Quad Mix Hall Of Shame (A List of Fake and/or Very Conservative Quad mixes)

[J. PUPSTER]

As Eastern Sounds is one of my favorite albums by Yusef Lateef; this "Quad" release simply named Yusef Lateef caught my attention awhile ago and I bought a cheap sealed one on discogs.

After mentioning it to our man @steelydave; he informed me of the bad news, that he believes it is a Fake Quad by the Everest Records Archive Of Folk & Jazz Music label, and probably mono.

Apparently it is a version of his 1961 album "Lost In Sound."

I should play it at least and see how the music sounds

A couple of others by Everest that I found on discogs that have a QS logo on the back are these two-

https://www.discogs.com/Nat-King-Cole-Nat-King-Cole-Including-Nature-Boy/release/1511483
https://www.discogs.com/Ray-Charles-Ray-Charles-Volume-II/release/1828497

 

[Mark Anderson]

Jeff, the Released Recordings that are NOT Quadraphonic discography might be useful down the road for identifying albums that are marked as Quad but are not.

Released Recordings that are NOT Quadraphonic

 

[J. PUPSTER]

Jeff, the Released Recordings that are NOT Quadraphonic discography might be useful down the road for identifying albums that are marked as Quad but are not.

Released Recordings that are NOT Quadraphonic

Ha, yeah, I was just there looking at the list; you show some of the Everest's in there, didn't notice that Lateef title though?

And damn shame about this one-
https://www.discogs.com/Stéphane-Grappelli-Stephane-Grappelli/release/2489169

 

[humprof]

Ha, yeah, I was just there looking at the list; you show some of the Everest's in there, didn't notice that Lateef title though?

And damn shame about this one-
https://www.discogs.com/Stéphane-Grappelli-Stephane-Grappelli/release/2489169

That said, at least there are a couple of better Grappelli quads out there (with Yehudi Menuhin): Fascinatin' Rhythm and Tea for Two.
https://www.discogs.com/Yehudi-Menuhin-Stéphane-Grappelli-Fascinatin-Rhythm/release/2894650https://www.discogs.com/Yehudi-Menuhin-Stéphane-Grappelli-Tea-For-Two/release/12634407

 

[fredblue]

That said, at least there are a couple of better Grappelli quads out there (with Yehudi Menuhin): Fascinatin' Rhythm and Tea for Two.
https://www.discogs.com/Yehudi-Menuhin-Stéphane-Grappelli-Fascinatin-Rhythm/release/2894650https://www.discogs.com/Yehudi-Menuhin-Stéphane-Grappelli-Tea-For-Two/release/12634407

Fascinatin' Rhythm is absolutely wonderful in Quad, the mix gives a really fun and immersive sensation of Surround. i'd love to hear it discrete someday!

Tea For Two on the other hand seems like a much tamer mix (sometimes tricky to know exactly what is going on and where with SQ but that's how it decoded) and felt a less engaging experience all-round tbh.

 

[4-earredwonder]

Fascinatin' Rhythm is absolutely wonderful in Quad, the mix gives a really fun and immersive sensation of Surround. i'd love to hear it discrete someday!

Tea For Two on the other hand seems like a much tamer mix (sometimes tricky to know exactly what is going on and where with SQ but that's how it decoded) and felt a less engaging experience all-round tbh.

I own this delightful Angel SQ Vinyl but NEVER heard it properly decoded. Anyone have this and can comment on the mix?

S-36080* (SQ) Raymond Lewenthal: Toy Symphonies & Other Fun. CARL
REINECKE: Toy Symphony in C. FRANKLIN TAYLOR: Adagio & Finale
From The Toy Symphony. HENRI KLING: Kitchen Symphony, Op. 445.
DANIEL STEIBELT: Three Bacchanales, Op. 53. CORNELIUS GURLITT:
Toy Symphony in C, Op. 169. ETIENNE-NICOLAS MEHUL: Overture Burlesque

 

[MidiMagic]

I remember seeing in the 1970s a cassette that had to be a bootleg fake. It had the CD-4 logo on it. I wish I could remember what was on it.

 

[Lance7489]

A list of Quad mixes which are said to be fake (i.e. not from the multitracks, etc.), I have included the label that issued the Quad and record or tape format information.

Any additions, amendments, comments, contributions of any kind are most welcome and encouraged!


Burt Bacharach : Greatest Hits (A&M) (Q8),

Burt Bacharach : Make It Easy On Yourself (A&M) (Q8),

Burt Bacharach : Reach Out (A&M) (Q8),

Carole King : Tapestry (Ode) (CD-4, Q8),

Cat Stevens : Catch Bull At Four (A&M) (Q8),

Cat Stevens : Tea For The Tillerman (A&M) (Q8),

Cat Stevens : Teaser & The Firecat (A&M) (Q8),

Chi-Lites : Greatest Hits (Q8),

Funkadelic : Cosmic Slop (Westbound) (Q8),

Glen Campbell/Jimmy Webb : Reunion (Capitol) (Q8),

* Grand Funk Railroad : We're An American Band (Capitol) (Q8),

Guess Who : Artifical Paradise (RCA) (Q8),

Guess Who : Flavors (RCA) (CD-4, Q8),

Guess Who : Power In The Music (RCA) (CD-4, Q8),

* Herb Alpert's Tijuana Brass : Whipped Cream & Other Delights (A&M) (Q8),

Herbie Hancock : Secrets (Columbia) (Q8, SQ),

Humble Pie : Smokin' (A&M) (Q8),

Joe Cocker : Joe Cocker (A&M) (Q8),

Joe Cocker : With A Little Help From My Friends (A&M) (Q8),

Ohio Players - Ecstasy (Westbound) (Q8),

Santana : Amigos (Columbia) (SQ),

Santana : Festival (Columbia) (Q8, SQ),

Sergio Mendes : Greatest Hits (A&M) (Q8),

* Steely Dan : Pretzel Logic (ABC Command) (Q8, QS),

Wes Montgomery : Greatest Hits (A&M) (Q8).

N.B. (*) denotes mix may actually be very conservative rather than fake.

Totally agree with the 3 Guess Who titles (Artificial Paradise, Flavors, Power in the Music) being fake or at the very least, ultra conservative quad mixes. Along with Chicago, the Guess Who were "Quad Pioneers" in having almost all their RCA albums released in some form of quad (Q8, CD-4, Open reel). Up until & including "Road Food", their quad mixes were excellent (with the exception of Artificial Paradise). With the Q8 of Artificial Paradise, I think they were trying something "different" with the heavy reverb & echo, however, it turned out to be a sonic disaster. It's too bad because the 2 songs from Artificial Paradise that were included on "The best of Vol. 2" 's quad release were great quad mixes. If the entire album was done like the 2 songs mentioned, it would have been a excellent quad release !

As far as the last 2 GW albums with Burton Cummings (Flavours & Power in the Music), I have absolutely no idea what thy were thinking with the quad mix. Both almost sound "mono" with almost no separation whatsoever, however, the stereo versions sound quite good. It's really a "head scratcher" with these 2. Maybe they knew the band was winding down & just wanted to get something "quad" released & didn't care about how it sounded.

 

[surround.sound.enthusiast]

Ha, yeah, I was just there looking at the list; you show some of the Everest's in there, didn't notice that Lateef title though?

And damn shame about this one-
https://www.discogs.com/Stéphane-Grappelli-Stephane-Grappelli/release/2489169

I think it was quadlinda who coined the phrase "quadra-monic" (a good play on Scepter Records' old "stereo-monic" phrase),
which definitely applies to the Everest, and Olympic discs. Many of us (then and now) were drawn in by the great big QS logo
on the top back corner.

While I haven't found the recordings to be of any great quality, if you like the musicians they released on these false QS discs,
you might find some songs or versions of songs that don't appear elsewhere. I've actually got a thick handful of those lime
green cover Olympic LP's because of the musicians, and many Everest too (w/ and w/o QS claim). They remind me of the
Springboard Records LP I have, "The Early Cream of Clapton, Bruce, Baker" - not archival, but interesting to hear none the less.

Oh, and check this out from Billboard Magazine from '74, Sansui took notice of the shenanigans:

 

[Q-Eight]

Totally agree with the 3 Guess Who titles (Artificial Paradise, Flavors, Power in the Music) being fake or at the very least, ultra conservative quad mixes. Along with Chicago, the Guess Who were "Quad Pioneers" in having almost all their RCA albums released in some form of quad (Q8, CD-4, Open reel). Up until & including "Road Food", their quad mixes were excellent (with the exception of Artificial Paradise). With the Q8 of Artificial Paradise, I think they were trying something "different" with the heavy reverb & echo, however, it turned out to be a sonic disaster. It's too bad because the 2 songs from Artificial Paradise that were included on "The best of Vol. 2" 's quad release were great quad mixes. If the entire album was done like the 2 songs mentioned, it would have been a excellent quad release !

As far as the last 2 GW albums with Burton Cummings (Flavours & Power in the Music), I have absolutely no idea what thy were thinking with the quad mix. Both almost sound "mono" with almost no separation whatsoever, however, the stereo versions sound quite good. It's really a "head scratcher" with these 2. Maybe they knew the band was winding down & just wanted to get something "quad" released & didn't care about how it sounded.

What's especially mind-blowing about the Guess Who mixes, is that up until Road Food, they really weren't promoting the Quad tapes very much. Maybe it was due to the introduction of CD-4, but the new album "Flavours" received a TON of promotional material in print and radio adverts with "Dancin' Fool" being on nearly every single RCA sampler or Ford Quadrasonic demo tape. Around that time, the Guess Who even did a "Live, in Quad" radio broadcast out of New York playing pretty much the entirety of material from "Flavours".

And yet, the mix is so ultra-nothing that it barely passes for Quad. I don't understand it either. Maybe they didn't have facilities yet to do 24-track to Quad?? I honestly have no clue on that one.

 

[doity]

are any of The Carpenters' Quad mixes fake?
(i've not heard them all yet but those I have so far have all been real)

Yes, a good half of the Carpenters mixes are questionable at best. It is more like ambience in the rears as opposed to separate channels. The only thing that makes it passable is the music itself. The problem is that the majority of their strongest albums were mixed like this. After “Now & Then” they fixed the problem and the mixes were more discrete but the material was not as consistent as their earlier stuff. At least in my opinion.

Somewhere out there if you look for it there is an article featuring the guy who was responsible for the A&M mixes at the time. He comes off as a real know-it-all and he proclaims that really discrete quad mixes were just “gimmicky” and he had perfected a way to do it ‘right’. He comes off as pretty full of himself and being that Richard was a quaddie (is that a word?) he was none too happy with the results. Why Richard never went back in and remixed their first few Quad albums is a real mystery......but maybe not as he probably couldn’t help himself by re-doing all of the arrangements and original instrumentation.

 

[par4ken]

Totally agree with the 3 Guess Who titles (Artificial Paradise, Flavors, Power in the Music) being fake or at the very least, ultra conservative quad mixes. Along with Chicago, the Guess Who were "Quad Pioneers" in having almost all their RCA albums released in some form of quad (Q8, CD-4, Open reel). Up until & including "Road Food", their quad mixes were excellent (with the exception of Artificial Paradise). With the Q8 of Artificial Paradise, I think they were trying something "different" with the heavy reverb & echo, however, it turned out to be a sonic disaster. It's too bad because the 2 songs from Artificial Paradise that were included on "The best of Vol. 2" 's quad release were great quad mixes. If the entire album was done like the 2 songs mentioned, it would have been a excellent quad release !

As far as the last 2 GW albums with Burton Cummings (Flavours & Power in the Music), I have absolutely no idea what thy were thinking with the quad mix. Both almost sound "mono" with almost no separation whatsoever, however, the stereo versions sound quite good. It's really a "head scratcher" with these 2. Maybe they knew the band was winding down & just wanted to get something "quad" released & didn't care about how it sounded.

Regarding the last three Guess Who albums. They definitely weren't up to the Quad mix standard of the earlier releases, however I never felt that the mixes were really bad either, for two opposite reasons. With the first two I didn't really care for the music that much so actually rarely I listened to them, so I didn't really notice if the mix was bad or good. With "Power in the Music" I really liked the album, especially the track/hit "Roseanne", again because I liked the music so much I never noticed that the mix was less than stellar!

Quite frankly there are a lot of stereo mixes out there that might as well be mono, many more bad stereo mixes per capita than bad quad! Modern 5.1 mixes on the other hand I find are mostly bad, far too conservative, in many cases I would rather listen to the decoded stereo version.

 

[jimfisheye]

Quite frankly there are a lot of stereo mixes out there that might as well be mono, many more bad stereo mixes per capita than bad quad! Modern 5.1 mixes on the other hand I find are mostly bad, far too conservative, in many cases I would rather listen to the decoded stereo version.

It's almost as though someone took inventory of some of the worst mistakes made back in the quad days and said "Hold my beer..."

Some of the absolutely botched releases in these modern times are truly baffling! Some of the over the top gross ones... Clearly no one listened to the final files before release. Not an audio person anyway!

My latest theory is that some of the surround mixes go to video guys for "mastering". Because surround sound must mean video, right? Some video guys are tin ear and truly don't think audio quality matters even a little. Not to be shitty and stir things up but the stereotype is out there. This would explain some of the mutilated releases the last few years anyway.

 

[birrrdy!]

What a great list and thread. Thanks for posting.

 

[MidiMagic]

We have to remember that most studios were not as equipped as some of you imagine.

The Beatles started with 3-track recorders, and had two 4-track recorders until late in their recording careers. Only the White Album and Abbey Road and the single Hey Jude were made with an 8-track.

The Beach Boys was the first major group to use an 8-track (in the late 1960s). The Lovin' Spoonful was the first group to use a 16-track.

16-track equipment was rare until around 1973-74, and 24-track even later. So don't expect 24-track multitracks for anything in the classic quad era.

 

[steelydave]

Sorry but your timeline is a bit off there - Columbia NY was 16 track by mid-1969 (most of Chicago II is 16 track) and was 24 track less than 2 years later, as were many of the big US studios. They also had the capability to sync two multitrack machines by putting timecode or a sync pulse on an empty track of each machine - Bridge over Troubled Water did this, I can't remember if it was 8 and 4 or 16 and 8, and Roy Halee also did this for Garfunkel's Angel Clare, syncing two 16-track machines for a total of 30 tracks (minus the two tracks lost to the sync pulse process).

 

[quicksrt]

Grand Funk / American Band is also not fake. Like most of the Capitol Q8's, it's underwhelming. I would also imagine the lack of usable instrument tracks plays a big part. I mean, what can you do with drums, bass, an organ and a guitar? If you listen, the fronts are very dry, the drums are very prominent as well as vocals and organ.
The rears feature (smothered in echo) the vocals, drums but the organ is nowhere near as prominent but the rhythm guitar is very prominent. Lead guitar appears in the front channels with its' echo in the rears. There may also be some vocal splitting front to rear, but it's more a matter of which overdub went where.

If the first song leaves you wondering, the second song on the tape "Stop Lookin' Back", has the drums mixed in more of a "super-stereo" fashion, using all the channels. Organ is very much in the rear but the guitar is front center.

It's not a four-corner, Columbia mix, but it expands the stereo versions a fair bit. It's still quite underwhelming, but maybe that could also be due to some track bleed-through as well. Maybe I was over critical in previous posts, but perhaps a modern attempt at this mix could breathe some new life into it?

(I also believe it to have a swapped channel due to the fact that the indian drums at the end of "Loneliest Rider" pan around in an X (FL, FR, BL, BR) rather than a nice circle around the room.

I'm always wondering what "Shinin' On" would have been like in quad? A decent discreet mix?

Because AF left the stage with unfinished business still on the table. Three of four SACD titles issued near the end with quad mixes available and likely approved but not completed as mastering and pressing costs was becoming unworkable. So DV comes along and gets us two of the four missing quad mixes, Weather Report and Return to Forever. That leaves GF "Shinin' On" and BS&T "Greatest Hits" as unfinished business. Unless the GF is simply not worth the trouble?

 

[surround.sound.enthusiast]

I'm always wondering what "Shinin' On" would have been like in quad? A decent discreet mix?

"Shinin' On" came out as a Q8 according to Mark Anderson's discography, which is why I was also disappointed that the Audio Fidelity SACD wasn't multi-channel.

 

[kfbkfb]

Once again, a somewhat OT comment:

I'm interested to know if, in the early 1960s, when dual inventory Mono and Stereo LPs were the norm (and the Mono mix wasn't just a folddown of the Stereo mix but a separate Mono mix), are there cases where the Stereo mix seemed to be an afterthought, just a quick mix so as to have something for the Stereo LP buyers?


Kirk Bayne

 

[jimfisheye]

Once again, a somewhat OT comment:

I'm interested to know if, in the early 1960s, when dual inventory Mono and Stereo LPs were the norm (and the Mono mix wasn't just a folddown of the Stereo mix but a separate Mono mix), are there cases where the Stereo mix seemed to be an afterthought, just a quick mix so as to have something for the Stereo LP buyers?


Kirk Bayne

Probably the most striking example would be Pink Floyd Piper at the Gates of Dawn. The stereo remix comes across as an afterthought just knocked out by an intern or something. There were some vocals added 'live' during the original mono mix and thus are missing on the stereo remix as well. The sound quality is poor compared to the mono mix too.