More Dire Straits
- A vintage UK pressing that was doing practically everything right, earning INCREDIBLE Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) grades or close to them on both sides – fairly quiet vinyl too
- Here are just a few of the things we had to say about this killer copy in our notes: “breathy vox”…”rich and weighty”…”jumping out of the speakers”…”great size and energy”…”3D and rich guitar”…”lots of bass when it kicks in”
- Guaranteed to be a huge improvement over anything you’ve heard, this Brit is big, punchy, and full-bodied with remarkable presence – Mark Knopfler’s leads really soar
- “Romeo and Juliet” comes to life the way you want it to here, and the song “Solid Rock” lives up to its title
- 4 1/2 stars: “Making Movies is helped by a new wave-tinged pop production, which actually helps Knopfler’s jazzy inclinations take hold … ranks among the band’s finest work.”
The music really comes together, especially if you’ve been playing a sub-generation domestic pressing, which is the only kind Warners made as far as we know. (The first album is the same way of course.) Here you will find richer mids, sweeter highs, more energy and some real punch down low.
This vintage British 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 Making Movies 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 even as late as 1980
- 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.
Most copies of Making Movies tend to be dry, spitty, grainy, and somewhat dull, robbing the music of much of its charm. These guys obviously know their way around a studio — many of you must know just how good their first album can sound — so we’ve always been frustrated at what we heard on copy after copy that hits out table.
Fortunately, there are indeed wonderful sounding pressings out there, and here’s one that backs up that statement big time.
What We’re Listening For on Making Movies
- 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 for the guitars, keyboards and drums, 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 — the legendary Shelly Yakus in this case — would have put them.
- Extend the top and bottom and voila, you have The Real Thing — an honest to goodness Hot Stamper.
Side One
Carousel Waltz
Tunnel Of Love
Romeo And Juliet
Skateaway
Side Two
Expresso Love
Hand In Hand
Solid Rock
Les Boys
AMG Review
Without second guitarist David Knopfler, Dire Straits began to move away from its roots rock origins into a jazzier variation of country-rock and singer/songwriter folk-rock. Naturally, this means that Mark Knopfler’s ambitions as a songwriter are growing, as the storytelling pretensions of Making Movies indicate.
Fortunately, his skills are increasing, as the lovely “Romeo and Juliet,” “Tunnel of Love,” and “Skateaway” indicate. And Making Movies is helped by a new wave-tinged pop production, which actually helps Knopfler’s jazzy inclinations take hold…
Making Movies ranks among the band’s finest work.