{"product_id":"mitchcloud_2608","title":"Mitchell, Joni - Clouds - White Hot Stamper","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e*NOTE:\u003c\/strong\u003e There is a bubble in the vinyl that plays as 9 light thuds about 1\/2 way into track 1 on side 1, \"Tin Angel.\"\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eEverything you could ask for from this album is here on this copy: stunning clarity and transparency, breathy vocals, richness, sweetness, warmth, and an abundance of ambience.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eCheck out the clear transients on the acoustic guitar -- you can really hear her moving her hands around the fretboard and pulling on the strings. The immediacy is mindblowing -- Joni and her guitar are right there in the room with you, without being forced into your lap.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eThe best sounding copies of Clouds are the ones that put Joni and her guitar right there in your listening room.\u003c\/strong\u003e The copies with veiled vocals really don’t allow the music to come to life, and the copies where her voice is too forward come across as unnatural and hi-fi-ish. It takes an exceptional copy to strike the right balance and put both the voice and guitar right between your speakers, not under a blanket or in your lap.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe intimacy of the recording is simply breathtaking, but most pressings can’t begin to do it justice. This is especially true of the reissues, which tend to be thin, edgy and sorely lacking in Tubey Magic. You have not begun to hear these songs with this kind of realism and power unless, like us, you’ve cleaned and played plenty of copies and lucked into a truly killer Hot Stamper.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis vintage Reprise pressing has the kind of Tubey Magical Midrange that modern records can barely BEGIN to reproduce. Folks, that sound is gone and it sure isn't showing signs of coming back. If you love hearing INTO a recording, actually being able to \"see\" the performers, and feeling as if you are sitting in the studio with the band, this is the record for you. It's what vintage all analog recordings are known for -- \u003ci\u003ethis sound\u003c\/i\u003e.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIf you exclusively play modern repressings of vintage recordings, I can say without fear of contradiction that you have never heard this kind of sound on vinyl. Old records have it -- not often, and certainly not always -- but maybe one out of a hundred new records do, and those are some pretty long odds.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003eWhat the Best Sides of Clouds Have to Offer Is Not Hard to Hear\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eThe biggest, most immediate staging in the largest acoustic space\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eThe most Tubey Magic, without which you have \u003ci\u003ealmost\u003c\/i\u003e nothing. CDs give you clean and clear. Only the best vintage vinyl pressings offer the kind of Tubey Magic that was on the tapes in \u003ca href=\"\/search?q=tag:%221969%22\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e1969\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/a\u003e\n\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eTight, note-like, rich, full-bodied bass, with the correct amount of weight down low\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eNatural tonality in the midrange -- with all the instruments having the correct timbre\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eTransparency and resolution, critical to hearing into the three-dimensional studio space\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eNo doubt there's more but we hope that should do for now. \u003ci\u003ePlaying the record is the only way to hear all of the qualities we discuss above,\u003c\/i\u003e and playing the best pressings against a pile of other copies under rigorously controlled conditions is the only way to find a pressing that sounds as good as this one does.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003eFinding the Right Sound\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWe needed to find the right cleaning technologies to get Clouds to sound right, just as in the case of Blue and Ladies Of The Canyon. Our best copies got much quieter after applying some of our newer cleaning techniques, and the sound became even warmer, richer, sweeter and more transparent.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn 2005 we tried to explain why it is practically impossible to find good sounding copies of Blue, and those comments apply equally well to Clouds:\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cblockquote\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe main reason it’s so difficult to find a good sounding pressing of this record is that most copies have a tendency towards hardness, shrillness and aggressiveness. There is a great deal of mid to high frequency information in this recording, and the problems arise when you take all that energy and try to stamp it into a piece of mass-produced cheap domestic vinyl. If the vinyl wasn’t good on the day they pressed the record, it doesn’t matter how good the mastering is. The result is grain. Grunge. And since Joni pushes hard in her upper registers on many of these songs, it’s enough to make you leave the room.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThat’s on the copies that are mastered right! The copies that are mastered with thin and aggressive sound to start with can only get worse. Those are the rule, not the exception.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe best copies bring out the breathy quality to Joni’s voice, and she never sounds strained. They are sweet and open, with good bass foundation and transparency throughout the frequency range.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/blockquote\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003eWhat We're Listening For on Clouds\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eEnergy\u003c\/strong\u003e for starters. What could be more important than the life of the music?\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eThen: \u003cstrong\u003epresence and immediacy\u003c\/strong\u003e. \u003cspan\u003eThe vocals aren't \"back there\" somewhere, lost in the mix. They're front and center where any recording engineer worth his salt -- \u003c\/span\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/better-records.com\/search?q=tag%3Ahenry-lewy\"\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eHenry Lewy\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/a\u003e\u003cspan\u003e in this case -- would have put them.\u003c\/span\u003e\n\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eThe Big Sound\u003c\/strong\u003e comes next -- wall to wall, lots of depth, huge space, three-dimensionality, all that sort of thing.\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eThen \u003cstrong\u003etransient information\u003c\/strong\u003e -- fast, clear, sharp attacks, not the smear and thickness so common to these LPs.\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eTight punchy bass\u003c\/strong\u003e -- which ties in with good transient information, also the issue of frequency extension further down.\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eNext: \u003cstrong\u003etransparency\u003c\/strong\u003e -- the quality that allows you to hear deep into the soundfield, showing you the space and air around all the instruments.\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eExtend the top and bottom\u003c\/strong\u003e and \u003ci\u003evoila\u003c\/i\u003e, you have The Real Thing -- an honest to goodness Hot Stamper.\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003eVinyl Condition\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eMint Minus Minus is about as quiet as any vintage pressing will play, and since only the right vintage pressings have any hope of sounding good on this album, that will most often be the playing condition of the copies we sell. (The copies that are even a bit noisier get listed on the site are seriously reduced prices or traded back in to the local record stores we shop at.)\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThose of you looking for quiet vinyl will have to settle for the sound of other pressings and Heavy Vinyl reissues, purchased elsewhere of course as we have no interest in selling records that don't have the vintage analog magic of these wonderful recordings.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIf you want to make the trade-off between bad sound and quiet surfaces with whatever Heavy Vinyl pressing might be available, well, that's certainly your prerogative, but we can't imagine losing what's good about this music -- the size, the energy, the presence, the clarity, the weight -- just to hear it with less background noise.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Mitchell, Joni","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":52275250233640,"sku":"mitchcloud","price":799.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0257\/3415\/2295\/products\/mitchcloud.jpg?v=1787596211","url":"https:\/\/better-records.com\/products\/mitchcloud_2608","provider":"Better Records","version":"1.0","type":"link"}