Quad version of Pink Floyd Meddle

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Columbia House offered Pink Floyd on R2R tape into the early '80's, but those who have them aren't in a big hurry to let people know they have them or to give them up.

Columbia House never offered any Pink Floyd albums in any format. I always thought that was odd, especially since they were on Columbia back when reels were still around. I've since heard that record club sales resulted in no royalties being paid to the artists but were simply a tool to boost sales figures and chart positions. I don't know if that's true, but I could certainly see Pink Floyd denying their product to the clubs for that reason. Believe me, had reels been available, I'd have bought them.

As for the alleged quad versions of "Animals" and "Meddle"...let's just say it's extremely unlikely. Your point about the Japanese reels is well-taken, but this forum would have gone completely nuts if authentic quads of either had turned up.
 
Thanks to all for the information that the quads are faked. Judging from the low-quality pictures, it seems very easy to manufacture pics of SQ and Q8 versions of both. The mixes do sound pretty good, though. The upmixer went to an awful lot of trouble to fake both Q8 and SQ versions.

As for Columbia House, I read online that Columbia House had a very special and very small reel-to-reel club and that Animals was offered. Columbia House did offer R2R tapes up until 1983 (I think), but members had to indicate a special preference for them to get the listings. I too was surprised when I was a member in the '80's and could not obtain Pink Floyd records from Columbia House. I probably would have remained a member longer had they been available, but my budget was very thin back then.
 
Thanks to all for the information that the quads are faked. Judging from the low-quality pictures, it seems very easy to manufacture pics of SQ and Q8 versions of both. The mixes do sound pretty good, though. The upmixer went to an awful lot of trouble to fake both Q8 and SQ versions.

I should mention that the hardcover book that came with the "Shine On" box makes mention of a quad mix of "Meddle" being prepared. If that's accurate, one exists (or existed!) in the vaults, but it's never seen the light of day.

As for Columbia House, I read online that Columbia House had a very special and very small reel-to-reel club and that Animals was offered. Columbia House did offer R2R tapes up until 1983 (I think), but members had to indicate a special preference for them to get the listings. I too was surprised when I was a member in the '80's and could not obtain Pink Floyd records from Columbia House. I probably would have remained a member longer had they been available, but my budget was very thin back then.

Columbia House, at least by the time I was old enough to be a member, didn't have a dedicated reel club, but they definitely did often make reels available and were the last and only place to get reels of new mainstream titles. 1983 sounds about right for the death. Going back into the dimmest reaches of my failing memory, I think every entry in the catalog ended with with the codes showing which format was available...I'm thinking "S" for "Record" (probably because in prior years that meant "stereo"), "C" for "Cassette", "X" for 8-track and "T" for reel (held over from the days when "tape" meant "reel"?), but I'm probably wrong. The last reel I remember buying was The Eagles' "The Long Run", but maybe I got others. Their criteria for whether or not to release something on reel often made no sense to me.

Another oddity was that even in the 1970s, every reel they sold was manufactured by Columbia House or was left over from an earlier Columbia era--during the time when you could still occasionally get reasonably new titles on reel in the stores, Columbia didn't offer them. So you could get Columbia's custom-made reel of something you couldn't buy in the stores, but you couldn't get, say, anything by Elton John, even though everything up through "Caribou" was released on reel by MCA.

Here's the reference for the Animals R2R. It's the last post on the thread.

http://www.stevehoffman.tv/forums/ar.../t-139264.html

Well, I certainly don't know everything...but as a very long time Pink Floyd fan, an even longer time reel fan and a member of the Columbia Record Club during the era in question, I just have a very, very, very hard time believing this. I guess it's possible that there was some extremely brief window during which CH manufactured a reel of "Animals", but I find it hard to believe for multiple reasons, mainly the otherwise complete nonexistence of Pink Floyd in the CH catalogs and the fact that I'd never heard about it until now.

Further, Columbia House's usual routine for rock/pop reels was to use 3-3/4 i.p.s. 7-1/2 i.p.s. was reserved for "serious" (i.e., classical) titles. Back in the days when you could buy reels in the stores, some Columbia pop titles were 7-1/2, but I never saw a single one from the club. So the poster's claim that he had a 7-1/2 i.p.s. reel of "Animals" is doubly difficult for me to believe.

By the way, at the time reel finally croaked, CH was actually working some pretty good magic at 3-3/4. I guess it's not that shocking given that cassettes could sound OK at half that speed, but for most of reel's life, "3-3/4" meant "probably won't sound all that great." I also remember pre-recorded cassettes finally starting to sound pretty darned good right before CDs came along, so much so that I had started buying them for the convenience...of course, if I listened to them now after years of high-quality digital, I'd probably think they were awful.
 
I joined that Columbia House Reel Club, and here's what I did. I would unspool the stereo tape, then spool on some blank Maxell UD or TDK reel tape, then record my Q8 of the same title onto the reel. I'd then have a quad reel of the title with the proper graphics and a quad reel to play!

As I recall, there were no Pink Floyds, but I did this for artists like Chicago, Paul Simon, Carpenters, Santana and others. It worked out pretty well, as they were not that expensive.

However, every stereo reel I received from CH was absolutely 3 3/4ips. I never got a 7 1/2 ip reel, period.

BTW - I still have many of these reels, and have converted quite a few. It's amazing how a Q8 copy from 30 years ago still sounds pretty good! I wonder if using the better tape and recording them at 7 1/2 ips preserved the music better than if I just saved the Q8?
 
I too find it hard to believe that the Animals R2R (if it existed) was offered on 7-1/2. That seems very unlikely. I am quite surprised about the opinion regarding 3-3/4 for most of its run. I have only two recorded R2R tapes, the White Album and Days of Future Passed. Both of them run at 3-3/4, and both of them sound overwhelmingly superior to anything I have listened to in any other medium including vinyl.

There is an interesting question about what would have aged better, a commercially produced 8-track or a copy made onto quality R2R. We're going way off topic here, but it's a fascinating question. I must admit that R2R tape certainly ages well.
 
I don't recall any Pink Floyd albums officially released on reel to reel for the consumer market. The Japanese Odeon label did make a limited run of some of the pre-DSOTM albums, but they are rare. I do have The Final Cut on 2 15ips half track stereo reels that were made for radio broadcast. What was shocking is that DSOTM was never relased on reel to reel even in stereo. You'd think it would have been a big seller.

A_L
 
Hey Alanwescoat, take a break and listen please.
Of course the 2 quad versions of Meddle and Animals are home-made upmixes.
They have to be mixed this way, 'cause they are not available in quad officially.
So this was a fan project which needed much time and work.
The cover pictures used in the menus are partly fakes of course too.
So one can imagine how it could look like (not only listen how it could sound like...)
But these are generally not poor scans - they are just extremely downsized for their place
as a small background picture, that's all. You can find two of them full-sized here on the forum.
For the faked 4Channel RM covers go to:
https://www.quadraphonicquad.com/forums/showthread.php?12782
Just scroll down (you have to be logged in to see the images).
And please keep in mind that these are fakes only - just to illustrate our dreams...
 
if meddle werem released in quad, it would probably be a matrixed piece of shit Q8 just like AHM & DSOTM. FWIW AHM sounds more "quad" than DSOTM, better decoder possibly? When it comes to the US Quad DSOTM, it is the ONLY quad recording that i would rather hear on vinyl than Q8. i rather have a 100% discrete recording with a little worse fidelity, than a matrixed recording with great sound with bleedthrough on all channels
 
if meddle werem released in quad, it would probably be a matrixed piece of shit Q8 just like AHM & DSOTM. FWIW AHM sounds more "quad" than DSOTM, better decoder possibly? When it comes to the US Quad DSOTM, it is the ONLY quad recording that i would rather hear on vinyl than Q8. i rather have a 100% discrete recording with a little worse fidelity, than a matrixed recording with great sound with bleedthrough on all channels

The EMI UK Q8's are discrete mixes. If Meddle had a quad release, I'm sure that would have been a discrete mix in the UK too.

A_L
 
Sorry A_L, i should have specified the US tapes are the matrices POS. I'm never gonna be able to own the UK q8 of either albums (too much $$) I think I'm nuts for spending 91 on wywh
 
Many years has passed and to my surprise I found a download of Pink floyd Meddle in dvd audio...I'm guessing your saying to yourself this can't be right but yes I found a download of Pink Floyd Meddle it states it's dvd audio and it has all the signs of a dvd audio...24/96 6 ch 8700 Kbps and the 5.1 is amazing and in the music properties on foobar 2000 it also states it's dvd audio what a amazing find where it came from I don't have a clue but I'm over joyed that I have it.
 
Many years has passed and to my surprise I found a download of Pink floyd Meddle in dvd audio...I'm guessing your saying to yourself this can't be right but yes I found a download of Pink Floyd Meddle it states it's dvd audio and it has all the signs of a dvd audio...24/96 6 ch 8700 Kbps and the 5.1 is amazing and in the music properties on foobar 2000 it also states it's dvd audio what a amazing find where it came from I don't have a clue but I'm over joyed that I have it.

I'll be an upmix from stereo.
 
You can have somewhat the real thing with the Quad soundtrack of Pompeii, which someone capable surely has merged with the movie.

ÂżPlease?
 
I'll be an upmix from stereo.
I'm thinking it's easy to say that because what else can it be. But upmix from stereo does it give you true 5.1 because I'm experiencing true 5.1 in the song echoes. Anyways who ever did this up did a amazing job..
 
Not all upmix methods are the same, now are the potential results possible per album. Some are quite uncanny, some are not. Probably have this, I'll put it on soon.
 
I'll have to play my CD of Meddle via the Surround Master to see how it goes...
 
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