Blue Oyster Cult "Agents of Fortune" - unreleased quad mix?

[sjcorne]

I've always felt that the reverse is true. Quad mixes are usually wetter than their stereo counterparts. They give a much richer sound when played via stereo than the stereo record does! Off the top of my head I can't even think of an exception to that "rule".

Yes, that is true of some quad titles from other labels (ABC springs to mind - the Steely Dan and Jim Croce quads are quite 'wet' in comparison to their stereo counterparts) but the ones from the CBS family of labels are almost always much, much drier. The Billy Joel quads are a great example of this, as is Rick Derringer's All American Boy - the difference is not subtle. The only exception I can think of offhand is Burton Cummings' self-titled album, where the quad is wetter than the stereo.

 

[par4ken]

Yes, that is true of some quad titles from other labels (ABC springs to mind - the Steely Dan and Jim Croce quads are quite 'wet' in comparison to their stereo counterparts) but the ones from the CBS family of labels are almost always much, much drier. The Billy Joel quads are a great example of this, as is Rick Derringer's All American Boy - the difference is not subtle. The only exception I can think of offhand is Burton Cummings' self-titled album, where the quad is wetter than the stereo.

Agree about Burton Cummings (the most glaring example) but not about Rick Derringer. I always thought that Rick Derringer was one of the closest the to the stereo version, but I never compared them directly. I don't know about Billy Joel as I really don't really like his material so I don't have any of his quads, I might go for "Piano Man" at some point or most likely for a DV release, if one ever turns up!

Other examples are "The Best Of Mountain", Janis Joplin "Pearl", BS&T "Greatest Hits", Cat Stevens "Tea For The Tillerman".
I don't think that the Edgar and Johnny Winter quads are dry either, nor Poco. The Santana's, the Aerosmith's ect.

I think that we do agree that they can be very different, even if we disagree just what that difference is.

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[fredblue]

Agree about Burton Cummings (the most glaring example) but not about Rick Derringer. I always thought that Rick Derringer was one of the closest the to the stereo version, but I never compared them directly. I don't know about Billy Joel as I really don't really like him so I don't have any of his quads, I might go for "Piano Man" at some point or most likely for a DV release, if one ever turns up!

Other examples are "The Best Of Mountain", Janis Joplin "Pearl", BS&T "Greatest Hits", Cat Stevens "Tea For The Tillerman".
I don't think that the Edgar and Johnny Winter quads are dry either, nor Poco. The Santana's, the Aerosmith's ect.

I think that we do agree that they can be very different, even if we disagree just what that difference is.

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a number of WEA & ABC Quads are wetter than their Stereo originals but a greater number of CBS Quads are much drier than the Stereo, including the Quad of Derringer's "All American Boy" which is significantly drier than the Stereo, with little to none of the reverb or delays or effects of the original mixes. also, the Stereo of Poco's "Crazy Eyes" is a lot wetter than the Quad.

i suspect some of this may have been down to CBS' SQ mixing rules, including guidelines on reverb?

maybe it merits its' own QQ thread if it's never been done before? it's an interesting topic!

 

[par4ken]

a number of WEA & ABC Quads are wetter than their Stereo originals but a greater number of CBS Quads are much drier than the Stereo, including the Quad of Derringer's "All American Boy" which is significantly drier than the Stereo, with little to none of the reverb or delays or effects of the original mixes. also, the Stereo of Poco's "Crazy Eyes" is a lot wetter than the Quad.

i suspect some of this may have been down to CBS' SQ mixing rules, including guidelines on reverb?

maybe it merits its' own QQ thread if it's never been done before? it's an interesting topic!

I haven't directly compared mixes but I think that the dryness that you are hearing is because the (CBS) SQ quads were mixed with such extreme separation between tracks. Listening to the DV releases you go WOW at times at other times feel that the extreme isolation of instruments is a bit over the top. They were mixed to sound right played through a full logic SQ decoder. The encode/decode process is not perfect so that random phase shifted crosstalk components abound. That is what makes virtually all CBS SQ releases sound wetter to me. By comparison the stereo mixes sound rather plain, boring even.

Another example of a wet quad mix is David Essex "Rock On".

 

[par4ken]

Further on this wet vs dry discussion. Yesterday I was cleaning up my hard drives, filing away audio rips in their proper place. I briefly started listening to Rick Derringer "Teenage Queen" from"All American Boy", discrete version, front channels only and I could hear that dyrness that sjcorne was talking about.

It can be a bit weird, eerie even just listening to vocals in isolation! IMHO that dryness is less noticeable when immersed in an active mix, and further obscured by SQ encoding.

I have a reissue LP (1986) of The Electric Prunes "I Had Too Much To Dream Last Night", it actually sounds rather odd to me, being so wet, drenched in reverb. In contrast the mono release sounds, well just normal. That stereo LP however drives the Tate crazy! You would think that it was encoded!

Sorry to be drifting so far off the original topic. I just wish that I would have placed a much larger bid for that "Agents of Fortune" LP. It would have been so cool for that record label alone!

 

[kissklas]

So where do we stand on this now? We know this label exists. Do we know for sure what the runout says? We still have a few claims it sounds different than the stereo pressing. Is there anyone who can deliver a digital recording from this record?

 

[Old Quad Guy]

Patty Smith’s vocal dialogue at the beginning of the song should come from the right back speaker. Or a separate speaker decoded with SQ. If you have that, then it should be Quad. But if it’s the same decode of her vocal as with a stereo record, then perhaps a label misprint.