- This early 360 pressing of The Time Has Come has Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sound on both sides; exceptionally quiet vinyl too
- When you play “Time Has Come Today” here – the long version of course – you will not believe how spacious, Tubey Magical and TRIPPY it is
- This groundbreaking album of soul, funk and Psych Rock is exceptionally well recorded – you’d be hard-pressed to find a copy that’s this well balanced, big and lively, with such wonderful clarity
- 4 1/2 stars: “This, the Chambers Brothers’ coming-of-age record, was a well-timed and even better executed exercise in modern record-making… [it] shows the brothers not just embracing the psychedelic trends, but also redefining their R&B leanings.”
This vintage Columbia 360 Stereo pressing has the kind of Tubey Magical Midrange that modern records rarely even 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 — this sound.
If 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.
What the best sides of The Time Has Come have to offer is not hard to hear:
- The biggest, most immediate staging in the largest acoustic space
- The most Tubey Magic, without which you have almost 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 1967
- Tight, note-like, rich, full-bodied bass, with the correct amount of weight down low
- Natural tonality in the midrange — with all the instruments having the correct timbre
- Transparency and resolution, critical to hearing into the three-dimensional space of the studio
No doubt there’s more but we hope that should do for now. Playing the record is the only way to hear all of the qualities we discuss above, 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.
What We’re Listening For on The Time Has Come
- Energy for starters. What could be more important than the life of the music?
- The Big Sound comes next — wall to wall, lots of depth, huge space, three-dimensionality, all that sort of thing.
- Then transient information — fast, clear, sharp attacks, not the smear and thickness common to most LPs.
- Tight, note-like bass with clear fingering — which ties in with good transient information, as well as the issue of frequency extension further down.
- Next: transparency — the quality that allows you to hear deep into the soundfield, showing you the space and air around all the players.
- Then: presence and immediacy. The vocals aren’t “back there” somewhere, way behind the speakers. They’re front and center where any recording engineer worth his salt would have put them.
- Extend the top and bottom and voila, you have The Real Thing — an honest to goodness Hot Stamper.
Side One
All Strung Out Over You
People Get Ready
I Can’t Stand It
Romeo And Juliet
In The Midnight Hour
So Tired
Side Two
Uptown
Please Don’t Leave Me
What The World Needs Now Is Love
Time Has Come Today
AMG 4 1/2 Star Review
This, the Chambers Brothers’ coming-of-age record, was a well-timed and even better executed exercise in modern record-making. The brothers had recorded several excellent gospel-folk sides on a few labels (including CBS) in the mid-’60s. They were darlings of the folk set, and even sang backup on a few unreleased Bob Dylan sessions in 1965. By 1967, they were at loose ends.
The resulting album and subsequent title track hit were huge successes, especially on FM radio. The rest of the album shows the brothers not just embracing the psychedelic trends, but also redefining their R&B leanings.