Quad LP/Tape Poll Mahavishnu Orchestra: Between Nothingness & Eternity Live [SQ/Q8]

[steelydave]

Recorded August 18th, 1973 in New York's Central Park, Between Nothingness & Eternity contains three original compositions (two by John McLaughlin and one by Jan Hammer) that were originally slated to be on a studio album by the band that year. When studio sessions recorded in London in July for that proposed album were scrapped after disagreements between McLaughlin and the other band members (I believe McLaughlin wanted to augment the basic tracks with either strings or horns, like he did with later albums like Apocalypse and Visions of the Emerald Beyond), Between Nothingness & Eternity was released instead, in November 1973.

The acrimony that started with the July studio sessions (which would finally see release in 1999 as The Lost Trident Sessions) marked the beginning of the end of the original lineup that included Hammer, Billy Cobham and by the end of 1973 it was no more. McLaughlin would regroup in early 1974 with a new lineup that included violinist Jean-Luc Ponty, bassist Ralphe Armstrong, keyboardist Gayle Moran (later of Return to Forever), and drummer Narada Michael Walden - but Between Nothingness & Eternity remains a fitting testament to the fire and power of the original lineup.



Columbia CQ-32766 [SQ LP] CAQ 32766 [Q8]
Discogs links: LP / Q8

Quadraphonic sound supervision and remix engineer: Tim Geelan


Side 1:

1. Trilogy (The Sunlit Path / La Mere De La Mer / Tomorrow's Story Not The Same)
2. Sister Andrea

Side 2:

1. Dream

 

[sjcorne]

Going with a “10”. This is one of my favorite jazz fusion surround releases, and one of the best surround mixes of live material I've ever heard. Perhaps it was because of the rules of mixing for SQ, but Tim Geelan did not go for “band in the front, audience in the back” approach. Billy Cobham’s drum kit is spread across the front channels, John McLaughlin’s guitar is centered upfront, Jerry Goodman’s violin is in the left rear, and Jan Hammer’s synth is in the right rear. The audience is heard in both rear channels. I wish they would’ve mixed the Birds Of Fire studio LP with the same layout.

I’m not sure this album would’ve kept my attention in stereo, but in quad it’s entertaining and engaging. I love the effect of the solos alternating in a triangle around the listener. What’s not to like about being transported on stage with some of the best fusion players of all time at the top of their game?

My only issue with the recording--and this is not limited to the quad mix--is that the sound can be a bit murky at times, and during some of the heavier moments you can hear an occasional bit of distortion. I guess whatever equipment was used couldn’t quite capture the sheer intensity of this performance.

The other problem is that some of the mixing decisions don't carry over well on the SQ LP - Cobham's stereo-panned drum kit seems emanate all around you instead of in front of you, and the bit of drum echo in the rears is lost entirely. I also found the LP to be pressed rather loud and bright. The Q8, on the other hand, is one of the best-sounding tapes in my collection.

Here's "Dream" from the Q8:

 

[humprof]

I've heard an excellent SQ decode and a pretty good Q8 conversion of this album, and I second everything @sjcorne said. I'd only dock a point for the material, which doesn't thrill me like Birds of Fire, and another for the murky sound, which weirdly affects McLaughlin's guitar and Goodman's violin more than Hammer's Moog--although I'm willing to hear that some of that is just down to the pedals they were using. Old dilemma: the LP sounds better, but the Q8's mix is better--fabulous, in fact. Waddya gonna do? Kick-ass performances in any case.

Are multis of the "Unreleased Tracks" sitting in a vault somewhere, waiting to be mixed into quad?

 

[The56Kid]

Fortunate enough to have heard an excellent Q8 conversion of this great album, I can only hope for an eventual Dutton-Vocalion release in the future.

For me at least, this quad mix rectifies everything I found wrong with the Birds Of Fire mixing faux pas while putting to rest the notion that live albums can’t kick ass in surround. McLaughlin and his ferocious guitar man the front stage along with the Cobham/Laird rhythm section. Yes, Billy’s drums are too buried in the mix for my tastes, but the total effect yields an almost Cream-like power trio feel that’s fantastic to behold.

Isolating Hammer and Goodman to the right and left surrounds respectively is a simple but genius way to allow the listener insight to who’s doing what in revealing 3-D fashion. It’s exhilarating to follow the flying solos around the room knowing there are plenty more to come. McLaughlin, Hammer, and Goodman all approached their instruments as lead players and simply attacked their solos. Incredible stuff!

Give me a hires release with the drums more prominently displayed and this is an easy 10. As is, it’s a well deserved 9.

 

[jimfisheye]

Hope this out of print album is still OK to discuss?
So just for reference, someone might have made a personal copy of the SQ encoded vinyl to DVDA some years ago. This copy is noticeably clipped to begin with. Further investigation reveals the rear channel pair offset by almost 10ms! And then the Ls channel is polarity reversed.

The offset and polarity corrections are matter of fact.
Move the rear channels -999 samples. (ie. To the left vs the front ch. 999 samples @96kHz sample rate.)
Polarity reverse the Ls channel.

I used iZotopeRX declipper.
Set the declip threshold to -.1
Headroom gain reductions:
L -6.4db
R -5db
Ls -4db
Rs -3db

There were a handful of exaggerated reconstructed peaks I manually brought back down .8db. Then normalized the overall gain back up 1db. (At 32 bit floating point to not lose resolution with those moves.) Those gain moves also corrected channel level imbalance. The result is average 4db quieter than the clipped source. It's still at about -10 LUFS though! Quite loud.

This was not clipped too bad and iZotopeRX did a very reasonable clip restoration. At least the harsh crackles and edginess are removed!

And suddenly this really well decoded and captured quad album appears!
Raises the overall fidelity from a 5 to a 9!

 

[CINERAMAX]

I want in Quadio.

 

[~dave~~wave~]

Back before I went "all in" with Apple Music, this was streaming on Amazon Unlimited in 360RA.
Of course, I could only listen on my phone through earbuds, but I heard some nice 360 quads, some of which are still exclusive there.

 

[par4ken]

Hope this out of print album is still OK to discuss?
So just for reference, someone might have made a personal copy of the SQ encoded vinyl to DVDA some years ago. This copy is noticeably clipped to begin with. Further investigation reveals the rear channel pair offset by almost 10ms! And then the Ls channel is polarity reversed.

The offset and polarity corrections are matter of fact.
Move the rear channels -999 samples. (ie. To the left vs the front ch. 999 samples @96kHz sample rate.)
Polarity reverse the Ls channel.

I used iZotopeRX declipper.
Set the declip threshold to -.1
Headroom gain reductions:
L -6.4db
R -5db
Ls -4db
Rs -3db

There were a handful of exaggerated reconstructed peaks I manually brought back down .8db. Then normalized the overall gain back up 1db. (At 32 bit floating point to not lose resolution with those moves.) Those gain moves also corrected channel level imbalance. The result is average 4db quieter than the clipped source. It's still at about -10 LUFS though! Quite loud.

This was not clipped too bad and iZotopeRX did a very reasonable clip restoration. At least the harsh crackles and edginess are removed!

And suddenly this really well decoded and captured quad album appears!
Raises the overall fidelity from a 5 to a 9!

Why would it not be OK to talk about this release?

I assume that you are talking about the DVD-A copy being clipped and having phase issues. I doubt that there is a problem with the actual LP!

I haven't listened to this LP in a long time and so will have give it another spin and rip myself a copy. Then I'll cast my vote. Perhaps Sony Japan will issue a 7" SACD of this?

 

[jimfisheye]

Why would it not be OK to talk about this release?

I assume that you are talking about the DVD-A copy being clipped and having phase issues. I doubt that there is a problem with the actual LP!

I haven't listened to this LP in a long time and so will have give it another spin and rip myself a copy. Then I'll cast my vote. Perhaps Sony Japan will issue a 7" SACD of this?

Discussing out of print music apparently gets litigious sometimes?

Yes, the digital rip was clipped. It wouldn't have been possible to bake these square waves into the vinyl. It's 100% the rip. I don't have any other reference to guess if the polarity reversed Ls channel might have also happened with the rip or if that was genuinely an original mastering mistake that was baked into the vinyl.

Hey SQ experts! Could a polarity reversed rear channel be encoded to SQ successfully? Is there a clue here in that? (If not, for example, that would point to this happening with the rip.) Tempting to say "Here's another one!" after examining the bluray Aqualung quad but there are at least 3 ways this error could happen.

Yeah, Quadio bluray or Sony Japan SACD would be greatness!

In the meantime if you happen to have this, there's more fidelity hidden inside than you might have heard so far. You can at least do the offsets and channel flip if you don't have iZotopeRX and DAW experience. Just that part is a big reveal.

 

[par4ken]

Hey SQ experts! Could a polarity reversed rear channel be encoded to SQ successfully?

Why not? Actually the actual phase could depend on exactly how it was encoded in the first place. With the position encoder different phase relationships are used depending on the intended position in the mix. Phase can only be guaranteed to be absolutely correct if the basic encoder is used. The decoder works only one way and doesn't know how the actual encode was done!

Our friend OD (is this one of his) wrestled with getting the phase of his decodes just right. Correcting phase in one instance can throw it out in another.

 

[key_wiz]

I want in Quadio.

Sony title.

 

[jimfisheye]

Why not? Actually the actual phase could depend on exactly how it was encoded in the first place. With the position encoder different phase relationships are used depending on the intended position in the mix. Phase can only be guaranteed to be absolutely correct if the basic encoder is used. The decoder works only one way and doesn't know how the actual encode was done!

Our friend OD (is this one of his) wrestled with getting the phase of his decodes just right. Correcting phase in one instance can throw it out in another.

I am fully certain that the Ls channel was polarity flipped. Also certain about the offsets. I could post pictures and dissertation...

I'm very much not an expert on all the encoded quad formats. I know that some of the phase tricks used for some of them led to restrictions in what you could do in the mix. Is one example that one of them didn't allow anything panned to center rear?

So I was fishing for something that could be called out as impossible and offer a clue with that.

I know about chasing challenging phase relationships. Ever tried to realign a multi mic'ed drum kit with errantly placed mics? Anyway, this one is a clear mirror image.

When you put this puzzle back together the result sounds like a very above average excellent SQ rip in both discreteness and fidelity. And that sure doesn't happen by random accident or two wrongs making a right!

 

[par4ken]

Is one example that one of them didn't allow anything panned to center rear?

No problem there. The backwards oriented encoder permits perfect panning across the rear. The no centre back "rule" was there strictly for mono compatibility. SQ actually has better mono compatibility than QS.

 

[jefe1]

I would very much like to get this but I am afraid if Sony Japan releases this there will be no correction of mixing errors. See Birds of Fire and that was after the AF release when the errors became known
If Rhino Quadio or Dutton Vocalion could release this they would notice and correct these mistakes to the extent possible.

I don't know if it is the language issue or lack of any contact from Sony Japan personnel they seem sealed off from this knowledge.
Since they are reissueing 70s quad mixes you would think some research would be done and this forum would be a good place to start.
Are there no survivors of the Japanese quad industry program there that could be tapped by Sony?

What a shame because these reissue packages are superb like most Japanese products.

 

[MrSmithers]

Back before I went "all in" with Apple Music, this was streaming on Amazon Unlimited in 360RA.
Of course, I could only listen on my phone through earbuds, but I heard some nice 360 quads, some of which are still exclusive there.

I don't think it ever showed up on Amazon Music (or Deezer) which is unfortunate as they have (had) the L3 - higher bitrate version of MPEG-H that a lot of legacy quad mixes were encoded in. However, it is still on Tidal... https://tidal.com/album/123181762

 

[jimfisheye]

It's pretty cool that in at least a handful of these cases the "raw data" is still unharmed and the mistake can be fully corrected! The swapped channels, flipped polarity, and offset mistakes are fully reversible. Whereas mistakes like novelty volume war mastering are permanent damage.

Man, these are hard to spot unless you're really in detective mode with a recording! Even glaring this brightly in hindsight like this one or Aqualung quad discussed/restored recently.

I've had this copy for years now. The few listens were fatiguing and I just dismissed it as another poor lo-fi rip. I spotted the clipped waves when I looked at it the other day as I was converting some 4 ch files to 6 ch (for media player compatibility). I was quickly dragging a file into a DAW track to check the channels because it was running and a media info app was less quick. So, clipped waves suddenly staring me right in the face! I remembered it sounding fatiguing so thought I'd pull up iZotopeRX real quick. Then remembered just messing with Aqualung so I decided to zoom in and look at the waves closer. And here we are.

Now I have this SQ rip that sounds like one of the better SQ rips I've ever heard! The original decode and capture was really on point after all! (I mean except for the clipping part! 5 or 6db in channel 1. Cleaned up pretty well though. iZotope can be pretty transparent with digital clips up to 6db.)

 

[MrSmithers]

I love the fact they managed to 'jam in' the guitar hook from Cream's Sunshine Of Your Love midway through the last track...

 

[CINERAMAX]

I will take it even if the jaw harp and the donkey's jawbone are in reverse order with the simitar.

 

[MidiMagic]

Compared to the RF signal, the LB is phase reversed in SQ.

 

[Orgillian197]

We can hope that more of the 2 night's shows get released in quad eventually. Columbia released more of the shows in 2011 as Unreleased Tracks from Between Nothingness & Eternity as part of a 5 cd Mahavishnu Orchestra: The Complete Columbia Albums Collection.