I had noticed it before, but never really bothered to look into it until now, but my CD copy of the Clones of Funkenstein has some terrible hiss on a few of the tracks. Particularly “I’ve Been Watching You” has just an astounding amount of hiss throughout the entire track. I’m not familiar enough with different hiss to be able to identify the source of the hiss. It doesn’t really sound like hiss that would have resulted from being sourced from vinyl or somn but I’m not sure. I was trying to work out which issue my copy is via comparing it to issues on Discogs but most of them don’t have any pictures, and I can’t seem to find any date on mine other than '76 which obviously is only when the album was released on vinyl, not the CD print date.
Anyways, just wondering if anybody else’s copy is like this/if anyone knows what the hissing is from. Also wondering if this problem is issue-specific or if all issues have this problem.
I’m also wondering if other Parliament-Funkadelic releases (particularly CD releases) have notoriously good or bad prints that you know of, or if there is any sort of documenting of this kind of thing somewhere.
Any info/insight on any of this is appreciated.
I’ve always been fascinated with the sound of the original Clones vinyl. The whole album always had such a smooth, seamless sound to it. There is a much less trebly sound on it compared to Mothership Connection. It’s like they put some kind of muffler on it. That being said, I have found that sound to be even more pronounced on the CD release. The volume level on mine is low as well. I have to really crank it. I don’t know what version I have of it although I’ve had it for many years. I think it was one of the first reissues.
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My CD copy is an european release from 1990. I put on I’ve Been Watching You and it sounded pretty good, no hiss at all.
In the booklet is says “Mastered for Compact Disc by Torn Ruff at PolyGram Studios”, if that could help in some way.
Don’t know of any documentation about this kind of stuff, but would be great to have.
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Since no one has mentioned it I’ll bite.
When you say hiss I say tape…
Maybe you’re hearing a several generations down tape.
As for vinyl, turntables don’t hiss, they rumble.
Gives me a reason to play some Clones. 
“Sexy body” is a little bit noisy but it’s got some very quiet sections with just the guitar, but over all the Casablanca/polydor Parliament cd releases were good quality from the get go… not sure the Funkadelic Warner stuff is from tape… heard lots of cd issues still not convinced I think He ‘GC’ had some tapes stolen!?!
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