Surround Mixers' First Mixes - The Best Ones

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Updated list, with release dates and format(s) added. Again, let me know if any of the dates or listings are wrong.
  • Elliot Scheiner - The Eagles' Hell Freezes Over (1997 DTS-CD/DVD-V)
  • Steven Wilson - Porcupine Tree's Stupid Dream (2005 DVD-A)
  • Bob Clearmountain - Roxy Music's Avalon (2003 SACD)
  • Kevin Reeves - The Velvet Underground's Loaded (2013 DVD-V)
  • Eddie Kramer - Jimi Hendrix's Electric Ladyland (2018 BD-A)
  • Greg Penny - Elton John's Goodbye Yellow Brick Road (2003 SACD/2004 DVD-A)
  • Giles Martin - The Beatles' Love (2006 DVD-A)
  • Larry Keyes - Santana's Abraxas (1971 SQ LP/Q8 Tape)
  • Andy Jackson - Pink Floyd's The Division Bell (2014 DVD-V/BD-A)
  • Alan Parsons - Pink Floyd's Dark Side Of The Moon (1973 SQ LP/Q8 Tape)
BTW @fredblue, do we know what Don Young's first quad release was? Discogs credits him for Super Session and Rough and Ready, but I thought Jim Reeves did those.
 
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Updated list, with release dates and format(s) added. Again, let me know if any of the dates or listings are wrong.
  • Elliot Scheiner - The Eagles' Hell Freezes Over (1997 DTS-CD/DVD-V)
  • Steven Wilson - Porcupine Tree's Stupid Dream (2005 DVD-A)
  • Bob Clearmountain - Roxy Music's Avalon (2003 SACD)
  • Kevin Reeves - The Velvet Underground's Loaded (2013 DVD-V)
  • Eddie Kramer - Jimi Hendrix's Electric Ladyland (2018 BD-A)
  • Greg Penny - Elton John's Goodbye Yellow Brick Road (2003 SACD/2004 DVD-A)
  • Larry Keyes - Santana's Abraxas (1971 SQ LP/Q8 Tape)
  • Andy Jackson - Pink Floyd's The Division Bell (2014 DVD-V/BD-A)
  • Alan Parsons - Pink Floyd's Dark Side Of The Moon (1973 SQ LP/Q8 Tape)
BTW @fredblue, do we know what Don Young's first quad release was? Discogs credits him for Super Session and Rough and Ready, but I thought Jim Reeves did those.

sorry, i've no idea what Don Young's first Quad mix was. there may have been multiple Quad mixes of Super Session and Rough & Ready. Young may have mixed Super Session and Rough & Ready in Quad and Jim Reeves may have mixed both albums in Quad too, just as Sly & The Family Stone's Greatest Hits has 2 Quad mixes, one by Jim Reeves and one by Larry Keyes.
 
How about Brian Humphries who mixed the quad version of Pink Floyd's "Wish You Were Here"? I believe that was his first, and only released, mix (there's a good chance that he also mixed the unreleased "Animals" in quad as well).
 
Thought of a few others:
  • Paul Klingberg/John Kellogg - ELP's Brain Salad Surgery
  • George Massenberg - Lyle Lovett's Joshua Judges Ruth
  • Ken Caillat - Fleetwood Mac's Rumours
  • Frank Filipetti - Billy Joel's The Stranger or James Taylor's Hourglass (not sure which came first)
  • Mickey Hart - Grateful Dead's American Beauty
  • Justin Shirley-Smith - Queen's The Game (seriously this is really good, and it's the only mix to his name!)
 
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George/Giles Martin - The Beatles, Love
(Not one of your faves though) ;)

One of my VERY faves and in all honesty, I would ascribe the purity of that remix and the warm sounds that follow to Sir George rather than Giles. Only wish Sgt Pepper and even The White Album had that warm liquid sound that LOVE had.

And unlike Pepper and TWA, NO adjustments needed on my system to make it sound better. Sir George knew those masters intimately and it is aptly reflected in the stunning sound he achieved on the Beatles' LOVE remixes....each and every one of them.
 
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It wasn't George Martin who mixed Blow by Blow in quad, was it?

Fun fact: Unlike today, where we have these top rate professionals like Steven Wilson or Elliot Scheiner doing careful surround mixes with the utmost respect for the source material, CBS's quad program that ran throughout the 1970s used these lesser-known staff engineers who did not work on (and in some case may have never even heard or referenced) the original stereo release. These guys' jobs for years was basically to just churn out mix after mix under tight time constraints that met the standards for CBS's SQ matrix-encoded quad vinyl.

At first CBS was playing catch-up, issuing quad versions of stereo titles that had been out for years already. Later on, they began dual-issuing stereo and quad releases- some albums were actually developed from the ground up with quad in mind, and shows in the mixing (check out DV’s Poco two-fer and you’ll see what I mean).

Due to both the rush to get quad product out and the engineers' inexperience/unfamiliarity with the music, some of the early CBS quad mixes from 1971 or '72 are a bit wonky-sounding and not very faithful to the original stereo mixes. But by 1974-on, these guys had much more experience under their belts and had a good handle on what worked and what didn't when mixing in quad. So the later-era CBS quad mixes got a lot better and more consistent (though interestingly enough, some of the very last releases in '76 and '77 went back to the early style).

Compare the quad mix of Jeff Beck's Rough & Ready (from the early 71-72 series) to Blow By Blow (from 1975): It's a night and day difference. I like them both, but I think most would agree that the Blow By Blow quad is a much more sophisticated and polished surround remix.

The thing is, CBS didn't always bother to credit the quad remix engineer on the LP jacket, so to this day no one knows who actually did many of these mixes. Blow By Blow is one such uncredited release.

The two perhaps most "famous" (only to our little group, I suppose) CBS quad mixers were Larry Keyes and Don Young, who completed over 100 quad mixes over a 6-7 year period. Don Young did The Jeff Beck Group and Beck, Bogert & Appice quads, so maybe it was him.

It's possible it could be either of them, or someone we've never heard of. But I think it's very unlikely it was George Martin. In fact, it's possible that both Sir George and Jeff Beck himself didn't even know a quad mix was done!
 
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Fun fact: Unlike today, where we have these top rate professionals like Steven Wilson or Elliot Scheiner doing careful surround mixes with the utmost respect for the source material, CBS's quad program that ran throughout the 1970s used these lesser-known staff engineers who did not work on (and in some case may have never even heard or referenced) the original stereo release. These guys' jobs for years was basically to just churn out mix after mix under tight time constraints that met the standards for CBS's SQ matrix-encoded quad vinyl.

At first CBS was playing catch-up, issuing quad versions of stereo titles that had been out for years already. Later on, they began dual-issuing stereo and quad releases- some albums were actually developed from the ground up with quad in mind, and shows in the mixing (check out DV’s Poco two-fer and you’ll see what I mean).

Due to both the time constraints and the engineers' inexperience/unfamiliarity with the music, some of the early CBS quad mixes from 1971 or '72 are a bit wonky-sounding and not very faithful to the original stereo mixes. But by 1974-on, these guys had much more experience under their belts and the quad mixes got a lot better and more consistent. Compare the quad mix of Jeff Beck's Rough & Ready (from the early 71-72 series) to Blow By Blow (from 1975): It's a night and day difference. I like them both, but I think most would agree that the Blow By Blow quad is a much more sophisticated and polished surround remix.

The same goes for a number of CBS artists that got quad releases during the beginning and later periods, such as Santana. The early Abraxas quad mix from '71 is pretty gimmicky and unpolished-sounding, while the debut album quad mix done in '74 (by the same engineer, Larry Keyes) is much more satisfying.

The thing is, CBS didn't always bother to credit the quad remix engineer on the LP jacket, so to this day no one knows who actually did many of these mixes. Blow By Blow is one such uncredited release.

The two perhaps most "famous" (only to our little group, I suppose) CBS quad mixers were Larry Keyes and Don Young, who completed over 100 quad mixes over a 6-7 year period. Don Young did The Jeff Beck Group (orange album) and Beck, Bogert & Appice quads, so maybe it was him.

It's possible it could be either of them, or someone we've never heard of. But I think it's very unlikely it was George Martin. In fact, it's possible that both Sir George and Jeff Beck himself didn't even know a quad mix was done!

pretty sure the 1st Santana album Quad mix is among the Robin Reels, so must have been done in the 1st wave with Abraxas etc but not released until '74 for some reason?

edit: Jon's list says the Santana 1st album Quad is on Mike Robin tape #34

https://www.quadraphonicquad.com/QQ-CQ4mr.html

as for the later Jeff Beck Quads with no specific remix credit (Blow By Blow & Wired) it has been suggested they may have been mixed into Quad by Geoff Emerick.. but as he is no longer with us I don't know how that could be confirmed or denied now? to me neither style of mixing on Wired or Blow By Blow resembles those Wings Quads he had a hand in so who knows..!?

its true CBS didn't always credit who did the Quad mixes on their SQ LPs but we have a surprisingly greater proportion of them accounted for now than not and that is in contrast to several other labels who were pretty poor at crediting Quad remix engineers imho.
 
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pretty sure the 1st Santana album Quad mix is among the Robin Reels, so must have been done in the 1st wave with Abraxas etc but not released until '74 for some reason?

Possible- a similar thing happened with Bob Dylan's Nashville Skyline. It was done as part of the first wave (the early "sound of things to come" inner sleeves list it), but the quad didn't come out until 1974.

as for the later Jeff Beck Quads with no specific remix credit (Blow By Blow & Wired) it has been suggested they may have been mixed into Quad by Geoff Emerick.. but as he is no longer with us I don't know how that could be confirmed or denied now? to me neither style of mixing on Wired or Blow By Blow resembles those Wings Quads he had a hand in so who knows..!?

Wired definitely sounds like it could've been done by Don or Larry- it's a pretty typical later-era CBS mix. Stereo drums discrete upfront, guitar solos centered, with keys RL and guitar RR.

Blow By Blow is a very good mix, but I recall it having some atypical mixing choices for a 1975 CBS mix- stuff like the opening track having lead guitar panned rear center, which must've been against the SQ mixing rules by then. So that suggests to me it may have been done with someone who hadn't had much experience doing quad at CBS- perhaps Geoff Emerick as you suggest.
 
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another great thread sjcorne (y)
Messers Clearmountain, Scheiner & Wilson, i think, nailed it right out of the blocks but i'm not so sure about Greg Penny & Larry Keyes, both bettered their first-released mixes imho., i prefer the 5.1 on the SACDs that Mr. Penny did after GYBR and Mr. Keyes did so many superior Quads after Abraxas its hard to know exactly where he found his mojo but Abraxas for me was not among his best surround mixes and chronologically doesn't feel like he had it licked but he can be forgiven perhaps more than the others as he was i would say a true surround music pioneer doing that stuff pretty much at the forefront.

I'm also one that disliked the Abraxas mix; perhaps some of it could be due to not just inexperience in mixing for surround, but also their ignorance as to what the general market place (and specifically audiophiles and Quadiophiles like us:)) expect to hear from surround sound. This just gives them a wonderful opportunity to redo these old mixes and get it right;). And yes, great thread sjcorne!
 
I'm also one that disliked the Abraxas mix; perhaps some of it could be due to not just inexperience in mixing for surround, but also their ignorance as to what the general market place (and specifically audiophiles and Quadiophiles like us:)) expect to hear from surround sound. This just gives them a wonderful opportunity to redo these old mixes and get it right;). And yes, great thread sjcorne!

Thanks! I don't mind it, but I'd say it's definitely one of the weaker Santana quad mixes.

I'm not sure there were really any expectations for what a good quad mix should be back in 1971- the format was relatively new and Columbia was just getting into it. So it's certainly a product of experimental times. I do wonder how different it would've sounded if they did it in '73 or '74 instead of '71.

I also think a lot of people slag it due to the fidelity on the '90s DTS-CD reissue. Who knows, maybe a solid remaster on a hi-res format might turn some heads- though at this point I'd rather focus on seeing other superior Santana quads reissued.

Sony missed a good opportunity to do a good remaster of the old quad OR a new 5.1 mix when they issued it as a single-layer stereo SACD years ago.
 
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Two reference discs that I like to use to show off my surround rig are The Doobie Brothers Captain and Me DVD-A and Dire Straits Brothers In Arms SACD.
I don't know who did them, I guess I could look.

Great demo tracks! Elliot Scheiner did The Captain and Me and Chuck Ainlay did Brothers In Arms. However neither are their debut surround work.
 
It just occurred to me, listening to the Talking Heads' True Stories (after making my way through everything on the new Criterion Edition of the film True Stories): what about Jerry Harrison and the Talking Heads brick? I know he had some help--maybe from experienced surround mixers--but wasn't that his first (and only?) foray into surround?
 
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