John from Rhino.com here - THANK YOU, QUADRAPHONIC QUAD FORUM!

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Think the best answer to that qestion has been already written at SH forum regarding the release of Grand Funk "American band" ( http://www.stevehoffman.tv/forums/showpost.php?p=5449351&postcount=2 ):
The Adventures of a License

Over the years, many of you have asked about the process and the time it takes to license titles from the major record companies. We just had an unusual experience with the licensing of Grand Funk Railroad "We're an American Band"- a lot of ups and downs (and more ups!) so I thought I'd share this adventure with you.

About a year and a half ago, we sat down with EMI/Capitol Records and licensed five titles for our 24K series. These titles were The Beach Boys' "Pet Sounds", The Band "The Band", Linda Ronstadt "Heart Like a Wheel", Grand Funk Railroad "We're an American Band" and Billy Idol's "Rebel Yell". We released The Beach Boys and The Band in April of last year. In May, we released Linda Ronstadt. In the meantime, we were licensing other titles from other companies and decided to release the Grand Funk and Billy Idol later in the year, or early 2010.

In January of this year, we prepared to release the Grand Funk Railroad and Billy Idol. We planned to release Grand Funk in April and Billy Idol in June. We contacted EMI and made our request for the tapes on both titles. By this time, there was a new regime and a whole new group of people at EMI Licensing. The people we had originally made our deal with were gone and the new people felt we had to request the titles again. Lucky for us, the two new people in licensing, Brent and Rex, were passionate about music and were real pros to work with. It took two months to get the new approvals and in March we requested the tapes for Grand Funk Railroad. We're back in action with Grand Funk: we had the approvals from EMI and we ordered the tapes. I contacted Steve Hoffman and Kevin Gray to see what their schedules were so we could get Steve over to RTI to work with Kevin. Both Kevin and Steve are very busy so getting them together is always a challenge. We'd ordered the tapes from the tape vault. We sat down and discussed the art and we decided we were going to duplicate the original foil album from the original Grand Funk Railroad release from 1973. We contacted our printer, set up a meeting with them and showed them the original album cover and asked them if they could duplicate the foil. Days later they responded saying they could match the original foil, so our art director went to work to put all the elements together.

A week later, we heard from the Capitol vaults that they'd found the masters and they'd be getting them ready. We contacted Steve Hoffman who coordinated a date to go into the studio at RTI and remaster "We're an American Band". A couple days later we received a call from the Capitol vaults saying that the master they found was in fact the original four channel QUAD master, not the original stereo album masters we were looking for. I contacted Steve and shared our situation with him. Fortunately, Steve does quite a bit of work at Capitol and had recently worked on the Nat King Cole titles for Acoustic Sounds. When I shared our dilemma with Steve, he said he'd seen this happen before. Steve contacted Capitol directly and had them look in different marked boxes. His previous experience had been that some of the older master tapes had been reboxed with new labels. Sure enough, the original master tapes were found just as Steve thought they'd be, in great shape.

We rescheduled Kevin and Steve to go to the studio and master Grand Funk. I thought we were on a roll.

I received a call from EMI saying that there may be a problem with the original art work, specifically the photo of the group sitting nude on the haystacks- a famous photo from inside the original album. The photo belonged to an independent photographer and EMI didn't know if they had the rights to license the package using that photograph without the permission of the photographer. We debated back and forth about the photo and whether or not we wanted to go forward if we couldn't acquire the entire package as it was originally released. We even thought about doing the inside of the package and leaving a gaping white blank with the words "Artist wouldn't give us permission to use the photograph. Use your imagination!" Luckily, just a few days later we received word from business affairs at Capitol saying the photo and all the art work were a "go". Again, Brent and Rex were relentless on our behalf.

We were back in business!

Before long, the project was on hold again as Capitol's business affairs department wasn't sure whether using our see through O-card was compliant with the spirit of their contract with the group. It seems their contract states that the album cover can never be altered or changed. Business affairs at Capitol thought using our see through O-card, which always shows our 24k disc with the 'mini' of the album on the right hand corner, might be a breach of their agreement. We were back on hold again.

I had to contact Steve and Kevin and have them, yet again, cancel studio time while we waited for Capitol business affairs to decide on our use of the O-card. We threw all the arguments at them- we've been using the same see through O-card with the same type of 'mini' for almost 20 years. We showed them how the Beach Boys, The Band and the Linda Ronstadt all had the same O-card. We even reached back to pull Nat King Cole, Bob Seger, and Paul McCartney from the DCC days to show them we used the O-card even back then and never altered the album. We went through every possible argument you could make. After about five days of going back and forth, canceling mastering sessions, holding up the art work, we finally received word everything was okay. When I say 'we', I really mean Brent and Rex who went to bat for us with their business affairs department. This was no longer a job for them; it was a mission that turned into a quest to get the Grand Funk approved for Audio Fidelity.

We're back with a green light!

We contacted Steve and Kevin who accommodated us and quickly set up studio time. We contacted our printer and asked them if they could move us up on the production schedule. We even contacted the pressing plant ODS, that usually only manufactures 24K titles twice a month and had them schedule a special pressing for the Grand Funk and Asia's "Asia". Everyone was cooperating and the wind was finally at our backs.

Now, dammit, I hope you enjoy Grand Funk Railroad's "We're an American Band" and Asia's "Asia". No, I take that back... I know you'll enjoy them! This was such an up and down journey, I thought I'd share it with you.
 
You know, as long as they had those Quad masters out, they could've rolled off a DTS copy or two ;)
 
Well, we will see if Rhino releases anything "new"...

The business is not what is was and never will be again...
 
So do we know what happened to John from Rhino.com????? Three posts in one week back in July then silence. The fact that this thread lives on is a testament to our interest.
 
Let's hope John is still in good shape, and just really busy with the reorganization of the company.
 
The copyright law has too long a duration. All of those tracks should be public domain by now.
 
Anybody know what's going on now over at Rhino after the layoffs, in regards to the Quadio releases? I haven't seen anymore release announcements, nor any more comments from John nor the lady that is in charge of the program.
 
I sent John an email/PM (I forget) but did not get a reply. I hope he's still employed. We need guys like him out there.
 
Well, I guess we don't have to choose between Tres Hombres and Fandango now.

Since it will be none of the above.
 
I think, at first we should need those titles, which have been produced in 4-channel, but not offered on the market. There are also a few by Warner and WEA. And Rhino is a part of them. So it should be easy for Rhino to take those quadraphonic productions and mastertapes for the "handmade" sextion. But important: When they exist till today. And why not take the handmade productions also to the big record shops or audio-video shops?

Dietrich
 
Hi, all! Long time no see!

Sorry for the radio silence, but as someone above speculated, there was much to be done here for the holiday season. Things are (almost) normal now as we wind down the Holiday selling season, so I wanted to check in real quick, say hey, and assure you guys that Quadio is NOT dead at Rhino.

I can't reveal anything yet because frankly, our next release is not set in stone yet, but rest assured once it is you guys will be first to know.

THANK YOU AGAIN for all your support. If you don't have Aretha Quad yet better hurry before you're paying eBay prices like the Chicago Quad disc is seeing now...

-- John from Rhino
 
Hi, all! Long time no see!

Sorry for the radio silence, but as someone above speculated, there was much to be done here for the holiday season. Things are (almost) normal now as we wind down the Holiday selling season, so I wanted to check in real quick, say hey, and assure you guys that Quadio is NOT dead at Rhino.

I can't reveal anything yet because frankly, our next release is not set in stone yet, but rest assured once it is you guys will be first to know.

THANK YOU AGAIN for all your support. If you don't have Aretha Quad yet better hurry before you're paying eBay prices like the Chicago Quad disc is seeing now...

-- John from Rhino

Thanks John for checking in with us, this is great news. We're extremely happy to know that the Quadio program is rolling along just fine! It's also good that you know we're selling out these titles. You have a big winner with this program. Thanks again and Happy Holidays!
 
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Hi, all! Long time no see!

Sorry for the radio silence, but as someone above speculated, there was much to be done here for the holiday season. Things are (almost) normal now as we wind down the Holiday selling season, so I wanted to check in real quick, say hey, and assure you guys that Quadio is NOT dead at Rhino.

I can't reveal anything yet because frankly, our next release is not set in stone yet, but rest assured once it is you guys will be first to know.

THANK YOU AGAIN for all your support. If you don't have Aretha Quad yet better hurry before you're paying eBay prices like the Chicago Quad disc is seeing now...

-- John from Rhino

great news to hear that more releases are in the pipeline

any idea how many copies they press of each title?
 
Great news, an early Christmas present.

So if your next release is not set in stone, are any of our suggestions helpful?

I don't know if it's in your catalog (and when I think of the label history, I think it's not) but "Bridge Over Troubled Water" is certainly one of the greatest quad mixes I've ever heard, along with Paul and Art's solo stuff.

I'll shut up now.
 
Mark,

I think that I just read that all of Paul Simon's stuff has reverted back to Columbia in the past month or so. There was a write up that it was the first time in history that all of his solo and S&G work was on the same label.

(Sounds like an excuse for ANOTHER box set or two)
 
Hi, all! Long time no see!

Sorry for the radio silence, but as someone above speculated, there was much to be done here for the holiday season. Things are (almost) normal now as we wind down the Holiday selling season, so I wanted to check in real quick, say hey, and assure you guys that Quadio is NOT dead at Rhino.

I can't reveal anything yet because frankly, our next release is not set in stone yet, but rest assured once it is you guys will be first to know.

THANK YOU AGAIN for all your support. If you don't have Aretha Quad yet better hurry before you're paying eBay prices like the Chicago Quad disc is seeing now...

-- John from Rhino

Glad to hear it! Bring on the next Quadio disc !
 
Mark,

I think that I just read that all of Paul Simon's stuff has reverted back to Columbia in the past month or so. There was a write up that it was the first time in history that all of his solo and S&G work was on the same label.

(Sounds like an excuse for ANOTHER box set or two)

Sorry. Just shooting a wish-list off the top of my head without considering who owns what.

With so many home-studio systems in the US it seems a no-brainer than anyone with quad tapes would release them.

No offense to John.... just seems there's a market out there, not just with us quad-lovers but a bigger market that doesn't even realize they're set up for quad.
 
Not to bitch, but heres hoping the new release is on a hirez format, like bluray audio. DTS DVD is so last year. I think bluray is popular enough now to be the format of choice (If not, please give us a dvd audio stream on the dvd) It also makes it easier to pay $29 for an old catalog title....
 
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