Steve Miller tape (Cassette) Hits 76-86?

[neil wilkes]

Does anyone know how many - if any - of the tracks on this old cassette tape are Quad?
I ask as I just ran it in for my better half (She found the tape for £0.50) who wants it on a CD for playing whilst she works. Well, during the transfer it sounded as if things were drifting in the mix, so when it all recorded I ran it through an SRS decoder and instant, virtually discrete 5.1 output. Much better than you would expect from stereo being upmixed, with a synth panning across Ls/Rs during "Fly Like An Eagle".

So I am going to run it all through the AA script, to see what comes out the other end. Would be nice to know if it's real, or if I just got lucky.

 

[JonUrban]

There were always a lot of phase shifts in the Steve Miller stereo mixes from "FLAE" and "Book of Dreams". Us quad freaks waited fruitlessly for the BOD Q8, which was rumored but never materialized.

As I recall, the QS Matrix playback of Book of Dreams was pretty good......

 

[winopener]

One of the "possible" Capitol QS?

 

[Old Quad Guy]

Us quad freaks waited fruitlessly for the BOD Q8, which was rumored but never materialized.

I was waiting for BOD Q8 as well. When it did not come out I was pissed off, and that meant to me that Quad was beginning to be over in the 70's. I'm still disappointed "Book Of Dreams" Quad did not happen.

I don't know of any Quad record version SQ or QS mixes of Steve Miller. I looked for it back in the day. I have the record version of Steve Miller Hits 76-86 if you want me to check it.

Everyone in the San Francisco Bay Area was hip to Steve Miller, since he played live all the time and lived here. When his albums came out his songs we're played all over AM and FM before he broke big. So some of the same "Hits" off of FLAE became "Hits" all over again the next year because the album went huge nationwide.

 

[Dylan Berichon]

I would think that IF there is any encoding on the tape, it would be QS. I seem to remember reading that Capitol released a few unmarked QS titles.

My guess though, is that it might be a result of tape head azimuth not being perfectly adjusted. That would produce all kinds of interesting phase effects, and it's pretty common on cassettes.

 

[neil wilkes]

I would think that IF there is any encoding on the tape, it would be QS. I seem to remember reading that Capitol released a few unmarked QS titles.

My guess though, is that it might be a result of tape head azimuth not being perfectly adjusted. That would produce all kinds of interesting phase effects, and it's pretty common on cassettes.

Whilst that would indeed make sense - it was the first thing that wandered across what is left of my mind - it's the *only* tape from a batch of 6 the other half bought that does this.
So if there was an alignment issue it was when the tape was made.
Still quite possible though.

Would a well-worn tape do the same? It's not the *brightest* sounding tape I have ever heard. It's as if there is a roll-off around 10KHz.

 

[neil wilkes]

I would think that IF there is any encoding on the tape, it would be QS. I seem to remember reading that Capitol released a few unmarked QS titles.

My guess though, is that it might be a result of tape head azimuth not being perfectly adjusted. That would produce all kinds of interesting phase effects, and it's pretty common on cassettes.

Whilst that would indeed make sense - it was the first thing that wandered across what is left of my mind - it's the *only* tape from a batch of 6 the other half bought that does this.
So if there was an alignment issue it was when the tape was made.
Still quite possible though.

Would a well-worn tape do the same? It's not the *brightest* sounding tape I have ever heard. It's as if there is a roll-off around 10KHz.

 

[Dylan Berichon]

Whilst that would indeed make sense - it was the first thing that wandered across what is left of my mind - it's the *only* tape from a batch of 6 the other half bought that does this.
So if there was an alignment issue it was when the tape was made.
Still quite possible though.

Would a well-worn tape do the same? It's not the *brightest* sounding tape I have ever heard. It's as if there is a roll-off around 10KHz.

Are all 6 of the tapes from the same manufacture / label?

If it's an original cassette tape from that period, it could be a quality control problem. Every Capitol tape (either 8-track or cassette) that I have from any point prior to the mid 90s gives, at best, varying results. Some sound god awful, some sound okay. None sound fantastic. Some do have tape alignment issues.

One thing to remember is how these tapes were manufactured. Most were dubbed at well past real time. I've read that some cassettes were dubbed at up to 64 times real time! The faster something is dubbed, the more places problems may pop up.

I think the tape being rolled off at 10KHz could be a sign of off set azimuth. Usually when a tape head isn't properly lined up the higher frequencies are the ones that fade away. (It could also just be due to the fact the tape is worn out too... It's tough to say!)

I think an interesting comparison would be getting a hold of the LP / CD from that same era and seeing if the phase effects you hear on the cassette are there too.

 

[Eggplant]

Us quad freaks waited fruitlessly for the BOD Q8, which was rumored but never materialized.

Never heard this. Was it ever listed anywhere as an upcoming release? Neither Schwann nor Larry Clifton ever listed it, even as "Announced but never released". Being from 1977, it seems well out of the quad era, even for Capitol.

 

[JonUrban]

Never heard this. Was it ever listed anywhere as an upcoming release? Neither Schwann nor Larry Clifton ever listed it, even as "Announced but never released". Being from 1977, it seems well out of the quad era, even for Capitol.

I read it in "some magazine" way back when. It was some sort of interview with Steve Miller, when he said that both albums were recorded at the same time, and he talked about mixing them in quad. It might have been a "Circus" or something like that.