Rhino acquires Jefferson Starship & Hot Tuna Catalogues

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Very cool. So they only got the Starship stuff, not Airplane? Shame as it would be cool to get the The Worst Of Jefferson Airplane quad mix reissued.

I've never heard Spitfire, but I have Red Octopus on CD-4 and Dragon Fly on Q8 and CD-4. Unfortunately the mixes aren't particularly great, they sound very "double stereo" with some occasional quad-y pans or effects.

BTW though America's Choice and Yellow Fever are the best Hot Tuna quads, there are quite a few more that were only released on Q8 in the USA. Several of these were part of that "R4P" CD-4 series in Japan that corresponded to the USA "PQ8" series.
 
I have all three Starship QUADS on Dolby b encoded Open Reels and although I haven't spun them in a LONG while, from memory they're ALL Keepers!
What is Spitfire like in Quad? its great in stereo!

It got me thinking about the Knebworth Festivals. I saw Hot Tuna in 1976 when the Rolling Stones were the headliners (£4.25 for the day), and Jefferson Starship (sadly without Grace Slick) in 1977 when Genesis were the main act (£5.50 for the day!)..............fun times, and cheap.
 
Well, there goes hoping D-V would be able to release them.

Maybe Rhino will get around to it once they finally get that Doobies set out... :rolleyes:

But there's always hope D~V COULD release The Worst of the Jefferson Airplane and Volunteers on QUAD SACD [which I also have as dolby b encoded QUAD Open Reels.

Edit: Volunteers isn't dolby b encoded ...... [Worst of IS].
 
I'm intrigued, needless to say. I smell at least two REALLY BIG box sets, separately of course, of JS and Tuna, though, just to get the quads. My wallet will hate it, but I will be blissful. Who knows, maybe a box set for each album.

We can dream indeed. Meanwhile, D-V, we're waiting on you for the Airplane! Too bad Paul is dead, he'd be the one to ok it. Fortunately, Grace gets along with Jack and Jorma :whistle:

But Paul owned the "Jefferson" name. Who knows, maybe D-V needs to contact China! (the daughter, not the country lol). She'd have to sign off with that trio to get that done. Though come to think of it, the son, Alexander (the medium), might have inherited the rights. Never heard how the will turned out, but I suspect Paul never cared about that. Just a number in their numbers game.
 
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I'm intrigued, needless to say. I smell at least two REALLY BIG box sets, separately of course, of JS and Tuna, though, just to get the quads. My wallet will hate it, but I will be blissful. Who knows, maybe a box set for each album.

We can dream indeed. Meanwhile, D-V, we're waiting on you for the Airplane! Too bad Paul is dead, he'd be the one to ok it. Fortunately, Grace gets along with Jack and Jorma :whistle:

But Paul owned the "Jefferson" name. Who knows, maybe D-V needs to contact China! (the daughter, not the country lol). She'd have to sign off with that trio to get that done.

Actually, Grace Slick and manager Bill Thompson won control of the name “Jefferson Starship” after Kantner tried to sue to stop them from using the name in 1985 that included an agreement that the name wouldn’t be used going forward.

It is my understanding that she gets a piece of the action of both of the bands currently touring as “Starship” and “Jefferson Starship”
 
I've never heard Spitfire, but I have Red Octopus on CD-4 and Dragon Fly on Q8 and CD-4. Unfortunately the mixes aren't particularly great, they sound very "double stereo" with some occasional quad-y pans or effects.

I just revisited both, have to correct the record: Dragon Fly is indeed a pretty boring mix, definitely what I'd call "big stereo" with not a lot of front-to-back difference. What's weird is that the lead vocal is in all four, but the backing vocals are only in the fronts. Playing with the channel assignments on this one might prove interesting...

Red Octopus, on the other hand, is actually pretty discrete. It's a little front-heavy, but there is definitely discrete information in the rears. The song "Miracles" has all the vocals upfront with some percussion and strings discrete in the rears.
 
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I have some R-R transfers of these and the overall sound is somewhat "Dull" (dolby?) and as sjorne mentioned, not a great discrete surround experience. Hopefully that can be improved on, if and when a surround version is released.

Do you know, JP, whether they were transferred utilizing Dolby b .... which, IMO, makes a big difference. I invested in an outboard TEAC DOLBY B decoder when I purchased my Teac Open Reel QUAD deck and it did make a significant difference.
 
I have some R-R transfers of these and the overall sound is somewhat "Dull" (dolby?) and as sjorne mentioned, not a great discrete surround experience. Hopefully that can be improved on, if and when a surround version is released.

It's possible the converter may have gotten a bit heavy-handed with the noise reduction. Or they're from 2nd or 3rd generation copies of the original reel. I personally don't collect quad reels (too expensive), but in my experience with the conversions they are not all created equally. Some sound as good as a professional DVD-A or SACD, yet others don't sound much better than Q8s.

I'm looking at my Dragon Fly Q8 conversion, and I just noticed an interesting anomaly. The waveform below is the song "Devil's Den", which is one of the better quad mixes on the album. It starts off with the violin/fiddle discrete in the fronts and then the rears kick in. The rears mostly mirror the fronts, but there are no drums and the bass guitar is much more prominent. Whoever mixed this one really wasn't using the quad format to its full potential, to say the least.

What's weird is that the right rear channel is unbelievably dull. It's like they copied the left rear channel over and ran it through some sort of extreme low-pass filter. Maybe I have a bad cart? I had a copy of Argent's In Deep Q8 that had a similar problem (all of program 2 was dulled to the point of being unlistenable).

Screen Shot 2019-02-03 at 4.10.30 PM.png

Here's an MP3 of the first 30 seconds of the track, rear channels only. You an hear that the left side dominates because that's where all the high end is. Very odd.
 
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It's possible the converter may have gotten a bit heavy-handed with the noise reduction. Or they're from 2nd or 3rd generation copies of the original reel. I personally don't collect quad reels (too expensive), but in my experience with the conversions they are not all created equally. Some sound as good as a professional DVD-A or SACD, yet others don't sound much better than Q8s.

I'm looking at my Dragon Fly Q8 conversion, and I just noticed an interesting anomaly. The waveform below is the song "Devil's Den", which is one of the better quad mixes on the album. It starts off with the violin/fiddle discrete in the fronts and then the rears kick in. The rears mostly mirror the fronts, but there are no drums and the bass guitar is much more prominent. What's weird is that the right rear channel is unbelievably dull. It's like they copied the left rear channel and ran it through some sort of extreme low-pass filter. Maybe I have a bad cart? I had a copy of Argent's In Deep on Q8 that had a similar problem (all of program 2 was dulled to the point of being unlistenable).

View attachment 38259

Here's an MP3 of the first 30 seconds of the track, rear channels only. You an hear that the left side dominates because that's where all the high end is. Very odd.

I must admit I'm in somewhat ignorant bliss when it comes to wave forms and even DR and other tech stuff, I do trust what I hear however.
That is one big reason why I hang out here on the QQ - Learning is the Great Adventure!
 
It's possible the converter may have gotten a bit heavy-handed with the noise reduction. Or they're from 2nd or 3rd generation copies of the original reel. I personally don't collect quad reels (too expensive), but in my experience with the conversions they are not all created equally. Some sound as good as a professional DVD-A or SACD, yet others don't sound much better than Q8s.

I'm looking at my Dragon Fly Q8 conversion, and I just noticed an interesting anomaly. The waveform below is the song "Devil's Den", which is one of the better quad mixes on the album. It starts off with the violin/fiddle discrete in the fronts and then the rears kick in. The rears mostly mirror the fronts, but there are no drums and the bass guitar is much more prominent. Whoever mixed this one really wasn't using the quad format to its full potential, to say the least.

What's weird is that the right rear channel is unbelievably dull. It's like they copied the left rear channel over and ran it through some sort of extreme low-pass filter. Maybe I have a bad cart? I had a copy of Argent's In Deep Q8 that had a similar problem (all of program 2 was dulled to the point of being unlistenable).

View attachment 38259

Here's an MP3 of the first 30 seconds of the track, rear channels only. You an hear that the left side dominates because that's where all the high end is. Very odd.
Yeah, the Q8 of In Deep is pretty rough, IMO.
 
I must admit I'm in somewhat ignorant bliss when it comes to wave forms and even DR and other tech stuff, I do trust what I hear however.
That is one big reason why I hang out here on the QQ - Learning is the Great Adventure!

And By the time you graduate, JP, you'll have a Ph.d in Surround Sound!


th
 
I am with the Pupster when it comes to being happy to learn so much here! Every day my system sounds better and my ears know better what to hear thanks to so much great experience and advice.

DITTO, Keywhiz. I think we've ALL benefitted from the collective knowledge/advice put forth on this marvelous, UNIQUE, website. It seems everyday, I've learned something NEW. And the fact that we're still getting SURROUND MUSIC is a testament to the efficacy of QQ Forum and it's invaluable members....and of course our fearless leader from the Nutmeg State [Connecticut], Maestro Jon Urban!
 
What is Spitfire like in Quad? its great in stereo!

It got me thinking about the Knebworth Festivals. I saw Hot Tuna in 1976 when the Rolling Stones were the headliners (£4.25 for the day), and Jefferson Starship (sadly without Grace Slick) in 1977 when Genesis were the main act (£5.50 for the day!)..............fun times, and cheap.

A little off topic, but Hot Tuna and JA fans should check out Jorma's Fur Peace Ranch (in rural Ohio), with music workshops, tiny but cool concert venue (with some BIG names occasionally coming through), and a psychedelic museum too!
 
What's weird is that the right rear channel is unbelievably dull. It's like they copied the left rear channel over and ran it through some sort of extreme low-pass filter. Maybe I have a bad cart? I had a copy of Argent's In Deep Q8 that had a similar problem (all of program 2 was dulled to the point of being unlistenable).

View attachment 38259

Here's an MP3 of the first 30 seconds of the track, rear channels only. You an hear that the left side dominates because that's where all the high end is. Very odd.

When you have tapes that have a dull channel (usually it's the front left on program 1 or the rear right on program 2, ie the channels physically on the outer edges of the tape) it usually means that your playback head isn't perfectly aligned with the tape. This is why most consumer Q8 decks usually have a spring-loaded adjustment screw inside, so you can get the playback head aligned with the tracks on the tape.

This diagram shows the three kinds of head adjustment that you generally get in pro decks - Azimuth (left-right tilt), Zenith (up-down tilt) and Skew (up-down track alignment). The adjustment screw on a consumer deck is basically a Skew adjustment, ie. an adjustment of the alignment of the tracks on the playback head with the tracks on the tape. The other approach to this is what the old-timers call the "matchbook shim technique" - basically you jam a matchbook (or some paper or whatever) in between the cartridge and the slot on the deck where the tape goes in either above or below to move the tape up or down relative to the playback head.

Recorder1.gif


When I was doing transfers of my tapes, the precise alignment of tracks on Q8s seemed to vary not just from label to label, but from tape to tape - I could never just 'set it and forget it'. My methodology was to adjust the Skew up and down until I found the spot where I was getting the most treble response out of the tape, and that the treble response was roughly the same across the four channels I was transferring.

The Jefferson Starship quad mixes aren't as discrete as the stuff that CBS was doing, but I don't think the point of quad mixing is simply to throw everything in the corners as discretely as possible just for the sake of it, or to swirl elements around simply because you have the technology to do so. Some of the poorer CBS quad mixes sound more like stereo plus two discrete mono surrounds rather than an integrated surround mix - I'll take the quad mixes Pure Prairie League over something where the drums are clanging in mono in one corner behind me, or Steve Miller's Fly Like an Eagle, which is a much more fully-realised surround mix than the overly discrete mix of The Joker, which is so discrete it almost sounds like they took a 4-channel multitrack and assigned one channel to each speaker.

I haven't listened to the Jefferson Starship quad mixes in a long time, but Dragon Fly was always my favourite one, I found the others a bit bloated. I don't remember them being that much double stereo, but who knows - I certainly wouldn't judge their sonic merits based on what conversions sound like, that's for sure.

As for what the catalogues moving to Warners means, it seems like a mixed bag. Certainly they'll want to recoup their investment, but by the same token they seem apathetic at best about licensing or exploiting their quad masters. The Chicago Quadio set and the Doors GH are nice, but they represent a drop in the bucket relative to what's still languishing in their vaults. The majors seem focused at the moment on getting stuff out to beat the 50-year copyright expiry in the US, so while this year might be great for the prospects of albums originally released in 1969, it means that we're still 5 years away from any of the Starship stuff being forced out the front door.
 
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