I should have apecifically stated that I believe Richard may have requested that the quad masters be destroyed, not the multitracks. Richard likes surround but just did not like or approve the quad releases.
I have the 2 Japanese quad LPs and enjoy them but that is my opinion. I wish Richard would have enjoyed them or made new surround mixes. He said there likely wouldn't be any reissues of the SACD or new surround titles as the label did not see the profit in auch a project.
I've actually gotten my claws into a copy of that safety copy. It's actually missing a bit more: the sax parts, the panting and moaning from the "play at the plate" portion and the fadeout vocals (long ago/far away/so much better than it is today) but... for the most part, all the vocals are there! I had to fly in one word of an Ellen Foley part from the stereo cut as, I can only assume they did a vocal repair later. But this certainly would've been a much better basis than re-recording entire vocals with a completely different person....
So...aww, gee, lost in a fire, with no proof that damaged tape exists, because, y'know, lost in the fire and all that. So...Richard got tapes from record company storage he used to do what he needed to with them, presumably in studio facilities of his own choosing, one assumes with all the usual tape copying equipment and other various technology...then returned the copies of the tapes he needed to do what he needed...and then, brought them all back. I see. Not like, we have any way to check that out to be sure, because, y'know, lost in the fire and all that.
First, remember I don't follow what titles are candidates and which aren't. But, what about Andy Williams Quad material from the 70's? He has several titles. Seems to me they would make an amazing addition to DV's catalog. I want Johnny Mathis, but something tells me that won't happen.
OK, so why can't DV sublicense from BGO? I guess I don't get how it all works.
There was something said that the person who did most of the A&M quad remixes wasn't actually qualified to do so. That would explain why so many of them are so bad. As for the Carpenters' masters, Richard did return the tapes to A&M after they insisted on their return. He had said that, if he had delayed returning them a few more days, they'd still exist. Still, was that fire really an accident? And what of the ABC tapes that had been left out on a loading dock for several days, exposed to the elements, that were destroyed that way? I suspect that was no accident.
That, my friend, is what I needed. Perfect explanation, and now I totally understand what's going on. Thanks a bunch. Your comment about granting a licensee with exclusive rights resonates with me because I sell soybean genetics to seed companies that do not (in most cases) have an internal breeding program. As a result, they take our genetics, put in in their marketing system and sell it.BGO (along with the likes of Cherry Red and its sub-labels, and Ace Records) are direct competitors of D-V in the UK, so none of these companies are going to have anything to do with each other.
The nutshell version is that between themselves, Sony, Universal and Warner basically own the the rights to the very vast majority of every popular album released in the last 100 years. Major labels, like car manufacturers, don't want to sell 1,000 of something (it's pretty much literally not worth their time), they want to sell a million, or if they're lucky, multiple millions of copies, something which is probably a rarer and rarer occurrence these days.
One account from Billboard writer Bill Holland in the mid-00's suggested that UMG had something like 2.5 million various musical"assets" (a catch-all for anything that has music on it - tapes, laquers, wax cylinders, etc.) and Sony had in the region of 1.5 million. I'm not suggesting that 1 asset = 1 album, but it gives you a kind of ballpark for considering what these labels are dealing with. So what do they do with the tens (or hundreds) of thousands of albums they simply don't have the time or money to devote to reissuing? They license them out to reissue labels like D-V. Think of it as a kind of mutually beneficial type of outsourcing - because they're fronting the money for each reissue, the reissue label assumes all the risks involved, but at the same time that same label will (hopefully) also have unique knowledge about how to package/remaster the reissue in a way to maximise its appeal to their demographic, and also will also likely have a loyal customer base who will buy their products sight unseen (or unheard) based on their satisfaction with previous purchases. D-V is certainly building up that kind of reputation here, and there are plenty of fans of the stereo audiophile reissue labels like MoFi, AP, Intervention, and AF (when they were still around) both here and over on the Hoffman Forums.
I don't know the contractual nitty gritty of a licensing agreement, but it's my general understanding that the licenser (ie Sony) grants the licensee (ie BGO, or D-V) the exclusive right to sell their own unique version of an album for an agreed-upon number of years in whatever territory the licensee is located. It may vary from case to case, but generally the licensee has a certain number of discs pressed as part of the initial batch, and then they can order represses if the title sells out, if they're still within their license period. So basically, this is a long-winded way of saying that if BGO is selling stereo CDs of Andy Williams albums that also had quad versions, they're off the table for D-V until BGO's license with Sony expires. Knowing if or when that's happened is a tricky thing - some titles go out of print really quickly, while others seem to be perennially in print with the same reissue label, I'm guessing they just re-up their contracts if titles or selling, or maybe they have rolling agreements, I dunno. If you're curious if a title is possibly 'available' for D-V one way of researching it is to look up the album on a UK retailer like Amazon.co.uk (and/or HMV, or similar) and see if it's still available for sale from them, and not a 3rd party seller. If it says 'title unavailable' (as opposed to stock coming soon or something like that) then there's at least a chance that it's out of print - but again you never know because there's always stuff going on behind the scenes.
If you want more insight into what goes into a small reissue label, there's a guy on the Hoffman forums who started a label called 'Rubellan Remasters' - he made a thread over there called "New Classic Alt reissue label: Rubellan Remasters, now open for business!" where he discusses in pretty candid detail (maybe TOO candid, in my opinion) all the hurdles he's faced and his annoyances with all the various major label people he's had to work with. If anything it'll give you some extra appreciation for how D-V has managed to maintain such high quality and a high volume of releases, with a minimum of self-congratulatory back patting about their achievements...aside from posts like this where I get on my soapbox a bit.
Since I’ve been on this forum, this subject has intrigued me more and more, so thanks for the explanation Dave.BGO (along with the likes of Cherry Red and its sub-labels, and Ace Records) are direct competitors of D-V in the UK, so none of these companies are going to have anything to do with each other.
The nutshell version is that between themselves, Sony, Universal and Warner basically own the the rights to the very vast majority of every popular album released in the last 100 years. Major labels, like car manufacturers, don't want to sell 1,000 of something (it's pretty much literally not worth their time), they want to sell a million, or if they're lucky, multiple millions of copies, something which is probably a rarer and rarer occurrence these days.
One account from Billboard writer Bill Holland in the mid-00's suggested that UMG had something like 2.5 million various musical"assets" (a catch-all for anything that has music on it - tapes, laquers, wax cylinders, etc.) and Sony had in the region of 1.5 million. I'm not suggesting that 1 asset = 1 album, but it gives you a kind of ballpark for considering what these labels are dealing with. So what do they do with the tens (or hundreds) of thousands of albums they simply don't have the time or money to devote to reissuing? They license them out to reissue labels like D-V. Think of it as a kind of mutually beneficial type of outsourcing - because they're fronting the money for each reissue, the reissue label assumes all the risks involved, but at the same time that same label will (hopefully) also have unique knowledge about how to package/remaster the reissue in a way to maximise its appeal to their demographic, and also will also likely have a loyal customer base who will buy their products sight unseen (or unheard) based on their satisfaction with previous purchases. D-V is certainly building up that kind of reputation here, and there are plenty of fans of the stereo audiophile reissue labels like MoFi, AP, Intervention, and AF (when they were still around) both here and over on the Hoffman Forums.
I don't know the contractual nitty gritty of a licensing agreement, but it's my general understanding that the licenser (ie Sony) grants the licensee (ie BGO, or D-V) the exclusive right to sell their own unique version of an album for an agreed-upon number of years in whatever territory the licensee is located. It may vary from case to case, but generally the licensee has a certain number of discs pressed as part of the initial batch, and then they can order represses if the title sells out, if they're still within their license period. So basically, this is a long-winded way of saying that if BGO is selling stereo CDs of Andy Williams albums that also had quad versions, they're off the table for D-V until BGO's license with Sony expires. Knowing if or when that's happened is a tricky thing - some titles go out of print really quickly, while others seem to be perennially in print with the same reissue label, I'm guessing they just re-up their contracts if titles or selling, or maybe they have rolling agreements, I dunno. If you're curious if a title is possibly 'available' for D-V one way of researching it is to look up the album on a UK retailer like Amazon.co.uk (and/or HMV, or similar) and see if it's still available for sale from them, and not a 3rd party seller. If it says 'title unavailable' (as opposed to stock coming soon or something like that) then there's at least a chance that it's out of print - but again you never know because there's always stuff going on behind the scenes.
If you want more insight into what goes into a small reissue label, there's a guy on the Hoffman forums who started a label called 'Rubellan Remasters' - he made a thread over there called "New Classic Alt reissue label: Rubellan Remasters, now open for business!" where he discusses in pretty candid detail (maybe TOO candid, in my opinion) all the hurdles he's faced and his annoyances with all the various major label people he's had to work with. If anything it'll give you some extra appreciation for how D-V has managed to maintain such high quality and a high volume of releases, with a minimum of self-congratulatory back patting about their achievements...aside from posts like this where I get on my soapbox a bit.
