I am Geeked! (capital G)
I got a response from none other than Mr. Synergy himself, Larry Fast(!!!), regarding the QS encoding of his LPs other than the first one, Electronic Realizations fro Rock Orchestra.
It's one of those emails you send not really expecting a reply, and boy, I got one very quickly.
Here's the email I sent him:
Dear Mr. Fast:
I have been listening to "Cords" for a good 25 years now and I think it's your best work (my opinion).
I recently found a sealed copy in a gatefold cover-clear vinyl-
And,
since the technology is available and the results are truly great,
I have been doing 96/24 DVD-Audio conversions from SQ and QS encoded LPs for a couple of years using Adobe Audition scripts(SQ and QS have different scripts).
Since only your first LP is listed as QS encoded, I decoded "Cords" just for kicks,
and,
was blown away, I could SWEAR you encoded this one too (or manipulated the phase to achieve very similar results).
Obviously , there must be a reason why you haven't disclosed this info publicly by now, but if there isn't and if you feel inclined to do so, albeit indirectly, it'd be great and I'd truly appreciate it.
Thanks,
Alberto S. Fas
and here is his reply;
Hi Alberto-
I don't know what to say. I'll have to try and listen myself. No Synergy album after Electronic Realizations was mixed in quad, much less released, because Passport Records would not pay the very expensive licensing and royalties demanded by Sansui and the owners of the QS, SQ and other quad encoding technologies. Those fees imposed on the record labels and artists probably had as much to do with the demise of quad as the resistance of the consumer.
All I can suggest is that my albums made extensive use of digital delays, reverbs, harmonizers, phasers and flangers. All of these introduced phase shifts to the signals throughout the multi-layered mix. I suspect that the decoder software, which use phase differences to pick out the spatial locations, thinks that the content being fed has information it is supposed to decode. It's being fooled into creating a somewhat random, but effective surround field.
If it works and you're enjoying it, I'm not going to complain. But it wasn't done by design or kept secret. After Electronic Realizations, when Passport wouldn't continue to pay the fees, in 1976 Sansui came and took back their encoder hardware from the studio and that was then end of that generation of quad for me.
Thanks for your interest,
Larry Fast
Larry Fast
SYNERGY® Electronic Music. Inc.
908-647-3007
[email protected]
I got a response from none other than Mr. Synergy himself, Larry Fast(!!!), regarding the QS encoding of his LPs other than the first one, Electronic Realizations fro Rock Orchestra.
It's one of those emails you send not really expecting a reply, and boy, I got one very quickly.
Here's the email I sent him:
Dear Mr. Fast:
I have been listening to "Cords" for a good 25 years now and I think it's your best work (my opinion).
I recently found a sealed copy in a gatefold cover-clear vinyl-
And,
since the technology is available and the results are truly great,
I have been doing 96/24 DVD-Audio conversions from SQ and QS encoded LPs for a couple of years using Adobe Audition scripts(SQ and QS have different scripts).
Since only your first LP is listed as QS encoded, I decoded "Cords" just for kicks,
and,
was blown away, I could SWEAR you encoded this one too (or manipulated the phase to achieve very similar results).
Obviously , there must be a reason why you haven't disclosed this info publicly by now, but if there isn't and if you feel inclined to do so, albeit indirectly, it'd be great and I'd truly appreciate it.
Thanks,
Alberto S. Fas
and here is his reply;
Hi Alberto-
I don't know what to say. I'll have to try and listen myself. No Synergy album after Electronic Realizations was mixed in quad, much less released, because Passport Records would not pay the very expensive licensing and royalties demanded by Sansui and the owners of the QS, SQ and other quad encoding technologies. Those fees imposed on the record labels and artists probably had as much to do with the demise of quad as the resistance of the consumer.
All I can suggest is that my albums made extensive use of digital delays, reverbs, harmonizers, phasers and flangers. All of these introduced phase shifts to the signals throughout the multi-layered mix. I suspect that the decoder software, which use phase differences to pick out the spatial locations, thinks that the content being fed has information it is supposed to decode. It's being fooled into creating a somewhat random, but effective surround field.
If it works and you're enjoying it, I'm not going to complain. But it wasn't done by design or kept secret. After Electronic Realizations, when Passport wouldn't continue to pay the fees, in 1976 Sansui came and took back their encoder hardware from the studio and that was then end of that generation of quad for me.
Thanks for your interest,
Larry Fast
Larry Fast
SYNERGY® Electronic Music. Inc.
908-647-3007
[email protected]