Utopia ever in surround?

[JimHansonDC]

Is Todd Rundgren somehow anti-surround or not in control of his masters? He seems like the type who would have them for sure. I would love to have Ra in surround. So much brilliant layered music. It's got one of the greatest pan tricks with a knock on the door in Magic Dragon Theater that always jumped me out of my chair on headphones.

 

[privateuniverse]

Todd did release one album (Liars) in surround so I doubt that he is against such releases. Todd & Utopia are certainly very high up on my surround wishlist. Some albums like A Wizard A True Star are screaming for a surround mix. He did lose a lot of stuff in a fire at a storage facility in the mid 80's. Some people have speculated that some master tapes may have been destroyed then, but I don't think that has ever been confirmed. Even if that is the case, there are several of his later albums that I would love to hear in surround. Nearly Human, 2nd Wind and The Individualist would all be excellent 5.1 candidates.

 

[key_wiz]

Todd did release one album (Liars) in surround so I doubt that he is against such releases. Todd & Utopia are certainly very high up on my surround wishlist. Some albums like A Wizard A True Star are screaming for a surround mix. He did lose a lot of stuff in a fire at a storage facility in the mid 80's. Some people have speculated that some master tapes may have been destroyed then, but I don't think that has ever been confirmed. Even if that is the case, there are several of his later albums that I would love to hear in surround. Nearly Human, 2nd Wind and The Individualist would all be excellent 5.1 candidates.

Love to hear those as well. “Liars” is a bit of an unknown gem. Both as an album and a surround mix. IMO

 

[Mark Anderson]

The only surround disc I am aware of is a DVD-A, unfortunately not a great surround experience.
UTOPIA - Live KSAN '79. Silverline 288125

 

[Scott M4]

The only surround disc I am aware of is a DVD-A, unfortunately not a great surround experience.
UTOPIA - Live KSAN '79. Silverline 288125

Agree. This is one of my first Silverline disappointments - although Liars (also on Silverline) is great!

 

[timbre4]

The great WEA quad cancellation batch of 1975 included:
Todd Rundgren
Initiation. Bearsville BR4-6957 (CD4)

I wanted this one very badly!

 

[Scott M4]

The great WEA quad cancellation batch of 1975 included:
Todd Rundgren
Initiation. Bearsville BR4-6957 (CD4)

I wanted this one very badly!

The quad possibilities in Initiation are vast!
Do you know if a quad mix was actually done but not released,
or just announced but never done?

 

[fizzywiggs41]

There is another Silverline DVDA of Todd's.

Todd Rundgren-Live At The Forum , London 94. (released May 14 , 2003 )


I too would like to hear (or confim) that " Initiation" was mixed in quad . There is a very good chance it is quad mixed in my opinion. I remember seeing it listed with some 10+ other quad CD- 4's pending from..
Warner Bros.(Bearsville) in the Schwann's quad Catalogue listings back in 1975/76 .
And it remained in those listings for months !!

BTW Todd Rundgren- Liars on DVDA was mixed in 5.1 by none other than the artist ,and sounds great in surround.

 

[timbre4]

The quad possibilities in Initiation are vast!
Do you know if a quad mix was actually done but not released,
or just announced but never done?

Right? OMG it would be amazing. Not sure if mix was ever completed.

 

[fizzywiggs41]

The great WEA quad cancellation batch of 1975 included:
Todd Rundgren
Initiation. Bearsville BR4-6957 (CD4)

I wanted this one very badly!

I hear ya Tim.
I found it so very promising seeing all those CD-4 albums that were canceled last minute by WEA.

Such as , Black Sabbath Sabotage , Deep Purple,Burn Foghat- Fool For The City and Rock And Roll Outlaws , Gordon Lightfoot Gord's Gold, Jimi Hendrix Crash Landing , The Beach Boys Best Of Good Vibrations,
Billy Cobham Spectrum , Black Oak Arkansas Street Party ,Frank Zappa -One Size Fits All , Jethro Tull , Minstrel In The Gallery , and M. U. Best Of , Bread Best vol 2 , Carly Simon..Another Passenger., Leo.Sayer Another Year...
....and maybe a few more!!

I went shopping for both Initiation and Joe Walsh So What via mail in the US , and received only the stereo copies.

I found it hard to believe the stories that were surfacing of Warner Brothers smashing their new modulater and associated quad pressing equipment ??? After all it had only been shortly over 3 years since they issued their first batch of CD-4 pressings.....but sure enough , ..I finally accepted it after about a year. I failed to understand why ? After the large push of those aforementioned albums !??

Oh well ,at least we now have Billy Cobham Spectrum , and Jethro Tull Minstrel In The Gallery.

So maybe , may....be we will get to see a couple more of those quads from the Warners vault.
We can only hope.

 

[tarkusnj]

Agree. This is one of my first Silverline disappointments - although Liars (also on Silverline) is great!

Silverline...they released "FROM THE FRONT ROW LIVE...EMERSON LAKE & PALMER" it is a worthless scam of a release...a joke. I am not aware of any other discs they released but if they had a decent one, that's good to know.

 

[barfle]

Silverline...they released "FROM THE FRONT ROW LIVE...EMERSON LAKE & PALMER" it is a worthless scam of a release...a joke. I am not aware of any other discs they released but if they had a decent one, that's good to know.

I had a “From the front row” of Rick Wakeman, probably JTTCOTE, and it sucked so badly it had to be a bootleg.

 

[timbre4]

I found it hard to believe the stories that were surfacing of Warner Brothers smashing their new modulater and associated quad pressing equipment ???

I've never heard that and it doesn't make any sense to me at all.

WEA didn't directly handle CD-4 mastering thru pressing. The JVC CD-4 Cutting Centers in Los Angeles (see photos from 1975 visit to RCA building on Sunset in my profile) and Bethpage (?) Long Island, NY performed these duties.

As quad work faded, this same equipment was repurposed for MFSL half-speed mastering vinyl releases which were popular for years..

 

[fizzywiggs41]

I've never heard that and it doesn't make any sense to me at all.

WEA didn't directly handle CD-4 mastering thru pressing. The JVC CD-4 Cutting Centers in Los Angeles (see photos from 1975 visit to RCA building on Sunset in my profile) and Bethpage (?) Long Island, NY performed these duties.

As quad work faded, this same equipment was repurposed for MFSL half-speed mastering vinyl releases which were popular for years..

Yea ,I can't see them destroying that cutting lathe , but those WEA CD-4 metal masters were likely toast . (Saved one withThe Best Of The Doors, which continued to be pressed CD-4 into the late 70's early 80's).
That lathe was probably quite expensive to begin with and then the new(80's)experience cropped up as "half speed mastered " audiophile recordings.
I know A&M Records Canada had a dozen or so with gold borders ,much the same as the early Columbia CBS quads.
And MCA had a few with a large silver sticker on the cover , Tom Petty 's Damn The Torpedoes was one.

Also I think a few WEA Quads were also cut at the Monarch Mastering facility. Test disc's with the new 1975 quadulator come to mind.
As to a large chunk of their pressings ,that was CBS'S facility ,which I found strange .


Edit oh and I just remembered another "great wea quad cancellation "

Rod Stewart- Atlantic Crossing

 

[baward]

There is another Silverline DVDA of Todd's.

Todd Rundgren-Live At The Forum , London 94. (released May 14 , 2003 )


I too would like to hear (or confim) that " Initiation" was mixed in quad . There is a very good chance it is quad mixed in my opinion. I remember seeing it listed with some 10+ other quad CD- 4's pending from..
Warner Bros.(Bearsville) in the Schwann's quad Catalogue listings back in 1975/76 .
And it remained in those listings for months !!

BTW Todd Rundgren- Liars on DVDA was mixed in 5.1 by none other than the artist ,and sounds great in surround.

+1 for ‘Liars’. it’s really great, excellent music and nice surround.

 

[paligap]

I have the "Liars" DVD-Audio, but I haven't played it in a while. I would love to hear "Ra" in surround, especially "Singring and the Glass Guitar." Yes, it's a little cheesy, but it has some great interludes, and thematically, it fits the surround approach.

 

[IMachine]

Wow. Heard Liars the first time.
It‘s s really great surround mix! Yeah!

 

[JimHansonDC]

I want to hear RA
If even an album was screaming for an immersive mix

 

[Larry Geller]

The best Todd surround is Bat Out Of Hell.

 

[nikomen]

I just found a sealed Dual Disc (CD/DVD 5.1) version of Liars that I paid $25.00 for from eBay. You can get a few copies of the DVD-A version still from $29-40 if anyone is interested.