Carpenters Quadraphonic

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PS- I would love to hear the Oldies medley from Now & Then. I can only imagine how great it sounds!
 
Tony said:
I've listened to the quad mix of "Only Yesterday" and I can't detect any alternate vocals from Karen. It sounds the same to me. Which lines are alternates?

Tony
Click to expand...

There are two lines near the beginning that Karen sings that are different from the regular stereo version. The lines are "the pain I was going through and waiting was all my heart could do." Listen to the difference in the inhale breath that Karen takes between the words "through" and "and", plus she gives a bit more inflection on the words "pain" and "waiting" in the quad version.

It is very subtle, but if you do a side-by-side comparison, you can tell.
 
After all of these years I finally came upon The Singles 69-73 QUAD. I've yet to listen to it but will report my experience soon. I'm excited by this little chunk of treasure.

Jeff
 
WOW! Just listened to "ONLY YESTERDAY"...love the quad mix better than original!!!! Thanks so much for posting these... what a way to celebrate "40"
 
The line in the final verse, "Desperado, why don't you come to your senses? Come down from your fences...." is a different lead vocal take! Blew me away the first time I heard it.
 
Nice job on posting the quad mixes.

When you consider that Richard didn't have anything to do with the quad mixes, and that he's never embraced them, these alternate vocal takes shed some light on why.

There's a controversy going on the the Frank Sinatra world right now. His albums with Antonio Carlos Jobim have been remixed and remastered onto CD recently, and a lot of fans are noticing some alternate vocal takes in some of the songs.

The way these worked is that on the master tape, certain sections wouldn't make it due to a bad note or imperfection, and another take would be "flown in" to replace the bad part.

Richard and Karen used that technique a lot, and I'm wondering if whoever it was that put the quad mixes out for A&M while Rich and Karen were out touring, just didn't have a handle on which sections of which songs needed replacing. Rich probably knew these like the back of his hand, and if the recording notes were confusing, then the compiler of the quad albums might have had a hard time getting them all just right.

I only have one of the Carpenters quad albums, SINGLES 1969-1973. And one thing I've always noticed was the slight differences in the levels of some elements with regards to the way they sounded in plain stereo. It gives an insight into the recording process to hear them.

But I also note that for sheer listenability, some tracks still *sound* better in plain old stereo. The quad mixes, by their nature, have certain encoding so that a decoder can separate the channels, and listening to it in plain stereo, one gets that "indistinct" locality of some elements, like they're slightly out of phase. It's very much like listening to a HAECO-CSG processed track.

Still, it's fun to hear something - anything - different once in a while.

Harry
 
On the Desperado video for the Quad track above, I saw a picture I'd never seen before at 3m03s, with Karen and Richard performing on a large stage.

Does anyone know where that was taken? Given Karen's hair and their look, I'd say it was sometime in 1977...
 
mstaft said:
PS- I would love to hear the Oldies medley from Now & Then. I can only imagine how great it sounds!
Click to expand...

On the tracks that appear on the SACD, Richard's mix is superb. The quad mix just throws instruments "wherever." It's neat as a novelty, but that's about it.
 
The quad mixes sound great. Does Karen sing "tomorrow baby even brighter than today" instead of "maybe" the last time?
 
Hey thanks for posting this I enjoyed it

Hi Stephen, I don't think that is a new photo. I believe it was from that tv.special I cant remember the name but Toni T. Was on it too. I think Karen sang silly love songs?

...mobile posting...
 
Ah ok that makes sense Chris. I don't think I'd seen this photo before taken from this particular angle.
 
The strange thing is that Karen and Richard were really into Quad after hearing Carole King's "Music" LP in quad. I always thought that was the reason that so many of their albums came out in quad.

It's a shame that Richard does not like the mixes, maybe because he was not involved in them. If you read the liner notes of "Singles", he speaks highly of quadraphonics

PS - and yes, once you hear the properly decoded surround version of Side Two of "Now & Then", you cannot go back to stereo.
 
I've uploaded to You Tube the Quad Mix of "Solitaire" from the CD-4 version of the "Horizon" LP. I've set it to a video of Carpenters footage from throughout their career. I like the quad mix a lot and has some subtle differences from the original LP and the single mix.

Note: There is some "noise" at 4:12 when Karen says "He's Playing Solitaire" that is not in my video, but seems to have happened in You Tube's "processing." I've uploaded the video twice with the same result.

In spite of this, I hope you enjoy it!

Regular link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rYObrOZ1Nic

HD Hi-Def Link (longer buffer time):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rYObrOZ1Nic&fmt=22
 
I recently found the Japanese quad CD-4 LP pressing of "The Singles 1969-73" and have posted these two tracks with videos on YouTube:

Ticket To Ride:


Close To You:
 
Thanks so much for these latest quad videos motownboy. The Close To You video is wonderful featuring all the different footage of Karen singing it, and such clear footage at that. I have never seen many of these clips in such pristine condition! This should be an official Carpenters video! And of course the audio is fantastic on both of these tracks. Thank you for all your hard work on these and for sharing them with us. :happydance:
 
Motownboy... I want to say thank you for posting the Quad mixes from Carpenters albums. I have especially enjoyed the ones from "Horizon"... just sublime. "Happy" is fantastic and sounds great!
 
Hi to Rick, manofsteel1979, and CloseToYou10 - thank you so much for the kind comments on the Carpenters quad mix videos...They are a true labor of love!

Here is another - perhaps my favorite of all the Carpenters' songs "Goodbye To Love." I hope you enjoy it!

 
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