Post Description

Music : Rock : Lossless
This is the ultra rare Quadraphonic Mix of Emerson, Lake & Palmer's "Welcome Back, My Friends, To The Show That Never Ends ~ Ladies And Gentlemen". The legendary live triple album!

The Quadraphonic version was released in 1974 only on Q8, a discrete 4-Channel 8-track cartridge. Rumor has it the master of this mix was lost, so don't hold your breath waiting to see it released on (official) DVD-A, DVD, SACD etc.

In Quad, you'll hear things you've never dreamed to hear on the stereo version. Not only synth details (they're astounding), but also drum and bass details. Strangely, there are also moments in which even the piano and the acoustic guitar (Piano Improvisations and Take a Pebble, Still...You Turn Me On and Lucky Man) sound fuller than in the stereo releases. Not to mention that there's a twenty seconds sound check before Karn Evil 9 starts - that was absent on the stereo cut.
That being said, keep in mind the source is a nearly 40 year-old cartridge release. We are talking about analogue sound, but, regardless of some drop-outs here, some wow-and-flutter there etc., the source is pretty nice. Its main issue, speed and pitch, was fixed, and such correction is here available together with the untouched original rip. Moreover, no CD box/DVD/SACD has this album on Quadraphonic, nor Multichannel, yet; and the Dynamic Range of the cartridge is unsurpassed by any digital release of the live triple album so far: Piano Improvisations has DR 16, Tarkus DR 15, 2nd Impression DR 15, and there's nothing below DR 11!

Tracklist:
01-Hoedown
02-Jerusalem
03-Toccata
04-Tarkus
05-Tarkus (Conclusion)
06-Take A Pebble
07-Still... You Turn Me On
08-Lucky Man
09-Piano Improvisations
10-Take A Pebble (conclusion)
11-Jeremy Bender/The Sheriff
12-Karn Evil 9 - 1st Impression
13-Karn Evil 9 - 2nd Impression
14-Karn Evil 9 - 3rd Impression

Note: In 1973-1974 ELP shows were in Quadraphonic system! This album comes from the February 10th 1974 Anaheim show, so Quadraphonic is its real thing!

This upload is organized in two main folders.

Folder 1: that's the original source.
It comes from an old Demonoid upload, and the Quadraphonic sound is reproduced in 5.1 with 2 blank channels. The rip was presumably made using a Fostex Reel to Reel, with adaptations in order to play the cartridges. Many thanks to the original uploader (unfortunately, I don't even remember who he/she was, as the original torrent disappeared without a trace).
As mentioned, the source suffered from speed/pitch problems. Sometimes the music sounded slightly slow (Cartridge 1), sometimes slightly fast (Cartridge 3), sometimes incredibly too fast (last half of Cartridge 2). This was corrected with painstaking work on SoundForge Pro 10.0 (Folder 2).
The original wav's play on VLC media player and on Foobar (Foobar will need the DTS plugin). You can also burn them in two CDs (with Burrrn for instance). That was the original uploader suggestion, if I remember well, and that's why he/she divided the tracklist in two wav files. But in this case, in order to play the CDs and hear anything other than white noise, you will need a proper player/equipment to decode the DTS (I don't know much about it).

Folder 2: Pitch/speed corrected multichannel flac version
Pitch and Speed were corrected by comparison with the 2009 (stereo) CD release of this album, Sanctuary, # 2712812. See more details on folder 2, "pitch and speed correction.txt".
You can play this version on VLC media player, Foobar and others. You can also open it on SoundForge and select/combine channels while you're hearing the tracks. You get to hear many music details by doing this.
Different than folder 1, the tracklist is divided in three parts (cues), reflecting the three original Quad 8 cartridges.

The pics inserted in this upload don't come from the original source, but from auction pics of the very same release.

Enjoy