Quad LP/Tape Poll Creedence Clearwater Revival: Creedence Gold [CD-4/Q8]

[EMB]

Fantasy FPM-4001, from 1975.

Vinyl track listing:

Side 1:

Proud Mary
Down on the Corner
Bad Moon Rising
I Heard it Through the Grapevine

Side 2:

The Midnight Special
Have You Ever Seen the Rain
Born on the Bayou
Susie Q


Q8 track listing:

Program 1:

Bad Moon Rising
The Midnight Special
Born on the Bayou
Susie Q

Program 2:

Proud Mary
Down on the Corner
I Heard it Through the Grapevine
Have You Ever Seen the Rain


ED

 

[Q-Eight]

Very conservative mixing considering most of these come from 16 track. (From what I've read, the boys used to record the basic tracks at Cosmo's Factory onto 8-track, then John would take that tape to a 16 track studio, dub the 8 onto a 16 and proceed to do his overdubs. That was until somebody pointed out to him that he's losing a tape generation in the dubbing process and why not just get 16-track equipment at the factory? That's why some of the early CCR tracks have that muddy, sort of "CCR" sound.)

Anyway, very conservative mixing I can only assume was to keep distortion down on the CD-4 side of things but to also blend the 8 and 16 track songs seamlessly.
I wish more Quad CCR had come, mixed more aggressively.

Pretty mediocre for such a high profile title.

 

[Quad Linda]

6. The music goes to 11 and the mix is a 1 or 2.

 

[EMB]

But as we know, Mr. Fogerty was very quirky about his mixing approach. While most of the material in the CCR catalog has fairly wide and decent stereo seperation, it's curious that *certain* single sides--"Proud Mary," "Bad Moon Rising," "Lodi" and "Sweet Hitchhiker"--were in a dreadful 'nearly mono' mode, for no logical reason. One wonders why he just didn't mix them in more normal fashion for the albums, while mixing to mono for the Fantasy 45's, all of which through 1972 were released in mono anyway (albeit as fold downs of the stereo mixes, apparently). By the time of WILLY & THE POORBOYS (late '69) that problem was more or less gone, but on the first three Creedence albums, the mix/separation disparities are obvious, and frankly, absurd: wide separation one one track, then the next has almost none or a much tighter mix. Fogerty was apparently working with limited if any actual supervision, which is great for artistic freedom but frustrating for anyone wanting a more balanced sound throughout an album that was not a compilation, where you might expect such disparities.

ED

 

[quicksrt]

That’s too bad that there is nothing exciting going on here in the quad mix of the big CCR golden hits.

The CD-4 LP plays back so nicely in stereo with many differences in compared to the standard album mixes. All kinds of parts jumping out at you, very 3D and very hi-fi sq. I got someone’s 16/44.1 LP drop, but it sounds so nice I should do my own drop at 24/96 now that I trust ClickRepair to do some cleaning up w/o doing too much damage in the process.

Anyway this is said to be a fairly rare CD-4. It is quite a great set of songs start to finish. Recommended listening just for the tunes and a special sounding stereo ride.

 

[lennon fan]

I have the Q8 of this and find it rather satisfying and discrete. Track list sucks but it is what it is. 9

 

[quicksrt]

I have the Q8 of this and find it rather satisfying and discrete. Track list sucks but it is what it is. 9

Other feel the mix is unconvincing but track list is fine. You like the mix but not the tracks.

It does contain the biggest hits from first half of career, and tosses in a couple of FM radio played deep tracks.

I fine the program satisfying I’d stereo, a 3D soundstage with a hot track list and running order.

PS I know I’m repeating myself, but oh well.

 

[lennon fan]

Other feel the mix is unconvincing but track list is fine. You like the mix but not the tracks.

It does contain the biggest hits from first half of career, and tosses in a couple of FM radio played deep tracks.

I fine the program satisfying I’d stereo, a 3D soundstage with a hot track list and running order.

PS I know I’m repeating myself, but oh well.

...hence the term 'different strokes'
I'm not the biggest CCR fan and I can't stand Grapevine done by anyone on this planet, but I would have used that real estate for more of their singles or originals.
I also wonder if this is one of those rare quads that got more than 1 mix release, I have a couple, but there's nothing wrong with the quad mix on this IMO.

 

[key_wiz]

Other feel the mix is unconvincing but track list is fine. You like the mix but not the tracks.

It does contain the biggest hits from first half of career, and tosses in a couple of FM radio played deep tracks.

I fine the program satisfying I’d stereo, a 3D soundstage with a hot track list and running order.

PS I know I’m repeating myself, but oh well.

First half of career? It contains at least one track from each of their first six albums and they only released seven.

I did always find it odd that they spent 11 minutes of this album on one “deep cut” from Cosmo’s Factory instead of what could have been any four of the several hit singles from that album.

 

[JonUrban]

For those with interest in seeing these CCR tracks reissued with a modern surround mix, here's a look at "Have You Ever Seen the Rain". First, from the Q8 discrete 1970's Fantasy mix, and then from the 2012 Concord 5.1 mix created for the Mercedes Benz demo DVD.

For the 5.1, the rears are basically echo, the center is JF's vocal with bass (!!), the fronts are the guitars, drums and JF.

I attached an MP3 of a few seconds of the center channel under the screen caps below

 

[lennon fan]

For those with interest in seeing these CCR tracks reissued with a modern surround mix, here's a look at "Have You Ever Seen the Rain". First, from the Q8 discrete 1970's Fantasy mix, and then from the 2012 Concord 5.1 mix created for the Mercedes Benz demo DVD.

For the 5.1, the rears are basically echo, the center is JF's vocal with bass (!!), the fronts are the guitars, drums and JF.

I attached an MP3 of a few seconds of the center channel under the screen caps below


View attachment 40267

View attachment 40268

I find that 5.1 graph uuugggggggggggggllllllllyyyyy;(

now I realize I'm a special case....huge fronts w/32" woofers and I'm a quad guy, nice surround 5 ways...but...my center channel is a very regular bookshelf speaker that sounds absolutely amazing w/voice frequencies but deep bass? no. exclusive bass in the center channel of a mix? I want to strangle.

 

[JonUrban]

I find that 5.1 graph uuugggggggggggggllllllllyyyyy;(

now I realize I'm a special case....huge fronts w/32" woofers and I'm a quad guy, nice surround 5 ways...but...my center channel is a very regular bookshelf speaker that sounds absolutely amazing w/voice frequencies but deep bass? no. exclusive bass in the center channel of a mix? I want to strangle.

Yeah, it's really a 3.1 mix. I too don't like it when the mixing folks but the bass or bass guitar in the center speaker. It just doesn't seem right. Sounds odd for sure.

 

[lennon fan]

Yeah, it's really a 3.1 mix. I too don't like it when the mixing folks but the bass or bass guitar in the center speaker. It just doesn't seem right. Sounds odd for sure.

I totally agree and would add I don't like the vocal completely exclusively in the center either, it should be at least spread across the fronts with perhaps diminished volume, but it needs to be there otherwise it sounds too isolated IMO and while that's fine for many instruments in the field, the vocal should be pronounced.

 

[quicksrt]

I on the otherhand like Vocals in dead center speaker, but just a bit of vocal reverb in L and R to spread out and not mixed dry in L and R. Steven Wilson does it the way I like it. Glad for that.

 

[quicksrt]

First half of career? It contains at least one track from each of their first six albums and they only released seven.

I did always find it odd that they spent 11 minutes of this album on one “deep cut” from Cosmo’s Factory instead of what could have been any four of the several hit singles from that album.

That's what I meant first half gets more hits, short changed on Cosmo's which is getting later in the game. Why the hell would they do that you ask? So that they could do a very strong More Credence Gold follow LP - up I innocently reply. It makes such perfect sense to me. And including Born on a Bayou makes the two albums of Gold as or more interesting than Chronicle in a way.

 

[key_wiz]

That's what I meant first half gets more hits, short changed on Cosmo's which is getting later in the game. Why the hell would they do that you ask? So that they could do a very strong More Credence Gold follow LP - up I innocently reply. It makes such perfect sense to me. And including Born on a Bayou makes the two albums of Gold as or more interesting than Chronicle in a way.

Well, I don’t see any particular emphasis on “early” tracks—4 from the first 3 albums, 4 from the next 3 — and to go out of their way to save the singles for the 2nd compilation? For what purpose? Just seems random to me. But maybe you’re right.

But yes. “Chronicle” suffers by not having “Bayou”, but I guess maybe they wanted to save it for “Chronicle vol 2? .

 

[JohnA]

A 7 for descrete SuzyQ

 

[fizzywiggs41]

Probably one of the worst CD-4 quad (mixes?) I ever heard .


Only two tracks seemed to have some sort of front to back .....Suzie Q and Grapevine.

My quadradisc lp was a good pressing btw .
Ended up selling it off after running it through an SQ encoder to tape. My Fosgate Tate SQ decoder makes it sound a bit better.


Did not have a problem with the limited song selection , but really wished they would have made more studio albums available in quad.....oh well.

 

[JonUrban]

I recently heard a superb decode of this CD-4 LP and it was astonishing. It revealed things I had never heard since the day back in the '70s when I bought the LP new in a store and played it on fresh new audio equipment.

I once again compared the MB version with the CD-4 version of "Have You Ever Seen the Rain" just for fun and rediscovered the bass in the C of the 5.1 and in doing so, found that in the corresponding CD-4 decode, the bass is in the fronts and the piano in the rears.

What's interesting about this is the descending bass notes into the first verse, if you solo the fronts, then the backs, you can clearly hear the exact same notes being played, but in the fronts it's a bass guitar, and in the rears it's a piano! Never have I heard such detail from this LP before. (You can't even tell there are two instruments playing the same notes in the stereo version)

One wonders how this would sound if the quad master tape was ever uncovered and allowed to be released by someone with the skills of Michael Dutton.

So, I give this release more credence than I ever have. (Sorry about that, but I could not help it!)

 

[MoB1]

Down on the Corner and
Have You Ever Seen the Rain are fake / just the original Stereo mixes ...

FL Left Channel of the Stereo Version
FR Left Channel of the Stereo Version

RL Right Channel of the Stereo Version
RR Right Channel of the Stereo Version

On the other tracks Bass is Front and Drums Rear
like Born on the Bayou:

FL Bass, Cowbell (from 2:35)
FR Bass, Rhythm Guitar, Hand Clap

RL Drums, Lead Guitar, Cowbell (from 2:35)
RR Drums, Lead Guitar, Bongo Drum