History of Quad Seminar in NYC 4/10/07

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Dolbytone

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"History of Quad" Seminar in NYC this Tuesday Night April 10, 2007

One of my friends who is a Tech at Dolby Lab's NYC sent me this info today by eMail. I am not a member of the AES, but have collected many articles from them. (I am a member of SMPTE though). I was very excited to read about this seminar and thought some of us in the Tri-State area might be able to attend. I'm definetly going!

Anyone is invited. http://www.aes.org/sections/ny/


Steve :brew

Note: even though it says "1330" I know this building, it should be "1350". This seminar is in the old MGM screening room on the lobby level. The cross streets are 6th Ave x W55 St. on the SE corner. The door is on 55th St.


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1330 Sixth Avenue
New York, NY
(enter on 55th Street)

Surround 4.0:
The history of QUAD
from the '70s to the present day


Host: Joel Spector Presenter: Robert Auld
Engineer / Sound Designer, AuldWorks, NYC Jerry Bruck
Recordist & Consultant, Posthorn Recordings, NYC Emboldened by their success in bringing back the early days of stereo in a brace of meetings last year, avid audio researchers Bob Auld and Jerry Bruck now tackle the history of surround sound, from the 60's and 70's to its possible resurgence today.
The acronyms for the emerging "quadraphonic" techniques that attempted to recover four channels from the two-channel stereo LP (there were "E-V Stereo-4," "SQ," "QS," and "CD-4," and the Japanese "UD-4"), applied to the sadly conflicting systems devised by Ben Bauer, David Hafler, Peter Scheiber, Len Feldman, Jon Fixler, and Jim Fosgate, among others. Add to these the "Q-4" open-reel tapes and "Q-8" cartridges, and the confusion and consternation of consumers is not difficult to imagine.
It was George Santayana who said: "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." Bob and Jerry have rounded up examples of early quad recordings to play, but there is more than just a recap of history in their choices. The rise and fall of Quad may be our meeting subject, but in that history lies the potential for a contemporary reassessment.
Bob Auld will discuss and play "early quad," that first flush of recordings that excited us with their potential and then fell victim to a technology/marketing miscarriage. Jerry Bruck, drawing upon his years of experience, will add his insights on quad's highs and lows to Bob's, and then play recordings that he hopes may entice the ash-daubed Phoenix of QUAD to soar anew.
The usual pre-meeting social half-hour will optionally be available for those who would prefer to audition Quad playbacks in the hall.
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Wonder if they need any donations of "sample" discs of old quad? :D
 
Wonder if they need any donations of "sample" discs of old quad? :D

That is a really good question, but they will probably be pressed for time. Most of these things only last for two hours. They did say they would audition music in that first "social" half hour.

What I am wondering is are they going to play music using decoders on site or are they going to just playback the "results" of previuosly decoded stuff. This would be a real bummer, but don't laugh, I've seen other things demo'ed like this before.

I would think though that they -are- really going to bring in the real deal. I know the projectionist there and the people who run the room and will try to find out what technical requirements have been asked for that day. (I'll try to see what is being set up in the lobby) If I find anything out, I will post it.

And of course the next thing I'm wondering is what great (possibly rare?) decoders are they going to bring? Will they do an Encoder>Decoder for demonstration?

I have to take some pictures!
 
AES has regular meetings in my city--Chicago. But they have yet to have one with quad as a topic. I'm jealous!

The closest thing I've been to was a few surround sound presentations, one of which had John Kellogg who played his 5.1 mixes of ELP (this was a few years before the Brain Salad Surgery DVD-A was first released).
 
I made some calls earlier this afternoon to the people that run the screening room (I would have posted sooner, but I was in the field all day and have just arrived home). In fact the person I talked to had just finished a quick tech/run thru with the guys who are giving the semninar. I asked him about the equipment that they were bringing and he said "one guy had a ProTools set-up on his Laptop with 4-ch out and the other had some sort of Hard Disc unit with a discrete 4-ch output." He didn't see any older Quad components. And so there it is, no great (or any) decoders, encoders, transcoders, nothing. Again, someone elses prerecorded outputs. Oh well...

I am still very excited though, to go to the seminar and here what will be said about Quad. I wish I had a small device that would record about two hours. I don't think I can get my Sony 854-4 into my backpack! I will bring my wife's digital camera (batteries freshly charged!). Will post back tomorrow when I get home.




Old Quad Guy: Hey everytime I look at your avitar, I wonder just what that piece is? Is it an old quad position encoder/mixer of some type or is it just an old (regular) mixer? ......... Though still I think I saw that picture somewhere?
 
Old Quad Guy: Hey everytime I look at your avitar, I wonder just what that piece is? Is it an old quad position encoder/mixer of some type or is it just an old (regular) mixer? ......... Though still I think I saw that picture somewhere?

Hello Steve,
It is a photo of Grammy Award winning sound engineer Carson Taylor at an actual Quadraphonic recording/mixing station working on a Quad track at Capitol Records' Hollywood studios in 1974. The full photo shows a speaker behind him. I don't look like this now (I'm 48), but hope to be still rocking at 95! That is, if my past life doesn't catch up to me. The 1970s was one hell of a party..:D
James
 
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Old Quad Guy: James, Thanks for the interesting info and yes, the 70’s were one hell of a party!..…. (I’m 50) Did you get that pic from a certain book? I would like to track this down to see if they mention the model of the board?


zabble, Phydo, and others: Don’t be jealous. Unless you don’t have a Quad system at all, it was really nothing special. It was a bit interesting, and I enjoyed some of the selections, but really…it was nothing that anyone with a nice quad set-up couldn’t have played back.

Although, I guess not everyone with a quad set up has great decoders so on second thought, it might have been a good comparison to what people have now to what they could have. I remember how much I wanted better decoders and equipment, when I first started out!


So I got there early enough to see the projectionist and a few of the guys from Dolby to hear what the exact set-up and wiring that was used.

Equipment:

As stated before on a previous post, no decoders were used on site. All selections were previously decoded. Everything was played back on a small 4 channel discrete device or a laptop.


Speakers and Placement:

Though not ideal, the speakers that were in the screening room were used. For the Fronts, they used the Left and Right screen speakers. Center and Sub’s were not used. For the Rears they used one side surround speaker on either side near the back of the auditorium. The rest of the side surrounds were not used. The surrounds on the rear wall were not used at all.

So the Fronts and the Rears were not the same. The Fronts were large 3-way, but through a perf. The rears were small surrounds. I believe all were still EQ’ed to the iso standard curve for Theatres and Screening Rooms, 3dB down per octave past 2K. All delays were removed from the surround channels. I don’t know if I liked this or not. The Fronts are much farther away then the sides right next to you (in this room). This echoes the fronts a bit.

My set-up at home used to have all 4 the same and my rears were along the rear wall, but a little farther apart then the fronts. I had moved them all around to different positions, but this is what I had stuck with for the last year or so. However, everything is all packed up now and will be for some time, as we are in the midst of a move and fixing up a house. Hopefully I’ll have a larger Quad listening room in the next house!

Also, the way the PA (microphone) system was, it killed the surrounds any time the mic was on and a few times they forgot to shut it off right away before playing a selection…just a bit annoying.


Selections:

Some of the selections they played were really quad sounding, great, almost discrete. Most of the time any selection was being played, a PowerPoint like slide was projected on the screen showing you the author, title, and the equipment that it was decoded from. I thought this was especially nice, informative, and organized. They mentioned the Tate a few times.

Except for one or two songs, everything was classical. Now don’t get me wrong, I enjoy some classical music, but I think it could have been mixed up a bit.

Also, I can’t remember anything being said about UD-4. I didn’t take any pictures; there was really nothing to take a picture of.

They also tried to convey the thought of mixing more in quad today.

I think the seminar went a bit to slow for my taste, but this is just my opinion. I would have tried to have made it more interesting. I am still glad I went though. I wish someone in this group had given the seminar and I am thinking of one in particular!!! I know there would have been some great (rare) equipment and awesome selections!


Did any one else from QQ have the chance to attend ???


Steve :brew
 
Old Quad Guy: James, Thanks for the interesting info and yes, the 70’s were one hell of a party!..…. (I’m 50) Did you get that pic from a certain book? I would like to track this down to see if they mention the model of the board?

I saw it on the back of a Capitol quad sampler, was it Magnavox Presents a Sound Experience?
 
That is the record, but unfortunately there's no mention about what type of board it is.


They also tried to convey the thought of mixing more in quad today.

It's great they mentioned the idea of new Quad mixes. It would be interesting if a retro Quad mix of Led Zeppelin could be done for example, or any other 1970's music not released in that format before.
 
It's great they mentioned the idea of new Quad mixes. It would be interesting if a retro Quad mix of Led Zeppelin could be done for example, or any other 1970's music not released in that format before.

That would be great. Has Jimmy Page ever been asked why they didn't dabble in quad mixes, considering they were doing incredible business for Atlantic? I know with him having control and the final say, maybe it was something he felt wasn't of interest, or he didn't like the concept of quad.
 
I always wondered in the 1970's why Led Zep and other big name acts of the era (like the Rolling Stones) didn't release Quadraphonic versions of their albums. It would have given a big boost to Quad back when it needed it. Thousands of Quad systems would have been bought by rabid Zep fans if Jimmy Page released say "Houses Of The Holy" in Quad. But by the time "Presence" came out cassettes we're rapidly replacing 8 tracks (who wants to own a sound system where your media gets munched by the tape deck).

"The Song Remains The Same" had an excellent LOUD Quadraphonic Mix in the theaters and was released around the same time as "Presence." They could have easily put out a Quadraphonic record version. They need to restore that original mix to the DVD version with it's original clarity and separation. "The Song Remains The Same" would make an excellent DVD-A release.
 
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