KBFH , SQ , and Silverline DVDA's in SQ matrix ?

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Here's what was rattlin around in my pea brain.

The Live From Front Row series on Silverline rather obviously did not come from the Biscuit vault which we all know ,no longer have the 2channel masters that were quad encoded.
But they do have the Multi's, which were not Barbecued. So given that Silverline 's requirements were to have Multi's.....and they were not sent ...and instead they were supplied with 2channel tapes for the rather crappy 5.1 upmixes ?......
Would they not be SQ encoded on the Stereo dvda section ?

I only have one in this Silverline series ,10cc , but perhaps others with more can verify this possibility.

PET ROCK RECORDS supplied mine ,and I'm sure the rest as well.

Anyway I thought I'd post this Strangeness for any and all to comment. So is this a source of live SQ or not ?

16525735556126207084875939961776.jpg
16525735859813610564181974596490.jpg
 
If they were supplied radio station reels from the '70's yes. But I doubt that very much.


Yea Mark your probably right. But it sure made me think ....where did they get em from ?
It would have to be a tape library not associated with DIR to be encoded. Which is a bit of a stretch.
 
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Considering that the archives were not sold to the public until the mid '90's and the Silverline DVD'S were not sold until the early 2000's all they had to work with were the multi-track tapes since the warehouse fire in the early 80's destroyed the quad encoded master tapes.
 
True enough Mark, but these were never made from a multitrack source. I wonder if they came from someone in the Los Angeles region seeing as how Silverline 5.1 were located there.

Give em listen and I'm sure you'll agree ,these are the worst 5.1 upmixes that Silverline ever made .

Worst of the worst--Live From The Front Row ,? more like "live from the trunk of your car".
 
I agree with the sound quality of the live from the front row series, what A lost opportunity (AND A DOWN RIGHT RIP-OFF, HOW WAS THAT GOING TO HELP PUSH SURROUND OR THE DVD-A FORMAT!).
I doubt Silverline would have taken the risk of not licensing from the right folks as large as the distribution was and that performance was released by the rights owner 8 years earlier.
10cc - King Biscuit Flower Hour Presents 10cc In Concert
Maybe they just used the stereo CD.
 
Sure , that's a possibility as well . A slim one though.

The only fly in the ointment was they made requests primarily for the original multi's when making DVDA. Now that lasted for a year and a bit.

Their original releases were from multichannel, but when they glomed on to those Sanctuary albums they got 2ch or even mono ! Some of those blues series recordings were from the 50's .

And their last year or so they had multies from Cooking Vinyl ,etc. Listening to Richard Thompson, Dar Williams, and an amazing Pere Ubu . The odd one popped up between those years like Tipper -Surrounded .
 
I "fondly' remember this blurb announcing Silverline's 'contract' with Sanctuary Records promising 140 MLP DVD~A 5.1 titles. It actually ended in a lawsuit waged by Silverline against Sanctuary Records for NOT supplying the master/multi track tapes promised:

https://www.mixonline.com/recording/silverline-sanctuary-release-140-dvd-audio-titles-375317
As much as we rag on Silverline, they did manage to release some very interesting, esoteric and fine sounding discrete MLP DVD~A 5.1 titles, But we can all agree that the LIVE FROM THE FRONT ROW series was NOT among them. If you play a few of them in MLP DVD~A STEREO [96/24] like the Pat Benatar and the Gerry Rafferty DVD~As, they really can sound quite good.
 
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Here's what was rattlin around in my pea brain.

The Live From Front Row series on Silverline rather obviously did not come from the Biscuit vault which we all know ,no longer have the 2channel masters that were quad encoded.
But they do have the Multi's, which were not Barbecued. So given that Silverline 's requirements were to have Multi's.....and they were not sent ...and instead they were supplied with 2channel tapes for the rather crappy 5.1 upmixes ?......
Would they not be SQ encoded on the Stereo dvda section ?

I only have one in this Silverline series ,10cc , but perhaps others with more can verify this possibility.

PET ROCK RECORDS supplied mine ,and I'm sure the rest as well.

Anyway I thought I'd post this Strangeness for any and all to comment. So is this a source of live SQ or not ?

View attachment 78837View attachment 78838
SQ? That is Dolby Digital and Dolby Surround.
 
SQ? That is Dolby Digital and Dolby Surround.

SQ was a matrix system developed by CBS Laboratories for Vinyl discs back in the 70's. It needed an SQ decoder to decode the 4 channels of info on the disc. Dolby Digital was developed in the 90's for DVD and Laserdisc and with the proper decoder would yield 5.1 DISCRETE channels of info.
 
I only have the Silverline ELP DVDA from 2003. Fairly sure it was sourced either from the King Biscuit CD set released in 1997 (the tracks are the same, just shuffled, and some edited down), or from the (probably identical to CD) King Biscuit stereo masters heard on Wolfgang's Vault (WV debuted in 2002) , which, from what I understand, are *stereo remixes* from the KB multi masters, so they would not be SQ encoded, and neither (from what i understand) would any KB shows you've heard on the radio since the late 80s/early 90s, or on any KB CD releases . Meaning the 1997 King Biscuit ELP CD itself is likely also one of those remixes.

Also, there is no dedicated stereo version on the Silverline ELP live DVD-A, it's 5.1 only.


tl;dr: not likely to be SQ
 
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SQ was a matrix system developed by CBS Laboratories for Vinyl discs back in the 70's. It needed an SQ decoder to decode the 4 channels of info on the disc. Dolby Digital was developed in the 90's for DVD and Laserdisc and with the proper decoder would yield 5.1 DISCRETE channels of info.

I know SQ.

I was reading the album label in the photo.
 
I "fondly' remember this blurb announcing Silverline's 'contract' with Sanctuary Records promising 140 MLP DVD~A 5.1 titles. It actually ended in a lawsuit waged by Silverline against Sanctuary Records for NOT supplying the master/multi track tapes promised:

https://www.mixonline.com/recording/silverline-sanctuary-release-140-dvd-audio-titles-375317
As much as we rag on Silverline, they did manage to release some very interesting, esoteric and fine sounding discrete MLP DVD~A 5.1 titles, But we can all agree that the LIVE FROM THE FRONT ROW series was NOT among them. If you play a few of them in MLP DVD~A STEREO [96/24] like the Pat Benatar and the Gerry Rafferty DVD~As, they really can sound quite good.

(Sorry for going off topic)
That's exactly what I think of my Gerry Rafferty Silverline DVDA !

Maybe it's time for SW or some great 5.1 engineer to remix his "Night Owl" , and "City To City" albums . Both amazing recordings ....I think anyways.
 
Just a side note here, I don’t have any of the Silverline front row series discs (I may have the Stiff Little Fingers one, I’d need to check), but some KBFH recordings also appeared as part of BBC Transcription Services’ “BBC In Concert: Pop Spectacular” broadcast series, which a (very quick) look on Discogs shows 34 known quad encoded discs. This could mean one of two things, either KBFH supplied quad tapes to BBC to press encoded discs with the KBFH intro bumpers and ads removed and BBC bumpers added, or KBFH and BBC had an arrangement to share concerts with one another, and record in quad. It’s notable that the BBC Transcription Service quad promos lean towards UK and European bands, only a couple of Santana sets are noted on Discogs, no other US bands (otherwise albums by the likes of Genesis, Procol Harum, Deep Purple, Jack Bruce, Caravan, Be Boo Deluxe, etc.). It seems likely that KBFH sourced their UK concerts from the BBC (much cheaper and easier than sending a crew to England to record a concert). Also, what’s on Discogs is not necessarily a full cataloging of the BBC quad series because (a) if they used reel tapes early on, those may not have seen many copies in circulation and (b) BBC is a central UK government subsidized collection of entertainment sources, potentially broadcast nationally out of one central location, so the need to press up a lot of LP’s or duplicate a lot of tapes may not have been present.

Additionally, any fire that destroyed tapes and transcriptions in the US would not have impacted recordings stored in the UK, of course, so if there were duplicates sent to (or from) the BBC (or anywhere else that KBFH might have found it profitable to share broadcasts…did CBC Canada ever do concert broadcasts?), those would not have been impacted by any domestic US problems with the tapes.

Lastly, Silverline came to be in the midst of the BBC licensing a fair amount of broadcast material for release, labels like Strange Fruit (John Peel’s own label which issued a ton of Peel Sessions) and other archival labels who issued Janice Long and Andy Kershaw Sessions and BBC Concert Series discs all came to be in the time between the late 80’s and the early 00’s.
 
It seems likely that KBFH sourced their UK concerts from the BBC (much cheaper and easier than sending a crew to England to record a concert). Also, what’s on Discogs is not necessarily a full cataloging of the BBC quad series because (a) if they used reel tapes early on, those may not have seen many copies in circulation and (b) BBC is a central UK government subsidized collection of entertainment sources, potentially broadcast nationally out of one central location, so the need to press up a lot of LP’s or duplicate a lot of tapes may not have been present.

Just to clarify a couple of points –

The Transcription Services discs were not made for the distribution of programmes within the UK. They were a purely commercial venture for the time limited licensing of BBC sourced material to foreign broadcasters who were offered discs on a subscription basis. A lot of the discs are not of shows that were ever aired in that (or in some cases any) form in the UK. Very many of them are compilations of recordings from various events and recording sessions. There are not many quad discs because it would appear very few foreign broadcasters were interested in taking quad material. The BBC offered to provide material in either SQ or QS but I don’t think any customers ever wanted QS encoding. I think the typical pressing of each TS disc was somewhere from 50-100 discs.

The BBC receives no funding from the government, it is funded by a licence fee.
 
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The BBC receives no funding from the government, it is funded by a licence fee.

I wasn't aware that the BBC Transcription service releases were earmarked for overseas use only. I've been looking for one (in stereo) by Mary Margaret O'Hara that appears to be pressed here in the UK in 1990, but I don't expect to find it soon. I've seen bootlegs of some of the major artist (like Led Zeppelin) in shops here. I was just pondering whether the BBC had ever licensed the surrounds of those or even retained them. I know they licensed the Procol Harum quad release from the transcription series for stereo reissue on numerous labels (including Peel's Strange Fruit imprint) and it looks like an expanded version (in stereo) of the Be Bop Deluxe Hammersmith recording (originally a BBC quad transcription) was scheduled for Record Store Day.

But just now looking at Silverline's Front Row series, a large number of them are sourced from KBFH releases, though mostly late 80's and 90's KBFH broadcasts. Unless KBFH continued to record in multi-channel after they were said to have ended that (and after quad broadcasting had ceased to be viable), the truthfulness of them being true multi-channels seems tremendously suspect. The thing about surround live recordings is that a dishonest label (not specifically throwing shade on Silverline) could easily toss some stock audience ambience in the rears along with some slight echo and fake a surround live recording to the extent that some buyers wouldn't question it, maybe wouldn't be happy, but they might just be satisfied having a new live album. Columbia's Johnny Cash Live At San Quentin is pretty slight for a quad LP, very much just audience in the back, music in the front (I would hope that Folsom Prison has a bit more to it, or why did Columbia do a surround SACD). I have other, studio Silverline releases and the only one I can think of that was purpose mixed for release as a 5.1,that is Pere Ubu's Modern Dance. And some are just outright ridiculous (a collection of early 60's Searchers recordings in 5.1, really?!?!)

Also, I use the word "subsidized" not in anyway that I am disagreeable about paying my licensing fees (I'm largely happy with what you get for your various fees and taxes in the UK). But the truth is that the BBC is a national network (rather than private or private non-profit) of news and entertainment resources that are funded by a hypothecated tax (our licensing fee) and while the BBC collects the fees, it's my understanding is that they don't initially go to the BBC, they go into a consolidated UK government fund, then through a perfunctory Parliamentary appropriations vote and then back to the BBC. I guess a better way to put it is that they are subsidized by fees/a tax collected specifically for the BBC, rather than out of the UK general governmental budget. Many Americans get so panicked about taxes and government funding, the US could learn a bit from the UK about creating methods where you can call some taxes "fees" and avoid having to have heated debates about them ad infinitum.
 
I wasn't aware that the BBC Transcription service releases were earmarked for overseas use only. I've been looking for one (in stereo) by Mary Margaret O'Hara that appears to be pressed here in the UK in 1990, but I don't expect to find it soon. I've seen bootlegs of some of the major artist (like Led Zeppelin) in shops here. I was just pondering whether the BBC had ever licensed the surrounds of those or even retained them. I know they licensed the Procol Harum quad release from the transcription series for stereo reissue on numerous labels (including Peel's Strange Fruit imprint) and it looks like an expanded version (in stereo) of the Be Bop Deluxe Hammersmith recording (originally a BBC quad transcription) was scheduled for Record Store Day.

But just now looking at Silverline's Front Row series, a large number of them are sourced from KBFH releases, though mostly late 80's and 90's KBFH broadcasts. Unless KBFH continued to record in multi-channel after they were said to have ended that (and after quad broadcasting had ceased to be viable), the truthfulness of them being true multi-channels seems tremendously suspect. The thing about surround live recordings is that a dishonest label (not specifically throwing shade on Silverline) could easily toss some stock audience ambience in the rears along with some slight echo and fake a surround live recording to the extent that some buyers wouldn't question it, maybe wouldn't be happy, but they might just be satisfied having a new live album. Columbia's Johnny Cash Live At San Quentin is pretty slight for a quad LP, very much just audience in the back, music in the front (I would hope that Folsom Prison has a bit more to it, or why did Columbia do a surround SACD). I have other, studio Silverline releases and the only one I can think of that was purpose mixed for release as a 5.1,that is Pere Ubu's Modern Dance. And some are just outright ridiculous (a collection of early 60's Searchers recordings in 5.1, really?!?!)

Also, I use the word "subsidized" not in anyway that I am disagreeable about paying my licensing fees (I'm largely happy with what you get for your various fees and taxes in the UK). But the truth is that the BBC is a national network (rather than private or private non-profit) of news and entertainment resources that are funded by a hypothecated tax (our licensing fee) and while the BBC collects the fees, it's my understanding is that they don't initially go to the BBC, they go into a consolidated UK government fund, then through a perfunctory Parliamentary appropriations vote and then back to the BBC. I guess a better way to put it is that they are subsidized by fees/a tax collected specifically for the BBC, rather than out of the UK general governmental budget. Many Americans get so panicked about taxes and government funding, the US could learn a bit from the UK about creating methods where you can call some taxes "fees" and avoid having to have heated debates about them ad infinitum.
Sadly the government seems to want the BBC funding to be via subscription rather than a licence fee (which is way way cheaper than my Sky TV subscription). I think we'd just end up with wall to wall 'lack-of-talent' contests on TV hosted by 'reality show' stars, ugh! BBC4 took over from BBC2 with 'quality' programmes, now its mainly a repeats channel :( ........ and does anybody actually watch BBC3?
 
The Transcription Services discs were not made for the distribution of programmes within the UK. They were a purely commercial venture for the time limited licensing of BBC sourced material to foreign broadcasters who were offered discs on a subscription basis. A lot of the discs are not of shows that were ever aired in that (or in some cases any) form in the UK. Very many of them are compilations of recordings from various events and recording sessions. There are not many quad discs because it would appear very few foreign broadcasters were interested in taking quad material. The BBC offered to provide material in either SQ or QS but I don’t think any customers ever wanted QS encoding. I think the typical pressing of each TS disc was somewhere from 50-100 discs.

Also, my initial comment was largely uninformed by any real exploration of facts. Sorry about that. Looking at the the BBC Transcription Service Pop Spectacular series, there seems to be no overlap with KBFH that I can see, so I was rambling and wasting my time with that thread.

What's interesting about the BBC Transcription Service quads based on Soundfield's comment above is that they were specifically mixed and issued for overseas audiences, which I gather means that quad radio broadcasting wasn't a trend over here in the 70's. That leads me to a curious question. Quad was mildly popular in the US (with loads of releases in the 70's and a number of major market radio stations broadcasting in both stereo and quad) and a fair number of German prog/Krautrock bands did quad releases as well (though I have no idea whether quad systems were popular in Germany or if it was just that American's were buying albums in quad, so there was a market), and I know it was popular in Japan. And back in the US, there is currently clearly a strong market for multi-channel recordings on SACD, DVD and Blu Ray. But since moving here (to the UK) I've seen almost no old quad LP's in 2nd hand shops (and the one or two, I recall, were US pressings). And apart from the stuff coming out of Steven Wilson's studio and Dutton-Vocalion (which both seem to have big followings in the US), I've seen very little quad or 5.1 releases released on UK labels that are sold in shops (and I've not once seen a Dutton release in a retail store, though I get that Dutton doesn't seem to focus on retail). But it's clear that Europe has an audience for surround (the Moody Blues 5.1's came out in the EU, Talking Heads CD/DVD sets are still in print over here). But while a few shops carry the Steven Wilson surround mixes (King Crimson, XTC, whatever's still available and popular), shops tend to look a bit confused when I inquire about surround releases. So, is (or was) multi-channel audio a thing that interests UK listeners anywhere near to the extent that it interests US listeners? I've been to many shops in the US that have expansive separate sections for SACD and DVD/Blu Ray audio...surround and audiophile sections. But shops here just tend to say "we never see that stuff", one owner of a rather large shop with a large section of used CD's simply said he's never gotten anything like that in his shop. Lack of interest over here could explain why, perhaps, a label might be able to issue fairly dubious "surround" releases without much criticism. But I'm just not clear whether or not there is measurable interest in surround in the UK. I would love to see some of the major releases in boxed sets (Beatles, Pink Floyd, solo Beatles) generate more interest and more releases. But I'm uncertain whether what I'm seeing isn't just a coincidence of the particular shops I've gone into (which are many) or whether it is indicative of a difference in interest over here.

Please, anyone from the UK, do not misread this as disparagement of the UK, it is only my own curiosity based on my experience as a resident of the UK for only the past few years. I accept that I may be completely clueless here. I also accept that this may look like a sprawling mess of a comment.
 
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