Don't know what I have...

[Paul Vaccaro]

I am new to this forum but thought that perhaps someone here could help me clear up an old question. About 15 or 20 years ago I bought seven reel to reel tapes at a flea market. The tapes are all on Scotch brand 7" reels, two are in plain white boxes, and the other five in "Scotch recording tape" boxes. Two of the "Scotch" boxes have sticker labels indicating that the the tape is a developmental product, specifically #LR 1279. The recording are all four channel discrete 7 1/2 ips CBS classical selections. Each box has a green CBS Columbia label adhered to it that read, for example;

CBS STEREO COLUMBIA MAGNETIC TAPE CARTRIDGE, STRAVINSKY: THE FIREBIRD SUITE, IGOR STRAVINSKY CONDUCTING THE COLUMBIA SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA, RMQ 14.

Each tape has a different RMQ # which I assume is some kind of catalog #. There is no labeling on the tape reels themselves. I occassionaly play the tapes on an Akai 1800D-SS through a Sansui QR-6500 and four Sansui SP-2500 speakers and they sound fantastic. My question; what are they? Are they copies from another format?, masters?, or maybe some kind of test market product? Your input would be most appreciated.

 

[winopener]

From the description sounds like someone copied a quad 8 track to reel.

 

[Paul Vaccaro]

Could be but I really don't think so. There is absolutely no indication of track switching and the sound quality is not that of 8 track. Along that line of thinking, however, does anyone know if the the "RMQ" numbering corresponds to 8 track catalog numbers?

 

[winopener]

Classical columbia 8 track cart uses the MAQ prefix.
Could you post a scan of one of these labels?

 

[Paul Vaccaro]

I have attached a scan of the tape box with the referenced label. So what is it?

 

[Q-Eight]

That's really odd that it says developmental product as there were NO North American Q4's from Columbia. Japanese/European market there were a few. Guess they were considering them for the US.

That's really neat. Perhaps "RMQ" was to be the new catalog matrix for Columbia Quad Reels?

 

[QuadraTOMic]

There weren't any commercial Columbia Q4's, I'm thinking you may have some commercial two track tapes, possibly for radio distribution. They would plan like a Q4 on most decks.

 

[winopener]

Columbia did some quad reel in japan only - our QuadFirst has some - probably this reel hold a pre-master for Q8 duplication. The indication "cartridge" on the columbia label will be odd at best for a ever-intended commercial reel at any stage of production, so i'm inclined to exclude this possibility, unless they used a sticker intended for 4/8 tracks cart made for internal use (duplication test or something similar) for which they had plenty of - possibly leftovers - to label such a weirdo. Notice also the two-arrowed "stereo", kind of design that goes really back in time - IIRC the most recent similar thing i've seen with the arrowed stereo was a Santana Caravanserai, first pressing.

Regarding the "developement" sticker, that seems to relate to the 3m reel - a test for a new oxide formula or something similar. The "physical" indication relate to the specific reel and probably the LR is a numbering for a specifc reel spool production - and Columbia can care less of the reel is clear or grey.
BTW, it is common procedure to distribute some sampler of new products inside the industry to check out how they works before going to market. I may have still somewhere some TDK cd-r labeled "for evaluation".

What remains a weird thing is the RMQ 14 numbering. The only possibility for speculating further will be to check out all the titles and cat.n. you have with the corresponding quad releases and see what correlation could be made.
BTW, someone in the past said that there was also a R2R record club. Since we know that there has been quad releases in record club only, could it be that there was the idea to offer some quad recording with that R2R club?

 

[Paul Vaccaro]

Great input - thank you! To the suggestion that these are in actuality two channel tapes I can tell you that I have no doubt that these are four channel mixes. The front rear distinction is obvious and very impressive. The green labels each have a right angle corner extension that appears intended to be applied to the side of a box or cartridge but are not aligned in a way that would make any sense for an 8 tack cartridge. On four of the tape boxes these extensions have been seperated from the rest of the label and adhered seperately to a side panle of the box. On three of the boxes the label is placed so that the extention "flips" over to the side panel of the box. The following is a complete list of titles and corresonding catalog #s;

RMQ 8 Rimsky - Koraskov: Scheherazade Op. 35, NY Phil, Bernstein
RMQ 13 Serenade For Strings, Philadelphia Orch, Ormandy
RMQ 14 Stravinsky: The Firebird Suite, Columbia Symphony, Stravinsky
RMQ 15 Copland: Appalachain Spring etc, NY Phil, Bernstein
RMQ 19 Prokofiev: Classical Symp Op 25 etc, Philadelphia Orch, Ormandy
RMQ 22 Three Favorite Ballets; Chopin & Delibes, Philadelphia Orch, Ormandy
RMQ 489 Beethoven: Emperor Concerto No. 5 E-Flat, Serkin, NY Phil, Bernstein

Again any insight regarding this mystery is appreciated!

 

[winopener]

I didn't noticed that "extension" and for a quad cart it make sense: just flip it 180 degrees and you can see that this "missing corner" fits well where is the typical notch of q8 shells. The size seems ok. Also the rounded hole at the bottom make sense if you reverse the picture, because it leave accessible the junction of the two part of the shell.

Regarding the RMQ numbers... a straight jump from 22 to 489 is another oddity. Did existed somewhere the other 467 reels?
Doing a quick check with the Columbia listing on the site, it shows that:
8 and 13 doesn't exist
14 has a possible corrispondence with MQ 33508
15 19 22 489 doesn't exist.
More and more oddities...

Quick check with the "external world":

Rimsky - Koraskov Scheherazade Bernstein
http://www.amazon.com/Rimsky-Korsakov-Scheherazade-Capriccio-Leonard-Bernstein/dp/B00000FCKY

Serenade For Strings, Philadelphia Ormandy
http://www.amazon.com/Tchaikovsky-Symphony-No-5-Serenade-Strings/dp/B0000027AP

Stravinsky Firebird Suite Columbia Symphony
http://www.amazon.com/Rite-Spring-Firebird-Suite-Stravinsky/dp/B00004S4RJ

Copland Appalachain Spring Bernstein
http://www.buy.com/prod/copland_appalachain_spring_el_salon_sacd_/q/loc/109/60602787.html

Prokofiev Classical Op 25 Philadelphia Ormandy
http://www.amazon.com/Prokofiev-Symphonies-1-5-Sergey/dp/B0000028X3

Three Favorite Ballets Chopin Philadelphia Ormandy
http://cgi.ebay.com/CHOPIN-DELIBES-...038404727QQihZ014QQcategoryZ306QQcmdZViewItem

Beethoven Emperor Concerto Serkin Bernstein
http://www.amazon.com/Bernstein-Century-Beethoven-Piano-Concertos/dp/B0000029XE

All discs are from columbia/sony.

Intresting the "three ballets" reference: shows a Masterwork stereo LP of 1973.

 

[Quadwreck]

Production masters for 8-track cartidges were usually 8-channel tapes, whether they were stereo or quad. That way they could run the entire content at once, saving a lot of time in the manufacturing process.

 

[Paul Vaccaro]

Thank you all again for your input. As I study the labels more and compare them with the only Columbia Q8 tape that I have (Switched-On-Bach) I find that the labeling configuration is different but that certainly the labels could fit on such a cartridge. So what does that make my tapes? Some kind of masters for a Columbia Q8 tape series that we can't confirm was ever released, maybe? The more that I think I have this figured out the less certain I am. Wait a minute, one more piece of information, three of the labels have additional coding in very very small print in the bottom right hand corner as follows;

Tape RMQ 19 "374-0101-810"
Tape RMQ 22 "374-0101-840"
Tape RMQ 489 "374-0101-900"

The other four tapes have no such coding, very odd indeed.

 

[winopener]

Un-approved quad mixes?
In any case, i will try to preserve it at best. From what i've seen some has been released as sacd but stereo only.

 

[cash68]

Very cool man... very cool!

 

[coolcatdaddy]

I'll add a bit of conjecture here of my own.

First off, these would appear to have been specifically recorded for playback on a reel to reel Quad deck, considering the track and speed configuration.

Secondly, others have noted that no Quad reels were issued by Columbia, at least in the US.

So my guess is that these are some type of copies intended as a test or for review of possible Q4 Columbia releases that never panned out.

Although the label says "Columbia Magnetic Tape Cartridge", that doesn't mean that the contents or tape have any relationship to a cartridge-based product. If they were assembling a set of these for different managers within the company or perhaps for previews to members of the press, they may have grabbed any convenient blank labels and sent them through a printer to add the title and catalogue number information. There may have only been a half-dozen or dozen (or even less) of each titled duplicated.

If they were intended as mixes for artists or producers to review, I'm assuming there would be only one or two copies made with a handwritten label; the catalogue number used would apply to the actual project and not be something odd like what we see here.

 

[Paul Vaccaro]

Well, here I am seventeen plus years later with an update. My apologies but I was way off base about what these tapes are. I recently pulled them off the shelf and took another stab at researching the labels and catalog #’s with the Google results popping out almost immediately (what a difference seventeen years makes). The labels come from the collaboration of CBS Columbia and 3M and their short lived M2 Stereo Tape Cartridges circa 1964. Interestingly each RMQ XXX catalog number corresponds directly to an MQ XXX 4-Track tape catalog number. (How did I miss that before?) Simultaneously it dawned on me that these tapes are not quadraphonic at all but rather 2-track stereo (as was suggested way back then on this forum) although I have not been able to cross reference these titles to 2-Track catalog numbers. My interest renewed I contacted the proprietor of a local repair shop that deals in vintage audio systems and in turn was introduced to a young audiophile technician who very graciously volunteered to help me evaluate what I have. Luckily, I happen to have the 4-Track version of the Scheherazade release (CBS MQ 388) and what we concluded, based on a side-by-side playback comparison on his very high-end system, is that the 2 Track version sounds outstanding (considering the original production standards) and has an even lower noise floor than the also wonderful sounding 4-Track version. This was important to me because in the back of my mind I wondered if maybe someone, for whatever reason, had simply copied the 1 7/8 ips M2 cartridges to 7 ½ ips 2-Track and transferred the labels. As my new friend put it, if they were copies of the cartridge tapes, he would expect to hear playback induced machine noise typical with such low-speed cartridge systems and nowhere near the apparent frequency range. I still don’t know how these tapes came to be, but my inkling is that they were copied from master material to the 2-Track format and the associated labeling applied as part of some kind of marketing effort either in house (CBS or 3M) or perhaps for distribution to radio stations? One additional point to consider is that five of the seven tapes lead off with about a ten second 1 kHz tone that I can only assume was intended for playback calibration and that I highly doubt was present on the cartridge tapes. Your thoughts?

 

[barfle]

These are only the requested “thoughts,” and are certainly not from a position of experience.

I’m a bit confused by conflicting posts of certainty that the tapes are quad and that they are stereo. From reading the thread, it seems like they are half-track stereo tapes played on a quarter-track stereo deck, so recersing the reels would result in a backwards playback, but that’s just my guess.

As to the origin of the tapes, it’s just a guess, but they seem like they might be a safety copy of a master intended for stereo 8-track duplication, given the pasted-on label in the picture. At any rate, if they were mine, I’d create a set of 24 bit 96kHz flac or wav file of each of the tapes, whether 2 or 4-channels, and make backup copies of them to insure that the contents are preserved.

 

[LB-V]

My main thought is "holy crap...17 years, 6 posts....back to the OP....".

That, for whatever reasons, is....different. The tapes in question have been with you for nearly 35 or so years....and the mystery persists. That is extraordinary


My thoughts.

Hope you get to the bottom of things!!!

 

[Mr. Afternoon]

I'm sorry to get off topic but props to the OP for remembering his password after 17 years...

 

[ssully]

I have attached a scan of the tape box with the referenced label. So what is it?

The label indicates this is the whole ballet, not the Suite.


I'm totally confused at this point whether this tape is stereo or quad. Which is it?