Phase 4 Stereo

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Phase 4 Stereo was a recording process created by the U.K. Decca Records label in 1961.^[1] The process was used on U.K. Decca recordings and also those of its American subsidiary London Records during the 1960s.

Phase 4 Stereo recordings were created with an innovative 10-channel, and later 20-channel, "recording console"^[2] (actually a mixing console.

Those 10-channel and 20-channel console outputs for Phase 4 recordings were originally made on then-novel 4-track tape, but the innovation was in the special scoring used to maximize the technology. Normally in recording techniques of the early-to-mid-60s, to get the kind of layered sound realized in Phase 4 recordings, required multiple overdubs over multiple reels of tape, bouncing down and bouncing across to different recorders. This increased the level of tape hiss on the final master, something which Phase 4 engineers could not tolerate. So they achieved in their scoring techniques what could be recorded in one pass what everybody else was achieving with multiple overdubs.

The concept of Phase 4 Stereo has no connection with Quadraphonic sound or "four channel stereo." But because there often are sounds in the extreme right or extreme left channels, the records may also give pleasing results when played on Hafler circuit systems or other simulated four channel systems.

Approximately two hundred albums were released with the process, including popular music, "gimmick" records engineered to make the sound travel from speaker to speaker, records featuring percussion effects, and historical sound effect records. In 1964, a light classical Phase 4 "Concert Series" was produced.

In 1996 a CD, The Phase 4 Experience, was released with classical and soundtrack recordings from 1966 to 1979 (London 444 788-2 LPX/PY 871). In 2014, a 41-CD boxed set of Stereo Concert Series classical albums was released, and in 2017 another 40-CD box set of soundtrack and Easy listening/popular recordings, called Spectacular: Nice 'n' Easy.

A space themed version, An Astromusical Odyssey, was arranged by Johnny Keating which included songs from the late 1960s to the early 1970s. A selection can be heard on YouTube.^[3]