Sly & the Family Stone Greatest Hits - 4.0 Audio Fidelity Multichannel SACD (October 2015)

[Franklin]

Only on the matrix.

 

[JediJoker]

Only on the matrix.

What are the known matrices, good and bad? Thread search came up empty.

 

[JerseyEd]

I bought mine from Bullmoose in September 2016, months after the error was found. My copy does not have the -3. I opened both the CD and HR rips in Audacity. Each time I expanded the view and moved the line over various points. To me it seems that everything lines up correctly. Is it possible that I have have a good non-3 copy, or is there something else I should look/listen for?

 

[Franklin]

Only on the matrix.

What are the known matrices, good and bad? Thread search came up empty.

My mistake, it's on the catalogue number on the label: AFZ5 215-3, I'm not aware of any other editions that are correct. I imagine the matrix numbers are different, but I don't recall checking what the old one was. The quad mix is not affected on the bad copies: it's the mono mix: it's not equally balanced left and right. I can't recall if it's the SACD layer, CD layer or both.

 

[hirez]

My mistake, it's on the catalogue number on the label: AFZ5 215-3, I'm not aware of any other editions that are correct. I imagine the matrix numbers are different, but I don't recall checking what the old one was. The quad mix is not affected on the bad copies: it's the mono mix: it's not equally balanced left and right. I can't recall if it's the SACD layer, CD layer or both.

Not certain which version I have but since the quad is great I haven't bothered listening to the other layers. Thanks for confirming that I don't need to be concerned!

 

[Audiowannabee]

Thank u guys for being here

Listening to Sly n family stone greatest hits in QUAD . Just arrived today...yeah

 

[Scott65]

Thank u guys for being here

Listening to Sly n family stone greatest hits in QUAD . Just arrived today...yeah

It's a great disc

 

[~dave~~wave~]

Thank u ...

I see what you did there.

Different strokes...

 

[Audiowannabee]

I see what you did there.

Different strokes...

I see what you did there.

Different strokes...

Im so glad i found both this site n the other one...shf...my wallet has become very empty but im Just so happy to be listening ti this older music in quad/surround. Its great and ive learned so much from both forums...love the music n starting to make some online friends...so yeah thanks for being here guys

 

[ar surround]

Im so glad i found both this site n the other one...

The other one? You mean "The Forum Which Must Not Be Named."

 

[Audiowannabee]

The other one? You mean "The Forum Which Must Not Be Named."

Yeah ther're ok too...atleast most of em...lol

 

[Monkish]

Can any Sly experts shed some light on a couple of differences between the Quad and mono versions on this SACD?

1) Dance To The Music — the Quad version is missing the first vocal breakdown (at around 15 seconds in). I’ve never heard the song without that first breakdown; what’s the origin of this edit? A 45 release of some sort? (The mono version has the first breakdown intact.) It just feels off/wrong to me — even if it was edited in rather than being recorded that way, the first breakdown is such a cool foreshadowing of things to come.

2) You Can Make It If You Try — the Quad version is a half-step lower in pitch than the album version I’m used to hearing. Basically, the Quad version is in F major, while the original album version is in F-sharp major. (The mono version is in the “right” key as well.) To clarify, they’re the same takes — the Quad version just runs slower, and to me, it really feels draggy as a result.

 

[SmcAustin]

YouTube has a version with the first breakdown at about 30 seconds. The poster credits a Spanish mono single and the stereo lp. It can't be both!

 

[J. PUPSTER]

Saw what @Q-Eight wrote on the Poll thread about the AF 2015 SACD mix not having the organ on this one (only Piano) for -"I Want To Take You Higher"

and, sorry no, I haven't re-read through this whole thread for associated info yet!

Just a crazy mix IMO -
-drums (mainly snare) & guitar in the rear right
-bass, harmonica in the front left with the main vocals
-call back & BUV & guitar in the front right
-horns & lead guitar in the rear left
- the bass seems like it's both a distorted type in the front left and also some low end everywhere (bi-amped maybe?), but overall kind of lacking a nice low end punch (maybe some remastering would help that?) IMO. Also some bleed through on all channels.

I'm thinking of finding a nice quality version with the organ and doing my own re-mix.

I can see moving a lot of stuff around

can you hear the organ pumping away on this stereo version in the front left/center (not sure I even hear the piano, maybe it was swapped out for the organ on the Quad?) And do both SQ Quads have the organ or not? Lots to unpack here.

any additional info on this is appreciated!

 

[steelydave]

Saw what @Q-Eight wrote on the Poll thread about the AF 2015 SACD mix not having the organ on this one (only Piano) for -"I Want To Take You Higher"

and, sorry no, I haven't re-read through this whole thread for associated info yet!

Just a crazy mix IMO -
-drums (mainly snare) & guitar in the rear right
-bass, harmonica in the front left with the main vocals
-call back & BUV & guitar in the front right
-horns & lead guitar in the rear left
- the bass seems like it's both a distorted type in the front left and also some low end everywhere (bi-amped maybe?), but overall kind of lacking a nice low end punch (maybe some remastering would help that?) IMO. Also some bleed through on all channels.

I'm thinking of finding a nice quality version with the organ and doing my own re-mix.

I can see moving a lot of stuff around

can you hear the organ pumping away on this stereo version in the front left/center (not sure I even hear the piano, maybe it was swapped out for the organ on the Quad?) And do both SQ Quads have the organ or not? Lots to unpack here.

any additional info on this is appreciated!

I'm not sure about the organ part variation, but the thin sound of the SACD can be attributed to Steve Hoffman, who mastered both the stereo and multichannel layers of the SACD. He used the for the stereo layer he used the mono mixes (or "hit mixes" as he insists on calling them) which were presumably mixed for primarily AM radio and are very bass shy as a result.

Where he erred, in my opinion, was in mastering the multichannel layer, he seems to have tried to match the the tonality of the quad mix to the mono mixes. For remastering full albums with stereo and quad mixes it's an admirable and wise thing to do to try and make them sound similar EQ-wise (presuming they were mixed around the same time) but in a case like this it's folly - the various tracks that make up the compilation were recorded anywhere between 1 and 4 years before this comp was mixed for quad in 1971, and the mono mixes were definitely not done with "high fidelity reproduction" in mind. The quad mixes for the GH comp were specifically commissioned for it (sort of like The Guess Who's Best Of, Vol. 2) and I think it would've been much more appropriate for it to sound like a set of cohesive mixes from 1971, not a hodge-podge of '60s AM radio tonality.

As a result of Hoffman's mastering approach, the quad mix sound really thin and anemic in the bottom end, which is not what you want for this kind of music. I've owned both the Q8 and the SQ LP and while neither have what Homer Simpson once referred to as "bong-rattling bass" they definitely moved the needle in the low end considerably more than the AF SACD does. For me this (along with the muffled-sounding Guess Who Best Of Vol. 1, thankfully rectified by D-V's superb full-album reissues) was probably the biggest disappointment of AF's entire quad SACD output.

 

[Dynamic Editor]

The first quad mix I ever got was Eli and the Thirteenth Confession and I despised it; I felt that individual elements were each just shoved into a single channel without any sense of balance for the mix as a whole. Is this album mixed significantly differently? Because I refrained from even trying to touch this disc for that reason.

 

[steelydave]

No, the mix is even more extreme, mostly made up of mono elements in the four corners of the room.

 

[Dynamic Editor]

No, the mix is even more extreme, mostly made up of mono elements in the four corners of the room.

Good to know. Thank you.

 

[Q-Eight]

No, the mix is even more extreme, mostly made up of mono elements in the four corners of the room.

Well, that is exactly what a multitrack IS. It's simply a series of mono tracks; some live, some overdubbed. The idea of recording stereo on a multitrack really didn't come about until the 24-track era, which is sort of post-1973. Quad mixing in the early days really does seem like "something over here/something over there" without any real logic to it. It's more like the early days of stereo when a lack of tracks had pretty much everything in one channel and vocals in the other. It was more to show off the technology than to have any real impact musically. Most CBS/Columbia Quads have odd mixes until the 32xxx series of Quad LP's & Tapes. By then, they'd pretty much figured out what people expected from a Quad mix and having things spread about willy-nilly just wasn't doing it.
The mixes on Sly's Greatest Hits run the full gamut. Some are absolutely spot on and you wouldn't change a thing. Others, have vocals in Back Left and echo in the front and really make you curious as to what was being passed around during that mixdown session.
"I wanna take you Higher" should be on 16-track but I'm not 100% sure, based on what we have in the Quad mix. It may have been one of Sly's LAST 8-track songs. The single channel of horns, and only 2-tracks worth of vocals make me wonder. But the fact I hear a ghost of the organ in Front Left makes me very curious. Was there an organ played during the tracking session? Did they keep it or wipe it to overdub later? (kinda like the ghost guitar on "Dance to the Music"). Did they use the wrong track during the mixing session? That's not unheard of.

There ARE Sly Stone multitracks out there in internetland. Personally, I've got my claws into the 8-track "Dance to the Music" and the 16-track "Family Affair". I would love it if I could get the chance to remix "I wanna take you higher".

 

[steelydave]

Well, that is exactly what a multitrack IS. It's simply a series of mono tracks; some live, some overdubbed. The idea of recording stereo on a multitrack really didn't come about until the 24-track era, which is sort of post-1973. Quad mixing in the early days really does seem like "something over here/something over there" without any real logic to it. It's more like the early days of stereo when a lack of tracks had pretty much everything in one channel and vocals in the other. It was more to show off the technology than to have any real impact musically. Most CBS/Columbia Quads have odd mixes until the 32xxx series of Quad LP's & Tapes. By then, they'd pretty much figured out what people expected from a Quad mix and having things spread about willy-nilly just wasn't doing it.

Sorry, but that timeline absolute nonsense - engineers were recording things ranging from individual elements (vocals, horns, drums) up to full bands and orchestras on stereo microphone arrays dating back to the earliest stereo multitrack recordings in the late-1950s, and there are lots of recordings on 3-track where the vocalist or soloist is a single track and the backing band is recorded into stereo, up to 4 and 8-track (Led Zeppelin II has stereo drums, as does Chicago Transit Authority) not to mention lots of the Blue Note stuff, where Rudy Van Gelder used mid-side stereo microphone arrays to record horns, and there are plenty of quad recordings from 16-track that have at least 4 tracks devoted to drums, which is evident on mixes like some of the early Jeff Beck quads where you have main kit in stereo in the front, and cymbals in stereo in the rear.

The mixing style of the early CBS quads was anything but "willy nilly" - it was done with purpose, and that purpose was entirely about maximizing the effect of the terrible non-logic SQ decoders of the time, so that customers who bought this stuff would get some kind of discernable effect for their money. According to John Cale, who did a lot of those early quad test mixes with Jim Reeves, Sony Japan put 5 million bucks in Clive Davis pocket, err, I mean they gave CBS five million bucks to adopt SQ as their exclusive LP format, so that first series of quad LPs in early 1972 was as much about providing something that made the hi-fi equipment Sony was selling look good as it was about providing a cohesive musical experience.

A lot of what Columbia put out in 1972 was mixes stockpiled over the previous three years, so you were almost hearing the evolution of quad mixing all at once - it's no wonder some of those early quad mixes like Sly's Greatest hits sound like four-speaker mono at times, because when they were mixed the industry had barely even switched over from mono to stereo. Albums actually recorded and mixed for quad in 1972 like Santana's Caravanserai, Edgar Winter's They Only Come Out at Night and the Jeff Beck Group album are a massive step up in quality from the stuff that came before it, even though it was all released in the same year.