P.S. : Where are we on say some Aerosmith or maybe the Mac Davis Quads? Wild Cherry, maybe?
Suggestions for Audio Fidelity Multichannel SACD Releases
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I guess it's all title dependent. Concerning Aerosmith, I would have to imagine that "Get Your Wings" has a stronger chance of release than "Rocks" and (especially) "Toys in the Attic" because of the lack of an SACD release of that title so far.
Also I doubt Audio Fidelity would have any trouble licensing albums from the likes of Mac Davis and Wild Cherry, but would titles from those artists sell well enough to make it a worthwhile endeavor for AF? Maybe, maybe not…
leevitalone1
2K Club - QQ Super Nova
All the Lou Reed stuff! Love Sweet Jane live!
Not really, if anything they have been a bit too mainstream in their choices. Greatest Hits and Best of collections are not forgotten.
They have given us a broad range of titles from fusion, to album rock, R&B, singer songwriters, 70s pop and rock, etc.
My only complaint is that they have not issued as many rock titles as I would of liked. I also would suggest titles not previously on the commercial "reel to reel" format. Seems many of the Warner titles they choose to issue were available on Q4 tapes.
So while I am hoping against odds for BOC, Aerosmith, and Edgar and Johnny Winter, or anything that rocks like Alice Cooper, I have a funny feeling that Jim Croce is going to be announced. I will be thrilled and excited just like I am about Full Sail, yet deep inside of me I will be thinking ok, another mellow title that is not rock & roll. At this point I will accept Mott The Hoople with it's oddly mixed 4-chan master just to hear something rock my world for a change.
Yes, I do agree that it would be great to have Audio Fidelity reissue some lossy DTS titles on SACD, but a title like "Play" from Peter Gabriel is not a realistic suggestion. It's a collection of videos, and the surround mixes correspond to the videos and not always to the original album masters. There are lots of other great suggestions though, which I will compile a little later on.
I agree, I don't think there's anything to be gained by petulantly demanding certain things and then sticking your fingers in your ears when the practical realities around making any kind of reissue happen are discussed.
The fact of the matter is that if reissuing old quad mixes or doing new 5.1 mixes of anything on a major label were easy, there would be lots more companies doing it. If you could just phone up one of the major labels and say 'hey dudes, this is Johnny Fartface and I'm starting a new label called My Mom's Basement Records, can you send over all the Peter Gabriel multitracks so I can do a remix' don't you think everyone would be? The way the major labels license their material as well is a 'money up front' situation that reminds me of a story a friend told me. Him and his friend (both stand-up comedians) thought it would be fun to run an ice cream truck one summer just as a laugh, for the experience and the stories. The terms of the deal were that they had to rent the ice cream truck from the company, and also buy the ice cream from the same company in advance, with no returns on unsold ice cream. They also had a defined area they could drive the truck in, and they had to pay the company a royalty on each item sold. Over the course of the summer they barely broke even whereas the ice cream company made plenty, because even on the rainy days when no one was buying ice cream from my friend, he'd already paid the ice cream company in advance. Licensing from a major label is no different - you have to pay the label in advance for all the discs you're having pressed, no matter if you end up selling them or not. You also have to pay replication costs, artwork design, packaging, cases, 3 masterings (stereo CD, stereo SACD, mch SACD), authoring and probably other things. Let's say they want $5 a disc x 5000 discs in licensing fees, that's $25k right there, and when you add all the other costs on top of that, you're in to the tens of thousands of dollars in sales you'd need in order to just break even. Are you sure enough that a SACD of Peter Gabriel's 'Play' (a DVD that's been around for nearly 15 years and has probably been torrented around the globe a million times over) will sell enough copies that you want to gamble your own money on it?
It might not seem like it right now, but the major labels are still in the business of selling music, and licensing music for them is a business decision that they use in order to (primarily) sell product that's niche enough to not be worth their time to do so themselves. The three major labels seem to be like the three bears when it comes to what they see as license-able material, with Sony willing to license almost anything outside of their crown jewels, Warners will license some but not all, and UMG which (and I've heard this from multiple sources) only licenses their most obscure stuff. The UMG situation is further complicated by the fact that they've absorbed so many niche quad labels (A&M, ABC, Blue Note, Capitol, CTI, Mercury, Motown, UA, and more) that between poor record keeping and the fire damage to their vault, they're not in a position to be able to license certain things even if they wanted to. The fact that WMG is putting out the Chicago 'Quadio' box set says everything you need to know about the major labels attitude toward their bigger back catalog artists - why license the quad mixes out one at a time to a reissue label and only get a percentage of the sales when they can sell them all at once, themselves, and pocket 100% of the profit? If the Chicago set sells well I wouldn't be surprised to see other boxes along those lines by big catalog sellers like The Eagles, Santana, The Doobie Bros, etc.
I'm incredibly grateful for the work that AF has done rescuing these quad mixes, even if there have been a few technical hiccups along the way. Even if a SACD has (what I think is) an issue with channel assignment, or phase, or whatever, it's still many orders of magnitude better than trying to coax decent sound out of a 40 year old Q8, or trying to imagine what the mix is actually like on a matrix quad LP. The only way artists can become 'obsolete' or 'mostly forgotten' is if people aren't able to buy their music, so by reissuing these titles AF is basically keeping the flag flying for these artists. Just because they didn't sell 10 million units, now or 40 years ago doesn't mean that it isn't by and large great music that deserves to be heard.
The fact of the matter is that if reissuing old quad mixes or doing new 5.1 mixes of anything on a major label were easy, there would be lots more companies doing it. If you could just phone up one of the major labels and say 'hey dudes, this is Johnny Fartface and I'm starting a new label called My Mom's Basement Records, can you send over all the Peter Gabriel multitracks so I can do a remix' don't you think everyone would be? The way the major labels license their material as well is a 'money up front' situation that reminds me of a story a friend told me. Him and his friend (both stand-up comedians) thought it would be fun to run an ice cream truck one summer just as a laugh, for the experience and the stories. The terms of the deal were that they had to rent the ice cream truck from the company, and also buy the ice cream from the same company in advance, with no returns on unsold ice cream. They also had a defined area they could drive the truck in, and they had to pay the company a royalty on each item sold. Over the course of the summer they barely broke even whereas the ice cream company made plenty, because even on the rainy days when no one was buying ice cream from my friend, he'd already paid the ice cream company in advance. Licensing from a major label is no different - you have to pay the label in advance for all the discs you're having pressed, no matter if you end up selling them or not. You also have to pay replication costs, artwork design, packaging, cases, 3 masterings (stereo CD, stereo SACD, mch SACD), authoring and probably other things. Let's say they want $5 a disc x 5000 discs in licensing fees, that's $25k right there, and when you add all the other costs on top of that, you're in to the tens of thousands of dollars in sales you'd need in order to just break even. Are you sure enough that a SACD of Peter Gabriel's 'Play' (a DVD that's been around for nearly 15 years and has probably been torrented around the globe a million times over) will sell enough copies that you want to gamble your own money on it?
It might not seem like it right now, but the major labels are still in the business of selling music, and licensing music for them is a business decision that they use in order to (primarily) sell product that's niche enough to not be worth their time to do so themselves. The three major labels seem to be like the three bears when it comes to what they see as license-able material, with Sony willing to license almost anything outside of their crown jewels, Warners will license some but not all, and UMG which (and I've heard this from multiple sources) only licenses their most obscure stuff. The UMG situation is further complicated by the fact that they've absorbed so many niche quad labels (A&M, ABC, Blue Note, Capitol, CTI, Mercury, Motown, UA, and more) that between poor record keeping and the fire damage to their vault, they're not in a position to be able to license certain things even if they wanted to. The fact that WMG is putting out the Chicago 'Quadio' box set says everything you need to know about the major labels attitude toward their bigger back catalog artists - why license the quad mixes out one at a time to a reissue label and only get a percentage of the sales when they can sell them all at once, themselves, and pocket 100% of the profit? If the Chicago set sells well I wouldn't be surprised to see other boxes along those lines by big catalog sellers like The Eagles, Santana, The Doobie Bros, etc.
I'm incredibly grateful for the work that AF has done rescuing these quad mixes, even if there have been a few technical hiccups along the way. Even if a SACD has (what I think is) an issue with channel assignment, or phase, or whatever, it's still many orders of magnitude better than trying to coax decent sound out of a 40 year old Q8, or trying to imagine what the mix is actually like on a matrix quad LP. The only way artists can become 'obsolete' or 'mostly forgotten' is if people aren't able to buy their music, so by reissuing these titles AF is basically keeping the flag flying for these artists. Just because they didn't sell 10 million units, now or 40 years ago doesn't mean that it isn't by and large great music that deserves to be heard.
Folks let's ease up; the thread is getting personal and headed for the dry cleaners pretty soon.
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...just on the subject of licensing Quads, its intrigued me more recently to see Cherry Red/Esoteric releasing (and presumably commission and pay for?) 5.1 remixes of various new and old albums (several new Barclay James Harvest 5.1 sets coming up from them, for example).. yet Cherry Red have released many reissues of old titles on CD that had Quad mixes without having even so much as a mention in the liner notes about Quad..
So, is it more cost effective for Cherry Red to pay for newly created surround mixes than it is to pay the licenses to a major like Sony in order to get the Quad?
Or are Cherry Red just not interested in Quad?
Or do they think there's no market for the old Quads?
Or (for whatever reason) are/were none of the Quads of these albums available to Cherry Red at the time?
Curious.. Isn't it?
For a 'surround friendly' label, have a look at some of the titles they have reissued on CD in the last couple of years that have Quad mixes but they omitted to include them, for whatever reason..
Azteca - Azteca,
David Essex - Rock On,
Earth Wind & Fire - Spirit,
George Jones & Tammy Wynette - We Go Together,
Harold Melvin & The Blue Notes - Black & Blue,
Hot Tuna - Yellow Fever,
Isley Brothers - Harvest For The World, Go For Your Guns,
Johnnie Taylor - Eargasm,
Manhattans - It Feels So Good,
MFSB - Love Is The Message,
Miracles - Love Crazy (1st time on CD.. and probably the last!),
O'Jays - Ship Ahoy,
Ramsey Lewis Trio - Upendo Ni Pamoja,
Billy Paul - 360 Degrees Of.., War Of The Gods,
Spinners - Spinners,
Tangerine Dream - Alpha Centauri, Atem, Zeit,
Ted Nugent - Free For All,
Walter Murphy Band - A Fifth Of Beethoven,
West Bruce & Laing - Whatever Turns You On, Why Dontcha
So, is it more cost effective for Cherry Red to pay for newly created surround mixes than it is to pay the licenses to a major like Sony in order to get the Quad?
Or are Cherry Red just not interested in Quad?
Or do they think there's no market for the old Quads?
Or (for whatever reason) are/were none of the Quads of these albums available to Cherry Red at the time?
Curious.. Isn't it?
For a 'surround friendly' label, have a look at some of the titles they have reissued on CD in the last couple of years that have Quad mixes but they omitted to include them, for whatever reason..
Azteca - Azteca,
David Essex - Rock On,
Earth Wind & Fire - Spirit,
George Jones & Tammy Wynette - We Go Together,
Harold Melvin & The Blue Notes - Black & Blue,
Hot Tuna - Yellow Fever,
Isley Brothers - Harvest For The World, Go For Your Guns,
Johnnie Taylor - Eargasm,
Manhattans - It Feels So Good,
MFSB - Love Is The Message,
Miracles - Love Crazy (1st time on CD.. and probably the last!),
O'Jays - Ship Ahoy,
Ramsey Lewis Trio - Upendo Ni Pamoja,
Billy Paul - 360 Degrees Of.., War Of The Gods,
Spinners - Spinners,
Tangerine Dream - Alpha Centauri, Atem, Zeit,
Ted Nugent - Free For All,
Walter Murphy Band - A Fifth Of Beethoven,
West Bruce & Laing - Whatever Turns You On, Why Dontcha
I would remind everyone this thread is intended to offer title suggestions to AF, not business plans or critiques thereof. Posts that do not honor this intention are subject to a heave-ho.
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Tres Hombres already came out on quad reel. I'd like Fandango instead, since that one was a close miss on quad reel. There is a rumour that the boxes were printed up for it, just as Ampex decided to go out of business for no particular reason.
Suggestions to AF for possible future Quad SACD release:
I was just listening to Redbone/Message From A Drum Quad = fab music and surround mixes :upthumb
I was just listening to Redbone/Message From A Drum Quad = fab music and surround mixes :upthumb
True.. can't stop me dreaming beaded dreams through turquoise eyes about it huh..
Oh, hang on, that was Redbone's other Quad, of which an AF SACD might sell 2 copies
Some post-pint(s) :beer2 suggestions for AF Surround SACDs:
Michael Jackson - Thriller (unreleased 5.1)
Byrds - 5D (unreleased 5.1)
Ramsey Lewis - Sun Goddess (unreleased 5.1)
Wild Cherry - Electrified Funk (unreleased 5.1 SACD adapted from Quad)
Miles Davis - Live Evil (Quad - MFSL Quadblocking notwithstanding!)
Aerosmith - Rocks (incl the Quad, the unreleased Sony Stereo SACD mastering and a new Stereo Hoffman remaster)
The Killers - Hot Fuss (unreleased 5.1)
Maroon 5 - Songs About Jane (unreleased 5.1)
Steely Dan - Pretzel Logic (unreleased 5.1)
Elton John - Don't Shoot Me I'm Only The Piano Player, Caribou, Rock Of The Westies, Blue Moves (unreleased 5.1's)
The Cars - The Cars (unreleased 5.1)
Todd Rundgren - Something/Anything (unreleased 5.1)
Christopher Cross - Christopher Cross (unreleased 5.1)
Jean Luc Ponty - Cosmic Messenger (unreleased 5.1)
David Sanborn - Voyeur (unreleased 5.1)
The Voice Of Michael McDonald (unreleased 5.1)
Doobie Brothers - Minute By Minute (unreleased 5.1)
Little Feat - Dixie Chicken (unreleased 5.1)
Alanis Morisette - Jagged Little Pill (unreleased 5.1)
Blues Brothers - Soundtrack (unreleased 5.1)
Crosby Stills & Nash - Deja Vu (unreleased 5.1)
Stephen Stills - Stephen Stills (the LP with "Love The One You're With" on it, not the old "Stills" Quad that's on DTS CD!)
Joni Mitchell - Blue, Court & Spark, Hejira, Ladies Of The Canyon (unreleased 5.1's)
Rod Stewart - A Night On The Town (unreleased 5.1)
Rod Stewart - Atlantic Crossing (unreleased Quad)
Tracy Chapman - Tracy Chapman (unreleased 5.1)
Michael Jackson - Thriller (unreleased 5.1)
Byrds - 5D (unreleased 5.1)
Ramsey Lewis - Sun Goddess (unreleased 5.1)
Wild Cherry - Electrified Funk (unreleased 5.1 SACD adapted from Quad)
Miles Davis - Live Evil (Quad - MFSL Quadblocking notwithstanding!)
Aerosmith - Rocks (incl the Quad, the unreleased Sony Stereo SACD mastering and a new Stereo Hoffman remaster)
The Killers - Hot Fuss (unreleased 5.1)
Maroon 5 - Songs About Jane (unreleased 5.1)
Steely Dan - Pretzel Logic (unreleased 5.1)
Elton John - Don't Shoot Me I'm Only The Piano Player, Caribou, Rock Of The Westies, Blue Moves (unreleased 5.1's)
The Cars - The Cars (unreleased 5.1)
Todd Rundgren - Something/Anything (unreleased 5.1)
Christopher Cross - Christopher Cross (unreleased 5.1)
Jean Luc Ponty - Cosmic Messenger (unreleased 5.1)
David Sanborn - Voyeur (unreleased 5.1)
The Voice Of Michael McDonald (unreleased 5.1)
Doobie Brothers - Minute By Minute (unreleased 5.1)
Little Feat - Dixie Chicken (unreleased 5.1)
Alanis Morisette - Jagged Little Pill (unreleased 5.1)
Blues Brothers - Soundtrack (unreleased 5.1)
Crosby Stills & Nash - Deja Vu (unreleased 5.1)
Stephen Stills - Stephen Stills (the LP with "Love The One You're With" on it, not the old "Stills" Quad that's on DTS CD!)
Joni Mitchell - Blue, Court & Spark, Hejira, Ladies Of The Canyon (unreleased 5.1's)
Rod Stewart - A Night On The Town (unreleased 5.1)
Rod Stewart - Atlantic Crossing (unreleased Quad)
Tracy Chapman - Tracy Chapman (unreleased 5.1)
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Methinks, Adam it's time to inagurate the NEW British AF QUAD label.............the Adam~Fredblue (AF for short) Label specializing in ALL QUAD .... ALL the time.
I have No qualms that you'd be quite adept at strong arming the pansies who run the record companies and extract from them exactly what YOU want.
BTW, of ALL the titles you mentioned.....here's MY pre~order for one of each.....QUID PRO QUO!
Thanks for the vote of confidence Ralphie! :upthumb ... its a big IF but if I ever won the lottery I would do just that and start up a Quad/Surround reissue label and get some of those lovely old Quads and unreleased 5.1's out - and to hell with the sales figures!
So long as I got things like the unreleased EJ and Steely Dan 5.1's and stuff like The Isley's "The Heat Is On" Quad (COME ONnnnn..!! Another BIG IF -- but IF its in the Sony vaults, just tell me what I have to do to get it out in the open and I'll do it..!!!
) and all that other good Quad/Surround stuff us Quadnuts want pristine and discrete from the tapes (that I bet now doesn't have a hope in hell of getting reissued!) before I went bust, I could die a happy bunny!
Oh yes.. all those flash in the pan five minute wonder Quad artists that never endured as Classic artists...
Aerosmith,
Al Green,
Alice Cooper,
Allman Brothers Band,
Andy Williams,
Average White Band,
Bachman Turner Overdrive,
Barbra Streisand,
Bette Midler,
Billy Joel,
Billy Paul,
Black Sabbath,
Blood Sweat & Tears,
Blue Oyster Cult,
Bob Dylan,
Bread,
Carly Simon,
Carole King,
Carpenters,
Chicago,
Creedence Clearwater Revival,
Deep Purple,
Diana Ross,
Doobie Brothers,
Doors,
Eagles,
Earth Wind & Fire,
Edgar Winter,
Emerson Lake & Palmer,
Eric Clapton,
Four Tops,
Frank Sinatra,
Guess Who,
Harold Melvin & The Blue Notes,
Herbie Hancock,
Isaac Hayes,
Isley Brothers,
Jackson 5,
Jackson Browne,
Janis Ian,
Janis Joplin,
Jeff Beck,
Jethro Tull,
John Lennon,
Johnny Cash,
Johnny Mathis,
Johnny Winter,
Kris Kristofferson,
Liza Minnelli,
Mahavishnu Orchestra,
Marvin Gaye,
Miles Davis,
Mike Oldfield,
Miracles,
Moody Blues,
Neil Diamond,
O'Jays,
Paul McCartney,
Paul Simon,
Pink Floyd,
Quincy Jones,
Reo Speedwagon,
Santana,
Simon & Garfunkel,
Sly & The Family Stone,
Steely Dan,
Steve Miller Band,
Ted Nugent,
Temptations,
Weather Report,
Who,
ZZ Top
Need I really go on?
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Adam, you forgot to mention the Beatles LOVE album.....80 glorious minutes of 5.1 remixed by uber producer George Martin & Son!
But sadly, NO Led Zep and the Rolling Stones only have the SACD 5.1 remixes of Sympathy For The Devil but No full album titles.
But sadly, NO Led Zep and the Rolling Stones only have the SACD 5.1 remixes of Sympathy For The Devil but No full album titles.
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