Beach Boys - How did they miss the Good ship Quadraphonic?

[leggo of my ego]

Although they were active all during the "Quad Era" I don't think there is a single BB lp, reel or 8 track in Quad.

I guess this can be attributed to poor sales in the early 70's -  or maybe the band did not care to get involved, it was
hard enough to tear Brian away from Mono mixes. 

What do you think?

[guitarfool2002]

I'm not trying to speak for anyone especially someone who posts and has his own "Ask The Honored Guests" section on the board, but the man who has answered this question is Stephen Desper. Read through his thread, his book if you have it, and the way he approached the recordings will become very clear.

Again, if he's reading this he may answer it personally or someone will point you to the answers, but the way he was recording and mixing the Beach Boys in the late 60's/early 70's, most obviously on Sunflower and Surf's Up, was with an eye toward creating the effect of what would become known as "surround sound" in later years, and which was going for a similar result for the listener as "Quad" sound was trying to do.

His pressings of his "Recording..." book came with a "spatializer" device that allowed listeners to connect it to hear the kinds of mixes they were aiming for, full of depth and all of that, again going for a much more advanced way of reproducing sound and creating that wider/deeper element in a mix than the standard 2-channel stereo methods at the time would allow. Or, apparently, that budgets would allow in order for the end user (the listener buying the album) to hear the full effect of what they were doing.

As far as a rock band thinking of mixing and sound this way, I'd say that work with the Beach Boys was pioneering if not groundbreaking considering what was to be called "Quad Sound" and later "surround sound".

Again, if I misstated anything there a lot of the details and specifics from the man himself have been posted on this board.

[KittyKat]

I don't think most rock acts released albums in quad. From what I've read, the format was never in wide use and the different, expensive quad systems weren't compatible, which further limited its popularity. It was used more in concert hall classical recordings than in rock. The Allman Brothers released more than one album in quad and apparently were the only rock act that did so.

[Andrew G. Doe]

SWD is the man to go to for chapter & verse, but off the top of my head, two tracks on Sunflower - "CCW" and "IAT" - were mixed for true Quad, all of Surf's Up & Spring and unless I'm misremembering badly, KTSA too. CATP claims to be a "center-channel quad" mix, but when I hooked up the system last millennium, it sounded pretty odd, Dennis' two tracks excepted (as they were mixed by SWD).

[leggo of my ego]

SWD is the man to go to for chapter & verse, but off the top of my head, two tracks on Sunflower - "CCW" and "IAT" - were mixed for true Quad, all of Surf's Up & Spring and unless I'm misremembering badly, KTSA too. CATP claims to be a "center-channel quad" mix, but when I hooked up the system last millennium, it sounded pretty odd, Dennis' two tracks excepted (as they were mixed by SWD).

Yeah, cool beans. I just happened to bump into this at a website while looking for a list of quad rock releases.

THE BEACH BOYS -
Sunflower. Reprise RS-6382 (DY)
{Only two cuts, "Cool, Cool Water" & "Got to know the woman" are
encoded}
Surfs Up. Reprise RS-6453 (DY), WEA RS6453 (DY) [Canada],
EMI/Capitol 7243 8 21945 1 4 (DY) [England] (180-gram virgin
vinyl, and analog cutting from the original analog tape, Part of
EMI's 100th-anniversary celebration, 1997)
{The titles above were released only in quad, no stereo version known}

[guitarfool2002]

The point was that if you did get the Desper book and order that spatializer, the way they were mixing combined with that device to bring out the effect of all that was probably going one step beyond quad in that you didn't need more than two speakers to hear the full effect. But if I remember something he wrote, money/budget concerns prevented that kind of possibility from reaching the listeners as the band wanted to...does that seem right from memory?

Again if I remember, Pink Floyd in the 70's was mixing live concerts in Quad, which was a pretty expensive proposition. They may or may not have been the band in the 70's to take it perhaps as far as it could go at that time, live.

[job]

Same reason they missed the Good Ship Stereo.

[MBE]

I used to have a device of Desper's that made stereo sound quad. Just so good but it broke too much for him to fix. He tried for me.

[guitarfool2002]

I used to have a device of Desper's that made stereo sound quad. Just so good but it broke too much for him to fix. He tried for me.

That's the "spatializer" I mentioned in the posts above - I remember when he offered his book for sale, you could buy it without the device for a lower price, or pay more to get the spatializer device with the book. At least that's how I remember it, I may be wrong.

[MBE]

Right!!!!

Every home should have one, that big a difference.
I never did get to play Pink Floyd with it!!!
Even bad stereo was fixed.

[Mitchell]

The spatializer takes Sunflower to a whole other level. The sad thing is/was the reluctance to release his correct version that doesn't even need it.

[zachrwolfe]

‍

[Mitchell]

Stephen has commented on that extensively somewhere... Either his book or his thread, but basically it comes down to closed-minded music biz folk.

[leggo of my ego]

The point was that if you did get the Desper book and order that spatializer, the way they were mixing combined with that device to bring out the effect of all that was probably going one step beyond quad in that you didn't need more than two speakers to hear the full effect. But if I remember something he wrote, money/budget concerns prevented that kind of possibility from reaching the listeners as the band wanted to...does that seem right from memory?

Again if I remember, Pink Floyd in the 70's was mixing live concerts in Quad, which was a pretty expensive proposition. They may or may not have been the band in the 70's to take it perhaps as far as it could go at that time, live.

The only Quad system I have is discrete Q4 (tape reel source). Nothing quite like that with four speakers, no decoder
needed. If the engineer was really good at mixing 4 channel - it can sound amazing. Some mixes can also sound el crappo.

Not to slight Mr. Desper's ingenuity but it really is a shame that there weren't some full albums of BB released on Q4 / Q8
because the sonic intricacies of those early 70's efforts would have been perfect for Quad mixes.

[groganb]

Hm, I've listened to the Surf's Up album in Surround, or at least a makeshift variant of it that was around when the album was released. I don't remember the details, but it had something to do with mucking with phasing to generate a rear channel. It did get the sirens in "Student Demonstration Time" to spin around the room. I listened to the album that way after reading that it was mixed with the system in mind.
Anyone remember any details of this kind of Surround, or "Quad" as it was called?
Did I hallucinate all this?

[Andrew G. Doe]

There was a schematic included with the Flame album illustrating how to correctly set up the quad system with two extra rear speakers. Tried it, worked a treat.

[groganb]

AGD, yep, that's it. Thanks. It did work.