Quad LP/Tape Poll Loggins & Messina: Full Sail [SQ/Q8]

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Rate "Full Sail"


  • Total voters
    13

EMB

2K Club - QQ Super Nova
Since 2002/2003
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The Top 40 Radio of My Mind
Top ten pop/rock album from 1973, PCQ/MQ 32540.

Side 1:

1. Laihaina
2. Travelin' Blues
3. My Music]
4. A Love Song
5. You Need A Man/
Coming To You


Side 2:

1. Watching The River Run
2. Pathway To Glory
3. Didn't I Know You When
4. Sailin' The Wind



ED :)
 
This is an album and quad mix that is pleasant enough, but can't say that L&M ever knocked me out, so a '7' here.

ED :)
 
Probably the album I have re-purchased the most over the years. I had it on vinyl, cassette, stereo 8track and quad 8track. Thanks to Jon I am currently working on a conversion of the Q8. Very nice quad mix and some really pretty songs. And the boys can rock out a bit as well on "You Need A Man' and "Pathway To Glory".
 
The evocative album cover and "Laihaina" summed it up: a pop group's (duo & backing band) fun holiday after some considerable success (and work), with a relaxed (and yes, occasionally rocking, if not too hard) atmosphere (in other words, Jimmy Buffett just before he found his tropical muse).

I remember the week this album came out. Went to the local record store to buy a stere copy (they didn't carry quad--yet), but because of a pressing error, the first track had some kind of problem (not warpage, but a bit of 'drift,' as if some other substance had contaminated it). Returned it, bought another: same problem. Third time (at another store)--same problem. So....broke down and bought a cassette. No problem (though sound quality for tapes back then was not up to what came much later). Finally, bought a quad Lp edition, and presto! Not only nice sound, but a mix that was more playful and amenable to the spirit behind the album. Yeah, it's really 'lite' stuff and a 'lite' act like Loggins & Messina never excited me much. But for anyone who needed a nice sunny afternoon in the sun (and in quad), not too many like FULL SAIL to do the job.



ED :)
 
The stereo lp has incredibly deep bass on the last track of side 2 "Sail in the wind" ...you could use it for a hifi demo...and whilst I haven't heard the q8 of this title, the quad lp has (by comparison to the stereo lp) not much bass at all on the last track of side 2..

I'm not sure if they just mixed Jim Messina's bass guitar down in quad or something went out of phase in the quad mixing,..after all as the bass guitarist recorded the lp, you'd think he might have a slight desire to have his instrument a bit louder than normal.


But the dissapearing bass in the quad version reminded me of two otherquad that lost alot of bas compared with the stereo version....1) the quad version of windflowers by seals and crofts on their unborn child lp compared with their stereo lp version....2)and also on the quad version of summer in the city by quincy jones on the you've got it bad girl lp.

sorry to hear about an early pressing fault on the stereo copies ,my usa import copy is fine with track one on the stereo copy. the stereo lp never seems to bring mega bucks second hand, so hopefully a good later pressing in stereo could be found cheaply..I should look at the runout grooves on the stereo copy to see which one to get.
 
The stereo lp has incredibly deep bass on the last track of side 2 "Sail in the wind" ...you could use it for a hifi demo...and whilst I haven't heard the q8 of this title, the quad lp has (by comparison to the stereo lp) not much bass at all on the last track of side 2..

I'm not sure if they just mixed Jim Messina's bass guitar down in quad or something went out of phase in the quad mixing,..after all as the bass guitarist recorded the lp, you'd think he might have a slight desire to have his instrument a bit louder than normal.


But the dissapearing bass in the quad version reminded me of two otherquad that lost alot of bas compared with the stereo version....1) the quad version of windflowers by seals and crofts on their unborn child lp compared with their stereo lp version....2)and also on the quad version of summer in the city by quincy jones on the you've got it bad girl lp.

While I don't know the particulars for the Loggins & Messina quad, I do know that in the vast majority of cases, the original artist had absolutely NO input as to how the Quad release was mixed - many didn't even know they ever had a quad release on the market! RCA, CBS, Warner, etc... all employed producers/mixers who did the quad mix when they were told to do. Some artists cared more about their stuff, such as Wendy/Walter Carlos & Paul Simon, and had enough clout, or a good contract, that allowed them to tell the studio what they would or would not release and in what format, but most didn't. Heck, control freak Barbra Streisand had no control over her releases in quad - I'm glad those albums got released in SQ though, even if only ever listened to in stereo because the SQ mixes are so superior in every way - better mixing, dynamics, soundstage layout (even with 2 channel playback), better/different vocal takes and more instruments in many songs that fill out the mix better, etc. By comparison, Bab's stereo releases sound muddy, squished, flat, often with poor separation, total lack of dynamics - and the 45 mixes are even worse, with much less separation to increase Mono AM broadcast compatibility.

BTW, speaking of mono compatibility - there was one LaserDisc release from Disney back in the early 90's, Fantasia, that had a Dolby Surround encoded Digital soundtrack that was NOT mono compatible because it had full, hard surround, that would totally disappear in mono - the Analog FM soundtrack was was stereo, but Mono compatible and was barely Dolby Surround - instead of sounds being fully panned to the rear, they were panned about half-way between front and back so that a full quadrature relationship was created between front and back, ensuring all speakers got all surround sounds in mono. That's the ONLY time that has been done like that - the VHS and Beta Hi-Fi releases both used the mono compatible mix. The Non-Mono Compatible mix decodes AMAZINGLY with the Fosgate Tate II - if I didn't know better, I wouldn't hesitate to claim it was SQ encoded - it decodes that quaddy! There really aren't any phantoms mixed in, like Center Left/Right up front, etc... so even power-transfer Full Wave-matching Logic decoders like the Sony SQD-2020 or the Vari-Blend Layfette SQ-W decode Fantasia really well too.

Sorry to bring that up here - I just wanted to mention it. If someone thinks this subject (home video/audio compatible/non-compatible mixes) merits further discussion, could the above section of this post be moved into the appropriate forum area? I think it's something worth discussing because DVD's and Blu-ray's often have a 5.1 mix that does not mix down to Dolby Surround correctly so the studio includes a correctly matrixed 2-channel Dolby Surround encoded mix. Dolby has never really let the public know that that is why DVD's contain a 2-channel duplicate of the 5.1 mix in many cases. If the 5.1 mix WILL mix down to 2 channel correctly (has no side-phantoms that are destroyed by the broadband 90-degree phase shift applied to the Right Back channel in 5.1 encoding), there will be no 2-channel mix included on the disc. DTS didn't really get their 5.1-to-2 channel matrix encoded downmix (and Dial Norm and Dynamic Range control settings/control) in order until around 2005 or so - thus, no DTS CD release or the DTS LaserDisc's will properly encode down to 2-channel. I have (what I think is the first) Panasonic DVD-Audio portable, the DVD-LA95, and it has built-in DTS decoding - it won't downmix ANY DTS DVD or CD to 2 channel with Dolby MP Matrix encoding. It mixes to non-encoded 2 channel like CD-4 did - Left Back to Left Total, Right Back to Right Total, full stop, end of story.
 
Full Sail was one of the better Columbia Q8 titles with Dolby B for a brighter high end. On the Harman Kardon 8+ it was practically high fidelity. :)

Say what you will about the light material, they certainly had darker and funkier offerings for contrast. The second album had Angry Eyes for a nice long instrumental workout for all involved and You Need A Man was utilized here in a similar fashion.

For the record, Jim Messina played electric and acoustic guitars and Larry Sims was their bass player during these albums. They played a gread concert at the San Diego Sports Arena in December 1974 after Full Sail had been out for a few months. It actually rocked more than you'd think.
 
Full Sail was one of the better Columbia Q8 titles with Dolby B for a brighter high end. On the Harman Kardon 8+ it was practically high fidelity. :)

Did ALL Q8's only have the front channels encoded with Dolby-B, or did some companies release Q8's with both pairs of channels encoded? And if so, were any from major studios? Did Q4 open-reels follow the front-only encoding scheme?
 
Columbia/Epic, etc. were doing Dolby B on Q8's, beginning in '73. The rest ignored Dolby B. I have a sealed SQ of Full Sail, Korvettes price sticker intact. I'm saving it for my new turntable. Ed Bishop, your reviews are on point. I know that L&M are considered lightweight. In the early 70's, L&M and Santana were my fave bands. I rated this a 10. If this is a 10, the next album, Motherlode takes it up to 11. "It's one more." Sadly, Motherlode didn't sell well, had no hit singles, and wasn't released in Quad. Like Bob Romano, I've owned beaucoups copies of Full Sail, actually 8. Like Ed, I first had a cassette, which I exchanged for the Q8 when it came out a couple weeks later.

Overall, I prefer vinyl to Q8, even matrix. I like the better frequency response, dynamic range and lower noise threshold (sometimes.) When CD-4 hit, I began to prefer all Quad vinyl. Prior to that, Q8 was my format of choice. In the waning days of Quad, I reverted to Q8, because of one in my car. It was on a slide mount, doing double duty with an auto reverse cassette.


SQ is the way I like to hear Full Sail, although I've logged the most time with the Q8. BTW: the DBX LP (2-ch) of this is awesome

Linda.
"I got half a mind to close my eyes and let the string go, sailin' the wind."

Did ALL Q8's only have the front channels encoded with Dolby-B, or did some companies release Q8's with both pairs of channels encoded? And if so, were any from major studios? Did Q4 open-reels follow the front-only encoding scheme?
 
I was doing some quad research tonight and discovered that either they changed the back cover credits on this album, or there were two different quad mixes of this album. Check this out:

fullsail-comp.jpg

Is it possible that Al Lawrence & Larry Keyes did the original mix and that the band weren't happy so they had them re-do it in association with Alex Kazanegras, who was L&M's engineer? Kazanegras was the (sole) quad remix engineer credited on the next (and last) L&M title to see quad release (Native Sons in 1976) so he must have had some familiarity with the format.

Maybe people who have this album could post their deadwax info along with which back cover credit their sleeve has and we can work out if there were two mixes, or if it was just the one mix and they updated the back cover credits on later pressings.
 
Maybe people who have this album could post their deadwax info along with which back cover credit their sleeve has and we can work out if there were two mixes, or if it was just the one mix and they updated the back cover credits on later pressings.

My copy is a CQ 32540 and looks like your CQ example quad remix Lawrence and Keys. My copy runout area says PQAL 32540 -1A / PQBL 32540-1A

vinylguy4
 
I got a second copy today, this one has Alex Kazanegras also listed as quad remix supervision and engineer.
But the numbers in the runout are the same PQAL 32540 -1A / PQBL 32540-1A.
Number on the cover and LP is CQ 32540.
So does not appear to be a remix, just a correction of credits on the back cover.

vinylguy4
 
The mix is as playful and colorful as the album cover that drew me in back in the day...with songs to match. The ballad/singer-songwriter stuff aside, how could you resist guys on a boat so cooly singing "Lahaina," or (however obvious) stating policy with "My Music," the album's hit? Slight material, yes, but enjoyable in a way Jimmy Buffett would soon fashion for himself.

ED :)
 
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