Anyone remember the interview with the guy who mixed the A&M quads?

[JonUrban]

Somewhere in this forum there is a link to an article about the guy who mixed the A&M quad mixes back in the '70s. I remember in that interview, he stated that he didn't want to make the mixes "adventurous" and left them pretty much the same as the stereo. (It might have been in a Billboard Google Press Link)

It was not received well by the QQ faithful, and those early A&M Q8's are pretty lame as a result.

Thanks

 

[JonUrban]

I found it!

http://books.google.it/books?id=WBEEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA39

 

[timbre4]

Precisely the WRONG person for the job @ A&M.

 

[JonUrban]

Precisely the WRONG person for the job @ A&M.

Yeah. "I have an idea! We have a new format to get out to the marketplace, but h-m-m, why don't we make it sound JUST LIKE THE OLD FORMAT!! Brilliant! This way, no one will notice it's different!"

It's no wonder the A&M Q8's and LP's are considered to be pathetic (on the whole)

 

[winopener]

It's really a wonder that some A&M Q8's escaped this rule...

 

[Doug G.]

He'd love it at the SH forums.



Doug

 

[EMB]

Precisely the WRONG person for the job @ A&M.

Or any other label, for that matter!

For the most part, most remix engineers and producers DID understand the basic idea of quad, i.e., to expand the stereo to four channels and offer a more detailed, spacious experience while (at least attempting) to remain faithful to the original stereo mixdown, since it was (and remains) sensible to assume that something TOO radical might disturb as many listeners as it might delight.

As for 'not being adventurous,' there are quite a few examples of quad mixes being just that but, typically, that's because the music wasn't adventurous. To name one example, how do you make the Epic Charlie Rich of "Behind Closed Doors" an adventurous mix? or most mainstream pop or country, for that matter? All anyone could really have done is what they did: widen the soundfield, place the instruments and voices sensibly, and let it go at that; anything else would have come off as gimmicky and ridiculous.

Unfortunately, the cat at A&M, in addition to the wrong attitude, probably couldn't have done much more to vintage TJB than he did; three or four tracks doesn't lend a lot of room for creativity.

ED

 

[Fourplay]

It's really a wonder that some A&M Q8's escaped this rule...

Would anyone care to weigh in on which titles WERE good quad mixes? I have always been under-impressed by the Cat Stevens titles...

 

[steelydave]

All the Quincy Jones ones are, especially Body Heat and You've Got It Bad, Girl, as are the Rick Wakeman ones, Captain & Tennille 'Love Will Keep Us Together, both Chuck Mangione titles, most of the Carpenters titles, and even a couple of the Carole King titles I've heard (Fantasy and Rhymes and Reasons) while not incredibly discrete, suit the minimal nature of drums/bass/piano/voice and still have discrete elements.

I think A&M started off weakly, but their later titles are really good - Quincy Jones 'Body Heat' is one of the best sounding Q8's I've ever heard, and Wakeman's 6 Wives and the Captain & Tennille album aren't far behind either.

 

[EMB]

Which is to say, the *bad* ones were mainly TJB, Cat, Carole King's TAPESTRY, The Sergio Mendes & Wes Montgomery GREATEST HITS comps. As we've discussed previously, the TJB's had inherent limitations, while the Cat material wasn't of A&M origin, so it's possible they didn't even have multis to use for mixing, and kind of just made 'faux' quad's out of them; certainly, TEA, TEASER and GH do not sound like genuine remixes.

ED

 

[fredblue]

All the Quincy Jones ones are, especially Body Heat and You've Got It Bad, Girl, as are the Rick Wakeman ones, Captain & Tennille 'Love Will Keep Us Together, both Chuck Mangione titles, most of the Carpenters titles, and even a couple of the Carole King titles I've heard (Fantasy and Rhymes and Reasons) while not incredibly discrete, suit the minimal nature of drums/bass/piano/voice and still have discrete elements.

I think A&M started off weakly, but their later titles are really good - Quincy Jones 'Body Heat' is one of the best sounding Q8's I've ever heard, and Wakeman's 6 Wives and the Captain & Tennille album aren't far behind either.

I'd love to hear either of the Chuck Mangione Quads (Bellavia and Chase The Clouds Away) in great quality! Audio Fidelity?

 

[bmoura]

I'd love to hear either of the Chuck Mangione Quads (Bellavia and Chase The Clouds Away) in great quality! Audio Fidelity?

I'd love to get those as well!

 

[bmoura]

All the Quincy Jones ones are, especially Body Heat and You've Got It Bad, Girl, as are the Rick Wakeman ones, Captain & Tennille 'Love Will Keep Us Together, both Chuck Mangione titles, most of the Carpenters titles, and even a couple of the Carole King titles I've heard (Fantasy and Rhymes and Reasons) while not incredibly discrete, suit the minimal nature of drums/bass/piano/voice and still have discrete elements.

I think A&M started off weakly, but their later titles are really good - Quincy Jones 'Body Heat' is one of the best sounding Q8's I've ever heard, and Wakeman's 6 Wives and the Captain & Tennille album aren't far behind either.

I'd agree. The later A&M Quads - including the Quincy Jones and Captain and Tennille are very good.

 

[leevitalone1]

I'd love to hear either of the Chuck Mangione Quads (Bellavia and Chase The Clouds Away) in great quality! Audio Fidelity?

and don't forget Friends and Lovers-live with the Rochester Philharmonic-( not quad!)

 

[Larry Geller]

It's really a wonder that some A&M Q8's escaped this rule...

According to the article, those were mixed by the Artist (Wakeman, Quincy). Very depressing article.

 

[0tto]

yeap, very depressing article.
but even more frustration arise from understanding how many such "bornsteins" still remains in record industry even after four decades.

 

[EMB]

The issue date is instructive: August 9, 1975. That's about four years after quad began in earnest, and a year before the plug was pulled by almost all labels. Yet according to that Billboard special section, the labels still seemed dedicated and optimistic--if guardedly so.

The various formats aside, one can also read the seeds of destruction they had been sewing, like the few simultaneous stereo/quad releases, the higher list price for quad vinyl and tape, and no real standards about how to mix for quad or how to promote it effectively to the public.

That said, the A&M guy doesn't come off as an idiot, just someone who didn't understand quad's potential beyond the gimmicks, like panning. The notion that an isolated instrument in one speaker only is wrong is absurd: there are stereo recordings that have exactly that, usually because of recording limitations, but the precedent was already set.

But he was an isolated (heh) example; most quad mixes turned out at least Ok, and some were (as we know) very good to brilliant. The problem was that the labels just never got together to give the format the push it needed.

ED

 

[JonUrban]

As an aside, if you look at the Top LPs and Tapes chart (Billboard 200) for that week, 8 of the Top 10 albums were eventually available in Quad!! Albums by The Eagles, Isley Brothers, Captain and Tennille, Paul McCartney and Wings, James Taylor, Cat Stevens, Earth Wind and Fire, and Jefferson Starship!!

8 of the Top 10
12 of the Top 20
18 of the Top 30

It's also interesting to see how many quad titles there are on that chart that are not indicated that they were available in quad.

http://books.google.it/books?id=WBEEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA74

 

[Q-Eight]

http://books.google.it/books?id=WBEEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA74

That's yet another chart that lists ZZ Top "Fandango" as being available in Quad. How very, very strange.

 

[Bob Romano]

Would anyone care to weigh in on which titles WERE good quad mixes? I have always been under-impressed by the Cat Stevens titles...

I have always enjoyed Cat Stevens "Foreigner" in quad. Especially the Q8