8 Track Tapes - Are They Mixed Differently?

[Disco Funk]

Years ago, I read that the old 8 track cassettes used 4 tracks per song. In some cases (if not all), the songs would be mixed so that each track going to a different speaker had a different sound, kind of like the 5.1 surround sound we have today with DVDs. Was this really the case? Has anyone here dug up their old disco 8 track cassettes? Do they really feature mixes where instruments are separated in a quad/4 speaker manner with different instruments on every speaker?

Disco Funk

[BrunoRepublic]

No. At least, not often.

There was, very briefly, a format which allowed discrete 4-channel reproduction from 8-track tapes, called the Q8 format. This had two programs of four channels, instead of the usual four programs of regular two-channel (stereo). However, this was dead by 1975, and did not capture the public's imagination.

The only quad disco record that I know of is an early MFSB release.

The 8-track was a horrible format for disco. I have a few (Ritchie Family, Donna Summer, THP Orchestra) and they've almost all been badly butchered. Since the music had to be divided into four equal parts, and disco albums don't usually work out that way, often the music would just fade out in the middle of a song as the program came to an end, and fade back in as the next one started. Oh, and 8-tracks have horrible fidelity; they're not much better than AM radio.

[Disco Funk]

No. At least, not often.

There was, very briefly, a format which allowed discrete 4-channel reproduction from 8-track tapes, called the Q8 format. This had two programs of four channels, instead of the usual four programs of regular two-channel (stereo). However, this was dead by 1975, and did not capture the public's imagination.

The only quad disco record that I know of is an early MFSB release.

The 8-track was a horrible format for disco. I have a few (Ritchie Family, Donna Summer, THP Orchestra) and they've almost all been badly butchered. Since the music had to be divided into four equal parts, and disco albums don't usually work out that way, often the music would just fade out in the middle of a song as the program came to an end, and fade back in as the next one started. Oh, and 8-tracks have horrible fidelity; they're not much better than AM radio.

Cheers. Thanks for the info. I might just buy a few quad cassettes and see how they are. I don't mind the fidelity as long as the channels are discrete and feature different instrumentation. Now, I just have to buy a player... :)

Disco Funk