{copying this from the other RTF thread, which is mostly fascinating posts about about shipping and boxing]
Here's a post about actual sound of this release. (Part 1 only, haven't listened to Part 2 yet). The 2023 quad -- which actually has 6 channels, with some minimal LFE content and a silent C channel -- is definitely different from the 2004 SACD quad (which was also 6 channels, with minimal content in both C and LFE), notable almost right away starting at around 0:40, the prelude to the first verse. At that point the 2004 quad has guitars, bass , drums plus low level Hammond organ in front, the rears have only guitars, but in the 2023 quad the front has bass and drums, the rears have quite loud Hammond, with nearly all the guitars shoved into the left rear channel and very low in the mix.
That's for starters.
Something strange has happened. Both of these were presumed to be from the original quad masters.
(I also have a file called REMEMBER THE FUTURE 44 CD SQ DECODE, four channels only, that I perhaps got from someone here...it's different from both of the above, which isn't unusual since I presume it is what it says, an SQ decode of a CD version thought to be SQ encoded. FWIW at 0:40 it sounds more like the 2004 quad than the 2023)
Has anyone got an old Q8 or CD4 version, for comparison to all this?
The new 6 channel mix , is , of course, altogether different , mostly very front-centric with an occasional circling content.
NOTES ADDED 12/8:
The answer to the mystery of the two quad mixes may be simply this: there were two quad mixes made for this album. This is indicated in the two essays in the booklet that comes with the set:
"..By the end of the week we were done and flew to London [from Oxfordshire] to mix the recordings with Barry [Hammond].....After a few days we found that the speakers in the mixing studio were out of phase and we had lost the guitar, so on the 27th, during the Zappa tour, Roye and I flew to Koln where we met Barry Hammond in Strommeln and remixed the entire album in one day - in Quadraphonic." -Derrick 'Mo' Moore (with Mick Brockett) August 2023
"Sessions for Remember the Future took place at Chipping Norton studios in Oxfordshire in August 1973 and took just over one week to record. From the beginnign the decision was made to mix the album for the Quadraphonic sound system ....In late August Mo Moore took the completed multitrack tapes to CBS Studio in London for Quadraphonic mixing. Unfortunately, upon arrival in Germany it was discovered that there was a technical problem with the mix, which resulted in certain instruments being inaudible.
A further Quadraphonic mix was undertaken at Dieter Dierks studio in Strommeln, along with a stereo version in September 1973 to everyone's satisfaction. Remember the Future was released on November 23rd 1973." --Mark Powell
Powell's quote makes it explicit that there were two quad mixes, something Mo's quote only implies. I suspect that Mo Moore's claim that the guitar was 'lost' on the first quad mix is an exaggeration; I hear guitars on both the 2004 and 2023 quad mix, just occasionally much lower in the mix on the 2023 quad, in places where the organ is much higher.
Using the original stereo mix* as reference, the instrumental balances on the 2004 quad are much closer to it at these points, than the 2023 quad is to it.
I wonder if the 2023 quad is simply the 'bad' first quad mix.
Also, I recall, having owned it, that the initial stereo CD releases of RtF had 'certain instruments being inaudible' and it was suspected then that a quad tape had been used as source. I wonder if it was the 'bad' quad mix...or just the front channels of one of the quad mixes. (I no longer own it to find out)
* and btw, there are differences here, too, between the original mix on the 2004 releases and the new one. This time it's EQ difference, not the mix itself. It''s a complex situation. In fact there are *three* different mastering EQs available now for the original stereo mix:
On the 2004 release, the bass EQ is the same on the DSD versus the CD layer, but the DSD layer has steadily increasing mid-treble from 1000 Hz on up to 22khz... IOW, a flat 'difference' line to 1 kHz on a graph, then a very nice smooth curve as frequency increases, indicating they were initially the same audio, but EQ was changed on one of them. Either the CD layer was dulled down, or the DSD was brightened up. Either way, that's two different masterings.
The original mix on the 2023 has a different mastering EQ from both of those. It is closer to the old DSD than the CD , but still has elevated bass and treble compared to both. So that's now three different masterings.
