List of Q8's with swapped channels

[Q-Eight]

With the GRT tapes, I've found that the bulk of them have the left side swapped.

Best of Mountain is the only one so far I've found that has cross-channels mixed up.

 

[winopener]

C or H?

 

[Q-Eight]

C 7119 - 32079 White Cartridge.

 

[winopener]

Double jackpot for the first Atlantic entry!
Aretha Franklin, live at fillmore west (yellow cart): swapped FrontRight and RearLeft PLUS RearRight phase inverted. All for the whole tape.
No wonder it sounded like crap when i was playing it on the deck...

 

[winopener]

A couple more for the swap list:
Black Sabbath, Paranoid (first edition with color cover on cart)
Carpenters, Close to you (USA edition)*
both swaps FR/RL

*Canadian and UK release are ok.

 

[vinylguy4]

For Focus Live Q8 H 7147-7408, I agree the left side is swapped.
Without the swap, initial announcer is right front and left rear, crowd is right rear and left front.
So I swapped left front and left rear and now mix sounds correct.

Another Atlantic Q8 that I believe is swapped is Mongo Santamaria Live at Montreux.
Swapped right front and left rear, now sounds right to me. ATL L 1593Q

 

[bigbillquad]

Hi. All

Have today played ….. "Ahmab Jamal Heat Wave Q8 GRT. C 7035-777" ….. there is only 3 instruments playing piano bass & drums, it sounded unbalanced piano was back right bleeding into front left so I swapped left & right backs and it sounded balanced and I really enjoyed this Jazz number....

 

[yodedude2]

Checking in to offer this update...starting with the info in this thread, I made the following swaps documented in the list below:

BERRY,chuck...London Sessions...Chess C 7033-60020...SWAP1-3 GRT
BLACK SABBATH...Paranoid...Warner Bro. L9W-1887...SWAP2-3
CROCE,jim...I Got a Name...ABC C 7022-797...SWAP1-3 GRT
CROCE,jim...You Don't Mess Around with Jim...ABC C 7022-756...SWAP1-3 GRT
CYMANDE...Second Time Around...Janus Records C 7098-3054...SWAP2-3 GRT
FOCUS...Moving Waves...Sire C 7147-7401...SWAP2-3 GRT
FOCUS...Live at the Rainbow...Sire C 7147-7408...SWAP1-3 GRT
FOUR TOPS,the...Keeper of the Castle...ABC 7023-50129...SWAP1-3 GRT
FOUR TOPS,the...Main Street People...Dunhill 7023-50144H...SWAP1-3 GRT
FRANKLIN,aretha...Live at the Fillmore West...Atlantic QT-7205...SWAP2-3
GRAHAM CENTRAL STA...Ain't No 'Bout-a-Doubt It...Warner Bro. L9B 2763...SWAP2-4
GRASS ROOTS,the...Their 16 Greatest Hits...Dunhill ABC C 7023-50107...SWAP1-3 GRT
HOOKER, john lee...Never Get Out of These Blues Alive...ABC C 7022-736...SWAP1-3 GRT
JAMAL,ahmad...Heat Wave...Cadet 7035-777C...SWAP1-3 GRT
KING,b.b....L.A. Midnight...ABC C 7022-743...SWAP1-3 GRT
mongo SANTAMARIA...Mongo at Montreux...Atlantic L 71593...SWAP2-3
MOTTOLA,tony...Guitar...Paris...GRT C 7145-40001...SWAP1-3 GRT
MOUNTAIN...The Best of Mountain...Windfall C 7119-32079...SWAP2-3 GRT
MOUNTAIN...Flowers of Evil Live...Windfall M 7119-5501 B...SWAP1-3 GRT
MOUNTAIN...Flowers of Evil Sessions...Windfall 7119-5501 A...SWAP1-3 GRT
OHIO PLAYERS...Ecstasy...Westbound C 7198-2021...SWAP1-3 GRT
PRESLEY,elvis...On Stage—February, 1970...RCA PQ8-1594...SWAP1-3 [Canadian]
STEELY DAN...Countdown to Ecstasy...ABC C 7022-799...SWAP1-3 GRT
terry SNYDER & the All Stars...Persuasive Percussion...Command C 7145-40000...SWAP1-3 GRT
tommy JAMES & THE SHONDELLS...Best Of...[Unknown]...SWAP1-3 GRT
Various Artists...12x6 The Easy Way V. 2...Cadet 7035-60022 H...SWAP1-3 GRT
WALSH,joe...The Smoker You Drink,...ABC Dunhill C 7023-50140...SWAP1-3 GRT
WELK,lawrence...Candida...Ranwood C 7058-8083...SWAP1-3 GRT

 

[J. PUPSTER]

Checking in to offer this update...starting with the info in this thread, I made the following swaps documented in the list below:

BERRY,chuck...London Sessions...Chess C 7033-60020...SWAP1-3 GRT
BLACK SABBATH...Paranoid...Warner Bro. L9W-1887...SWAP2-3
CROCE,jim...I Got a Name...ABC C 7022-797...SWAP1-3 GRT
CROCE,jim...You Don't Mess Around with Jim...ABC C 7022-756...SWAP1-3 GRT
CYMANDE...Second Time Around...Janus Records C 7098-3054...SWAP2-3 GRT
FOCUS...Moving Waves...Sire C 7147-7401...SWAP2-3 GRT
FOCUS...Live at the Rainbow...Sire C 7147-7408...SWAP1-3 GRT
FOUR TOPS,the...Keeper of the Castle...ABC 7023-50129...SWAP1-3 GRT
FOUR TOPS,the...Main Street People...Dunhill 7023-50144H...SWAP1-3 GRT
FRANKLIN,aretha...Live at the Fillmore West...Atlantic QT-7205...SWAP2-3
GRAHAM CENTRAL STA...Ain't No 'Bout-a-Doubt It...Warner Bro. L9B 2763...SWAP2-4
GRASS ROOTS,the...Their 16 Greatest Hits...Dunhill ABC C 7023-50107...SWAP1-3 GRT
HOOKER, john lee...Never Get Out of These Blues Alive...ABC C 7022-736...SWAP1-3 GRT
JAMAL,ahmad...Heat Wave...Cadet 7035-777C...SWAP1-3 GRT
KING,b.b....L.A. Midnight...ABC C 7022-743...SWAP1-3 GRT
mongo SANTAMARIA...Mongo at Montreux...Atlantic L 71593...SWAP2-3
MOTTOLA,tony...Guitar...Paris...GRT C 7145-40001...SWAP1-3 GRT
MOUNTAIN...The Best of Mountain...Windfall C 7119-32079...SWAP2-3 GRT
MOUNTAIN...Flowers of Evil Live...Windfall M 7119-5501 B...SWAP1-3 GRT
MOUNTAIN...Flowers of Evil Sessions...Windfall 7119-5501 A...SWAP1-3 GRT
OHIO PLAYERS...Ecstasy...Westbound C 7198-2021...SWAP1-3 GRT
PRESLEY,elvis...On Stage—February, 1970...RCA PQ8-1594...SWAP1-3 [Canadian]
STEELY DAN...Countdown to Ecstasy...ABC C 7022-799...SWAP1-3 GRT
terry SNYDER & the All Stars...Persuasive Percussion...Command C 7145-40000...SWAP1-3 GRT
tommy JAMES & THE SHONDELLS...Best Of...[Unknown]...SWAP1-3 GRT
Various Artists...12x6 The Easy Way V. 2...Cadet 7035-60022 H...SWAP1-3 GRT
WALSH,joe...The Smoker You Drink,...ABC Dunhill C 7023-50140...SWAP1-3 GRT
WELK,lawrence...Candida...Ranwood C 7058-8083...SWAP1-3 GRT

Didn’t know Lawrence Welk had a Quad release

 

[yodedude2]

Also did a channel swap on Herbie Mann "Push Push". I swapped the r.f. and l.r. channels, i.e., channels 2 & 3. It helped the sound quite a bit. Kinda surprised no one mentioned it before AFAIK; it's a rather common q8.

 

[ssully]

Does the Mahavishnu Orchestra Birds of Fire Q8 merit being listed? Has anyone here actually heard it?

 

[yodedude2]

Does the Mahavishnu Orchestra Birds of Fire Q8 merit being listed? Has anyone here actually heard it?

My copy CAQ 31996 sounds deliberate to me. It's an odd mix with the drums mostly spread across the rears and everything else across the fronts. It seems like they chose to master it that way instead of it being a mastering anomaly/channel swap error.

edit: i looked over my 'channel swap' list again and noticed i have yet to find a columbia title that i felt needed a channel swap. Also, the 'gray' carts, i.e. atlantic/warner brothers/embryo titles, have a 2-3 channel swap thing going on ... the real anomalies are the graham central station & canadian elvis q8s. and of course the 'best of mountain' tape with a 2-3 swap instead of the standard grt 1-3 swap.

 

[ssully]

Can you confirm the the Q8 has the left - center - right front instrument placement as guitar --keyboard --violin? (the AF SACD quad mix)
Or is it violin - keys - guitar? (the original stereo mix )

The reversal of the front line (heard on the AF SACD of the quad mix) compared to the stereo mix is what I was referring to (not the drums in the back). As I've confirmed on the BoF thread, if you reverse the front L/R on the AF SACD, not only does it of course restore the stereo mix placement, the bizarre double-x shaped drum opening of 'One Word' becomes two 'laps' of a circle -- which makes more sense to me.

What has never been confirmed (to me) is whether the Q8 has the same mix as the AF SACD.

 

[yodedude2]

i only spot checked a few minutes with a casual listen; i will visit it again soon and take notes. near the start, the violin was in the front left, guitar in the front right (as you describe). on at least one track, there was piano/keys in the rears; one track had guitar in the left rear. so, the q8 mix was not consistent for the whole album in regards to instrument placement...

edit: q8 mix is primarily violin - keys - guitar in the fronts, like your description of the 'original stereo mix'. also, the drums at the start of 'one word' do circle; becomes mostly audible in the LR, moves to LF, RF, RR, and then ends with that 'hit' in the LR.

as an aside, i heard an authority say that the columbia release of 'wish you were here' had the left and right channel pairs swapped compared to every other (more modern) surround release. which is 'correct'?

 

[Q-Eight]

I firmly believe there are a number of RCA titles as well that have channel errors.

The Guess Who - American Woman: Track 1 of the original Q8 has a channel error but Track 2 is good.

The Archies - Sugar, Sugar: Hard to tell as many song feature vocals in all four channels, but some have lead vocals only in two. I really don't think any engineer would mix lead vocals in Front Left and Rear Right, so I believe those to be the front channels. On many songs, this will place lead vocals in the front and backing vocals all around. I don't believe all songs on this tape came from multitrack sources as a few seem to be just the stereo mix turned sideways, so the front channels are the stereo "left" channel and the rears are the stereo "right" channel.

Elvis - On Stage, 1970: Again, super subtle mix and really hard to tell, but as it stands, the opening song "C.C. Rider" has the guitar solo freak out and just bop all over the room.

 

[yodedude2]

I firmly believe there are a number of RCA titles as well that have channel errors.

The Guess Who - American Woman: Track 1 of the original Q8 has a channel error but Track 2 is good.

The Archies - Sugar, Sugar: Hard to tell as many song feature vocals in all four channels, but some have lead vocals only in two. I really don't think any engineer would mix lead vocals in Front Left and Rear Right, so I believe those to be the front channels. On many songs, this will place lead vocals in the front and backing vocals all around. I don't believe all songs on this tape came from multitrack sources as a few seem to be just the stereo mix turned sideways, so the front channels are the stereo "left" channel and the rears are the stereo "right" channel.

Elvis - On Stage, 1970: Again, super subtle mix and really hard to tell, but as it stands, the opening song "C.C. Rider" has the guitar solo freak out and just bop all over the room.

quick question: i am listening to zz top / tres hombres (r.i.p. dusty hill) and on the 1st song i hear vocals across the LF & RF. but, i have drums in the LF and RR ... does it make sense to assume this is an error, and the rear channels should be swapped? that would give me vocals across the front and drums along the left side ... anyone have the q4 or album to refer to for me? thanks!

 

[par4ken]

This is an interesting thread. Hard to tell if some of the reported oddities were errors or were deliberate. As quad/surround was new back then they weren't afraid to try different things. On the other hand the lack of quality control and likely people that didn't know any better may of allowed these type of errors to occur.

Even with modern formats we have cases where this type of thing still happens.

It's nice that we can make digital copies and correct the errors quite easily these days. I just wonder if some people were turned off of quad due to listening to swapped channels. It could even happen on the playback end with channels swapped and or phase reversed.

 

[jimfisheye]

Eye opening alright! There are the tricky parts in mastering sometimes... A difficult harshness that turns to muddy when you try to go after it with any eq. Some dynamics that are a little too much but every compressor you try makes it sound like a generational tape copy. Frustrating...

Nope, none of that! Got the damn channels in the wrong order! Yep!

It really illustrates how things can go so wildly incredibly wrong as soon as a recording is put into the hands of one single person who is not a musician! (Audio engineers are all musicians. Regardless if they ever learned to play an instrument other than the mixing board too. And very high level musicians at that!) Take your eye off of it for a split second when one of the marketing guys is nearby and suddenly it's getting messed with and degraded 7 ways from Tuesday.

Some of the early quad mixes were pretty experimental. The only real hard solid clue is when something was clearly supposed to be a 360 deg pan. And you're reasonably positive that it wasn't supposed to be figure 8! If for no other reason than that no one made a hardware figure 8 panner at the time. (Um... No one made a hardware figure 8 panner back then, right? What would that even look like?) For the fast 360 deg pans where you can tell someone was cranking a joystick around as fast as they could.

 

[quadsearcher]

Eye opening alright! There are the tricky parts in mastering sometimes... A difficult harshness that turns to muddy when you try to go after it with any eq. Some dynamics that are a little too much but every compressor you try makes it sound like a generational tape copy. Frustrating...

Nope, none of that! Got the damn channels in the wrong order! Yep!

It really illustrates how things can go so wildly incredibly wrong as soon as a recording is put into the hands of one single person who is not a musician! (Audio engineers are all musicians. Regardless if they ever learned to play an instrument other than the mixing board too. And very high level musicians at that!) Take your eye off of it for a split second when one of the marketing guys is nearby and suddenly it's getting messed with and degraded 7 ways from Tuesday.

Some of the early quad mixes were pretty experimental. The only real hard solid clue is when something was clearly supposed to be a 360 deg pan. And you're reasonably positive that it wasn't supposed to be figure 8! If for no other reason than that no one made a hardware figure 8 panner at the time. (Um... No one made a hardware figure 8 panner back then, right? What would that even look like?) For the fast 360 deg pans where you can tell someone was cranking a joystick around as fast as they could.

Couldn't one approximate a figure 8 pan with a joystick?

 

[par4ken]

Couldn't one approximate a figure 8 pan with a joystick?

I don't see why you couldn't. I doubt that it was ever done though, but who knows?