Misconceptions about "Sunflower" so-called quad

[Michael J Bishop]

Hello, Stephen.

I'm really thrilled to find your correspondence here as well as finding your web site. We lost touch with each other some time back! I can't even estimate how many stereo CDs I recorded using your Spatilaizer for creating virtual surround sound. The Spatializer was so effective, I had listeners look around them for the additional speakers in demos I conducted! I also employed the Spatializer across the LF/RF channels in many 5.1 mixes I made for both DTS-encoded surround CDs and for SACD. There were times I preferred the virtual surround to placing sounds in the physical channels as it would guarantee the imaging I wanted to convey without relying on the listener having the surround speakers set up properly.

There are a few of us engineers out here who still have the joystick-controlled Spatializer. However, all of have the same problem: the control circuitry no longer works. Is there anyone you can refer us to to make the needed repairs? I know of at least (4) Spatializers that would get put to use if they were working again.

I look forward to your reccomendation, Stephen. In the meantime, I'll spend awhile going through your facsinating recollections at your website. Your work on those great recordings was very inspiring to me in making my recordings!

Best Regards,
Michael Bishop

 

[fredblue]

WOW.. :yikes

Are you THE Michael Bishop of TELARC fame??

Welcome to QQ!

 

[bmoura]

WOW.. :yikes

Are you THE Michael Bishop of TELARC fame??

Welcome to QQ!

Yes, he's a Spatializer owner and that Michael Bishop.

 

[fredblue]

Yes, he's a Spatializer owner and that Michael Bishop.

Good Lord.. how wonderful..!! :wave

Well fwiw I bought pretty much everything he ever did in Surround (is he working on any 5.1 at the moment, I wonder?) and loved a lot of it.. I am "a fan" of his work, put it that way

Gotta ask ourselves who ISN'T a member of QQ now that's a mover and shaker in the Surround Music industry..??
They're pretty much all signed up here now in one shape or form.. amazing..

Calling Mr.Scheiner..!??! :worthy
(Although I've suspected he's been a covert member under a pseudonym for years.. or at least a frequently visiting guest.. )

 

[Stephen W. Desper]

Stephen

Sorry I should have said
That the EV4 is inside sleeve the LP that I have had for many years.

Ron

COMMENT to rustyandi: I think you should go back and review what you believe you saw because there is no EV4 designation on the sleeve. (#1) I wrote the tech notes for the LP and EV4 was never there, (#2) EV4 was developed by Leonard Feldman and Jon Fixer one year AFTER the release of Sunflower and did not reach the consumer until months after that. So it would be impossible for such a designation to be on the LP sleeve of this album. And (#3) EV4 requires a 4-track master as a source which Sunflower was never mixed in. It was mixed to a two-channel master. ~swd

 

[Michael J Bishop]

WOW.. :yikes

Are you THE Michael Bishop of TELARC fame??

Welcome to QQ!

Thanks, fredblue.

I don't know about the "THE" part, but yes, I engineered for Telarc for a few decades. In 2009 with my two partners, Thom Moore and Robert Friedrich, we founded Five/Four Productions, an independent audio production company. Of course, I'm still working on surround music recordings and have done so since 1968.

I'm happy to find this forum!

Best Regards,
Michael

 

[bmoura]

I'm happy to find this forum!

There's plenty of mentions of those classic Telarc Multichannel SACDs here on QQ and the SACD Multichannel Forum.
Do a search on Telarc or Michael Bishop to have a look...

 

[Stephen W. Desper]

Hello, Stephen.

I'm really thrilled to find your correspondence here as well as finding your web site. We lost touch with each other some time back! I can't even estimate how many stereo CDs I recorded using your Spatilaizer for creating virtual surround sound. The Spatializer was so effective, I had listeners look around them for the additional speakers in demos I conducted! I also employed the Spatializer across the LF/RF channels in many 5.1 mixes I made for both DTS-encoded surround CDs and for SACD. There were times I preferred the virtual surround to placing sounds in the physical channels as it would guarantee the imaging I wanted to convey without relying on the listener having the surround speakers set up properly.

There are a few of us engineers out here who still have the joystick-controlled Spatializer. However, all of have the same problem: the control circuitry no longer works. Is there anyone you can refer us to to make the needed repairs? I know of at least (4) Spatializers that would get put to use if they were working again.

I look forward to your recommendation, Stephen. In the meantime, I'll spend awhile going through your facsinating recollections at your website. Your work on those great recordings was very inspiring to me in making my recordings!

Best Regards,
Michael Bishop

HELLO MICHAEL:

Wonderful to hear from you after all these years. I have always wanted to thank you for your extensive involvement with Spatializer and the faith you put into the product by using it on so many of the excellent recordings you made at Telarc through the years.

Tom Maydeck was another big supporter of Spatializer. Tom was at Warner Pictures used a 24 Joystick ProSpatializer for Steven Spielberg's Tiny Tune Adventures TV series around 1990-1992, and Animaniacs 1993-1998. Then again for the Animated Batman TV series for which he won an Emmy for mixing. That series started in 1992 with 85 episodes in virtual surround. We sold quite a few of those products to the major studios in Hollywood and in London.

Your very kind and generous words mean a lot to me, coming from an engineer, not only myself, but many in this field look up to for some of the very best recordings ever made.

Sorry to hear of the units not working. ProSpatializer was a very complex piece of equipment, virtually a PC modified to do what it does. All the circuitry was designed by Bill Whitlock (Jensen Transformers) when he was part of my company. I still have the 300 page technical repair manual, so I'll give Bill a call to see if he would be interested in doing repairs. He's retired now, but very much still active in his field. I'll let you know. Otherwise I still have one 24 joystick ProSpatializer in storage that is brand new. I thought I might some day use it in a studio, but I'm getting up there too far to get involved in a studio business. Besides, everything is now digital, not much left for an analog engineer. So if the price is right I might be willing to part with it. At any rate, let's work together at this to see if we can get these failed units up and running again. To me that Pro unit was one of the most unique devices ever conceived for the control room. I've yet to see anything do what the ProSpatializer could make sound do in a mix.

I currently have in development a Spatializer-like device that will turn each conventional panpot on a console into, what I call, a hyper-panpot that can pretty-much do what the joystick did. You plug the unit into the output of your console and that is all. No wiring changes needed to convert all panpots to "3D" panpots. Keep in touch. Eventually I'd like to send you one for your evaluation.

There's not much on the web about ProSpatializer. Archives don't reach back that far. Here are a few:

For those of you QQ members wondering what a ProSpatializer looks like, see this Spanish video >>> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZ2wZHiPSfU

You can find Michael Bishop's name mentioned in this Popular Mechanics issue on Spatializer >>> https://books.google.com/books?id=A...Q6AEISjAG#v=onepage&q=Pro Spatializer&f=false

Here's a photo of the ProSpatializer >>> https://reverb.com/item/1424197-desper-spatializer

By moving the joystick around, the sound from two speakers would follow the movement of a joystick, Not only would a sound move left to right or front to back, but it would float in front of you or two feet from your left ear, or wherever you moved the joystick. The center to the joystick was the listener's position, with sound moving about the listener as you moved the joystick about. A very powerful mixing device, I must say.

Again Michael, very happy to hear from you and my best wishes to you and yours' with Good Listening, ~Stephen W. Desper

 

[fredblue]

Thanks, fredblue.

I don't know about the "THE" part, but yes, I engineered for Telarc for a few decades. In 2009 with my two partners, Thom Moore and Robert Friedrich, we founded Five/Four Productions, an independent audio production company. Of course, I'm still working on surround music recordings and have done so since 1968.

I'm happy to find this forum!

Best Regards,
Michael

Hi Michael!

Could you please give any information on the surround projects you have worked on since Telarc (sadly) stopped releasing surround music?

Perhaps better in a separate discussion thread (I'm conscious this is Mr. Desper's thread regarding his work).

I'm very interested (and I hope I'm not alone here at QQ in this) in learning about and hearing your more recent mixing work with your Five/Four partners, etc.

Have to say I'm delighted you've found this place and look forward to more of your contributions regarding that thing we all here hold dear, music in surround sound in all its forms.

Thank you for everything you've done to this point and long may you continue in your endeavours.

If you put it out in surround, I feel confident we will do our level best to support it.

Best wishes,
Adam

 

[jefe1]

COMMENT to rustyandi: When you say "cover" I assume you mean the Jewel Case insert of the SACD. The LP jacket says nothing about EV4. And yes, your are correct. EV4 has nothing to do with the Sunflower or Surf's Up. They are two-channel recordings meant to be reproduced over a stereo system. If a matrix is used in the playback, it is a matrix that produces a virtual matrix, not a speaker matrix. The latter type of matrix only confuses the image. You are invited to hear the correct version at my website http://swdstudyvideos.com ~swd

Hi
I just want to jump in and support what Rustyandi said.

My vinyl/LP copy of Surfs Up has a two page insert. Inside on page two it says: This recording has been produced so that it may be enjoyed in stereophonic sound or quadraphonically, using the Dynaco and EV-Stereo-4 systems.

This paragraph appears right above your name and credit as chief engineer and mixer.
I find it astounding that for a project you were intimately involved with you seem to be completely unaware of this contemporaneously issued information.

By the way I visited your website and greatly enjoyed the mixing samples you put up. They are truly immersive and enjoyable.
All of us would love to be able to purchase your original mixes as intended.

 

[edisonbaggins]

All of us would love to be able to purchase your original mixes as intended.

I've heard some and totally agree.

 

[JonUrban]

Stephen,

"rustyandi" is correct and here is a look, although blurry, of the verbiage from the LP inner sleeve:

 

[rustyandi]

Stephen

We are on different LPs
I meant Surf's Up LP has EV4 Encoded

Ron

 

[Stephen W. Desper]

Hi
I just want to jump in and support what Rustyandi said.

My vinyl/LP copy of Surfs Up has a two page insert. Inside on page two it says: This recording has been produced so that it may be enjoyed in stereophonic sound or quadraphonically, using the Dynaco and EV-Stereo-4 systems.

This paragraph appears right above your name and credit as chief engineer and mixer.
I find it astounding that for a project you were intimately involved with you seem to be completely unaware of this contemporaneously issued information.

By the way I visited your website and greatly enjoyed the mixing samples you put up. They are truly immersive and enjoyable.
All of us would love to be able to purchase your original mixes as intended.

COMMENT to jefel: Thanks for the photo. You and rustyandi's detective work has solved this riddle. Unfortunately the damage cannot be undone, but at least it is reveled. Evidentially this is something that the Reprise art department has added. It is totally wrong as EV4 and Dynaquad were not even around when Surf's Up was mixed down. So it would be impossible for the statement on the LP to be factually correct.

So now we're getting somewhere in understanding why AP decided to use the EV4 matrix for their SACD multi-track release. They were mislead by the Reprise art department or some uninformed jerk of an engineer over there who took it upon themselves to put out information without checking with history or the original engineer or look at the master tape box. This LP is probably made from a copy of the master, two generations removed from the master. What a rip-off for you. How much did you pay for this LP, because it was too much.

It's ironic that Warner's rejected the whole idea of putting out an LP with the matrix included in the grooves, then come along later and claim the same album is using a matrix that wasn't even invented at the time the album was made. How stupid do they think the public is? And how hypocritical is this record company. With one hand they stop progress and with the other they falsify progress. Both hands are evidently under the control of some very dumb people.

What you have with this LP liner note is a bogus liner jacket. It does not copy the original insert that says not one thing about EV4 or Dynaquad. The one I approved. You have a very expensive bootleg LP package.

No where at any time was the use of EV4 discussed at any press conference, magazine article, or among fans. Of course it could not because it was invented about a year after the album's release and then a months after that came the first commercial quad EV4 LPs. It DOES NOT stand to reason that when I engineered FLAME and convinced the record company, Reprise again, at that time to enclose a diagram for a simple decoding system, that I would revert to a more primitive quad system after having allegedly, previously recorded a Beach Boy album using a more sophisticated system? It makes no sense.

If it were me, I would send the record back to Reprise and demand a refund just on the bases of fraud. Then go find yourself the real LP, with the Artisan logo stamped between the lead-out grooves. Who knows what other liberties Reprise has taken with the mastering of this LP. Or save yourself the trouble and just visit my website where you can hear the original mix with the correct matrix for no cost. I know Part two (Surf's Up) is still under construction, but when it's available you will be surprised at how much better it can sound.

As to purchasing what is on my website, look at the buttons near the bottom of page three. One of them will direct you to information that shows you how to copy from the website onto a Recordable-DVD using your computer. In other words, you can make your own copy, and it is a legal copy as long as you don't sell it. Otherwise, under the terms of the Fair Use Doctrine, the songs are made available for educational purposes only and not for profit, which with all the misunderstanding that has come down via misleading tags added to the insert, is certainly an important part of the history of these albums.

As far as some perceived clarity that people who paid the big bucks seem to hear via the SACD release, I will tell you that from an engineering measurement point of view, both the standard CD and the LP have a greater frequency response, lower noise, less distortion and wider dynamic range than the master tape. So the weakest link in the chain is not the LP or CD, rather the master itself. To my ears, the biggest bang for the buck (improvement) comes by the use of the matrix. The virtual matrix that is. Not the EV4 matrix which shifts all the dimensional parameters by 90 degrees, screwing up the dimension; and completely eliminates one of the vector coordinates, eliminating all the sonic information from inside the sound field, leaving only the perimeter sources. All in all, a step backward from the original, done by engineers who don't know the difference between a Dolby and a dildo. ~swd

 

[Stephen W. Desper]

Stephen,

"rustyandi" is correct and here is a look, although blurry, of the verbiage from the LP inner sleeve:


View attachment 27052

COMMENT to JonUban: Again thanks for the photo. I looked back into my collection of Surf's Up, and none of the inserts look like the one in your photo. That area is blank. But then, I only have first issues that came right at the beginning. I see from the photo a date of 1971, so this EV4 insert must have happened early-on, but since I moved on to other projects, it never came to my attention until now. I have always just assumed that the art work followed the lead established by the first issues. Here is a list of re-issues up to 2014, not including the AP offerings.

SURF’S UP had its primary release in August, 1971 (about a year to date from the release of Sunflower). Since that time 16 re-issues have been made.

1971 Vinyl LP Brother / RS 6453 33 rpm
1971 Vinyl LP Stateside / 1 C 062-92744 33 rpm
1971 Vinyl LP Stateside / SSL. 10313 33 rpm
1971 Vinyl LP Caribou / CRB 31774 33 rpm
1971 Reel-to-reel Reprise / RST 6453 B
1972 Vinyl LP Asylum / R 113793
1980 Vinyl LP Caribou / CRB 32085 33 rpm
1990 CD Caribou / ZK 46951
1991 Vinyl LP Epic / EPC 467835 120 gram, 33 rpm, Remastered
1991 CD Epic / 467835 2 Remastered
1997 Vinyl LP EMI / 7243 8 21945 1 4 180 gram, Remastered
2008 CD TOCP-70532
2008 CD TOCP-53875
2009 Vinyl LP Brother / 509996 98175 19 180 gram, 33 rpm
2009 Vinyl LP Capitol / 509996 98175 19 180 gram, 33 rpm, Limited Edition, Remastered
2012 CD Capitol Digipak, Remastered
2012 HDCD Brother / 50999 404439 28 Digipak, Gatefold, Remastered
2014 Vinyl LP & SACD Acoustic Sounds – Pending Reissue, Remastered

These are all from BRI (Warner/Reprise) or licensed out to other labels. At any rate, I have no control over the product and certainly not the art once the first issues are sold. And as you can see, if changes are made they can have unintended consequences. I suppose the insert may have been a half-*** attempt to please the quad crowd, which was gaining momentum then, or make them think that they could get quad out of the disk if they had a decoder and were hesitant to buy a stereo-only LP. Again, this is the music business and if there is a buck to be made -- the hell with the art -- the $$$ rules.

This is a photocopy of the original insert from my copy(s).

~swd

 

[quicksrt]

COMMENT to JonUban: Again thanks for the photo. I looked back into my collection of Surf's Up, and none of the inserts look like the one in your photo. That area is blank. But then, I only have first issues that came right at the beginning. I see from the photo a date of 1971, so this EV4 insert must have happened early-on, but since I moved on to other projects, it never came to my attention until now. I have always just assumed that the art work followed the lead established by the first issues. Here is a list of re-issues up to 2014, not including the AP offerings.

SURF’S UP had its primary release in August, 1971 (about a year to date from the release of Sunflower). Since that time 16 re-issues have been made.

These are all from BRI (Warner/Reprise) or licensed out to other labels. At any rate, I have no control over the product and certainly not the art once the first issues are sold. And as you can see, if changes are made they can have unintended consequences. I suppose the insert may have been a half-*** attempt to please the quad crowd, which was gaining momentum then, or make them think that they could get quad out of the disk if they had a decoder and were hesitant to buy a stereo-only LP. Again, this is the music business and if there is a buck to be made -- the hell with the art -- the $$$ rules.

This is a photocopy of the original insert from my copy(s).
View attachment 27054
~swd

I just checked my very early white label promo on Brother / Reprise Records. LP includes the Artisan logo in deadwax. The EV quad mention is included in the liner notes on folded insert for this copy as well.

 

[Stephen W. Desper]

I just checked my very early white label promo on Brother / Reprise Records. LP includes the Artisan logo in deadwax. The EV quad mention is included in the liner notes on folded insert for this copy as well.

COMMENT to quicksrt: So it must have been added on the second or third run, at least close to the original run. That would mean I was in Australia with Frank Zappa when this was done. No wonder I was unaware. O well, water under the bridge now. I'm still disheartened about the AP CD issue however. That could have put it all right, but only confused the issue more. ~swd

 

[JonUrban]

Wow guys, nice detective work. It's funny what a record label will do to get more sales!

I remember back in the '70s during the quad era, it was generally known that "Surf's Up" was quad, or at least DY, as many catalogs of the era list that title as quad (DY). I seem to remember that the consensus was that it wasn't great quad. Now after all of these year we know why! We all thought it was the primitive DY decoder/encoder technology. Ha!

Now we have heard from the man who actually knows the deal and has the proof and poof! The old myth's have been again disproven. Right along with the long standing myth that Ray Thomas' "From Mighty Oaks" was a secret QS. More footnotes in the quad bit-bucket.

Thanks for setting us straight, Stephen. Just because something is labeled one thing doesn't mean squat.

(Old QQ thread on Surf's up: https://www.quadraphonicquad.com/forums/showthread.php?13452-Beach-Boys-Surf-s-UP-Album)

 

[quicksrt]

COMMENT to quicksrt: So it must have been added on the second or third run, at least close to the original run. That would mean I was in Australia with Frank Zappa when this was done. No wonder I was unaware. O well, water under the bridge now. I'm still disheartened about the AP CD issue however. That could have put it all right, but only confused the issue more. ~swd

The AP issued SACD has a lovely stereo layer in high-res does it not? Are you at least happy with the sound on that layer when played back with two good speakers on decent equipment? Forgive me if you already stated as much, I did not read every word of thread, but I got that you are peeved. I seem to recall a CD issued (Caribou / Epic?) that was heartbreakingly EQ'd and ruined, or stated as such by a large group of audiophiles.

 

[Stephen W. Desper]

The AP issued SACD has a lovely stereo layer in high-res does it not? Are you at least happy with the sound on that layer when played back with two good speakers on decent equipment? Forgive me if you already stated as much, I did not read every word of thread, but I got that you are peeved. I seem to recall a CD issued (Caribou / Epic?) that was heartbreakingly EQ'd and ruined, or stated as such by a large group of audiophiles.

COMMENT to quicksrt:

Here is a copy of my answer to a similar question on the Steve Hoffman board . . .

The Zodiac said: ↑

Since your here I just want to tell you, Mr. Desper, that I love your work with The Beach Boys and I think of you as the Nikola Tesla of modern recording. While I don't understand a tenth of any of this scientific stuff you speak of I am in awe of your ingenuity and knowledge. And while I have purchased all the AP vinyl and SACD reissues and enjoyed them thoroughly (the vinyl, of course, moreso) I respect your stance against unauthorized (albeit unadvertised) multi-channel enhancements to your work and hope this is resolved in a way which brings attention to your methods and leads to future implementation of it by the labels.

COMMENT to Zodiac: Wow you're really into these new issues. You must have quite a collection.

I listened to the 192/24 download. When making comparisons between two or more sounds, you can't listen to one and then the other, or A-B them. First you must establish a standard to which you will compare the other two. I decided on using my reference LP, first pressing as a standard to which to compare the 192/24 against the LP, and the study-video against the LP.
So you know, for this comparison I'm listening to Tannoy NF-8 studio monitors driven by a beautiful Fisher SA-1000 Tube amp. Sub-woofer is a Focal 12 inch unit from France in a rather large enclosure that extends to 17 Hz, flat. The Tannoys are three feet apart and I sit about that from them. These are near-field monitors and meant to be close to you. The front-end is all discrete solid state audiophile stuff. You can review the turntable and pickup on the studio-video needle drop section.

The LP sounded as it always does.

The 192/24 sounded damn close to the LP. If you don't own a turntable, this is a good substitute, better than other masterings. But, the LP does give more separation to subtle things like Brian's vocal dueling, where the sheen was more apparent on the LP. Some songs had better separation of background vocals to the lead and the track. I was surprised that the bass went lower on the LP. It was not louder, just lower. Wondering about this, I connected a spectrum analyzer and captured some of the bass notes. In fact, they did excite lower frequencies on the LP. Maybe AP applied a high-pass filter -- don't know why the bass is deeper on the LP as both mediums are capable of equal low end.

The study-video version is, as you would expect, wider and presented a staging that was easier to separate, that is, each element was more distinct. You could spin that as less homogenous too, but I prefer to be able to hear into the mix and that is what I heard. Certainly the overall sound is brighter. This is not an artifact of the separation, rather a result of restoring the leading edge waveform, lost in the digital transfer. If you listen to a lot of digital, then you become use to the high-end sounding lackluster, so that when you hear actual analog, the high-end seems like it is overstated. I don't think it is thin, actually there is more bottom end on the study-video than even the LP, but the top does show, on the spectrum analyzer, that the upper-frequencies extend into a higher region, as restored by the leading edge waveform restoration. That mimics what I'm hearing. If you have a picky tweeter it could be annoying, but on a flat system it seems in balance. Compared to the 192/24, it (the download) sounded dull and had a lot more mid-range. Some people prefer that ... sometimes call the AM sound or 45 sound. I like the sparkle I heard from the study-video, but then I'm an older guy.

I really wanted to be wow'ed by the high-res download, but after spending the 25 dollars, realized it was for curiosity only. I will probably never listen to the 192/24 again as the LP trumped the download when I play the record through matrix resolution.
Trying not to be biased or partial, I still think the matrix resolution of the LP needle-drop section of the study-videos is a more satisfying listen. If you listen to each song (before the needle-drop section) it gets even better -- in my opinion.

Sorry, I have yet to hear the extra-track-section that AP is offering, as the correct way to hear Sunflower is via the LP with matrix resolution on two-speakers. Maybe "correct" is not the right term. I guess I should say, my preferred way to hear Sunflower, Surf's Up and all the stuff I recorded is via the matrix/LP playback. That is the way it was recorded, the way I heard it at mixdown, and the best representation I can give to my ears. ~swd

End quote from Steve Hoffman thread. Stephen W. Desper, Aug 9, 2016