Rhyging said:

PurpleChi said:

shonenjoe said: I agree. Parade doesn't get loud at all.

You can make any CD final mix louder by yourself by using audio editors like soundforge and such, a proper separated tracks remaster is much more than compressing peaks and pumping up the overall volume.

Thanks for the info.When I say "get loud" I mean more than that, I mean sound more defined AND get louder. I apologize if I don't know all the record distribution lingo.

^ Shit, just re-read my post, sorry for being too technical.

Rhyging said:

^ Shit, just re-read my post, sorry for being too technical.

I wasn't offended by your post. I meant just what I said. I am not hip to the record distribution lingo like most on this thread. No need to get touchy.

electricberet said:

I wonder if the future of possible Prince remasters may be tied to the future of Warner Music Group, which is currently up for sale. Here are some recent stories on that:

Only indirectly. Prince told the Peach and Black team that the problem was due to the constant changes in upper-management at the label making it impossible to finish negotiations. I doubt a sale would make things any easier as nobody who buys Warner Records will do so with selling albums in mind. Hopefully whoever buys WR will just want it to stream the back catalog and be happy to let Prince do whatever he wants with the masters just to avoid dealing with it themselves.

TheDigitalGardener said:

electricberet said:

We're talking about remastering, not remixing or re-recording. If the CDs sounded as good as the vinyl, that would be fine. But they don't. Surely we can have a version of SOTT, or any of the albums, that sounds as good as the vinyl records that were pressed at the time.

I don't know exactly which Prince album was the first to be issued on CD, but I know I wasn't buying CDs until the very end of the 1980s, or maybe it was the 1990s. When SOTT was mastered for vinyl, I doubt anyone was thinking about how it would sound on CD.

Download a vinyl rip.

At best, a vinyl rip can only sound as good as the vinyl it is ripped from. And if you don't have the absolute best equipment to do the transfer, it will sound worse. I've heard some of the vinyl rips floating around on the Internet. They are not a substitute for the actual vinyl in my opinion.

xlr8r said:

My pick:1999..especially since LRC seems semi distorted

not SOTT because I think it works well with that murky type of sound (such as Ballad Of D Parker feeling a Riot Goin On vibe).

I thought the distortion was intentional?

plus i like it, always makes me wonder how they got that sound.

MrLee192 said:

xlr8r said:

My pick:1999..especially since LRC seems semi distorted

not SOTT because I think it works well with that murky type of sound (such as Ballad Of D Parker feeling a Riot Goin On vibe).

I thought the distortion was intentional?

plus i like it, always makes me wonder how they got that sound.

The distortion on Little Red Corvette was intentional? Or are you talking about SOTT songs?

gyoung said:

Sign "O" The Times hands down.

Exactly! It's the one I want too.

xlr8r said:

MrLee192 said:

I thought the distortion was intentional?

plus i like it, always makes me wonder how they got that sound.

The distortion on Little Red Corvette was intentional? Or are you talking about SOTT songs?

Sorry for being unclear.

Little Red Corvette

electricberet said:

TheDigitalGardener said:

Download a vinyl rip.

At best, a vinyl rip can only sound as good as the vinyl it is ripped from. And if you don't have the absolute best equipment to do the transfer, it will sound worse. I've heard some of the vinyl rips floating around on the Internet. They are not a substitute for the actual vinyl in my opinion.

Yes, a few I have downloaded have been shit, been quite lucky with the (very few) Prince ones though.

No SOTT yet.

[Edited 3/28/11 10:06am]

TheDigitalGardener said:

electricberet said:

At best, a vinyl rip can only sound as good as the vinyl it is ripped from. And if you don't have the absolute best equipment to do the transfer, it will sound worse. I've heard some of the vinyl rips floating around on the Internet. They are not a substitute for the actual vinyl in my opinion.

Yes, a few I have downloaded have been shit, been quite lucky with the (very few) Prince ones though.

No SOTT yet.

[Edited 3/28/11 10:06am]

There is a "Ridiculously Deluxe Edition" of SOTT available out there that includes a vinyl drop. The person who put it together is apparently creating vinyl drops of all Prince's albums through Symbol. I listened to a few of those vinyl drops on my computer, but I haven't put them on my stereo because I am too busy listening to the real thing on my new turntable.

electricberet said:

TheDigitalGardener said:

Yes, a few I have downloaded have been shit, been quite lucky with the (very few) Prince ones though.

No SOTT yet.

[Edited 3/28/11 10:06am]

There is a "Ridiculously Deluxe Edition" of SOTT available out there that includes a vinyl drop. The person who put it together is apparently creating vinyl drops of all Prince's albums through Symbol. I listened to a few of those vinyl drops on my computer, but I haven't put them on my stereo because I am too busy listening to the real thing on my new turntable.

Yeah, I know the editions you mean, I had forgot about that one.

Thank you, and enjoy the turntable.

TheDigitalGardener said:

electricberet said:

There is a "Ridiculously Deluxe Edition" of SOTT available out there that includes a vinyl drop. The person who put it together is apparently creating vinyl drops of all Prince's albums through Symbol. I listened to a few of those vinyl drops on my computer, but I haven't put them on my stereo because I am too busy listening to the real thing on my new turntable.

Yeah, I know the editions you mean, I had forgot about that one.

Thank you, and enjoy the turntable.

What do you think of them? I love my new turntable but I can't take it to the gym.

Sign O' The Times

1999

Purple Rain

Dirty Mind

Controversy

Prince

For U

Around The World In A Day

Parade

Lovesexy

Graffiti Bridge

BATMAN

Ice Cream Castles

The Glamorus Life

Jill Jones

The Family

Apollonia 6

The Time

What Time Is It?

Vanity 6

Romance 1600

Sheila E.

electricberet said:

TheDigitalGardener said:

Yeah, I know the editions you mean, I had forgot about that one.

Thank you, and enjoy the turntable.

What do you think of them? I love my new turntable but I can't take it to the gym.

I have not downloaded any of them as I have all the tracks on these "home made deluxe editions."

However, I am interested in a vinyl rip of SOTT so I think that one may be on the cards.

There are a handful of vinyl rips on a torrent site I use (or there used to be). They were quite good.

I may have to take a closer look at these super deluxe editions.

TheDigitalGardener said:

electricberet said:

What do you think of them? I love my new turntable but I can't take it to the gym.

I have not downloaded any of them as I have all the tracks on these "home made deluxe editions."

However, I am interested in a vinyl rip of SOTT so I think that one may be on the cards.

There are a handful of vinyl rips on a torrent site I use (or there used to be). They were quite good.

I may have to take a closer look at these super deluxe editions.

I wasn't interested in all the bonus material, as it seems to be sourced from other bootlegs such as Work It and the 12-inch archive. But the vinyl rips sounded okay on my computer, at least compared to the Foefur "remasters" (which sound much too compressed in my opinion, and substitute dance mixes for some of the album tracks). It would be nice to have a set of very faithful vinyl rips that I could take to the gym or listen to in my car. I don't have the equipment to do it properly, though.

I'm surprised there hasn't yet been a thread on the series of vinyl rips we're discussing. There was a lot of attention here to the Foefur bootlegs when those were being released.

BEAUGARDE said:

Sign O' The Times

1999

Purple Rain

Dirty Mind

Controversy

Prince

For U

Around The World In A Day

Parade

Lovesexy

Graffiti Bridge

BATMAN

I agree with your approach, but the thread said we could only pick one. I think we're going to get most of the above if there are any remasters. Maybe we should lobby for the ones we're least likely to get. So, I change my vote to Graffiti Bridge.

BEAUGARDE said:

Sign O' The Times

1999

Purple Rain

Dirty Mind

Controversy

Prince

For U

Around The World In A Day

Parade

Lovesexy

Graffiti Bridge

BATMAN

Man up and pick ONLY one.

electricberet said:

TheDigitalGardener said:

I have not downloaded any of them as I have all the tracks on these "home made deluxe editions."

However, I am interested in a vinyl rip of SOTT so I think that one may be on the cards.

There are a handful of vinyl rips on a torrent site I use (or there used to be). They were quite good.

I may have to take a closer look at these super deluxe editions.

I wasn't interested in all the bonus material, as it seems to be sourced from other bootlegs such as Work It and the 12-inch archive. But the vinyl rips sounded okay on my computer, at least compared to the Foefur "remasters" (which sound much too compressed in my opinion, and substitute dance mixes for some of the album tracks). It would be nice to have a set of very faithful vinyl rips that I could take to the gym or listen to in my car. I don't have the equipment to do it properly, though.

I'm surprised there hasn't yet been a thread on the series of vinyl rips we're discussing. There was a lot of attention here to the Foefur bootlegs when those were being released.

Thanks for your opinion.

And yes, it would be great to have a whole series of album only vinyl rips, with proper time, care and attention spent on them.

Getting back to the question of CD remasters: I think we can take it as a given that, if WB and Prince do any CD remasters, they will include the classic run of albums from Dirty Mind through SOTT. I just don't see a weak link in that chain from a sales perspective (even ATWIAD has Raspberry Beret on it). I think it's also safe to say that we would get the first two albums just because it would seem odd to skip them, particularly if a box set is involved. I bet we would also get Lovesexy and Batman, because the former was a criticial success and the latter was a commercial success. The question is, which of the later albums would we get? Would they do the complete run of WB albums, including The Vault and Chaos and Disorder? Seems doubtful to me. A remaster of Diamonds and Pearls would probably sell as well as the others, but I don't know about Graffiti Bridge.

I'm not sure that we will ever get any CD remasters, or at least ones that I would want to buy. If Prince is in charge all by himself, we may get edited, censored, or re-recorded versions, which would not interest me at all (unless they came with cool artwork or previously unknown bonus tracks). But if we do get remasters, I think the only question is how far into the 1990s they will go.

Really difficult question. Definitely not SOTT. I agree, it's perfect the way it is.

Gonna have to go with Dirty Mind.

xlr8r said:

My pick:1999..especially since LRC seems semi distorted

not SOTT because I think it works well with that murky type of sound (such as Ballad Of D Parker feeling a Riot Goin On vibe).

Purple Rain would be the album I would want re-mastered and they would add all the 100+ tracks to make a fairly large CD but, I'd like to see it on vinyl too.

A Better Place 2 Die

InternationalLover82 said:

BEAUGARDE said:

Ice Cream Castles

The Glamorus Life

Jill Jones

The Family

Apollonia 6

The Time

What Time Is It?

Vanity 6

Romance 1600

Sheila E.

Fuck.

SOTT.

Hands down. I really should get at least a vinyl rip of that album and play it instead of those CDs.

novabrkr said:

Fuck.

SOTT.

Hands down. I really should get at least a vinyl rip of that album and play it instead of those CDs.

There are some vinyl rips in circulation. I have listened to a bunch of them. Ultimately I concluded that the ones I heard do not sound any better than the original CDs if you just turn the volume up on the old CDs. I'm not an audio engineer, but the one who set up my system said that vinyl rips can never sound better than the vinyl they were ripped from, and are almost always worse unless you are using absolute top-notch equipment to do the transfer. It makes sense to me, intuitively. The original vinyl sounds better than the CDs, but I think people may be going overboard in trashing how those CDs sound. They came from the same source as the vinyl; they could be much better but they could also be worse. For a while audiophiles were searching for original pressings of CDs by Stevie Wonder because there is a consensus that the supposedly amazing remasters from 2000 are just louder and more compressed. Now we are getting new Stevie Wonder remasters that sound more like the original CDs.

If WB ends up giving us compressed remasters of Prince's classic albums, don't be surprised if people aren't on this forum ten or twenty years later talking about how much better those original CD pressings were and how hard it is to find an original pressing of this or that CD.

electricberet said:

If WB ends up giving us compressed remasters of Prince's classic albums, don't be surprised if people aren't on this forum ten or twenty years later talking about how much better those original CD pressings were and how hard it is to find an original pressing of this or that CD.

Ha. You're right with that one.

However, there were some truly bad remasters done at the end of 90s when squashing became the new fad. We all thought they sounded good back then, but it's not a coincidence that many of them got remastered again later on.

As far as the versions of SOTT on analog formats go, I am hoping that they would have a bit different EQ curve to them. The CDs have a very mid-rangeish sound with hardly any bass at all. I'll have to try to find them out myself and listen to them with my own ears. Btw, the SOTT CDs sounded just fine on my old stereos which were from the 1980s, but once I upgraded my equipment the shortcomings became apparent.

[Edited 4/9/11 8:01am]

novabrkr said:

electricberet said:

If WB ends up giving us compressed remasters of Prince's classic albums, don't be surprised if people aren't on this forum ten or twenty years later talking about how much better those original CD pressings were and how hard it is to find an original pressing of this or that CD.

Ha. You're right with that one.

However, there were some truly bad remasters done at the end of 90s when squashing became the new fad. We all thought they sounded good back then, but it's not a coincidence that many of them got remastered again later on.

As far as the versions of SOTT on analog formats go, I am hoping that they would have a bit different EQ curve to them. The CDs have a very mid-rangeish sound with hardly any bass at all. I'll have to try to find them out myself and listen to them with my own ears. Btw, the SOTT CDs sounded just fine on my old stereos which were from the 1980s, but once I upgraded my equipment the shortcomings became apparent.

[Edited 4/9/11 8:01am]

I just upgraded my equipment a couple of weeks ago and acquired mint vinyl copies of all the 1980s albums (most of which, for those who don't have them on vinyl, can be found on eBay or discogs for about the same price as a new CD). When I put Lovesexy on I was blown away initially by the fuller, richer sound, as I excitedly noted in another post. But when I listened to it a couple more times, it seemed to me that the difference had more to do with hearing the music on a real stereo instead of computer speakers or headphones for the first time in decades. I thought the Lovesexy title track (one of my all-time favorites) would come in with a thumping low end like it does in the Foefur "remaster." But actually it was more of a subtle difference when I actually listened to the original CD again. The difference is somewhat stronger on SOTT, I think, but not to the extent that some people think. I honestly wonder if people have tried just turning up the volume on the old CDs. I admit that I forget to do that sometimes.

In short, I think there's a real difference but it's not as big as some people may think. SOTT and Lovesexy have a "digital" feel to them even on the vinyl and maybe Prince wanted them to sound that way. If we eventually get remasters from the master tape, there may be a much bigger difference. Let us know what you hear.