More of the Music of Joni Mitchell
About ten years ago we played a copy of Blue that showed us a piano we had never heard on the album before. We found it on the track The Last Time I Saw Richard.
This is not the thin and hard-sounding instrument that accompanies Joni on every pressing you have ever had the misfortune to audition, hoping against hope that someday you would find that “elusive disc” with sound worthy of such extraordinary music.
No, this piano had real weight; it has body; and it was surrounded by real, three-dimensional studio space. No vinyl pressing we had ever played up to then has managed to capture the sound of the piano on this record any better. Exactly no copies.
For those of you with a certain Heavy Vinyl pressing in your collection, we can only say that the piano on this copy will show you everything that is wrong with the piano on that one.
The piano had no smear, allowing both the percussive aspects of the instrument and the extended harmonics of the notes to be heard clearly and appreciated fully.
Pianos are very good for testing your system, room, tweaks, electricity and all the rest, not to mention turntable setup and adjustment.
A great many more records that are good for testing and improving your playback can be found here.
We Fell Short in 2005
Our first aborted attempt at a shootout for Blue in 2005 failed because we had neither the specialized cleaning techniques and machinery that we use now, nor the equipment required to play such a challenging recording. We pointed out at the time that our notes contained comments such as “soft, lacks bass, grungy, grainy, thin, hi-fi, bright, so-so, aggressive, hard, thick, groove damage, highs worn away, lacking in bass and extreme top, gritty, swooshy, bad vinyl.”
No doubt that’s what we were hearing.
We also found comments such as “perfection, wonderful, lovely, sweet, transparent, as good as it gets, Joni’s right there, one of the best, wow.”
So there was hope, even way back in 2005.
Now, years later, it sounds really good. It also got much quieter after applying some of our new cleaning techniques, and the sound became even warmer, richer, sweeter and more transparent.
Further Reading