Genesis Rock Theatre

I have this old compilation on vinyl that I bought new in the 90's and it's a late italian 80's pressing (1986 IIRC)
It is pre-Lamb compilation with excerpts taken from Nursery Cryme, Foxtrot and Selling England.

When I played this record it sounded weird I really hated it, though it has the 7" version of Watcher of The Skies there that I love.
I preferred always the "original" studio versions, so I just played those songs from the originals (except WOTS)

I pulled it out again a few months ago and re-played it and during WOTS I noticed that the guitar sounded fully out-of-phase. I thought to play it with my Sansui in QS but it only expanded the sound stage, so I played in SQ and......
WOW!!!!!!!!!!
I was blown away by its discretness (can I say that)?????
I played the whole record because I thought it was a good idea and what sounded weird when I bought it now was amazing!!!
Nursery Cryme songs sounded with a little reverberation in the rears, Selling England's had some percussions and organ parts well defined on the RL and RR but what let me literally cry was Supper's Ready!

The bad news is that my record is in good condition but still full of scratches (my fault)
Anyway, you can clearly hear acoustic guitars in the back left and right as well as some electric guitar parts I've never heard so clear before.
Amazing is the part when PG sings "Feel your body melt" in the front center and then the other two parts going on the LR (highest pitch voice) and RR (lowest pitch voice)
SPECTACULAR!!!!

I bought recently its CD version and it's surely taken from the original stereo recordings, so no quad effect

I did have the CD but let it slip away; the CD was nowhere near the vinyl experience? Seems odd if they're the same masters.

Right, very different experience and, believe me, different mixes. "I know what I like" has the charleston playing on front right while cd and original version not, and that's what makes me think they used a different master for my vinyl copy

Lucano: What label is your copy on? I have seen it refered to as variously a German release or an Italian release..... John S.

It's a 1986 pressing italian Virgin/Charisma label. A friend of mine has it on Fontana (Philips) which was the original German pressing I never A/B'd them anyway.
My CD version was (intentionally) bought from a UK pressing because it was done by Virgin in 1986, but it sounds different.
ASAP I'll post a scan of it with its serial

Here it is



I was wrong about the stamper date which is dated June 13 1990

Catalog number GRT-100

I found a fontana copy today for $4 while record shopping. I'll be recording it and software decoding it tonight, and will report back with my findings.

Watcher of the skies is the 45rpm version and has Steve Hackett guitar full rear left in SQ

Well, we won't be seeing a conversion of this anytime soon. I hate the wiring in this apartment, it has been a never ending battle with hum here, and whenever it appears somewhere there is ABSOLUTELY NOTHING I can do to get rid of it. I can have everything plugged into the same outlet, and everything grounded properly, and hum will appear out of nowhere one day. I have had to resort to getting ground loop isolators to be able to continue running my internet radio show out of here without hum ruining everything, and it seems every few weeks just when I have it under control the hum pops up somewhere else and forces me out to radio shack to buy more ground loop isolators. Well, this week it decided to pop up on the inputs on the aardvark card on my computer that I record conversions into when recording stereo records in, and I have spent hours trying to get rid of the damn thing with no luck whatsoever no matter what I do. I'll report back in a few years when I move.

It has always pissed me off that consumers got the cheap end of the stick with audio equipment. I just don't understand why this bullshit is acceptable when it all can be avoided by using BALANCED CONNECTIONS. But...no one takes pride in their work, and will just release shit to the consumer, to give them a choice of piece of shit A, or piece of shit B.

Ok, I managed to get it to where I can record again. But my previous rant still stands

I did have the power supply die on me on the computer I use to record things, and I did buy a decent replacement. But apparently this one hasn't been dealing with the shitty electrical here as well as the old one. I don't get it, the old one was a freebie that came with the cheap case I bought to build one of my machines, so it's not like it was anything good. In the end, having everything disconnected and unplugged, and only plugging in the stereo, turntable, headamp, and computer, and having only the turntable hooked up to the headamp to the phono in with the line out going to the inputs on my aardvark card, I still got hum. There is only one way to eliminate it from my setup, and it's something I don't like doing, but I may as well since otherwise I have little use for my machine. Lift the ground on the computer. That is the only way I can record at this point. Lovely, eh? Ground sucks.

That reminds me of what happened to me with my brand new Sony TT. At the end it was a ground wire disconnected into the tonearm!!!

Darn....nada. Very much not SQ. Well that answers that question.

Back to this old thread.
Still no answer if that was SQ or not, but now I have the GREAT Involve SQS I managed to play it back again.
Supper's ready is amazing and the quad effect is so real. I don't know how it's possible, I do have the original LP version (Foxtrot album) and a cd version of this compilation. They sound different, though mixing and timing look just the same...
It sounds like if it was intended for quad. I'm planning to sample it from my Involve unit and do a dts.wav file of this song, just for fun, and put it on my Dropbox folder for you guys.

I am excited by this prospect!