Unusual drum placement in old quad mixes

[MrSmithers]

This is great info!

 

[MrSmithers]

Interesting sidenote- I took a quick look at the four Doobies quads and interestingly a lot of them feature the drums shoved into one of the FRONT speakers only. Maybe that's a new category.

Great stuff and hopefully we'll get the Doobie quadio soon... I think 'Black Water' will settle any debate... Quad rocks,,,

 

[humprof]

Latest Update:

View attachment 35990

Interesting sidenote- I took a quick look at the four Doobies quads and interestingly a lot of them feature the drums shoved into one of the FRONT speakers only. Maybe that's a new category.

I'm loving this thread. And I hope you won't take offense, @sjcorne, if I say that we need more of the sort of careful, analytical listening that's behind this sort of geekiness. (If I had more time and ambition, I would be one of those geeks!)

In fact, somebody, not necessarily you, should build a searchable, sortable online database that tracks this kind of thing for all of the instruments (and vocals) in a given surround mix. And then some clever programmer could write a bit of software that takes the data from a given album and, at the press of a button, generates a 2-D visual surround map of that album. (Maybe even track by track!) Anybody here have the chops for this?

 

[jimfisheye]

Maybe their thinking (the quad mixer) was like the listener is on the stage, looking out into the crowd. The drums are generally in the back of the stage.
Who knows?

Actually, I hate any reference to a "stage" when talking quad/surround, mostly because there will always be some stereo-head saying "I can't listen to quad/5.1, because at a concert, all of the music is in front of you like it's supposed to be". UGH. Who made that rule?

Me? I want that French Horn solo in my back seat!

Obviously someone who never went to a Pink Floyd concert!

 

[fredblue]

I'm loving this thread. And I hope you won't take offense, @sjcorne, if I say that we need more of the sort of careful, analytical listening that's behind this sort of geekiness. (If I had more time and ambition, I would be one of those geeks!)

In fact, somebody, not necessarily you, should build a searchable, sortable online database that tracks this kind of thing for all of the instruments (and vocals) in a given surround mix. And then some clever programmer could write a bit of software that takes the data from a given album and, at the press of a button, generates a 2-D visual surround map of that album. (Maybe even track by track!) Anybody here have the chops for this?

its a fab idea but for now i'd focus on the drums (and percussive elements generally) as they really seem to be a bone of contention with old Quad mixes and are from what I've seen discussed here and at the SHF a real Marmite thing! (fortunately I love Marmite and drums in unusual places.. win win! )

 

[jimfisheye]

That Super Sessions album...
It sounds like Al was going for simply every instrument in its own speaker. Which led to the drums getting crammed into a single channel. I think this was a misguided inexperience thing. I've read interviews with him where he says he had almost no idea what he was doing in the studio at that time. Pretty impressive considering then! But it really seems like the idea was every instrument in it's own corner and the intuitiveness of that didn't translate logistically. The drums are one instrument but at the same time a pile of instruments. Tricks like coupling a pair of speakers in mono to deliver the kick drum and bass guitar are a thing. So the drums ended up a bit stepped on in the mix for getting crammed into their own single channel.

I'll still take a quirky experimental quad mix from the '70s over the cookie cutter 5.1 mix that puts just awkward reverb in the back any day though!

The drums in the rear bit almost has to come from thinking about the drums being in back on stage, right?

 

[sjcorne]

That Super Sessions album...
It sounds like Al was going for simply every instrument in its own speaker. Which led to the drums getting crammed into a single channel. I think this was a misguided inexperience thing. I've read interviews with him where he says he had almost no idea what he was doing in the studio at that time.

All good points, but I don’t think Al was even involved with the quad mix of Super Session. I think at the time Columbia would just mix everything in quad with or without the artists’ consent and without the original engineers. For quad, they used these lesser known in-house guys (Larry Keyes, Don Young, etc), who were probably working under tight deadlines and likely didn’t even reference or listen to the original stereo mix.

Jim Reeves did the Super Session quad and some other ones I’ve mentioned on this thread (BS&T, Sly’s hits). He is actually a member on the forum- he commented on the BS&T poll thread.

For what it’s worth, the original stereo mix of Super Session also presents all the instruments in mono and has them hard-panned into all 3 stereo positions. Drums are on the right, guitar on the left, bass and horns in the middle. So the quad is actually sort of true to that feel...

 

[sjcorne]

The drums in the rear bit almost has to come from thinking about the drums being in back on stage, right?

In the case of the Mahavishnu album I’d say so. You’re right on stage with the band. McLaughlin on the right, Goodman on the left, Jan Hammer Center with Billy Cobham whacking away behind you.

 

[fredblue]

its funny.. when Audio Fidelity did the Surround SACD of "Birds Of Fire", some people said they found that Mahavishnu Quad was boring! i found it exhausting! in a good way! its a real workout! i think if it had been more active a surround mix with such intense musicality going on my lil' brain would've blown up!

to paraphrase the mighty Tom Jones; "its not unusual.. but i like it!"

 

[sjcorne]

Some more RE: Super Session

I remembered Al Kooper did this interview when the Super Session and Child Is Father To The Man 5.1 SACDs came out and he does actually mention quad:

For instance, because of the size of BS&T, the engineer [Fred Catero] put the guitar and the bass on the same track. When they did the quad mixes, there was no way around that. Today, you can separate them by subtracting frequencies that are comparatively foreign to each instrument. I’m not saying you just push a button and it’s done, but we separated the two instruments and put each in its own location. So we used technology in a useful way. Matt Boynton went through the mono drum track and extracted the various drums — i.e., kick drum, snare, hi-hat, etc. — to new locations. I still kept the drums in mono, but I had control over the mix of the interior kit as a result. So, again, technology was used in a helpful way.

Seems that the drums were actually all recorded to one mono track, which definitely puts the mixing choice on the quad into context.

There's also this little bit:

I remember [quad] very well, because I was there. I was working at Sony when they were doing that, and I stayed away from it. Of course, quad didn’t make it. I have a theory why quad didn’t make it. (chuckles) The audiophiles were definitely very excited about it, but then they hit the wall of having the women say, “You want to put how many speakers in my living room?” I think that’s what killed quad.

All humor aside, this pretty much confirms that he wasn't involved with the making of the Super Session quad mix.

Interesting stuff! I wish Al would do more 5.1 work...

 

[jimfisheye]

All good points, but I don’t think Al was even involved with the quad mix of Super Session. I think at the time Columbia would just mix everything in quad without the artists’ consent and without the original engineers. For quad they used these lesser known in-house guys (Larry Keyes, Don Young, etc), who were probably working under tight deadlines and likely didn’t even reference the stereo mix.

Jim Reeves did the Super Session quad and some other ones I’ve mentioned on this thread (BS&T, Sly’s hits). He is actually a member on the forum- he commented on the BS&T poll thread.

Though for what it’s worth the original stereo mix of Super Session also has the instruments in mono hard panned into all 3 stereo positions (left-center-right). So the quad is actually sort of true to that feel...

I think that blows my theory then.
The drums are probably recorded mixed to a single channel of tape as many albums around the time did. Probably as simple as that right?

I just remembered reading something in Mix mag from him a while back and was thinking about that. What I most remember was his comments about the mastering guys that would SOP strap heavy compression across the mix to protect their expensive cutting heads. Al told them he had the dynamics under control and to leave that off. They said only if he put up the money for a new cutting head for insurance if he was wrong. ($400 or something like that at the time.) He did. And he wasn't wrong!

But if he didn't mix the quad version... well, so much for that theory!

 

[fredblue]

Some more RE: Super Session

I remembered Al Kooper did this interview when the Super Session and Child Is Father To The Man 5.1 SACDs came out and he does actually mention quad:


Seems that the drums were actually all recorded to one mono track, which definitely puts the mixing choice on the quad into context.

There's also this little bit:


All humor aside, this pretty much confirms that he wasn't involved with the making of the Super Session quad mix.

Interesting stuff! I wish Al would do more 5.1 work...

amazing detective work, SuperSJ!

have you ever got to the bottom of what Fred Catero did to the Quads of Herbie Hancock's "Secrets" and Santana's "Amigos" & "Festival"?
love the albums but the mixes are just f-in' weird, man..!!

 

[sjcorne]

have you ever got to the bottom of what Fred Catero did to the Quads of Herbie Hancock's "Secrets" and Santana's "Amigos" & "Festival"?
love the albums but the mixes are just f-in' weird, man..!!

It's funny actually, I found this big lot of later-era Columbia SQ discs in a record store back in July that included Secrets. Of course I've heard the incredible quad mixes of Head Hunters, Sextant, and Thrust so I had pretty high expectations. I ran the LP through the surround master and while it was sort of atmospheric-sounding, I couldn't detect any real front-to-back separation.

So I came here to read up on it and sure enough people are saying even the Q8 sounds sort of like double stereo! I'd still like to get that tape and judge for myself (it is not an easy one to find), but seems to me it's similar to the Pretzel Logic situation where we have multiple quads by the same engineer, first couple are super active/discrete and the last one is about as conservative as it gets!

 

[fredblue]

It's funny actually, I found this big lot of later-era Columbia SQ discs in a record store back in July that included Secrets. Of course I've heard the incredible quad mixes of Head Hunters, Sextant, and Thrust so I had pretty high expectations. I ran the LP through the surround master and while it was sort of atmospheric-sounding, I couldn't detect any real front-to-back separation.

So I came here to read up on it and sure enough people are saying even the Q8 sounds sort of like double stereo! I'd still like to get that tape and judge for myself (it is not an easy one to find), but seems to me it's similar to the Pretzel Logic situation where we have multiple quads by the same engineer, first couple are super active/discrete and the last one is about as conservative as it gets!

there's stuff pan-potted randomly around in "Secrets" but yeah its not the surround extravaganza's of the other Herbie H Quads, by any stretch and quite possibly part fudge!

speaking of Herbie goes Quad-nana's, I think that Headhunters Quad may have some diagonal stuff happening in it? vague recollection.. but may not be drum-related, I'll see if i can find the info and if its relevant.

 

[sjcorne]

Latest update:

Notes:

• Santana's Abraxas is another crazy early Columbia with the drum kit components placed around the room. Bass is in the rears too.
  • I've started to look at Santana's other quads and given that this is percussion-heavy music there's going to be all kinds of accent percussive sounds in the rears! I've already noticed that in the debut album quad, track 1 "Waiting" has a cymbal hit going around the room in circles!
• This has definitely been covered before, but for those who aren't aware Deep Purple's Machine Head actually has two distincty different quad mixes. The UK-only SQ/Q8/SACD was mixed by Peter Mew. The US CD-4/Q8/Q4 (no digital release) has no remix credit. I'm noticing every single track has some drums and bass in the rears. The last track "Space Truckin'" even has the vocals completely in the rears!
• I mentioned this in the poll thread recently, but Johnny Winter's Still Alive & Well is kind of an odd mix for Columbia, probably due to it being a three-piece band.
• The Doobies' Vices/Habits- most tracks have the drums and bass upfront, but "Eyes Of Silver" has all the bass in the rears and "Road Angel" has all the drums in the rears (in stereo).

**whoops DP is obviously Warner not Columbia. My mistake.**

 

[sjcorne]

I've also got a theory for some of these instances in a Columbia quad where only one or several tracks have the drums in a different place, while the rest of the album doesn't:

I copied part of @steelydave's extremely informative post from the D-V Rick Derringer SACD poll thread:

...I know for a fact that one of the CBS SQ mixing rules was that reverbs had to emanate from the same place as the thing causing them, ie if your guitar was in front, reverbs also had to be in front. But I also know that SQ encoding/decoding basically 'eats' reverb, even when it's done to spec (I think Adam can also verify this, comparing Surround Master decodes with Q8 equivalents) and those studios had a built-in 'discrete bypass' where they could flip a switch and hear what their mix would sound like SQ encoded and then SQ decoded, and I think they made adjustments to get the most out of SQ.

Perhaps in the case of say, Labelle's Nightbirds, they originally mixed "Lady Marmalade" with the drums in the front (like the rest of the album), then ran it through this "discrete bypass" switch and found it didn't decode so well. So they moved the drums to a diagonal placement, flipped the switch again, and found it decoded better.

Same with Ten Years After's A Space In Time- maybe the original test mix of "I'd Love to Change The World" had the drums in the front, but it didn't decode well so they moved them to the rear, because the decoder could better reproduce that effect.

I'm imagining a sort of "trial and error" scenario where they would do a mix, then keep adjusting it based on how the SQ decode sounded.

I think Dave is absolutely right that the quality of the SQ decode took precedent over everything, even the overall logic or consistency of the mix itself. Fascinating!

 

[jimfisheye]

I thought that Machine Head mix had the drum spot mics and kick in fronts and the overheads in the rears.

 

[sjcorne]

I thought that Machine Head mix had the drum spot mics and kick in fronts and the overheads in the rears.

You might be right- though I'm pretty sure at least one track ("Maybe I'm A Leo" ?) has the entire kit in the rears. The bass is definitely always in the rears. I guess it's closer to the "drums around the room" placement style.

Personally I prefer the UK mix that has the drums discrete in the fronts.

 

[Q-Eight]

I think that blows my theory then.
The drums are probably recorded mixed to a single channel of tape as many albums around the time did. Probably as simple as that right?

You nailed it. S.O.P. for eight-track recording was generally drums on one, single track. But if you listen to Sly/Family Stone Greatest Hits, that one track has some major dynamic range! Recording drums is not easy but whomever the engineer for those sessions was deserves some credit. Very few eight-track multitrack recordings have the drums on more than one track. There are some, but very few. Often times an engineer would, like you mention with the B,S&T stuff, (guitar with bass on one track), other engineers would put drums and bass on one track to free up space.

I've even gotten my claws into sixteen-track multi's where the drums are ONLY on a single track. Stuff from Motown comes to mind. (The Jackson 5's "ABC" is but one example). So that might explain some of the later mixes because not everything was recorded with Quad in mind. So, during sessions or mixdowns - they had no idea this stuff would eventually be used for Quad.

One thing I can't excuse though is diagonal drums such as on the Labelle album - - and it's ONLY on one song, the BEST song and they ruin it with their cross-channel drums. I'd like to slap whoever did that one.

When I mix, if I only have one track of drums, I'll make it's stereo mate have percussion. In my mix of "I heard it through the Grapevine" by Marvin Gaye, I placed the drum kit in back left, tambourine and conga in back right. Organ Front Left, Guitar Front Right. Each instrument has a channel, so I flesh it out with with straight bass front center, processed bass back center. Marvin front center with his echoes FL and FR, the girls back center and the strings and horns (which was one channel) filled up into fat mono and placed in all four channels. It's probably my favorite of ALL my eight-track mixes.

Another time, such as on my mix of "For what it's Worth" by Buffalo Springfield, even though that eight-track did have two tracks of drums (one for the kicker, one for the kit) I put both tracks in Back Right or as I call it "Columbia-style" . Straight Bass in all four, acoustic rhythm #1 FR, acoustic rhythm #2 back left (as it was more percussive), lead electric FL. Lead vocal front center, backing vocal back center. Everything has it's own channel but it's still a nice, fleshed-out mix.

 

[Q-Eight]

I've also got a theory for some of these instances in a Columbia quad where only one or several tracks have the drums in a different place, while the rest of the album doesn't:

Perhaps in the case of say, Labelle's Nightbirds, they originally mixed "Lady Marmalade" with the drums in the front (like the rest of the album), then ran it through this "discrete bypass" switch and found it didn't decode so well. So they moved the drums to a diagonal placement, flipped the switch again, and found it decoded better.

Same with Ten Years After's A Space In Time- maybe the original test mix of "I'd Love to Change The World" had the drums in the front, but it didn't decode well so they moved them to the rear, because the decoder could better reproduce that effect.

I'm imagining a sort of "trial and error" scenario where they would do a mix, then keep adjusting it based on how the SQ decode sounded.

I think Dave is absolutely right that the quality of the SQ decode took precedent over everything, even the overall logic or consistency of the mix itself. Fascinating!

I'd buy that. Because it really does seem like an afterthought or some kind of hail-Mary pass just to get it SQ-compatible. I can't imagine any engineer with any kind of training would allow a mix like that to go out and have him be proud of it.