Quad LP/Tape Poll Simon, Paul: Still Crazy After All These Years [SQ/Q8]

[EMB]

Columbia PCQ 33540, from 1975.


Side 1:

1. Still Crazy After All These Years
2. My Little Town (w/Artie)
3. I Do it For Your Love
4. 50 Ways to Leave Your Lover
5. Night Game

Side 2:

1. Gone at Last (w/Phoebe Snow)
2. Some Folks' Lives Roll Easy
3. Have a Good Time
4. You're Kind
5. Silent Eyes


ED

 

[Q-Eight]

I don't like how certain things are placed in cross channels. Piano in FR and BL, drums in FL & BR. Same thing with horns on certain songs. The whole tape is like that for the most part. Would've sounded much more organic with drums across the front, piano across the back, horns across the back, etc.

I've played around with channel assignments and I find other than the vocals get placed in cross-channels, the album sounds much better.

 

[Quad Linda]

8. I have a Q8 & SQ of this. What's great: 50 Ways, Still Crazy & My Little Town are as good as anything he ever did. The mix and some of the lesser tracks are the reason for the 8.

 

[Q-Eight]

Oddly enough, the Garfunkel version of My Little Town is mixed EXACTLY the same, only with Artie's vocal more prominent!

 

[lupochet]

Hi, i am new in the forum. What can I do to listen or download the album? I don't see any kind of link

 

[Q-Eight]

Hi, i am new in the forum. What can I do to listen or download the album? I don't see any kind of link

This is not that kind of website. Your best bet to hear this album is to search eBay or record & tape stores to find the Q8 tape or the SQ LP.

 

[JonUrban]

Hi, i am new in the forum. What can I do to listen or download the album? I don't see any kind of link

Welcome to QQ. Our forum is a place to discuss surround music but we do not condone or allow file sharing or download links of music files that are not official releases. The only way to hear this album in quad is to own the SQ LP or Q8 tape and play it back on the vintage equipment it was designed to be played on.

Unfortunately, Mr. Simon does not want his 1970's quad mixes released on modern surround media.

 

[fredblue]

Now, here's something interesting having just found this Poll (sorry to post this here but where else could I put it? Should I start a new thread instead mods?) but I find Darrin's (Q-Eight's) comments on this Quad mix and its "criss-cross" nature most intriguing..!!

Tonight it hit me, while looking at the 4 channels decoded by the Surround Master SQ Vinyl unit of my SQ LP of this album, that Rear Left and Rear Right looked as though they might actually be the wrong way around..?

You're all way more experienced with this Quad stuff than I am, what do you guys think just looking at this screen grab I took?



As you can see, I've named the channels as they were recorded in the MOTU
(from Top to Bottom: 1= Front Left, 2 = Front Right, 3 = Rear Left, 4 = Rear Right)..

..but something doesn't look quite right from just the waveforms, Front Left and Rear Right are too similar looking..

..and yet Front Left and Rear Right here can't be the Front Stereo pair (as I discovered they were on the Dutch pressed SQ LP of Neil Diamond's "Serenade")
as the Rear Left and Rear Right of the decoded SQ cancel out any hint of lead vocals when you sum them to mono, so they must be the correctly assigned rear channels right?

Its not easy trying to work out exactly what each rear channel is doing since I'm analysing an SQ decode and as you all know things can get a bit funky back there and its just not an accurate way to suss this stuff out unlike Q8, etc.. but almost everything seems to 'gel' better when you flip Rear Left and Rear Right channels.

Very confusing... :yikes ...HELP..!!

(and before anyone asks... ..I know I'm new to decoding Quad LPs but yes, I have all 4 channels correctly hooked up from the 4 x RCA outs of the Surround Master to the MOTU.. so far I've transferred approaching 90 SQ LPs in this exact same way without touching any cabling and "Serenade" and this are the only two SQ records so far with any such channel weirdness.. although I think they suffer from quite different channel weirdness.. though to be fair I haven't got around to decoding my Mahavishnu/Birds Of Fire SQ yet, there seems to be a bone of contention about the vinyl of that one too.. very curious, I shall be checking it all out for myself - soon..!!)

 

[Q-Eight]

Might be another faulty SQ layout. The Q8 tape has the channels in the proper locations; it just features some very unusual instrument placements. Unusual for this being such a late Quad mix. Early mixes it's understandable that there's stuff all over but a late mix of this kind, you'd expect drums to be across the front with vocals and bass up the middle.

 

[fredblue]

Might be another faulty SQ layout. The Q8 tape has the channels in the proper locations; it just features some very unusual instrument placements. Unusual for this being such a late Quad mix. Early mixes it's understandable that there's stuff all over but a late mix of this kind, you'd expect drums to be across the front with vocals and bass up the middle.

Oh.... I thought you were suggesting a kind of criss-cross presentation on the Q8 (with Front Left diagonally corresponding to Rear Right and vice versa) which is what the SQ does in its original decoded state..?
(bit confused.. but overtired now sorry if I'm coming across as a thicky thickster..)

 

[fredblue]

Does anyone here know who did the Quad mix on this one?

Phil Ramone did the "Rhymin Simon" Quad and
Roy Halee did the "Paul Simon" album Quad..

..but the SQ LP of this one doesn't give a Quad remix engineer credit.. hmm...

 

[JonUrban]

I know I posted about this somewhere in the forum a few years ago, but I was playing around with files on my big computer this afternoon and rediscovered this oddity. It appears that the SQ and Q8 mix of this album are different, at least with the tune "Night Game".

Below are the wav files, the top the SQ LP decoded with a Surround Master SQ Edition, and the bottom file is the Q8. You don't even have to have knowledge of audio files to see there are two different mixes, with the Q8 Rear Left channel silent for the entire tune except for the harmonica (or whatever it is) solo, where the SQ decode has stuff in it all along the way. Of course, this could be because the SQ system did not like a totally silent channel, I don't know.

But anyway, here's the files:

 

[fredblue]

I know I posted about this somewhere in the forum a few years ago, but I was playing around with files on my big computer this afternoon and rediscovered this oddity. It appears that the SQ and Q8 mix of this album are different, at least with the tune "Night Game".

Below are the wav files, the top the SQ LP decoded with a Surround Master SQ Edition, and the bottom file is the Q8. You don't even have to have knowledge of audio files to see there are two different mixes, with the Q8 Rear Left channel silent for the entire tune except for the harmonica (or whatever it is) solo, where the SQ decode has stuff in it all along the way. Of course, this could be because the SQ system did not like a totally silent channel, I don't know.

But anyway, here's the files:

View attachment 32871

very interesting!
its been a while since i fiddlefarted around with the SQ LP of this one but I vaguely remember it being.. weird!
I've never software decoded any old matrix encoded Quad material (only run it all thru the Surround Master) but I am curious how that "Night Game" track pans out when using one of the scripts (or even a Tate) by comparison, does it get closer to the Q8 or still have full content throughout in both Rears?

 

[Q-Eight]

Labelle's "Nightbirds" album features the same style of weird mixing but ONLY on the first song "Lady Marmalade". Drums are situated in FL and BR. BUT, for the rest of the album, drums are across the front in a stereo pair. I can only speculate that it's either a mixdown error *or* it was a second-attempt because the first mix may have not decoded properly. I've no idea what the S.O.P. was at Columbia for creating the mixes but I'm certain they had to go through some sort of process with testing to see if it satisfied SQ decoding. I mean, why else would we have multiple Quad remixes of the same album? If not to satisfy artists' requirements then certainly there had to be some sort of technical reasoning behind a remix?

Another song with cross-channel mixing is on Paul Simon's "Rhymin' Simon" album, the song "One Mans' ceiling is another mans' floor". Great song, btw, but the grandpiano in that track is in FR and BL. It's obviously a grand piano recorded with two mics in a stereo pair but why not have it across the front? Why the cross-channel malarky? The song would've had a much more realistic mix if it had been drums, piano, bass and vocals in the front with guitars, percussion (whatever) in the rear.

But, I suppose that's just personal preference.

 

[LuvMyQuad]

very interesting!
its been a while since i fiddlefarted around with the SQ LP of this one but I vaguely remember it being.. weird!
I've never software decoded any old matrix encoded Quad material (only run it all thru the Surround Master) but I am curious how that "Night Game" track pans out when using one of the scripts (or even a Tate) by comparison, does it get closer to the Q8 or still have full content throughout in both Rears?

Looking at OD's script transfer of that track, the rear is never quiet. The plot looks more like Jon's SM plot.

 

[fredblue]

Looking at OD's script transfer of that track, the rear is never quiet. The plot looks more like Jon's SM plot.

that's good to know, thanks!
I remember now, I got so fed up with the SQ not resembling the Q8 on this particular track of this Quad (and my Q8 going all crackly static right on that blinking track that's oh so quiet in places, just when I was recording it in.. grr..!! ) that I took the rear left channel of the SQ decode and wiped out surplus stuff in there but kept the harmonica solo plus did some other reverse engineering liberties, i thought it improved things at the time but possibly in the cold light of day maybe not! it was well intentioned but misguided more than likely, to err is 'ooman.!

ah well.. maybe one day we'll see Paul Simon's Quads reissued in discrete mastertape quality on a modern day format, it'd be fab but I'm not holding my breath, there's lots of other goodies DV (etc) can plunder in the meantime I'm hoping!

 

[LennonCobain]

I am generally not a fan of quad mixes, but this mix is the best quad mix I have ever heard. 50 Ways To Leave Your Lover sounds so good that you wouldn’t immediately recognize it as quad.

 

[fizzywiggs41]

that's good to know, thanks!
I remember now, I got so fed up with the SQ not resembling the Q8 on this particular track of this Quad (and my Q8 going all crackly static right on that blinking track that's oh so quiet in places, just when I was recording it in.. grr..!! ) that I took the rear left channel of the SQ decode and wiped out surplus stuff in there but kept the harmonica solo plus did some other reverse engineering liberties, i thought it improved things at the time but possibly in the cold light of day maybe not! it was well intentioned but misguided more than likely, to err is 'ooman.!

ah well.. maybe one day we'll see Paul Simon's Quads reissued in discrete mastertape quality on a modern day format, it'd be fab but I'm not holding my breath, there's lots of other goodies DV (etc) can plunder in the meantime I'm hoping!

This album is a pretty good quad mix via SQ in my opinion .

Very discernable rear channel info , (my Fosgate never lies ).

 

[kap'n krunch]

A lot of the later-era (1974-77) Columbia quads are so well done you could mistake them for modern MCH mixes...a couple personal faves of mine are Aerosmith's Rocks, Poco's Seven, the Chicagos, and Santana's first LP.

I have the SQ LP and a very good Q8 drop of this one. I agree it's stunning, but Rhymin' is my favorite of the Simon quads. Shoot me a PM if you haven't heard that one (or any of the others I mentioned).

Very true, the last of the SQ mixes were amazing!
BTW, always wanted to get this on LP, although i am not a huge Simon fan, always heard the mix was excellent...Kodachrome especially, havin an "early" Atmos moment...will have to shoot you a pm!

 

[JonUrban]

After all the talk about SQ vs Q8 and mixes and stuff I went back to this album on my PC. I have a Q8 rip I did a long time ago when my HK 8+ was restored and I had a good quality Q8 of the album and listened to it, solo'ing channels and all that.

I can understand where Q-Eight is coming from about the varying mixes, but I really like it. I lover super discrete mixes like this one. The title track is beautiful to listen to in parts. The rear left is just Richard Tee on his Fender Rhodes for almost a minute and a half before it is joined by strings, and for a keyboard guy like me it's great to hear this guy play. I love his style and you can spot it in most albums he plays on. Steve Gadd on drums is in the rear right.

In going through the thing I started to get annoyed. Really annoyed. This album, and the other 2 Simon's, deserve the Michael Dutton treatment. We are lucky two get the to Garfunkel's, but the real prize would be these three quads that Simon did for Columbia. The SQ LP just does not do justice to the actual mix. On the Q8, there is no bleed through of instruments, percussion, vocals. Everything is super discrete. There are great tracks like "Gone at Last", "50 Ways", and even the empty stadium feel of "Night Game" comes across in quad so well, with the listener feeling like he's in an empty cavern.

One wonders if Paul has to be gone before these can be released. If that's true, that's damn sad. I mean, many of us will be gone at that point as well.

Gone at last!