Tubular Bells

[cathoderay57]

A few years back I was lucky enough to pick up a copy of "Mike Oldfield Boxed" (see below) from my local SortIt Centre. Price? £2. It contains TB, Ommadawn, Hergest Ridge and a strange compilation called Collaborations and still contains the glossy leaflet. All 4 albums are in SQ format and in good/excellent condition. Not sure how the quad coding/decoding worked, even after reading Wikepedia explanation! Cheers, Jerry

[Ted Kendall]

Originally Posted by cathoderay57

All 4 albums are in SQ format and in good/excellent condition. Not sure how the quad coding/decoding worked, even after reading Wikepedia explanation!

Matrix Quad should have been strangled at birth. Even when it worked, which was rarely, you could get just as entertaining and perhaps more accurate results with the Hafler connection, which was a much cheaper way of driving four loudspeakers.

[bluepilot]

Originally Posted by Ted Kendall

Matrix Quad should have been strangled at birth.

I guess the record companies needed something to part people from their money after everyone had stereo and digital audio was another ten years away. I believe there is a CD-4 version of Tubular Bells. One of the few CD-4 releases that people are actually interested in. Like Paranoid, a good copy will probably set you back and arm and a leg.

[Radio Wrangler]

CD4 records suffered if played with an inadequate bandwidth cartridge and the subcarrier channels got stripped off. Good records might be very hard to find.

David

[Ted Kendall]

I suppose the lasting benefit of CD-4 was that it fostered the development of pickups with lower moving mass and tip-mass resonances well clear of the audio band, such as the later Shure V15s, giving a clearer and cleaner top end.

Rumour hath that CBS played about with matrix quad, but decided it wasn't a goer until Sony weighed in heavily with cash, seeing an opportunity to shift more kit. I think the software companies were doing very nicely at the time, or were until the oil crisis hit...

[vidjoman]

There were 2 competing systems. SQ which was pioneered by CBS & QS which was a Sansui system. I have several SQ discs and built a decoder from discrete components and later there were IC’s specially made and I built one of those. You did need a good turntable and arm with a very good cartridge to get good sound. It didn’t work very well with average Hi-Fi of the time.

I originally had a mono copy of Tubular Bells and it had a lot of low frequency bass notes and didn’t play well on ‘cheap’ systems. I used a Thorens TD150 with an SME arm and had an assortment of cartridges. Later I bought the Mike Oldfield Box Set (which I think was stereo) with the other discs and the bass was considerably reduced. I’ll try to dig it out and check.

[paulsherwin]

Was TB ever released as a mono pressing?

I believe the mixes on the Boxed reissues were all quad. The stereo versions were downmixes of this. The quad remixes were the basis of a number of CD reissues - I'm not sure if any of these were other than 2 channel stereo. Apparently there are significant differences between the original 2 channel vinyl mixes and the later reissues, though I must admit I've never noticed them.

[McMurdo]

There was a mike oldfield documentary a couple of christmas's ago on BBC4 I think, might still be available somewhere, I dont know. Lots of 16mm footage of richard branson operating his mail order record business from the house.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03cw8g0

edit: It's on youtube

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s-8NbBBG6pE

[cathoderay57]

Originally Posted by paulsherwin

Apparently there are significant differences between the original 2 channel vinyl mixes and the later reissues, .

The Mike Oldfield Boxed notes say "they decided to enlist a 'master of ceremonies', Vivian Stanshall, to announce the entrance of of each instrument on Side One. When this had been accomplished, the helplessly intoxicated trio (Stanshall, Oldfield & Newman), hatching schemes of ever increasing surrealism, decided to combine the recording of The Sailor's Hornpipe with an early morning stagger around the Manor House. Mics were placed and the tape machine set in motion. Stanshall wandered around inspecting various items of interest within his focussing capacity like Lord Clark after a night on the tiles, while Oldfield and Newman trudged after him strumming with scotch-sodden conviction. At the time, the result was considered a little too bizarre to place on the album (and indeed it is) so it was replaced by the instrumental version (in the original mix). However, it can be heard in all its magnificent foolishness at the end of Side Two." (of the boxed set remix)

[dave walsh]

Tubular Bells sounds good on most media if you appreciate it. I've got a Sony Decoder somewhere but never had a record or was interested. As I recall Quad Systems were a non-starter. When you can't really see the point and it's expensive anyway that's never going to be a good means of getting extra revenue from the punters but Record Companies weren't always the font of wisdom

I've still got a 1971 W World article re the Hafler System that Ted mentioned. When I wired a pair of car speakers across the back of the room [in series + to + across the stereo channels] the 4 channel effect was extremely good [as Ted says]... and so cheap Playing my copy of the Beach Boys pioneering Eco Album [Surf's Up] using an SP25 and GP91? Cartridge meant I could actually hear the waves lapping at the back of the couch. Abbey Road was another good one. It was apparently entirely random depending on how much "out of phase" signal had been picked up by the particular Studio/Mike set up during the recording [as I understand it]. I plan to give it another go some time soon!

Dave W

[Richard_FM]

There were a few other quad systems in use, I have a list in a book, some were only used in certain markets by certain labels.

It seemed to be a good idea a bit ahead of the available technology.

Some collectors try to find quad 8 tracks as they only used one standard.

I did wonder if any of the short lived DVD-A discs used the quad mixes of classic albums for the basis of the 5.1 mixes.

[Ted Kendall]

Matrix quad in its original form offered little better than 3dB front-to-back separation, hence the introduction of "logic" decoders which tried to reinforce transient cues by skewing balance at the appropriate time, in an echo of the Percival stereo broadcast system. And, of course, every company wanted its matrix to be the standard - Sony had SQ, Sansui had QS, Denon had UD-4, the BBC derived Matrix H from QS, introducing a phase shift of 57 degrees on front centre sounds, later modified to 30 degrees before the whole system was thankfully abandoned.

Even discrete quad existed on shaky foundations. Stereo was originally conceived on the basis that the listener formed an equilateral triangle with the speakers, implying an included angle of 60 degrees rather than the 90 required by quad, and the ear doesn't locate sounds at the sides in the same way as at the front. Add the hazards and instabilities of CD-4 decoding caused by indifferent carrier tracking and premature wear, and you have a system with the same fatal flaw as artificial stereo - one which draws attention away from the programme content towards contrived presentation, resulting in listening fatigue.

[Radio Wrangler]

Quad records and all the paraphernalia died out for good, solid, reasons... despite all the best efforts of well-funded marketing departments striving to hold back the tide. It could have doubled sales of amplifier channels and speakers if they'd succeeded.

In the end, quadrophonic became a joke, and the BBC had to endure 'Preparation-H' jokes.

Listened to in stereo, the QS and SQ records are from different mixdowns to the stereo originals. This can be seen as better/worse/interesting, to taste. But the quality of pressings seemed better than a lot of the poor quality pressings being foisted off on the stereo buyer. Record pressing quality has been through a few bad patches.

David

[bluepilot]

Originally Posted by Radio Wrangler

Quad records and all the paraphernalia died out for good, solid, reasons... despite all the best efforts of well-funded marketing departments striving to hold back the tide. It could have doubled sales of amplifier channels and speakers if they'd succeeded.

In that respect 5.1, 7.1 etc. have succeeded very well where quad failed. In the meantime they have discovered other ways of increasing sales such as releasing a CD of the original vinyl, then releasing a "digitally re-processed" CD of the same thing with bonus tracks followed by a DVD of the reprocessed CD with a video of some obscure concert appearance and then a HD Blu-Ray. BTW, there's now also a 5.1 mix of Tubular Bells available.

[Ted Kendall]

Frank Muir once said that radio was a medium and television a gadget. I'm inclined to draw similar conclusions about stereo and multi-channel systems, whichever system is used. The proscenium arch has lasted for centuries, for very good reasons. As for multiple versions, I remember Lennie Henry's exasperated cry of "just give me the one where they got it right!"

[Richard_FM]

Quadradisc was another system used by Warner Bros, I don't think Pye's 4D has been mentioned yet.

[bluepilot]

Originally Posted by Richard_FM

Quadradisc was another system used by Warner Bros, I don't think Pye's 4D has been mentioned yet.

I think they were just other names for CD-4 and QS.

[barretter]

Originally Posted by Radio Wrangler

This links into the rationale behind his business name.

He sold virgin records....ones which hadn't been opened and played in the shop.

David

Branson's first shop was above a shoe-shop at the Tottenham Court Road end of Oxford Street, a single room with the LPs piled on the floor and most of them were bootlegs. I bought my copy of the (in)famous Dylan "Judas" record there.

[Martin Bush]

I will have to dig my LP out now it's been mentioned.

There's a bassline on there that is a ****** to play and, for some reason Mike Oldfield chose to play it live and regretted it. I wonder if it was looped on the record?

[bluepilot]

Originally Posted by barretter

Branson's first shop was above a shoe-shop at the Tottenham Court Road end of Oxford Street, a single room with the LPs piled on the floor and most of them were bootlegs. I bought my copy of the (in)famous Dylan "Judas" record there.

I remember the Virgin Warehouse as I think it was called at the time on the N. side of Oxford Street at the Tottenham Court Road end. We used to joke about it. "Virgins? Sorry they're out of stock. Difficult to obtain nowadays". Obviously the name stuck. Our Price Records was just around the corner in TCR and they had an awful lot of junk. They claimed to be the cheapest but often Virgin had brand new copies of the same records for only 1p more.