The Doors - Morrison Hotel

Mastered by Doug Sax and overseen by Bruce Botnick, The Doors producer/engineer.

Two 45 rpm LPs pressed on 200-gram vinyl at Quality Record Pressings

Part of The Doors reissue series proudly presented by Analogue Productions and Quality Record Pressings!

Rolling Stone proclaimed that Morrison Hotel opens “with a powerful blast of raw funk called ‘Roadhouse Blues’. It features jagged barrelhouse piano, fierce guitar, and one of the most convincing raunchy vocals Jim Morrison has ever recorded.”

In short, the harsh brilliance of “Roadhouse Blues” was its angry hard rock manner, brought to fore in brooding fashion with a chillingly true Morrison lyric: "I woke up this morning and I got myself a beer/The future's uncertain and the end is always near."

Making it one of The Doors’ best-ever tracks, “Roadhouse Blues” was joined as praise-worthy in Rolling Stones’ review by the buoyant catchiness of another Morrison Hotel single, “Land Ho.” “A chanty that sets you rocking and swaying on first listen and never fails to bring a smile every time it's repeated.”

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.

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

Originally released in 1970

Ray Manzarek, keyboards

Jim Morrison, vocals

John Densmore, drums

Robby Krieger, guitar

Technical notes about the recording process by Doors producer/engineer Bruce Botnick:

"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

"I received test pressings today for both Morrison Hotel and L.A. Woman. I have to tell you that these are the very best pressings I've heard in many, many moons. Great plating and your compound is so quiet that I clearly heard every fade out to its conclusion with no problem. Doug (Sax) and company did a lovely job, the tapes sound pretty damn good for being almost 50 years old and his system is clearly the best...You should be very proud of what you and your troops are doing." - Bruce Botnick, The Doors producer/engineer

Click here to read a 1997 interview in The Tracking Angle with Doors producer/engineer Bruce Botnick.