished. It sounds to me that whoever mixed it was unfamiliar with the stereo version.

 

[jimfisheye]

A lot of quad mixes sound unfinished. In these cases it really sounds like the budget (and thus time) was limited for the quad mix while the stereo mixes had the opportunity for corrections and remixing as it came up. Some of the examples mentioned can easily slip by in a mix initially when you're focused on the main "meat & potatoes" of the mix.

I mean... every mix is unfinished, right?
Some of these sound like they were yanked off the board and out of the engineer's hands much sooner than the stereo counterparts. The other thing to remember is that back in the analog days a mix had to stay up on the board until it was deemed finished. There was no magic perfect recall like we have in the computer age now. Take as many poloroids of the board and make as many notes as you want but you aren't going to get 100's of knobs EXACTLY in the same spot as last time and it WILL sound just a little bit different. Point being that the mix had to be finished before moving on to the next project.

The subjectivity doesn't end there. This was also an era where some mixes weren't all that great. Turning in a great mix is often hard work even with computer assistance! Everything was new. Guitars and drums and kick drums and electric bass and everything... Some of the stereo mixes were doing the best they could but were compromised. That leads to what were certainly considered unfinished quad mixes in some of the details but at the same time those quad mixes offered improved fidelity and revealed details simply because they had twice as many channels to mix into. More could be pushed up on the faders before getting scolded by the red lights.