FM Quadraphonic broadcasts

[oldsyd]

Does anyone know if tapes of the quad encoded shows
from the 70's know if these were taped? I'd really like
to hear a transcription of one.

The Who, Rush, Grateful Dead, Edgar Winter, YES!

Anyway, it's a shame they are probably lost for the most part...

~jay

 

[bizmopeen]

Does anyone know if tapes of the quad encoded shows
from the 70's know if these were taped? I'd really like
to hear a transcription of one.

The Who, Rush, Grateful Dead, Edgar Winter, YES!

Anyway, it's a shame they are probably lost for the most part...

~jay

There's a series of King Biscuit shows from the 70's out there that were endcoded and broadcast in quad and have made the rounds on the collector's circuit. Send me a private post and I'll tell you some more about a couple of the shows. Also, there's at least one bootleg I know of that was made from a Qaud broadcast "Tales From the Who") Can't tell you how that one sounds, tho...

 

[bizmopeen]

There's a series of King Biscuit shows from the 70's out there that were endcoded and broadcast in quad and have made the rounds on the collector's circuit. Send me a private post and I'll tell you some more about a couple of the shows. Also, there's at least one bootleg I know of that was made from a Qaud broadcast "Tales From the Who") Can't tell you how that one sounds, tho...

BTW, does anyone know what the significance of the name "King Biscuit Flower (Flour?) Hour" is , anyway...? I've always kind of wondered whether it
meant anything...

 

[Relayer]

BTW, does anyone know what the significance of the name "King Biscuit Flower (Flour?) Hour" is , anyway...? I've always kind of wondered whether it
meant anything...

As I understand it, it was a play on an old radio variety/blues programme from the "golden age" (the 20s) called the "King Biscuit FLOUR Hour" -- ie., named after its sponsor, purportedly a manufacturer of flour particularly suited to making excellent biscuits.

As to the quad KBFH shows, I'd love to get my hands on some of them sometime. Shows I'm particularly interested in:

Santana 10/13/74
Genesis 3/9/75
ELP 3/10/74
Focus 9/30/73
Rick Wakeman - 11/30/75*
Yes - 12/11/74**

As I'm sure you know, many King Biscuit shows were released by KBFH on CD in the 90s... I have the Wakeman one (KBFH Records 70710-88009-2), but I haven't listened to it through the quad decoder yet. I'll check it out soon and post comments.

I *suspect* that you can find vinyl bootleg versions of many of these on The Amazing Kornyfone Label, also known as TAKRL. (In fact, I think Tales From The Who might be a TAKRL release.) [As an aside, a lot of people seem to sell these TAKRL sets on E-Bay, but their status is somewhat questionable... I tried to list one once, never mentioning the word "bootleg" or anything like it, and they pulled my listing and send me a threatening email.]

Finally, I know a lot of these are around in pretty good sounding form through the usual "other" channels. I know I have tapes of several of these shows, in varying degrees of quality and completeness.

The Yes Boston '74 show is ubiquitous--and rightly so. As I recall, the setlist is all of the Close To The Edge album, all of the Relayer album, plus Roundabout(!). Check out the numerous versions Yann has listed:

http://perso.wanadoo.fr/yann.clochec/relayer.html

(If you want to arrange a trade with him, I can personally vouch for Yann's honesty and awesome-ness in spreading the Yes. He's legit... nearly impossible to come up with something he doesn't already have, but he'll do B&Ps if he's got the time.)

The Rush Electric Ladyland show (not a KBFH) is also heavily bootlegged, though I for some reason don't have a good copy in my collection... certainly not good enough to try getting any multichannel effects out of it. Good show, though... "Bad Boy" and maybe even "Fancy Dancer" in the set. It's a way, way early show for them, just a few weeks after Neil Peart joined the band. Geddy spends most of the between-song time complaining about how cold it is in the studio.

Finally... has anyone heard the Dead 10/4/70 show? Since it was broadcast in discrete quad, I can see that it'd be a little harder to find... but with everybody doing DTS conversions these days, someone should get it together and make it happen.

 

[Relayer]

Alright, all this has got me thinking about a summer project...

Many of the bands on the list (http://personal.riverusers.com/~manderso/quaddisc/quadradi.htm) allow trading of live shows, including Yes, the Dead, Santana, Genesis, etc.

I'm moving this summer and so will have occasion to dig up and sort through all my boxes of tapes.

I'm all for taping/trading with the band's permission, but I'm loathe to pay someone else for bootlegs. Let's set up a B&P and/or tree system for quad FM broadcasts, using old tapes and/or "liberating" bootlegs.

I can say right now that I'll be able to hook up the Yes show, and probably the Santana and Genesis.

Anyone else interested?

 

[dr8track]

Alright, all this has got me thinking about a summer project...

Many of the bands on the list (http://personal.riverusers.com/~manderso/quaddisc/quadradi.htm) allow trading of live shows, including Yes, the Dead, Santana, Genesis, etc.

I'm moving this summer and so will have occasion to dig up and sort through all my boxes of tapes.

I'm all for taping/trading with the band's permission, but I'm loathe to pay someone else for bootlegs. Let's set up a B&P and/or tree system for quad FM broadcasts, using old tapes and/or "liberating" bootlegs.

I can say right now that I'll be able to hook up the Yes show, and probably the Santana and Genesis.

Anyone else interested?

I have some of the original SQ encoded King Biscuit radio reels as well as cdr's of many of the SQ concerts. What you should be aware of is that the quad separation on these concerts is nothing to get too excited about. Not the most discrete recordings. But from a quad history perspective they are very interesting to listen to. From what I've been able to tell, the original airdates on the SQ concerts were prior to 1977. Might have been a few in 77, but all that I have were aired earlier.

 

[oldsyd]

So, if I understand correctly, these shows exist in 3 different formats:

1. Original KBFH reels used by the radio stations that played them

2. Bootleg vinyl from whatever source they had

3. Off-air reel recordings

For SQ purposes I would think only using the original syndication reels would be worthwhile. I would think off-air recordings would have the SQ phase info mangled by compression and EQ done by each station, and the bootleg vinyl would probably exhibit the same.

I'd be willing to help in some way (artwork, organization, etc.) but unfortunately I don't have any source material to contribute.

I have a Tate and an Akai 280 but only a 2 channel soundcard on my PC.

~jay

 

[ssully]

As I understand it, it was a play on an old radio variety/blues programme from the "golden age" (the 20s) called the "King Biscuit FLOUR Hour" -- ie., named after its sponsor, purportedly a manufacturer of flour particularly suited to making excellent biscuits.

The Yes Boston '74 show is ubiquitous--and rightly so. As I recall, the setlist is all of the Close To The Edge album, all of the Relayer album, plus Roundabout(!). Check out the numerous versions Yann has listed:

http://perso.wanadoo.fr/yann.clochec/relayer.html

Yes setlists can be found at Forgotten Yesterdays

The quad KBFH broadcast was in two parts and included the following songs from the set : Sound Chaser, Close to the Edge, To Be Over, Gates of Delerium, And You and I, Roundabout. I fondly remember sitting in front of my family's big 'furniture' radio/turntable console both weekends, listening to the two shows. "Close to the Edge" here is one of the smokingest live versions they've ever released.

The quad encoding of KBFH shows was matrixed 2-channel (i.e. they were broadcast in stereo , and decoding was done by the unit at home) , so AIUI a good recording of the 'stereo' versions should preserve the quad encoding. I don't have any quad decoders but have used DPL II on this recording, with some mildly interesting though doubtless inauthentic results I would be very interesting in obtaining a DTS conversion of properly-decoded original syndication reels (I presume these are copies of the original master tape?).

 

[ssully]

deleted

 

[Larry Geller]

[/QUOTE]As I'm sure you know, many King Biscuit shows were released by KBFH on CD in the 90s... I have the Wakeman one (KBFH Records 70710-88009-2), but I haven't listened to it through the quad decoder yet. I'll check it out soon and post comments.[/QUOTE]


Keep in mind, though, that the geniuses behind these releases REMIXED the tapes, effectively stripping off any SQ encoding.

 

[JonUrban]

I did a DTS conversion of the James Taylor concert at Carnegie Hall, 1974, directly from the SQ Encoded reels that I spent $200 on eBay on. Played through my Tate, I can attest that there IS some surround info, but it is very slight at best.


.

 

[Obbop]

"...the geniuses behind these releases REMIXED the tapes, effectively stripping off any SQ encoding."

Poo poo heads.

 

[dr8track]

"...the geniuses behind these releases REMIXED the tapes, effectively stripping off any SQ encoding."

Poo poo heads.

The newer commercial releases of KB concerts are remixed, but there were also many of the original reel concerts that were later distrubuted on cd when they were rebroadcast. I'm fairly certain the SQ encoding is intact on those.
Also, just for everyone's information, there were original King Biscuit LP's distrubuted to radio stations. These were not the bootleg versions referred to in an earlier post, but actual records to play back on radio. I have none of these so I've never been able to confirm whether their were SQ versions on vinyl.

 

[texquad]

The KBFH shows including the ones that were mixed for SQ were distributed to radio first on reel, then LP, finally CD, and they all decode properly although they have good not great live concert separation. The versions sold in stores that say they were "remixed" still sound the same as the originals.

 

[oldsyd]

Well, from the replies here, it seems like bringing these to DTS from
the original KBFH SQ encoded reels wouldn't be worth the effort.

All that work just for some ambient noise in the rears seems silly.

Ideas? Thoughts, anyone?

Jay

 

[proufo]

Well, from the replies here, it seems like bringing these to DTS from the original KBFH SQ encoded reels wouldn't be worth the effort.

All that work just for some ambient noise in the rears seems silly.

Maybe there's some worthy music involved...

 

[oldsyd]

Maybe there's some worthy music involved...

Well, yes that's true, but to get the worthy music you could then get
a copy of one of the later CD versions of the show instead of all
the work of decoding the reels and mastering a DTS CD.

It would only be stereo, but the performance would still be there.

I just don't want to beat down the path of 'mousemilking'
(maximum effort, minimum return) especially when I don't
have anything to contribute to the effort.

~jay

 

[quadtrade]

The KBFH shows including the ones that were mixed for SQ were distributed to radio first on reel, then LP, finally CD, and they all decode properly although they have good not great live concert separation. The versions sold in stores that say they were "remixed" still sound the same as the originals.

Tab, I don't think that is entirely accurate, as some sound very good and do not sound the same as these later cd releases. Getting a live version of Doobies quad is wonderful, as several others KB did that have some real decent quad. Tad

 

[omega4]

I was interested to read about the quadraphonic broadcasts in the US. We had some in the UK, from the BBC, but they were initially in Matrix H, and then in Matrix HJ, which I believe eventually evolved into Ambisonics. There were some studio recordings - Andy Fairweather-Lowe springs to mind as one of the artists, and I think XTC. Also they broadcast one of Pink Floyd's Knebworth concerts in quad - not sure which of the two systems though. I still have most, if not all, somewhere on cassette. I will try to find them now, although this far on the quality may be affected by age.

The saddest part of this was that there were no decoders available, particularly as quad had about died on its feet by then. I think that Denon had produced one in conjunction with its UD-4 system. Was that supposed to work both as a matrix and as a discrete system? Perhaps someone in the Forum can fill in the details. Can anyone else in the UK add any details to this, such as the year or any other artists? Most of the broadcasts were on a Saturday afternoon on the Alan Freeman Show - which will mean nothing to anyone outside the UK, but he was the DJ who kept playing all the great rock bands when the management at the Beeb seemed to want to play only five-minute pop wonders.

 

[quadtrade]

I was interested to read about the quadraphonic broadcasts in the US. We had some in the UK, from the BBC, but they were initially in Matrix H, and then in Matrix HJ, which I believe eventually evolved into Ambisonics. There were some studio recordings - Andy Fairweather-Lowe springs to mind as one of the artists, and I think XTC. Also they broadcast one of Pink Floyd's Knebworth concerts in quad - not sure which of the two systems though. I still have most, if not all, somewhere on cassette. I will try to find them now, although this far on the quality may be affected by age.

The saddest part of this was that there were no decoders available, particularly as quad had about died on its feet by then. I think that Denon had produced one in conjunction with its UD-4 system. Was that supposed to work both as a matrix and as a discrete system? Perhaps someone in the Forum can fill in the details. Can anyone else in the UK add any details to this, such as the year or any other artists? Most of the broadcasts were on a Saturday afternoon on the Alan Freeman Show - which will mean nothing to anyone outside the UK, but he was the DJ who kept playing all the great rock bands when the management at the Beeb seemed to want to play only five-minute pop wonders.

Some of these KB shows have some of material in the rear that is discrete, although mixed with some ambiance. Joe Walsh, Mountain, Doobies and more. I have one of those Denon decoders, though still in Oregon. English releases were very few of Ambisonics, but no idea of radio shows. That would be perhaps material to seek and test.