Adventures
in Surround Sound, from 7.2 to Quad
(personal
and historical notes, basics, and acoustic realities often
forgotten)
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a r t 3 =
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Jousting
at Windmills
As luck would have it, I was signed to an exclusive contract with CBS Records (long before Sony took it over), when the first Quadraphonic craze hit. There was a close connection between CBS and Sony even back then, and Sony had (through a long, devious route) become interested in a surround system which CBS Laboratories in Stanford CT had fooled around with in the late 60's, abandoning it eventually. This was an interim, shortcut method to fit (encode) four channel audio masters onto an ordinary two-track record, then reconstruct the four (decode) on playback. Ben Bauer, an extremely talented engineer and delightful person, had led his CBS team through various alternatives in the late 60's, only to decide none of them really worked. He recommended that the company wait for a genuine four channel home delivery system to evolve, that this wasn't it. Poor Ben was surprised a year or two later to get a call from an executive over at "Black Rock", the CBS headquarters in NYC, asking about "this new four channel sound stuff." The executive had just been grilled by some of his contacts in Japan, who had found this abandoned "matrix quad system" (as it was called), and thought it looked like an easy way to expand sales. They wanted the USA offices at CBS to assemble some prototype recordings that used the system, and would in return send the NYC offices some tests they had been trying out in Japan. There was a buzz-on, and Ben was asked to comply. He had already proven that all such bootstrap methods, trying to get something for nothing, were doomed to failure. But now he was going to be required to do it anyway, or at least invent a few tricks that would satisfy the home office, and which they could send to the Japan CBS offices. He hoped it would then all fade away with that. We got called into the fray soon enough. Here we had one of the hottest classical albums ever made, and it seemed a natural for a new quadraphonic version. Rachel Elkind took a couple of long calls from the heads at Masterworks division (no doubt John McClure, perhaps also Tom Frost and Clive Davis), and suddenly we were in trouble, too. I'd been making four channel surround masters for a dozen years by then, and knew a little about surround sound. We'd been the news bytes about several of the majors, as they began pioneering this newest home audio idea. We learned that JVC in Japan had been developing a clever idea that actually *could* squeeze all the necessary information into a conventional LP -- four discrete channels. JVC Japan was pushing forward with their CD-4, an honest, if complex quad method which was loosely based on Jerry Minter's early Stereophonic LP's (two track stereo) of 1958: place the extra information as a super high frequency tone that is FM modulated, more like radio than stylus in groove records. Minter had taken the (mono) "sum" mix of Left and Right, L+R, as it was called, and recorded that in the usual way. He took another mix, a "difference" of the two sides, L-R ( which means the R was phase-flipped 180 degrees and added to normal L), and modulated a 25 kHz tone with it, yielding the radio-like signal. That was mixed with the mono sum to make the record. Since 25 k is above most human hearing, you couldn't hear this tone. But an ingenious, inexpensive add-on circuit picked it up, detected it, and mixed it back in a simple circuit (called a "matrix") to obtain the original two tracks, L and R. Mono listeners just heard the mono mix (so it was compatible). Clever idea. Anyway, JVC was doing this stunt twice on a stereo LP, getting four distinct tracks from it. The good idea was never trouble-free. Early on we were given some of their special equipment and cut some albums using the cutting facilities they'd set up in the USA. (It was amusing how several CD-4 doors opened after the letter below was published... ;^) The JVC method was generally a bit noisy, prone to distortion, and was delicate to install and operate. But it often sounded quite good, too, when treated with some TLC. Sony had tried and given up on such a high-strung design. Can't say I blame them, it was a major engineering campaign for JVC, and for RCA, their US affiliate on the new "QuadraDisks." Sony/CBS instead continued with their blood-from-a-stone pseudo-quad designs, much as Sansui, yet another Japanese company, was doing at the time with QS. Ben Bauer came up with one of the best choices of a poor lot, and SQ was born. A hasty appointment was made, and Ben came to our studio downstairs in the brownstone one afternoon in the Summer of 72, with a bright, sharp engineer named Dan Gravereaux. They brought with them the latest "encoding" and "decoding" equipment they had thus far produced. We were given some copies of the very first titles that CBS would be putting out in the new scheme, and photocopies of a few detailed technical articles which described the methods and history behind SQ. Their "job" obviously, was to convince us to go along with their scheme. The background scuttlebutt I've related above was only learned a couple of years later. I felt bad for Ben, who was obviously such a nice, urbane man, with great charm and knowledge. But I also felt bad for us. We spent the next several weeks trying to get what we could from the SQ hardware. It was pretty gruesome. I guess for many producers and engineers SQ was adequate. It could handle a kind of ping-ping pong-pong stereo, as I called it, as long as you simply pan-potted a few locations around the periphery. It was impossible to have natural or simulated instrument leakage: the same sound heard over more than one or two channels. A ghost center effect, something I'd used for years, was out of the question. It would gather up on the final Left track, and cancel out on the final Right track. Other combinations, like diagonal splits, were even worse. Baloney!
If we'd signed with RCA initially, as we nearly did,
things would have worked out differently. We'd have put out
many of our albums in genuine quad (discrete, meaning honest
four ins and four outs), and neither of these letters would
have been written. Then it would have been upsetting when
CD's first were introdiced an absolutely NO ONE took
advantage of the four channel format they offer (still do).
Yep, a plain old CD can store about half stereo's maximum
time, or 38 minutes of pure quad! Bet you didn't know that
before -- it's never been implemented on CD-players or in
the studio, to the best of my knowledge! Stuck between greed
or honesty, we took the path that many (most?) artists
probably would not: we cut off extra royalties from sales of
SQ versions, and demanded our pseud-quad S-OB be withdrawn!
This was a big financial sacrifice for us, just a small
studio with not many artists, but it was the only ethical
thing we could do. |
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Moog
Soundings (the title the editor came up with for my letter...) Dear Sir, If we may look back to the similar
birth of stereo in 1958, it was the few bold pioneers:
record companies, producers, and phono cartridge
manufacturers, who literally forced the standardization of
the Westrex 45/45 stereo-disk system. Otherwise we would
still be debating the theoretical impossibility of this
system, and, as some now joke back to mono--we would still
be a non-stereo industry, likely much smaller than now
(thanks to the stereo revolution). Admittedly some product on matrix
disks sounds perfectly fine. Indeed, a master remixed for a
"ping- ping-pong-pong" quadraphonic will, in general,
produce acceptable results on most of these systems (which
despite mathematical differences tend to sound very alike).
The strong loss of separation and phasing alterations/
interactions of all these systems is universally
acknowledged. One reads with disbelief in your pages the
number of people who rationalize such alterations as
desirable. The dilutions do make a ping-ping-pong-pong
master sound more diffuse and less gimmickry than the same
would sound in pure quad. This latter we now find termed
"discrete." So I come across as another one of
those mad discrete thickheads. I'm sorry, let's look at the
reasons. You need not agree with me in a decision to wait
for discrete and may prefer to go with a stop-gap measure of
matrix quad. Again, well and good. Pragmatically you are
probably safe. But, people, let's not "cut off our noses
to..." Sincerely,
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More
Switched-On Quad Dear Sir, Two years ago there were several
Quad methods under discussion, and at that time
none
of these systems was really very good. In comparisons of
identical recordings we made, under carefully controlled
conditions and double-blind, both electronic and acoustic
music, we heard how the various systems altered and
corrupted our masters. It was like: SQ versus Switched-On
Bach. Some comparisons: But now it is 1974 and the
situation has changed A few "Simulated Quad" methods,
notably SQ, have developed special mixing console adapters/
rechannelers which prevent any mixing combination which
would cancel out (partially or wholly) -in matrix-encoding
from ever being produced. The producer and engineer can call
for all the usual positionings, echo returns, and the hike'
but only the SQ-safe ones will go through "directly". The
others will in fact be altered from the intended positions,
and added along into the mix with no level drop. The
matrix-limitations are still there, perpetual motion still
doesn't exist, but at Least you no longer need worry about
that. Simultaneously a "true Quad" master can be made on a
four track recorder, for Q8 cartridges, CD-4 disks, or any
other discrete release now or in the future. All in all,
it's a most commendable effort, especially for simplified
and non-critical applications. With the dawn of "true Quad"
presently before us it might be appropriate to suggest one
more relevant observation. From 1961 to 65 I was involved
with a small group of experimenters working with the then
unnamed and primitive four channel techniques out of which
our present "Quad" developed. We must have tried just about
every conceivable microphone and loudspeaker placement
during those years. It ;s ironic to look back now and
realize that one of the first tried and least successful was
our dear friend. one speaker in each corner -- 360 degree
surround-sound. It would be out of place to get into a
technical discussion as to why this idea which really sounds
"obvious" and "natural" was not so optimum for human-style
two ear listening. What is important is that there are a
great many placements which give the aural illusion of 360
degree sound, and most of these do not have speakers
physically behind the listener' |
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©
Copyright 2001 Wendy Carlos -- All Rights Reserved.
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