Sound Colour Vibration (Music | Art | Film | Technology | Science | Culture)

The Doors are one of those bands everyone knows about and the legacy they created in their short tenure in the height of the 60′s and early 70′s is nothing short of amazing. Through time, I always find myself going back to their music, amazed as much as I was the first time I connected with what they have given the world. One of the greatest and most respected catalog’s in music history is being celebrated again in the illustrious year of 2012. Analogue Productions and Quality Record Pressings have already began to launch out on an extended 45 RPM repressing of every Doors record along with a box set called Infinite that will contain all of these releases in one set. Pressed with the highest technical specs possible, these will be collectors items that will be one of the best sounding repressings of the original releases. This is huge and if you are into vinyl, these will be must own items and will go very quick. Full news on these illustrious releases in the links provided below along with a few details from Bruce Botnick, Analogue Productions and Quality Record Pressings.

-Erik Otis

Analogue Productions and Quality Record Pressings are proud to announce that six studio LP titles — The Doors, Strange Days, Waiting For The Sun, Soft Parade, Morrison Hotel and L.A. Woman — are featured on 200-gram vinyl, pressed at 45 rpm. All six titles are also available on Multichannel SACD! All were cut from the original analog masters by Doug Sax, with the exception of The Doors, which was made from the best analog tape copy.

A truly authentic reissue project, the masters were recorded on tube equipment, and the tape machine used for the transfer of these releases is a tube machine, as is the cutting system. Tubes baby!

This is no time to wallow in the mire. The Doors are on Analogue Productions!

The Doors The Doors (1967) 45 RPM Vinyl LINK 
The Doors Strange Days (1967) 45 RPM Vinyl LINK
The Doors Waiting For The Sun (1968) 45 RPM Vinyl LINK
The Doors The Soft Parade (1969) 45 RPM Vinyl LINK
The Doors Morrison Hotel (1970) 45 RPM Vinyl LINK
The Doors L.A. Woman (1971) 45 RPM Vinyl LINK
The Doors Infinite Vinyl Box Set 45 RPM Vinyl LINK

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“Throughout the record history of the Doors, the goal between Paul Rothchild and myself was to be invisible, as the Doors were the songwriters and performers. Our duty was to capture them in the recorded medium without bringing attention to ourselves. Of course, the Doors were very successful, and Paul and I did receive some acclaim, which we did appreciate.

“If you listen to all the Doors albums, no attempt was made to create sounds that weren’t generated by the Doors, except for the Moog Synthesizer on Strange Days, although that was played live in the mix by Jim, but that’s another story. The equipment used was very basic, mostly tube consoles and microphones. Telefunken U47, Sony C37A, Shure 56. The echo used was from real acoustic echo chambers and EMT plate reverb units. In those days, we didn’t have plug-ins or anything beyond an analogue eight-track machine. All the studios that we used, except for Elektra West, had three Altec Lansing 604E loudspeakers, as that was the standard in the industry, three-track. On EKS-74007, The Doors, we used four-track Ampex recorders and on the subsequent albums, 3M 56 eight-tracks. Dolby noise reduction units were used on two albums, Waiting For The Sun and The Soft Parade. Everything was analogue, digital was just a word. We didn’t use fuzz tone or other units like that but created the sounds organically, i.e. the massive dual guitar solo on “When The Music’s Over,” which was created by feeding the output of one microphone preamp into another and adjusting the level to create the distortion. The tubes were glowing and lit up the control room.

“When mastering for the 45-RPM vinyl release, we were successfully able to bake the original master tapes and play them to cut the lacquer masters.”

- Bruce Botnick, July 2012