Quad LP/Tape Poll Grass Roots, The: Their 16 Greatest Hits [QS/Q8]

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Rate "Their 16 Greatest Hits"


  • Total voters
    12

EMB

2K Club - QQ Super Nova
Since 2002/2003
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1974 quad version of their most recent comp(at the time); CQD-40013.

Side A:

1. Sooner Or Later
2. Where Were You When I Needed You
3. Heaven Knows
4. Let's Live For Today
5. Temptation Eyes
6. The River Is Wide
7. Come On And Say It
8. Midnight Confessions

Side B:

1. Wait A Million Years
2. Walking Through The Country
3. Lovin' Things
4. Things I Should Have Said
5. Bella Linda
6. Baby Hold On
7. Feelings
8. I Can Turn Off The Rain

EDit: related thread on this one: https://www.quadraphonicquad.com/forums/showthread.php?p=77115#post77115


ED :)
 
I like 'em. Both versions of Q8 have their own strength's and weaknesses. Interesting to hear different mixes and versions. Love the music, there is no denying that fact. Really wish more of the 'Roots catalog had gone into Quad especially their next album!

Solid 9. Though I would love to get my hands on the multi's. This music is MADE for Quad. :phones
 
Great music & great quad mix, very discrete mix, i vote 10. :banana:
 
It's a very good mix, overall. Some tracks are better than others, but a pleasant surprise at the time, because not that many 'hits' albums were issued in quad, and certainly not one with this many chart singles! Always fun to listen to...:smokin

ED :)
 
I have a Q8 DTS copy, and a stereo vinyl copy. I would love to hear it on QS.

The Grassroots were a great band, and I love both the tunes PF Sloan wrote for and sang with them as well as the obscure covers they did (Rokes, Evergreen Something-or-other, etc.). The mix is wonderful, and the transfer to DTS I have pushes the envelope, taking Q8 about as far as it could go.

I love those ABC Command Performance LP's, though. Would love to get my grubby fingers on one...
 
The vinyl using the original CQ label was, on the main, very nice, quiet; later pressings of some titles, however, were much noisier(the label with the various colors).

It's interesting that this band had alternate mixes/takes and longer fades fairly early on, so a remix to quad must have seemed logical to someone(of course some material was remixed later for several CD compilations. Can't imagine tackling their output and making some kind of FAQ, since there would be much to sift through).

Hard ro rate, however, still debating over what to give it....

ED :)
 
The only real flaws on the QS version of this album were that, on some songs, the lead vocals were buried in the instrumental background to the point of them being hard to hear. The other was that in order to accommodate the number of tracks per side, the overall level was fairly low. This could give the record more audible surface noise, but I agree that the pressings using the original Command Quadraphonic green label were quieter overall. Why ABC didn't see fit to release more of their popular albums in quad was beyond me. They also should have, at the very least, put a QS logo on either the record label or the back of the jacket.
 
I've been revisiting some old SQ and QS lps thru involve decoder since adding an external preamp and im getting much better results on this one versus sansui qsd-2 decoder. I never found any of these "ABC command" QS mixes to be particularly impressive and this one is no exception...vox in all 4 corners makes it seem like there is less separation and sound quality is mushy at best. There are some highlights though...rear horns in "heaven knows" and the "1,2,3,4" vocal in "temptation eyes" going around the room.

Im curious about these different Q8 mixes others have reported...are they really that different? And are there different QS lps? Does the QS lp have the channel swap that the "c" series tape has? These abc/grt quad releases are so confusing.

7
 
I've been revisiting some old SQ and QS lps thru involve decoder since adding an external preamp and im getting much better results on this one versus sansui qsd-2 decoder. I never found any of these "ABC command" QS mixes to be particularly impressive and this one is no exception...vox in all 4 corners makes it seem like there is less separation and sound quality is mushy at best. There are some highlights though...rear horns in "heaven knows" and the "1,2,3,4" vocal in "temptation eyes" going around the room.

Im curious about these different Q8 mixes others have reported...are they really that different? And are there different QS lps? Does the QS lp have the channel swap that the "c" series tape has? These abc/grt quad releases are so confusing.

7

I've since heard the "C" tape and it is so superior to the vinyl it's unreal. It did take me a while to realize the left channels were swapped, but the transfer came out really well and the mix is completely different from the QS LP. Placements seem to vary...sometimes horns are in front, sometimes in back. Vocals are usually up front or in all four, though usually harmonies and backing vocals are in the back. Very discrete overall. The general consensus I've come to with ABC is to opt for Q8 over QS Vinyl. I guess these GRT tapes are all that's left of ABC's quad masters, so we should all take it upon ourselves to collect and transfer all of them.

If I could change my vote I'd give it a 9. Now to track down the "H" tape...
 
After all these years, still hard to rate, if only because more than one mix was released commercially. Overall, though, I'll push my luck and good sense and give this one a strong '7' and no more, though it's still kinda cool that this decent act, which never had the cred of labelmates Steppenwolf, or the big success of Three Dog Night, made it to quad while they did not. "Let's Live for Today" was simply a great record back in '67, and still get a kick out of hearing it (and the words are so true, right?)

ED :)
 
have two Q8s of this title. A blue case and a white case. The blue case has the 1-2-3-4 in lets live for today alternating speakers. the white case does not. Now that I have my system set up again, I will have to listen to both back to back for other differences.
 
have two Q8s of this title. A blue case and a white case. The blue case has the 1-2-3-4 in lets live for today alternating speakers. the white case does not. Now that I have my system set up again, I will have to listen to both back to back for other differences.

The tapes denoted "C" and "H" have different quad mixes entirely. I've heard them both and I ultimately prefer the "H" mix, but I do miss the guitar solo break in "Temptation Eyes" which has been replaced with an alternate synth solo. The "C" mix has the correct solo.

The GRT Q8 tapes are known to have weird quirks- many of the "C" tapes have swapped channels. My "C" copy of Grass Roots has the lefts swapped. It really threw me when the vocal first appeared diagonally in RF and LR in "Let's Live For Today".

Also, welcome to the forum! Sounds like you have quite a collection of Q8s. Glad to see someone new voting on these old quad titles. They Only Come Out At Night and There Goes Rhymin' Simon are among my favorite Q8s as well.
 
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listened to both versions tonight and i am amazed at the differences. Thank you scjorne for pointing this out to me. I have 50 Q8s that are still playable. 40 years ago, I asked the owner of dearborn music in michigan if he had any quad 8s that he couldn`t send back. he took me to his storage area and I found a dozen or so that were broken at the foil splice. the titles were best of the doors ,carly simon and bread. steve miller fly like an eagle, band on the run-wings dark side of the moon- PF billion dollar babies-alice cooper, best of the youngbloods, the guess who 1 and 2 and cant buy a thrill steely dan. unfortunately, band on the run and dark side of the moon were played so much they could not be repaired anymore. Looking at the prices on ebay my collection is worth close to $4,000 as most of the titles I still have are showing $80 to $100 a pop. I play my QUAD 8s every day, I just love the sound.
 
In another thread I made the statement that this Grass Roots quad(s) wasn't very good. So here is my "dissertation" as to why feel this way using several of the tracks as examples. The CD I'm comparing it to is this one shown below. It's an import, and I always listen to it in faux surround sound. Granted, none of the extant Grass Roots CD's or these quads are going to get Audiophile Award Of The Year, but hear goes:

grassroots.jpg




1. Sooner Or Later:
C-Tape: OK
H-Tape: Background vocals are buried in the rear channels way too low in volume.

2. Where Were You When I Needed You:
C-Tape: Tonal balance is off as it is on the CD, but not bad overall.
H-Tape: Tonal balance is worse than on the C-Tape or CD due to excessively hot high end.

3. Heaven Knows:
C-Tape: OK
H-Tape: Lead vocal is way too loud

4. Let's Live For Today:
C-Tape: OK
H-Tape: Suffers from excessively hot high end

5. Temptation Eyes:
C-Tape: OK
H-Tape: Tonal balance is off

The handling of the next two tracks is what really disappointed me and highly influenced my statement that these quads weren't very good. They are two of my favorite Grass Roots songs, especially Midnight Confessions (along with Let's Live For Today) and I am unhappy with how the quads were came out.

6. The River Is Wide:
C-Tape: OK but a bit muddy. Not as dynamic as the stereo CD.
H-Tape: Some elements are mixed way off...buried in mix. Too hot of a high end.

7. Midnight Confessions:
C-Tape: Immediacy of the CD version is missing. Organ is buried in the mix and not as dynamic as the CD version. Horns are not as dynamic as CD version. Grill's lead vocal has too much reverb, although Entner's lead on the middle 8 sounds about right. Bass guitar is nicely presented, however.
H-Tape: Some key elements are buried in the mix. High end is too hot.

9. Wait A Million Years:
C-Tape: Dead sounding mix compared to the CD.
H-Tape: Blah

I would give the C-Tape an 8 based on the bulk of the songs, but my very high expectations for The River Is Wide and Midnight Confessions makes this only a 6 for me. I'd rate the CD in faux surround a 7, so not much difference.
 
My copy has a black dot where the C would be and has a black H at the end of the number.
My copy has the guitar solo in 'Temptation Eyes', so appear to be the C mix.

It's the other way around, the one with the alternate takes, and swapped channel is usually referred to as the "C" mix, as it is the earlier mix.
The Black dot over the C and printed black H would be considered the "H" mix and generally appears with no swapped channel and the same takes used as the stereo cuts.
If your version of "Temptation Eyes" had the organ solo, then it would be the "C" mix.

It's been argued here before the the C/H controversy is more often related to a price code, sort of like how the CQ Columbia records became PCQ records later-on.

Similarly, most GRT cartridges begin as "C" catalog prefixes, later progress to "H" catalog suffixes.
 
My guess about the reason for the two mixes would be that the earlier one was done when ABC was releasing their quad product on Q8 only (circa 72/73), and the second one was done to be more "QS compliant" so they could use the same 4 channel master to derive a QS encoded master for the QS LP version that came out in 1974.

I know there's at least one other ABC Q8 with two different mixes - John Lee Hooker's Never Get Out of These Blues Alive - the early version circa '72 on the yellow Ampex carts has a different mix than the version on the blue GRT tape from a year or so later, and presumably that mix is the one you can get on QS LP.

The C/H thing is indeed a price increase indicator - early tapes started with C, so during the transition from C to H they stamped out the C and added an H stamp to the end, and then eventually the tapes were just printed with the H labels. So the C/H thing with the Grass Roots tapes is somewhat coincidental - if you have a C tape it's more likely that you'll have the early mix, but I don't think you can 100% guarantee it.
 
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