On March 5th, 2016, Suzanne Ciani returned to the Buchla 200 synthesizer for the first time in 40 years. For this unexpected show, she had one crucial requirement: a quadraphonic immersive sound system. The performance was the beginning of a final run with the uniquely quad-native Buchla instrument that had shaped her creative beginnings. She figured she’d tour for a year, but as anyone who’s followed her work since then knows, she’s been perpetually circling the globe from that show to this very day. The world hasn’t had enough of Suzanne, and through her shows, listeners have come to realize what they’ve been missing with quadraphonic sound.
From that performance, she and I made the quadraphonic vinyl album LIVE Quadraphonic. As we discussed the creation of the album, Suzanne said a simple phrase that changed the way I thought about making music: “Quad is Musical.”
Immersive vs. Stereo
What makes a quadraphonic concert or an immersive recording so special for listeners? For Suzanne, it starts with her instrument, the Buchla 200e, which includes the Buchla 227 module, allowing for rhythmic movement through a quadraphonic output. Through the Buchla, Suzanne composes immersive music from the start, inspiring her unique sound. The instrument is immersive. Suzanne’s thinking is immersive. Thinking and writing immersively is just how Suzanne works, even in the 1970s. We all have enjoyed the benefits.
Another example of the creative opportunity immersive music making offers comes from producers Bob Margouleff and Malcolm Cecil’s work with Stevie Wonder on his album Talking Book at the Record Plant in Los Angeles. The album was only released in stereo but the process of making it was in quad. In an extensive interview with Mix Magazine, Bob proclaims “Monitoring in quad in the control room with Stevie made the recording process compelling and magical.” To Bob, Quad is MAGICAL. The album speaks for itself.
Although you can already tell that I’m a strong Quad Advocate, by no means am I advocating that everything needs to be made in spatial sound. My enthusiasm comes from the unique creative possibilities that immersive formats provide. Quad is Musical has inspired a methodology for making immersive music, reducing the creative friction of the technology to bring consistency to the widely varied ways listeners enjoy immersive music. Although it was incredibly cost-prohibitive in the 1970s when Suzanne and Stevie were on their immersive explorations, today that’s no longer the case. Plus there are immediate and near-term commercial opportunities beyond stereo, in addition to the creative ones:
-
Film/TV/Games. The professional process of delivering music for Film, Television and Games typically involves delivering stereo stems (Drums, Bass, Vocals, Keyboards, etc.) derived from the final stereo mix of a song. The film mixer then takes those stems to create a quadraphonic mix of the music, leaving the center channel of a 5.1+ immersive film mix exclusively for dialogue. For a project as large as a film, far less time is spent on pre-existing songs in a film versus what the musician/team would put into the mix, many times missing the creative musical intent of the song. Why not save the film production some money and save your song from a less-than-inspired mix by delivering your own quad mix to the film? It may even make your song more likely to get licensed.
-
XR/VR/AR. Having a quadraphonic mix for your music immediately makes it ideal for VR. Also there is no “center” or “front” in three dimensional Virtual and Augmented Reality projects. The demand for immersive music will only grow as this technology becomes more pervasive.
Before Dolby Atmos Music
It turned out that despite Suzanne making quadraphonic music since the late 60s, she had never made an immersive format release. I felt it was my duty to right that wrong. However, in 2016, there really weren’t many practical options:
-
Atmos. Dolby was only doing film experiments with their new “object-oriented” Dolby Atmos format. The equipment and process were limited to select groups at a high cost. It wasn’t until November 2017 that the first Atmos music was released: the 25th-anniversary reissue Blu-ray of R.E.M.'s 1992 album Automatic for the People. Not only was it expensive to produce, but Blu-ray also made manufacturing and distribution quite expensive. It wasn’t until June 2021 that Apple Music started streaming immersive music. 2016 was way too soon for Atmos.
-
DVD-Audio and SACD were speaker-based 5.1 immersive formats released in 1999. In 2016, folks were very much getting rid of their DVD players. DVD was a dead end.
-
Tape. There were several multitrack tape formats. Reel to Reel quad tape was the beginning of the quad format in the 1960s, but functional machines were far more rare than DVD players. Those of you reading this may also remember 4-track cassette recorders from the 80s and 90s. These machines used both “sides” of a standard cassette tape all in one direction. Although it was quite popular for home recording, it was never really a commercial format. Of course, who even had a normal 2-track cassette deck at this time? Tape was a dead end.
-
Vinyl. Vinyl was making a massive resurgence at the time, but no one had made quadraphonic vinyl in 30 years. I ended up rediscovering quadrophonic vinyl when researching immersive format options, and, ultimately, this is the path that Suzanne and I took for her album. I won’t go too far into the quad vinyl-making process in this article, but it significantly reinforced my advocacy for quad. You can read more about the quad vinyl journey on Wired.com and at Mix.
Quad vs. 5.1+
The exploration of quad with Suzanne reminded me of my past life making albums in 5.1. 5.1 is Front Left (L), Front Right (R), Left Surround (LS), Right Surround (RS), Center (C), and Low Frequency Effect (LFE) speakers. The speaker format of 5.1 was driven by the film industry but was originally derived from the quadraphonic format (L, R, LS, RS) with the addition of two speakers; the Center and the LFE speakers. Coincidentally, I already had experience producing 5.1 music, producing DVD-Audio and SACD releases with artists like Beck, Nine Inch Nails and Sting during my time at Interscope Records in the early 2000s. However, my work in quadraphonic music over the past several years highlighted how the extra speakers designed for film creates unique challenges in music:
-
The Center. In music for film, the rule is to avoid the center channel since it is reserved for dialogue. However, when using the 5.1 format for music, the center channel is available. This made me consider the 5.1 home listening experience. First off, the center speaker is completely different from the other speakers, shaped like a horizontal “bar” which may even include the left and right channels within the center speaker bar. Also the signal processing of many of these systems likely includes “dialogue enhancement,” modifying the center channel’s equalization and gain. Commercial movie theatres often crank up the center channel +6dB to avoid complaints from audiences that they can’t hear dialogue. This tends to work great for films, but for music, it can really kill the balance of a mix. The “phantom” center of quadraphonic playback brings consistency across speaker systems.
-
The Bottom. 5.1 systems also include the LFE: Low Frequency Effects (its the “point one” in 5.1). Film mixers use it for effects like earthquake sounds or a low rumble of a spaceship. In some playback scenarios, the LFE channel simply gets omitted. Most playback systems rarely dedicate the LFE speaker exclusively to the “.1” channel of the 5.1 mix. The LFE is used for bass management as a subwoofer; Stereo (2.1), Quad (4.1), 5.1 and beyond. Big speakers are expensive. Instead of five large, full frequency speakers, one big “sub” can play ultra low frequencies on behalf of the “main” speakers. The very systems that used to professionally mix albums typically send lower frequencies from the entire mix to the LFE speaker. If you create and deliver full-frequency spectrum quadraphonic music, a calibrated speaker system better manages which low frequencies are sent to the LFE.
-
The Practical. Have you ever tried selling a 5.1 speaker system? It’s hard. There are far fewer potential buyers, but you know what there are a lot more of? Stereo speaker buyers. Selling the matching pairs of speakers from the 5.1 system can be quite easy, but you’re usually left with a center channel and/or LFE speaker to sell by itself; good luck.
-
The Creative. While at Interscope I got to work with the Dust Brothers on Beck’s Guero. They–and most producers–hadn’t worked in surround sound before. What would these brilliant minds do with all of these speakers? While Guero is an incredible album, initial attempts at an immersive 5.1 mix failed to capture its depth. The complex layers of the Dust Brothers' production style led to a first 5.1 mix that was overwhelming and lacked spatial definition, essentially sounding like a mono mix played through multiple speakers. Contemplating the Center and LFE channels: What are you to do with the Center channel? Do you put the vocal in the center like film dialogue? What is the LFE really for? Why would you even put something exclusively in the LFE? Fortunately, the legendary and highly surround-experienced Elliot Scheiner was recruited to mix the surround mix, gluing the Dust Brothers and Beck’s vision together beautifully. Even though everything worked out great in the end, it always bugged me; how is it that the Dust Brothers, one of my production idols, could have let 5.1 slow them down? Why was making immersive music so hard?
It struck me: for immersive music to reach its potential, musicians and producers would need to minimize technical hurdles. What if the Dust Brothers had worked in quad? Think of it: 5.1 equals 6 speakers. Take away 2 speakers leaving 4 (quad). 6 speakers are 50% more than 4. 50% more is a lot… What’s more, quad is balanced; every direction you face is equal. Every speaker is equal. Balance, efficiency and equity. Another way Quad is Musical; it complements the creative process. Reflecting on the Guero experience inspired a way forward to how quad could build a bridge for anyone to make music in space. In summary: it must be simple.
Quad with Dolby Atmos
With Apple’s commitment to immersive sound, object-oriented immersive music formats like Atmos won’t suffer the same death as DVD-Audio. Dolby Atmos’s current playback standard is 7.1.4: 7 speakers around you with one being the Center channel, the LFE as the “point-one”, and 4 speakers above you. The addition of the height speakers are there to bring more realism to a plane flying over you in a film, for instance. As a songwriter, engineer, and/or producer, doesn’t it make your head hurt? No wonder many atmos mixes sound so… not great. In most production workflows, the Atmos mix is generally an afterthought, made from stems of the stereo mix.
-
Creation. Quad is Musical also applies to Dolby Atmos workflows, making for a full object-oriented immersive process from the start. Placing Atmos objects in the Atmos three dimensional volumetric space and keenly folding the volume down to a quadraphonic monitoring system gives a high level of accuracy without confusion, technical challenges and cost. For professional mixers, the level of care that is put into placing speakers in control rooms even with two speakers is a very important part of studio set up. There are very expensive systems attempting to correct control room acoustics and inter-speaker phase relationships. Going from two (stereo) to four (quad) to six (5.1) to twelve (atmos) increases monitoring problems exponentially; the law of diminishing returns. Make music in quad and go to a dialed 7.1.4+ space for a day to make the final tweaks. Spend less. Stress less. Remove that friction in your process.
-
Playback. Of course, there are headphones. We’ve been immersing ourselves with them for decades, and now, with the binaural processing of products like Apple’s Airpods or Sony’s Virtual Mix Engine (VME), it can sound like you are in a virtual room with virtual speakers. Sometimes it’s cool to “hear” the room. Sometimes I’d rather not…. but for that virtual room, how about a real room? Have you ever noticed that most immersive playback systems are 5.1? Or some mutation of that… not 7.1.4. Some are even just a speaker bar with a bunch of speakers pointed at your walls to give you the perception of immersive sound. I’m not encouraging making your immersive music for the best case scenario, but I am encouraging a little dose of reality here. Listening to immersive music in a room with speakers is a goosebump but how many people are really gonna put 12 speakers in their living room? Four is already a pretty big step.
The Diva of the Diode Suzanne Ciani effortlessly said: Quad IS Musical, illuminating the way forward for lower friction immersive making, allowing creative and emotional focus for a project. No matter the number of speakers you work with in your studio, it truly is fun making music in space. Wishing you well on your adventure.
KamranV is a MIT Spatial Sound Lab researcher, Arts Technologist and album producer who reimagined Moogfest and produced the first quadraphonic vinyl record in 30 years with Suzanne Ciani, spawning three National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) grants for the dublab commissioned open source immersive audio software QUARK (Quadraphonic Universally Accessible Resource Kit), making it possible for anyone to create and listen to quad encoded music at no cost. His immersive installations have shown at LACMA, MOMA PS1, LA Louver and Art Basel. Recent projects include improvisational, ambient quadraphonic cassette tapes with Arthur King and Space Space (at The Majestic); a non-profit immersive arts venue promoting peace through making space for deep listening, exploration, and experimentation.