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Santana’s Debut Is a Masterpiece

More Santana

More Debut Albums of Interest

  • A superb Columbia 360 Label pressing of Santana’s debut album with Double Plus (A++) sound on both sides
  • The drums have real snap to them – fast, clean percussion is critical to the energy and drive of Santana’s music and this copy has the top end and the speed to bring it all together
  • A Must Own album, clearly their masterpiece, and one of the truly groundbreaking debuts in rock history
  • It’s also a personal favorite that knocked me out when I first heard it back in high school – over the decades it has become even more impressive, especially these days with the revolutions in cleaning and playback quality letting it sound as big and bold as it does
  • “Santana combined Latin rhythms with jazz-inspired improvisation, hard-rock guitar and lyrical, B.B. King-style blues – and even had a hit single, “Evil Ways. The combination of rock guitar and funk percussion was undeniable.” – Rolling Stone
  • We’ve recently compiled a list of records we think every audiophile should get to know better, along the lines of “the 1001 records you need to hear before you die,” but with less of an accent on morbidity and more on the joy these amazing audiophile-quality recordings can bring to your life. Santana’s first album is a good example of a record many audiophiles may not know well but should.

Santana’s first album came out of nowhere and rocked in a way that few music lovers (especially those who knew nothing about Tito Puente) had heard before.

In one sense it had something in common with Led Zeppelin’s debut from early in 1969. Zep’s first album took the blues and added heavy metal guitars. Santana took African and Latin rhythms and added his own style of heavy guitar.

Each is a landmark recording in its own right. It’s hard to imagine any collection of popular music that would be without both.

Folks, you owe it to yourself to hear what a great band Santana were back in the day. Hot Stampers of any of the first three records will do the trick. If you’ve got the stereo that can play loud rock and roll, we’ve got the records that sound like Santana playing live in your listening room. Take it from someone who likes to listen to his music at fairly loud levels, Santana’s first album is truly a thrill. (more…)

Carlos Santana Knows: Louder Is Better

santasanta_1401s

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Santana Available Now

Santana’s debut is yet another in the long list of recordings that really comes alive when you turn up your volume.

The commentary below refers to an experience I had playing the album on my Legacy Whisper speakers in the late-90s.

This album needs to be played loud. I mean really loud. Years ago I used to demonstrate how important it was to have the level up good and high on the song Waiting.

Back in the mid-90s, I had somehow lucked into my first shockingly good Hot Stamper copy.

As a demonstration of what the Legacy Whisper system and its 8 fifteen inch woofer/midrange drivers could do, I would play the first minute or so of the track at a pretty good level. There’s lots of ambience, there’s a couple of guys who shout things out from way back in the studio, there’s a substantial amount of deep bass, and the whole recording has a natural smooth quality to it, which is precisely what allows you to play it at loud volumes.

Then I would turn it up a notch, say about 2-3 DB. I would announce to my friends that this is probably louder than you will ever play this record, but listen to what happens when you do. The soundstage gets wider and deeper, all those guys that shout can be heard more clearly, you start to really feel that deep bass, and when the song gets going, it really gets going. The energy of the music would jump to another level.

Then I would turn it up another 3 DB or so. At this point I would say that “this is how loud it should be played.” All the effects I mentioned earlier would become even more pronounced — wider, deeper, more clear, more powerful. The record was actually starting to sound like live music in my living room.

But of course, I was showing off a system that few could afford and that nobody in his right mind would put out in the middle of his living room. You would need a custom sound room, and a big one at that, to fit such a massive speaker and be able to turn it up.

But I was a bachelor at the time, and my live-in girlfriend at the time knew that she would have to go before the stereo did.

Unboosted

It was pointed out to me one day that the reason this record can be played loud is that, unlike most popular recordings, this album has a natural, unboosted top end, which means that the louder you play it, the more real it sounds. You can’t do that with most records. Many records have a top end that’s boosted to sound good at lower volumes. Not so with the first album by Santana. [For more records with the kind of vintage smooth sound we find so appealing, click here.]

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We Owe You a Really Big Apology

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Santana Available Now

Sonic Grade: F

Santana is a record we admit to having liked when it came out back in 2007. Since then we have changed our minds. As embarrassing as it may be, and let’s be clear, this pressing is very embarrassing, We got this one wrong and there is no sense trying to deny it.

It’s just so damn compressed and lifeless.

The whomp factor on this pressing is zero. Since whomp is critical to the sound of Santana’s music, it’s Game Over for us. The review below is exactly what we wrote at the time the record came in.

We tried to like it, but it’s clear to us now that we tried to like it too hard. Please accept our apologies.

I noted in my [now discontinued] blog on the site: “But now I would have to say that the MoFi LP is far too lifeless to be acceptable to anyone, even those with the worst kinds of Audiophile BS systems.”

And I noted that the Abraxas they remastered never got past the first elimination round. It had to have been one of the worst half-speeds I have ever heard. 

We also mentioned a while back (4/29/08, time flies) on our blog how bad the latest crop of MoFi vinyl was, with the heading: “Mobile Fidelity, Ouch.” Please to enjoy:

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Listening in Depth to Santana’s First Album

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Santana Available Now

First off, a 360 label doesn’t mean much on this record except the POTENTIAL for good sound. The badly mastered or pressed copies can be recognized easily: they are muddy and smeary. The recording itself has a bit of that too-many-tubes-in-the-signal-path quality to start with, so unless the record is mastered and pressed clearly and cleanly the whole presentation is likely to turn to mud. 

Santana’s first album came out of nowhere and rocked in a way that few had heard before. In that sense it has something in common with Led Zeppelin’s debut. That album took the blues and added heavy guitars. Santana took African and Latin rhythms and added his own heavy guitar sound. Each is a landmark recording in its own right.

Musicianship

Like Abraxas, when you play a Hot Stamper copy Santana’s first album very loud, soon enough you find yourself marvelling at the musicianship of the group — because the best Hot Stamper pressings, communicating every bit of the energy and clarity the recording has to offer, let you hear what a great band they were.

On badly mastered records, such as the run-of-the-mill domestic LP, or the audiophile pressings on MoFi and CBS, the music lacks the power of the real thing. I want to hear Santana ROCK. Most pressings don’t let me do that. Only the best do.

Side One

Waiting

The first 30 seconds of this track will tell you if you have a good side one. The drums and percussion on the good copies are clean and clear, neither grainy nor smeared. Smearing is the most common problem for the originals, and graininess is the most common problem for reissues, which are usually made from sub generation EQ’d tapes.

And the other thing the Hot Stampers have going for them is deep, solid bass, as mentioned above. There is a bass fundamental on this opening track that’s WAY down there. If you have small speakers you can just forget ever hearing this record sound right, because the bass is critical to Santana’s sound.

Evil Ways

The key thing to listen to on this track is the quality of the vocals. On the best pressings they are very silky and sweet. It’s the kind of sound that modern recordings simply fail to capture. Or they’re not interested in that sound. Whatever the reason is, they don’t have it.

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Santana Records to Avoid – 180 Gram Imports!

More of the Music of Santana

There are some 180 gram reissues produced in Germany that are just plain awful. They can’t begin to hold a candle to good American copies.

The Original Orange Label CBS pressings always have that veiled, opaque, smeary quality that we dislike so much. They are obviously made from sub-generation tapes. The transients suffer badly when dub tapes are used.

Further Reading

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