Unknown ABC/Dunhill quad mixes?

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ClarkNovak

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Since 2002/2003
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I recently came upon an ABC/Dunhill promo sampler issued to radio as a "Christmas Gift" in December of 1971. Two songs on each side are marked with an asterisk, and at the bottom, a note explains that those songs are "Sansui Encoded".

One of these songs is "Daisy Mae," a cut from Hamilton, Joe Frank & Reynolds' debut Lp.
The other is Tommy Roe's version of "Stagger Lee", which was on the 1971 album "Beginnings" as well as the "16 Greatest Hits" comp.

Has anyone ever heard about either of these artists having a shelved Quad mix done? Were there ABC quads that never got released?

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If it is abc or impulse go check the album the cuts appear, the chance the whole lp is encoded is a good one.
 
Good suggestion. My venerable "Hamilton, Joe Frank & Reynolds" Lp (Dunhill DS-50103) shows no mention of Quad on the label or jacket, like all the other single inventory "compatible Quadraphonic" ABC releases did. I don't own the Tommy Roe Lp (his best days were way behind him at this point), so no way to check that one.

I guess I'll have to run these two cuts through the QS decode script in Audition and see what happens!
 
It's more likely certain cuts were pulled from the multis for remixing and encoding, since "Daisy Mae" is apparently encoded but "Don't Pull Your Love" isn't. ABC never really got involved in quad to the degree expected. Whether they did or didn't do whole albums never released is something we'd like an answer to.

This assumes of course that the label copy is accurate.

ED :)
 
Very cool find! Even impressing the long timers! :)
 
There was allegedly a quad mix made of the Mamas & the Papas greatest hits.

That's one I would have grabbed up in a heartbeat! ABC was a bit uncertain of how quad would go over, and they got into it a bit late in the game for the dual inventory releases. Because they never indicated on the bulk of their quad releases which system they were encoded with (except on some of the single-inventory Impulse and Bluesway product, where they called it "standard matrix"), I wonder how many people assumed they were SQ-encoded and never heard them quite correctly.
 
This might also have been ABC's experiment in quad encoding, based on the date of the recording. This is pretty much at the beginning of quad on LP. My guess is that they were still feeling their way through the whole multichannel thing. It's a shame they didn't do more pop releases sooner; their efforts might have swayed some of the bigger labels, in particular the Warner music group, to embrace QS, as they initially announced they'd do before Brad Miller, from Mobile Fidelity, threatened to pull his releases from their label if they didn't go CD-4. I guess he had a lot more clout than anyone realized!
 
It wouldn't surprise me if Hamilton, Joe Frank & Reynolds had been considered, if not prepared for Quad release. A pattern I've noticed is that if it appeared on a sampler, but the album from which that song came never appeared.... bet your sweet bippy that album was prepped and shelved. Years ago, it was brought to our attention that "Time after Time" by Paul Revere & The Raiders appeared on a Columbia/Nippon QS (Maybe SQ?) Sampler. A few years later, we discovered that "Hard & Heavy (with Marshmallow)" was one of the very early Test Reels from the Mike Robin collection. This also occured with an Edgar Winter's White Trash song appearing in a sampler and a few others that escape me. But the pattern is definitely there.

I also think Lighthouses' "One Fine Morning" album was prepared for Quad as well, due to the fact that two tracks from that album appear on a GTE/Sylvania SQ LP & Q8.
Though they were signed to the Evolution label at that time.
 
I think "One Fine Morning" appeared on an Australian sampler, encoded in the EV system. I have an American Evolution sampler that does have one cut from Lighthouse, but not that one. That Paul Revere cut was on a Japanese CBS/Sony sampler, not Nippon Columbia, which is now Denon Records. That label did release some QS recordings, but abandoned QS for their own UD-4 system that really never really went anywhere. It's really a shame ABC didn't do more with quad. All the quad went out the window when ABC was sold out to Universal. Too bad.
 
"One Fine Morning" must get around then if it was on other Samplers. I have it on a GTE/Sylvania Q8 player Demonstration tape in all it's discrete 4-channel glory. Thanks for correcting me in regards to the Japanese Sampler. My memory ain't as good as it used to be.
 
"One Fine Morning" must get around then if it was on other Samplers. I have it on a GTE/Sylvania Q8 player Demonstration tape in all it's discrete 4-channel glory. Thanks for correcting me in regards to the Japanese Sampler. My memory ain't as good as it used to be.

Nor is my memory all that good. Now, what were we talking about?
 
"Daisy Mae" was released on a quad single (ABC Dunhill D-4296) but the only copy I have seen is a WLP and it may never have gotten to a general release. It was, however, the only quad release I had ever seen on Dunhill vinyl before this. (Stuff like Three Dog Night was on stereo Dunhill but quad Command.)
 
It must be remembered that later on, it's been claimed that ABC dumped a ton of multitracks and even mono master tapes. Whether they kept any QS-encoded mixdowns beyond the released album masters is the question, but who has the answer? Some Impulse! QS encoded tapes have made it to compact disc, but one wonders if the QS-encoded tapes still exist for the ABC/Dunhill/Command albums. It's very possible, but if so who would bother issuing them?

ED :)
 
It must be remembered that later on, it's been claimed that ABC dumped a ton of multitracks and even mono master tapes. Whether they kept any QS-encoded mixdowns beyond the released album masters is the question, but who has the answer? Some Impulse! QS encoded tapes have made it to compact disc, but one wonders if the QS-encoded tapes still exist for the ABC/Dunhill/Command albums. It's very possible, but if so who would bother issuing them?
ED :)
That would be tragedy if it was in fact done, hopefully someone with more foresight than the brass at ABC would have rescued the tapes form the dust bin, maybe they will surface someday! As a closet hoarder at heart I can't understand the mentality of people who would do something like that. I would love to hear those encoded tracks from "XMAS 1971" in Quad. Tommy Roe "Beginnings" was one of my favourite albums, but it hasn't even been released on a stereo CD yet! Maybe unreleased Quad Mixed test tapes still exist somewhere (as with Columbia). Joe Walsh "So What" must of been done, it was announced with a catalogue number even, tracks surfaced on the Koss Perspectives album.
 
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