Dave1992 said:

errant said:

He had absolutely nothing to do with it.

Do you really expect me to reply to this or play along and ask you why you think so?

I'd be surprised if he even knew they were coming out on CD at the time

errant said:

Dave1992 said:

Do you really expect me to reply to this or play along and ask you why you think so?

I'd be surprised if he even knew they were coming out on CD at the time

Oh come on.

Like I said, I do think he just didn't give a fuck and passed on the chance of making the recordings louder, but his engineers surely didn't tell Prince to piss off and leave them alone while they handed the masters to WB, knowing they'd use it for CD releases etc. Prince had the last word when it came to submitting material, always.

I can make things louder just by using the volume knob.

Actually I have a slider for that, but you get the point.

Dave1992 said:

Like I said, I do think he just didn't give a fuck and passed on the chance of making the recordings louder, but his engineers surely didn't tell Prince to piss off and leave them alone while they handed the masters to WB, knowing they'd use it for CD releases etc. Prince had the last word when it came to submitting material, always.

WB already had the masters at the time they came out on CD. They didn't ask Prince for a new copy for CD. They used the same ones that they'd used for vinyl, 8-track and cassette. They're still using them for digital distribution. At the time he submitted that material, they weren't mastered for CD. They didn't come out on CD until the mid to late '80s (most of them the latter).

Dave1992 said:

vainandy said:

It's not like that at all. It's just simply making your own creation and entertaining yourself and others. I wouldn't want to go to a nightclub where a DJ just simply puts on an album and plays it in it's entirety. I would want the DJ to play one track from an artist and play the next track from another artist. Of course the DJ is right there to adjust the volume on all the songs and level it out continuously but if you're listening to something at home on shuffle, a low volume song in the middle of a bunch of high volume songs just spoils the whole mood.

As for remixing songs, I love to hear how people remix songs because it's like hearing a whole new version that I've never heard before. It's a surprise rather than just routinely hearing the same old song. The best way to explain it would be going to a concert. I wouldn't want to go to a concert and hear the artist and the band perform the songs identical to the way they sound on the album. If that's the case, I could just save my money and stay home and listen to the album instead. I would want the songs switched up and performed like I haven't heard them before.

I do agree with you!

But: to me, the whole DJ and nightclub thingy is something different overall. Again, the centre of these events is not to fulfill and get as close as possible to an artist's vision of his work, but merely to satisfiy the commcercial purpose of soundwaves originating from said piece of work. It's cool for what it is, though.

A remix is also something else, because it literally means somebody "re-mixes" the song (usually with a completely new approach, not intending a song to sound "better" than the original, but simply make it a different song).I just find the idea of someone changing a song thinking "now it's better; this is the way it should have been done!" very ignorant and actually disrespectful.

Imagine somebody took the bass line out of If I Was Your Girlfriend and replaced it with a fat, modern, house-rhythmical synth-line, just because it "sounds better". Then they'd change the "girl" in the chorus to "boy", just because it's "more normal and accessible" like that. It wouldn't be a "remix". We'd probably call that a "rape by some idiot who didn't understand what the original song was meant to convey" and rightly so. All other musical choices included.

Oh, I hate house remixes of old songs because the music doesn't sound anything like the original song at all except for the vocal parts. I like remixes like they used to do on 12 Inches back in the 1980s. They were basically the original version but altered with longer intros and breakdowns and maybe a few special effects added on top of the original version. But if it sounds nothing like the original version whatsoever, I don't like it. I love house music but I've found that the only good house songs are songs that were orginally recorded as house songs.

Audacity is a hideous program, btw.

I do use it sometimes for very simple operations, but there's should be no reason for an audio editor to be as badly written as it. They haven't done anything serious in ages to that program in order to improve it, but people for some reason still like to pretend nothing else is needed as for as free software is concerned. There have been so many times when using the program has made me just angry and frustrated.

novabrkr said:

Audacity is a hideous program, btw.

I do use it sometimes for very simple operations, but there's should be no reason for an audio editor to be as badly written as it. They haven't done anything serious in ages to that program in order to improve it, but people for some reason still like to pretend nothing else is needed as for as free software is concerned. There have been so many times when using the program has made me just angry and frustrated.

same. but it's pretty great for being free. and there are a lot of nice plug-ins.

The way the program handles plugins is as bad as it gets.

No GUIs, a terribly previewing system (no realtime previewing in 2012?) and the plugin formats it supports on Linux (the platform the program has been mainly developed on) are really outdated. The sound server support is a complete mess as well. The developers claim that the program has all kinds of extensive features, but those features are just shoddily implemented and left at a very early stage of development.

I can't myself relate to that "it's great for being free" mentality, because all OSS projects are free and there are a lot of developers that actually care about how well their programs work.

Dave1992 said:

djThunderfunk said:

As a professionally trained audio engineer, let me assure you:

The volume on the 80s Prince CDs is not lower than modern discs because that is how Prince wants them to be heard. It is due to the mastering standards of the time being slow to adjust to the capabilities and limitatiuons of the CD format. From the start of music being released on CD, the levels of the discs gradually got louder and louder. In my opinion they finally were getting it right in the mid 90s (for Prince around Gold Experience). The problem is they didn't stop, and now almost all music produced is mastered too loud which causes clipping and other distortions. This has nothing to do with an artists desire and everything to do with industry standards. It's harder to "fix" music mastered too loud. You can reduce volume but the clipping and distortion are already present and can't be repaired at this stage. It's easy to "fix" music mastered too low. As long as you don't make it loud enough to cause any distortion all is good. No artist should be upset by this type of tinkering. It changes NOTHING of the original mix. It's merely one more volume control (albeit a permanent one) between the music and your ears.

No need to school me on audio engineering.

And you're not right, by making a finished mix louder without tinkering with the original pool of tracks you change much more than "just the volume and nothing more". If you really are a "professionally trained audio engineer", as you claim to be, you should know that.

It totally depends on how you do it. If you use a program that does it for you, you will likely mess with some frequencies to the point of compression. If you take the time to address each track manually it is easy to adjust the volume without any other alterations. With older Prince albums you will also find that all of the songs on the album do not have the same peak level like modern releases. This is good, it allows for an ebb and flow that you can not get with todays standards. Sometimes the music is supposed to be quieter. Knowing this, it is not impossible to raise the volume on the files AND maintain the ebb and flow intended for the album. If you take care to maintain this atmosphere, some songs will still be much quieter than others on shuffle but this is preferable to every song on the album being raised to the same db when that was not the original intention.

I am a "professionally trained audio engineer", and I do know that.

[Edited 8/19/12 16:41pm]

errant said:

Dave1992 said:

Like I said, I do think he just didn't give a fuck and passed on the chance of making the recordings louder, but his engineers surely didn't tell Prince to piss off and leave them alone while they handed the masters to WB, knowing they'd use it for CD releases etc. Prince had the last word when it came to submitting material, always.

WB already had the masters at the time they came out on CD. They didn't ask Prince for a new copy for CD. They used the same ones that they'd used for vinyl, 8-track and cassette. They're still using them for digital distribution. At the time he submitted that material, they weren't mastered for CD. They didn't come out on CD until the mid to late '80s (most of them the latter).

novabrkr said:

Audacity is a hideous program, btw.

I do use it sometimes for very simple operations, but there's should be no reason for an audio editor to be as badly written as it. They haven't done anything serious in ages to that program in order to improve it, but people for some reason still like to pretend nothing else is needed as for as free software is concerned. There have been so many times when using the program has made me just angry and frustrated.

I prefer Sound Forge, myself.

Dave1992 said:

Of course. I don't think he intended his 80s output to be that "quiet"; he just didn't give much of a fuck. There are a lot of other albums from that same era by other artists (unremastered), which are way louder.

- In the early 80's the loudness wars hadn't really progressed as far as at the end of the 90's

- Louder does not mean (technically) better; loudness is mostly a commercial factor

- Loudness is annoying; you want quietly mastered music to have true dynamics and to be able to listen for hours comfortably

djThunderfunk said:

novabrkr said:

Audacity is a hideous program, btw.

I do use it sometimes for very simple operations, but there's should be no reason for an audio editor to be as badly written as it. They haven't done anything serious in ages to that program in order to improve it, but people for some reason still like to pretend nothing else is needed as for as free software is concerned. There have been so many times when using the program has made me just angry and frustrated.

I prefer Sound Forge, myself.

Different tools for different purposes...

SF is still closed source.

Audacity is open as it can be.

Did you ever use the jack audioconnectionkit?

udo said:

djThunderfunk said:

I prefer Sound Forge, myself.

Different tools for different purposes...

SF is still closed source.

Audacity is open as it can be.

Did you ever use the jack audioconnectionkit?

No I haven't. Good?

udo said:

Dave1992 said:

Of course. I don't think he intended his 80s output to be that "quiet"; he just didn't give much of a fuck. There are a lot of other albums from that same era by other artists (unremastered), which are way louder.

- In the early 80's the loudness wars hadn't really progressed as far as at the end of the 90's

- Louder does not mean (technically) better; loudness is mostly a commercial factor

- Loudness is annoying; you want quietly mastered music to have true dynamics and to be able to listen for hours comfortably

And why are you telling me this?

djThunderfunk said:

Dave1992 said:

Nobody really cares the way you think we do, it's just that we voice our opinions and say that we think what you do is morally wrong and disrespecting.

I am going to be laughing all day.

I'm "morally wrong and disrespecting" for listening to songs on shuffle.

Oh that is so crazy.

Guess, what. I had bootlegs of the Black Album before it was released too..

I must be evil as shit!

Seriously. This is the craziest, most hilarious, baffling stance that I have seen on the org in awhile.

Thanks!!

Dave1992 said:

errant said:

Dave1992 said: Sorry, but are you insane? By your reasoning, I should never listen to the vocal version of "God" without first listening to the 4 minute radio edit of "Purple Rain." and which is the one I'm intended to listen to? Rave UN2 the Joy Fanstastic? Or Rave IN2? As for turning up the volume of tracks for older CD's, their level is a byproduct of the technology of the time, rather than Prince intending for them to sound extrememly quiet compared to an album from 5 years later. You really think "Strollin'" was recorded and pressed with Prince thinking, "Oh, this one is meant to sound louder on the CD than "Temptation"".

No, because a single is usually released for mainly commercial purposes. That's why "greatest hits" CDs don't really count as "albums" to me and neither do "singles" with b-sides count as cohesive work efforts with a complete artistic plan throughout.

And, like I already said, yes, the volume of older tracks is a byproduct of the technology of that time. So why would you change it, then? If Prince wanted it to be louder, he'd re-release it. And if Prince had thought at that time that Temptation wasn't loud enough (and he could have made all his albums from 1999 to Lovesexy a lot louder - the technology was there, he just decided for dynamics rather than loudness), he wouldn't have released it!

I'm assuming you don't own an iPod or mp3 player? And if you do I'm assuming that you having got any Prince albums on there unless they were bought on iTunes or Amazon etc... Isn't ripping them from CD or recording them from vinyl tampering with the original way it was released because of the technology of that time?

I mean, I understood where you guys were with personal edits without labelling them as such, totally understand that but... you're verging on robotic and senseless with this stuff. You say you have no problem with shuffling, as you said 'why would I?' - well the impression you give is that you think music should be listened to as it was released, so that's why people would think you have a problem with it.

Are we not allowed to turn music up or down, only at the exact volume at which they were 'intended' to be played at? Where does it end? And why can't people make it so that it plays at the same volume as the other music they have in their collection, simply so that they know what volume it's all coming out as?

I have a playlist at the moment that we're listening to whilst chilling out around the pool which consists of Prince, Stevie Wonder, MJ, Marvin Gaye.. and Jazmine Sullivan!

Am I morally wrong? Of course not, I'm sure you'll agree but some of your reasoning would assume so.

Albeit, no disrespect to anyone.

Reminds me of biblical contradictions

Japha11 said:

Dave1992 said:

No, because a single is usually released for mainly commercial purposes. That's why "greatest hits" CDs don't really count as "albums" to me and neither do "singles" with b-sides count as cohesive work efforts with a complete artistic plan throughout.

And, like I already said, yes, the volume of older tracks is a byproduct of the technology of that time. So why would you change it, then? If Prince wanted it to be louder, he'd re-release it. And if Prince had thought at that time that Temptation wasn't loud enough (and he could have made all his albums from 1999 to Lovesexy a lot louder - the technology was there, he just decided for dynamics rather than loudness), he wouldn't have released it!

I'm assuming you don't own an iPod or mp3 player? And if you do I'm assuming that you having got any Prince albums on there unless they were bought on iTunes or Amazon etc... Isn't ripping them from CD or recording them from vinyl tampering with the original way it was released because of the technology of that time?

I mean, I understood where you guys were with personal edits without labelling them as such, totally understand that but... you're verging on robotic and senseless with this stuff. You say you have no problem with shuffling, as you said 'why would I?' - well the impression you give is that you think music should be listened to as it was released, so that's why people would think you have a problem with it.

Are we not allowed to turn music up or down, only at the exact volume at which they were 'intended' to be played at? Where does it end? And why can't people make it so that it plays at the same volume as the other music they have in their collection, simply so that they know what volume it's all coming out as?

I have a playlist at the moment that we're listening to whilst chilling out around the pool which consists of Prince, Stevie Wonder, MJ, Marvin Gaye.. and Jazmine Sullivan!

Am I morally wrong? Of course not, I'm sure you'll agree but some of your reasoning would assume so.

Albeit, no disrespect to anyone.

Reminds me of biblical contradictions

As always, it depends on where you draw your line. Like I mentioned earlier, in an ideal musical world for any artist, the artist would decide which song is to be listened in what exact environment (volume, stereo, room etc), but this is practically impossible.

I do own an iPod and I do turn the volume up or down and I also make playlists from time to time, but I do so knowing that I am only using part of the original intent of the artist in order to make use of my (nowadays almost unlimited) power as a listener.

That's why I draw my personal line with editing, changing the mix, structure of a song and all the thing you'd need more to do than a normal stereo. If there was a stereo that could change the mix of a 70s album I just wouldn't use it to do it. If, however, an artist wanted to give that certain power to the listener (as Björk did with her latest album, for instance), that's something different.

Where I draw the line of "personal comfort" to "morally inacceptable action" is when people change finished songs by brilliant artists and put the online saying "now it's better" or even selling them on or publishing them in a way that doesn't make it absolutely clear it's a "fan" edit.

To me, music has a lot to do with trust in the artist; I trust Prince, because I know he's a very accomplished musician. Therefore I take anything he puts out as it is, knowing he knew what he was doing, whether I like it or not. That's why I wouldn't tinker with what Prince himself could have changed.

Dave1992 said:

Japha11 said:

I'm assuming you don't own an iPod or mp3 player? And if you do I'm assuming that you having got any Prince albums on there unless they were bought on iTunes or Amazon etc... Isn't ripping them from CD or recording them from vinyl tampering with the original way it was released because of the technology of that time?

I mean, I understood where you guys were with personal edits without labelling them as such, totally understand that but... you're verging on robotic and senseless with this stuff. You say you have no problem with shuffling, as you said 'why would I?' - well the impression you give is that you think music should be listened to as it was released, so that's why people would think you have a problem with it.

Are we not allowed to turn music up or down, only at the exact volume at which they were 'intended' to be played at? Where does it end? And why can't people make it so that it plays at the same volume as the other music they have in their collection, simply so that they know what volume it's all coming out as?

I have a playlist at the moment that we're listening to whilst chilling out around the pool which consists of Prince, Stevie Wonder, MJ, Marvin Gaye.. and Jazmine Sullivan!

Am I morally wrong? Of course not, I'm sure you'll agree but some of your reasoning would assume so.

Albeit, no disrespect to anyone.

Reminds me of biblical contradictions

As always, it depends on where you draw your line. Like I mentioned earlier, in an ideal musical world for any artist, the artist would decide which song is to be listened in what exact environment (volume, stereo, room etc), but this is practically impossible.

I do own an iPod and I do turn the volume up or down and I also make playlists from time to time, but I do so knowing that I am only using part of the original intent of the artist in order to make use of my (nowadays almost unlimited) power as a listener.

That's why I draw my personal line with editing, changing the mix, structure of a song and all the thing you'd need more to do than a normal stereo. If there was a stereo that could change the mix of a 70s album I just wouldn't use it to do it. If, however, an artist wanted to give that certain power to the listener (as Björk did with her latest album, for instance), that's something different.

Where I draw the line of "personal comfort" to "morally inacceptable action" is when people change finished songs by brilliant artists and put the online saying "now it's better" or even selling them on or publishing them in a way that doesn't make it absolutely clear it's a "fan" edit.

To me, music has a lot to do with trust in the artist; I trust Prince, because I know he's a very accomplished musician. Therefore I take anything he puts out as it is, knowing he knew what he was doing, whether I like it or not. That's why I wouldn't tinker with what Prince himself could have changed.

Now you seem to be contradicting yourself. Before, we said:

Dave1992 said:

djThunderfunk said:

Why would you or Prince care if I make my own playlists, mix cds or listen to a shuffle? That's what I don't get...

Nobody really cares the way you think we do, it's just that we voice our opinions and say that we think what you do is morally wrong and disrespecting.

It's "morally wrong and disrespecting" for me to make my own playlists, but now you admit you do it?

And, your current explanation of where you "draw the line" of "morally inacceptable (unacceptable?) actions" does not inlude the three actions above that I mentioned and you labeled "morally wrong and disrespecting."

We have discussed the gamut of tweaks in this thread from simple volume adjustments to fan edits, from personal use to sharing and even the effect all this has on the unknowing first time listener. It seems you have gotten confused navigating the topics leading you to contradict yourself.

For the record, I get, and have no problem with your stance on the artists' intentions for their material, and, Prince being my favorite artist, understand your defense of his material. But, I've been a hardcore Prince fan for 30 years, have purchased every official release, most multiple times each, and listened to them in their entirety only God knows how many times. When told I'm morally wrong for making or listening to playlists, mix CDs or shuffle, I'm going to call bullshit. Especially with all the REAL moral ambiguity that comes with being a Prince fan like me (ie: bootlegs!). Considering all the strong arguments on BOTH sides of the bootleg debate, your stance above came across as extremist to me. Now you seem to be backpeddling...

djThunderfunk said:

Dave1992 said:

Nobody really cares the way you think we do, it's just that we voice our opinions and say that we think what you do is morally wrong and disrespecting.

It's "morally wrong and disrespecting" for me to make my own playlists, but now you admit you do it?

And, your current explanation of where you "draw the line" of "morally inacceptable (unacceptable?) actions" does not inlude the three actions above that I mentioned and you labeled "morally wrong and disrespecting."

We have discussed the gamut of tweaks in this thread from simple volume adjustments to fan edits, from personal use to sharing and even the effect all this has on the unknowing first time listener. It seems you have gotten confused navigating the topics leading you to contradict yourself.

For the record, I get, and have no problem with your stance on the artists' intentions for their material, and, Prince being my favorite artist, understand your defense of his material. But, I've been a hardcore Prince fan for 30 years, have purchased every official release, most multiple times each, and listened to them in their entirety only God knows how many times. When told I'm morally wrong for making or listening to playlists, mix CDs or shuffle, I'm going to call bullshit. Especially with all the REAL moral ambiguity that comes with being a Prince fan like me (ie: bootlegs!). Considering all the strong arguments on BOTH sides of the bootleg debate, your stance above came across as extremist to me. Now you seem to be backpeddling...

You're right, I was rather referring to the original topic of editing songs, whereas the playlist thing concerns the change of purpose chosen by the original artist, which in my book is cool, as long as you know what you're doing, as in taking your freedom as a consumer completely disregarding the artists original intentions.

The grey area is taking a finished album and changing one or two songs and saying "now it sounds better to me!". Yeah, if it sounds better to you, go for it, but it just hurts a fellow musician to know that someone would simply change your piece of work. It seems heartless to me.

It really depends on the purpose of and reason for any "tweak". If you know an artist wanted a song to be quiet, I do find it morally wrong to make it louder, because you simply disregard the maker's intention and make yourself have the last word, just because you can. If Prince says Lovesexy is meant to be listened to in one take, why wouldn't I do just that? If I don't, it changes the experience and the experience becomes sort of a lie, tweaking it to your own comfort, when art shouldn't always be "comfortable", in my opinion.

Your earlier posts sounded like you were saying that you changed the volume of songs just to make them louder, with little regard to the artistic power dynamics can have in music, just so that the dynamic difference in your playlists is not too vast. If you made Life Can Be So Nice quieter and Venus De Milo louder, so that they can fit into one playlist, I'd at least cringe, and I hope you understand why.

errant said:

djThunderfunk said:

Everything you have stated here is absolutely reasonable. I can't disagree with any of it.

How about censored versions. Same song (sometimes entire album) with edits removing "objectionable" language. This is the thing that infuriates me. It's seems alright to have a radio friendly version of a song for airplay, but 2 versions of an album on the market is ridiculous. I've returned a disc or 2 that weren't properly labeled as censored versions on the packaging.

I know Prince released in 2 versions. There might have been a few of his albums released this way. This certainly is an alteration that harms the art and should be avoided at all cost.

the censored version of the album is worth it for the ridiculously hilarious "oowwwaa" replacing every instance of "fucker" throughout the entire song. I listen to it when I need a good belly laugh. the song is already ridiculous enough, but this puts it hysterically over the top

forgot to coment on this earlier..

When the single for Sexy M.F. was released, months before the album, most radio stations didn't have an edited version and had to make their own. My local station played one that had samples from The Simpsons in place of the swears. It was pretty funny.

I wonder how many different radio station home-made edits are out there?

databank said:

ASAIK only and Emancipation were released with profanity edited out. I agree that it's butchering as well, as it is done for commercial reasons only just as radio edits (later for religious reasons on some NPGMC re-releases, but that's yet another matter). Now Prince obviously agreed with this being done and handled the edits himself and often dealt with it in a creative manner (Sexy MF for example). I don't really believe in censoring profanities anyway, because in France, contrarly to the USA, profanities are never censored on radio or TV: u can say very bad words in the media and nobody cares, it's part of our culture and therefore the way US medias are terrorized by profanities is really odd to us folks

Many TV channels also edit the goriest things out of horror movies (and this is something they sometimes do in France). That's quite annoying as well!

Don't worry, it's odd to most of us here in the US as well. Lots of uptight people afraid of words but most of us agree with George Carlin.

Dave1992 said:

djThunderfunk said:

It's "morally wrong and disrespecting" for me to make my own playlists, but now you admit you do it?

And, your current explanation of where you "draw the line" of "morally inacceptable (unacceptable?) actions" does not inlude the three actions above that I mentioned and you labeled "morally wrong and disrespecting."

We have discussed the gamut of tweaks in this thread from simple volume adjustments to fan edits, from personal use to sharing and even the effect all this has on the unknowing first time listener. It seems you have gotten confused navigating the topics leading you to contradict yourself.

For the record, I get, and have no problem with your stance on the artists' intentions for their material, and, Prince being my favorite artist, understand your defense of his material. But, I've been a hardcore Prince fan for 30 years, have purchased every official release, most multiple times each, and listened to them in their entirety only God knows how many times. When told I'm morally wrong for making or listening to playlists, mix CDs or shuffle, I'm going to call bullshit. Especially with all the REAL moral ambiguity that comes with being a Prince fan like me (ie: bootlegs!). Considering all the strong arguments on BOTH sides of the bootleg debate, your stance above came across as extremist to me. Now you seem to be backpeddling...

You're right, I was rather referring to the original topic of editing songs, whereas the playlist thing concerns the change of purpose chosen by the original artist, which in my book is cool, as long as you know what you're doing, as in taking your freedom as a consumer completely disregarding the artists original intentions.

The grey area is taking a finished album and changing one or two songs and saying "now it sounds better to me!". Yeah, if it sounds better to you, go for it, but it just hurts a fellow musician to know that someone would simply change your piece of work. It seems heartless to me.

It really depends on the purpose of and reason for any "tweak". If you know an artist wanted a song to be quiet, I do find it morally wrong to make it louder, because you simply disregard the maker's intention and make yourself have the last word, just because you can. If Prince says Lovesexy is meant to be listened to in one take, why wouldn't I do just that? If I don't, it changes the experience and the experience becomes sort of a lie, tweaking it to your own comfort, when art shouldn't always be "comfortable", in my opinion.

Your earlier posts sounded like you were saying that you changed the volume of songs just to make them louder, with little regard to the artistic power dynamics can have in music, just so that the dynamic difference in your playlists is not too vast. If you made Life Can Be So Nice quieter and Venus De Milo louder, so that they can fit into one playlist, I'd at least cringe, and I hope you understand why.

Now, you're making more sense to me.

I will, however debate your last paragraph:

A song might meant to be a quiet part of an album, purposely placed between 2 louder songs and meant to be a breather between them. That same song when played in a mix that takes it out of that original context and is not using it for that purpose would sound BETTER if adjusted to the level standards of that particular mix of songs. In other words, the song would only supposed to serve as the quiet part of the album it is on, once removed, that purpose and intent are no longer relevant.

I will agree, that, within the context of the original album, any differences between the levels of the individual songs should not be altered to experience the original presentation as intended.

I will argue that outside the context of the original album tweaking to achieve a preferable listening experience is the prerogative of the listener and nobody should have a problem with it.

Cool?

Dave1992 said:

djThunderfunk said:

It's "morally wrong and disrespecting" for me to make my own playlists, but now you admit you do it?

And, your current explanation of where you "draw the line" of "morally inacceptable (unacceptable?) actions" does not inlude the three actions above that I mentioned and you labeled "morally wrong and disrespecting."

We have discussed the gamut of tweaks in this thread from simple volume adjustments to fan edits, from personal use to sharing and even the effect all this has on the unknowing first time listener. It seems you have gotten confused navigating the topics leading you to contradict yourself.

For the record, I get, and have no problem with your stance on the artists' intentions for their material, and, Prince being my favorite artist, understand your defense of his material. But, I've been a hardcore Prince fan for 30 years, have purchased every official release, most multiple times each, and listened to them in their entirety only God knows how many times. When told I'm morally wrong for making or listening to playlists, mix CDs or shuffle, I'm going to call bullshit. Especially with all the REAL moral ambiguity that comes with being a Prince fan like me (ie: bootlegs!). Considering all the strong arguments on BOTH sides of the bootleg debate, your stance above came across as extremist to me. Now you seem to be backpeddling...

You're right, I was rather referring to the original topic of editing songs, whereas the playlist thing concerns the change of purpose chosen by the original artist, which in my book is cool, as long as you know what you're doing, as in taking your freedom as a consumer completely disregarding the artists original intentions.

The grey area is taking a finished album and changing one or two songs and saying "now it sounds better to me!". Yeah, if it sounds better to you, go for it, but it just hurts a fellow musician to know that someone would simply change your piece of work. It seems heartless to me.

It really depends on the purpose of and reason for any "tweak". If you know an artist wanted a song to be quiet, I do find it morally wrong to make it louder, because you simply disregard the maker's intention and make yourself have the last word, just because you can. If Prince says Lovesexy is meant to be listened to in one take, why wouldn't I do just that? If I don't, it changes the experience and the experience becomes sort of a lie, tweaking it to your own comfort, when art shouldn't always be "comfortable", in my opinion.

Your earlier posts sounded like you were saying that you changed the volume of songs just to make them louder, with little regard to the artistic power dynamics can have in music, just so that the dynamic difference in your playlists is not too vast. If you made Life Can Be So Nice quieter and Venus De Milo louder, so that they can fit into one playlist, I'd at least cringe, and I hope you understand why.

Heartless? Morally wrong? I love music to my death and beyond and take music seriously but you're going to some other level, just as djThunderfunk said. It's extremist.

And it isn't 'just because you can', it's for reasons such as not blowing speakers and the practicality of listening to music. And it's not 'now it sounds better to me' it would probably be 'I prefer it this way', like people prefer extended mixes or shorter mixes. One of them has more sections (or less) making them missing something or having extra. You'd say thats okay if the artist released those versions but then who is to say that someone isn't allowed to like one version more than the other?

Why am I, for example, not allowed to say that I'd prefer My Name is Prince without Tony M's rap without being immoral? I have a huge grin as I contemplate that thought... I mean, it's ridiculous and although I should be politically correct and say 'I may be wrong to think it wouldn't be immoral to have that preference', I'm not going to.

And also (although we've touched upon this) I'm pretty positive that Prince would have definitely not wanted 'motherfucker' censored out of 'Sexy MF' as his original intention is for it to be listened to how he wrote it but he obviously knew he would have to censor it for radio. That's not his decision, he knows he HAD to do that. But wouldn't it be immoral to allow the original to be on radio knowing children will be listening? So no matter what you do, going by your logic, you have to perform an immoral action to get it on radio.

And also, people shouldn't ever cover anybody elses song too. Going by your logic.

djThunderfunk said:

databank said:

ASAIK only and Emancipation were released with profanity edited out. I agree that it's butchering as well, as it is done for commercial reasons only just as radio edits (later for religious reasons on some NPGMC re-releases, but that's yet another matter). Now Prince obviously agreed with this being done and handled the edits himself and often dealt with it in a creative manner (Sexy MF for example). I don't really believe in censoring profanities anyway, because in France, contrarly to the USA, profanities are never censored on radio or TV: u can say very bad words in the media and nobody cares, it's part of our culture and therefore the way US medias are terrorized by profanities is really odd to us folks

Many TV channels also edit the goriest things out of horror movies (and this is something they sometimes do in France). That's quite annoying as well!

Don't worry, it's odd to most of us here in the US as well. Lots of uptight people afraid of words but most of us agree with George Carlin.

George Carlin is a God.

Japha11 said:

djThunderfunk said:

Don't worry, it's odd to most of us here in the US as well. Lots of uptight people afraid of words but most of us agree with George Carlin.

George Carlin is a God.

At the very least, Genius...

Optimus2 said:

Just been using Audacity with Prince songs 2 make them louder (like Dity Mind etc)....suppose itll have 2 do till teh reamsters cum out......also on Shockedelica....Ive reapeated teh chorus twice yanno taht part that goes "Shockedelica doop ba doop ba doop bay"...it makes teh song better 2 my ears anyway....and ya wouldnt tell it was edited.......which is even cooler...also took teh shit rap out of Love Me 2 The 9's......any1 else use Audacity??? or edit Prince songs with it?

Thought I might go back to the OP a minute...

Back 10 or 12 years ago when I was DJing in clubs I was initially happy to find the crowds knew of and requested Pussy Control. I thought if they like that they would love some of the other obscure nasty funk jams by Prince that I had. They did not. They were the lowest common denominator types that only respond to what they already know and are used to. It became extremely annoying to not only have to play Pussy Control every night, but sometimes more than once a night. Finally (using Sound Forge, not Audacity) I made my own "remix" via some editing and looping and adding samples and extending portions. It was... interesting. I loved it. The crowds reaction was mixed (the outro was a bit... over the top ), the other DJs loved it, one even tried to play it off as his own creation.

A bit after that, I got sick of having to play 50 Cent's 'In Da Club' several times a night. So, I cut a bunch of samples of Family Name from Rainbow Children, re-edited & looped them, mixed in the acapella version of In Da Club and burned a CD.... I loved it because I thought it was hilarious and regardless of how ridiculous it was, it was also a creative idea and came out pretty smooth. The people on the dance floor stared at me like dogs that just been shown a card trick. They didn't get it at all. Or like it. So, anytime they wanted me to keep playing that same damn song they risked me throwing my mash-up version in the mix and so maybe I still ended up not having to play it as much. Good enough.

If anyone can tell me a free and easy way to share, that does not break any org rules, I'm willing. Otherwise, don't ask.

Where's my morals now?

Databank, I totally applaud what you say here. Standing ovation for sure!

databank said:

djThunderfunk said:

I strongly disagree. It's fine to share your own edits, remixes, compilations, etc...

Just make sure you label them as such.

Fans have made edits of films (for example, there are versions of The Phantom Menace that have Jar Jar removed) and shared them online. It can be fun.

Just label label label to make it obvious.

Don't worry about clueless people. That's their problem, not yours...

The problem is how long your clear, explicit label will last before being erased from the file's title and lost in the mess? I'm quite sure tje label will disappear in many cases. How much time do I waste checking the tracklists of albums online just because people share incomplete albums? How many butchered songs do I have on my comp without knowing they've been butchered? None I hope but how would I know?

I believe in creative editing for parody purposes, in sampling, reconstructing, whatever as long as it implies including parts of someone's work in someone else's work. But people butchering artist's works of art just because they don't like Tony M. or Jar Jar Binks? No way! If it's for your own use and it stays at home then hell people are free to do what they wanna, but shared as such? No. I cannot and will never condone this. We can disagree, though, it's cool, but my point is that, considering the speed at which data is shared online by an increasing number of people, in 100 years it may be hard to find the original version of any work of art. From this to editing the parts you don't like in History books or political essays or even news, there is only one step, a very little one, and we know where this leads don't we?

And I worry a lot about clueless people because they end-up voting for clueless politicians, putting their clueless children in the same school than mine (hypothetically since I don't have kids), being my neighboors, my collegues or my boss, etc. The more clueless they get, the more miserable my life can become because of them. The less clueless they get, the better I get

And believe me I've lived in Cambodia for the last 2 years, and post-Khmer Rouge Cambodia is the most terrifying example of what happens in a country where culture and education have been destroyed, a country now being populated mostly by clueless people. Not stupid by birth, just uneducated and/or miseducated to the point where they become stupid and act like stupid. It's really sad because this country is far, far away from getting out of the shit it's in. And a lot of people are suffering from this situation. It makes you reconsider a lot of things.

Just a few thoughts, though, I might be wrong, but I think it's worth thinking about it for a minute

My thought on this is this. Suppose a fan edits or remixes a Prince song (or song by ANY artist.) Say, for example, they take When Doves Cry and add their own creative bass line. And for added effect, say somehow during the fan's "remake" they somehow lose the stereo effect and the track becomes mono, which causes it to lose a few layers of background vocals.

Then this new version gets leaked out online. Some kid who has NEVER heard Prince downloads it just to try it out. The kid hears that bassline and is turned-off, thinking that is the real Prince bassline and because it's in mono he misses some crucial vocal parts. He then decides he's given Prince a chance and doesn't like his music, so he never listens to Prince again. Had he heard the REAL version he may have gone on to purchase Purple Rain, went to a live show, read a few books on Prince, heard 4 The Tears In Your Eyes, got into politics and become the future President of the United States and been the first President on Mars! Oh, and cured world hunger.

But instead, he heard the fan mix, thus creating an ALTERNATE reality on the timeline. One in which Biff becomes the mayor of Hill Valley and ZZ Top is played in the streets while the town burns.