As I've said before in previous posts, the vault material, now in Iron Mountain, is in much better hands for restoration, preservation, and digitalization than they ever were in Prince's hands. Finally, his legacy is being fully protected! Let's face it, Prince just didn't give a shit. Sad, but true!

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Hans Martin Buff has alluded to the fact that Prince seemed to not really express much interest in his Vault material.

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David Friedlander said he knows firsthand how many of the earliest works were profusely shedding - a lot! He also said that he's sure there's a lot of magnetic dust now.

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Dave Hampton said that a lot of stuff that Prince wanted to be pulled out of the vault to work on or to glean ideas from wouldn't play. He had a conversation several times with Prince regarding the condition of the tapes he pulled out and why they were shedding and why they were not working. He would also tell Prince the plan that they needed to implement in order to save the tapes in the vault from any further damage, which, according to Dave, Prince didn't want to do.

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Scott LeGere recalled stepping into the "pre-vault" room and finding the floor covered with tape reels, which became flooded and led to several of those tapes suffering water damage.

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Also, “In March 2017, the Personal Representative began the inventory process on-site at Paisley Park,” the court document reads. “During the inventory process, the Personal Representative discovered several circumstances that caused it concern regarding the safety and longevity of the Estate’s assets at Paisley Park.” The first three items are redacted, but the fourth and fifth read: “None of the spaces being used for storage … have climate control systems sufficient to preserve audio and video material. During its inventory, the Personal Representative discovered several indications of damage and degradation due to poor humidity and temperature controls. It encountered cardboard boxes that were adhered to shelves and had to be peeled off, mold and water damage on the materials, rusting film canisters, degrading film that smelled of vinegar (a sign of acetate degradation), and evidence of water intrusion on walls and ceilings in the vault and elsewhere.

But his "woke" relatives thought leaving the stuff there would be the better idea.

While everyone is concerned with the physical vault, digital video production has been around at least 20 years and digital audio production for longer. So what about Prince's digital archive?

told everybody years ago it wasn't climate controlled and the tapes were being damaged by humidity. Evidently Prince knew about it and didn't do anything. Which means he didn't really care about the recordings

I knew they moved it to California so that execs and potential music distributors and labels can view the items quickly etc without having to fly to Minnesota all the time...where..really no major record labels outside of Secret Stash or Doomtree are located.

Theres no Sony, Universal, Warners, etc out here. There is not a market for big artists to florish in Minnesota. i can understand that part. It makes me angry though that it is indeed so close to Warners of which Prince had an OK relationship with.


Hell if Jam and Lewis set up a label I know they would do right by it since they are located in LA now.

As well, the items had to be moved. They honestly were not in the best areas and unsecure!

So where does TL & JJ store their stuff?

TheVaultKeeper said:

As I've said before in previous posts, the vault material, now in Iron Mountain, is in much better hands for restoration, preservation, and digitalization than they ever were in Prince's hands. Finally, his legacy is being fully protected! Let's face it, Prince just didn't give a shit. Sad, but true!

.

Hans Martin Buff has alluded to the fact that Prince seemed to not really express much interest in his Vault material.

.

David Friedlander said he knows firsthand how many of the earliest works were profusely shedding - a lot! He also said that he's sure there's a lot of magnetic dust now.

.

Dave Hampton said that a lot of stuff that Prince wanted to be pulled out of the vault to work on or to glean ideas from wouldn't play. He had a conversation several times with Prince regarding the condition of the tapes he pulled out and why they were shedding and why they were not working. He would also tell Prince the plan that they needed to implement in order to save the tapes in the vault from any further damage, which, according to Dave, Prince didn't want to do.

.

Scott LeGere recalled stepping into the "pre-vault" room and finding the floor covered with tape reels, which became flooded and led to several of those tapes suffering water damage.

.

Also, “In March 2017, the Personal Representative began the inventory process on-site at Paisley Park,” the court document reads. “During the inventory process, the Personal Representative discovered several circumstances that caused it concern regarding the safety and longevity of the Estate’s assets at Paisley Park.” The first three items are redacted, but the fourth and fifth read: “None of the spaces being used for storage … have climate control systems sufficient to preserve audio and video material. During its inventory, the Personal Representative discovered several indications of damage and degradation due to poor humidity and temperature controls. It encountered cardboard boxes that were adhered to shelves and had to be peeled off, mold and water damage on the materials, rusting film canisters, degrading film that smelled of vinegar (a sign of acetate degradation), and evidence of water intrusion on walls and ceilings in the vault and elsewhere.

I would also like to point out, that according to court documents, to minimize costs, the Estate plans to primarily archive and digitize audio and video content on an as-needed basis as it enters into entertainment deals for the content. By archiving and digitizing the materials based on demand, the Estate may be able to shift a portion of the costs to its entertainment partners.

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In other words, unless there's a deal to release, for instance, the degrading film that smelled of vinegar on DVD or something, then that film will still just sit there degrading further. Damn, they could at least restore the worse cases of deteriorating material now, and leave the material that is in decent condition to be restored at the later time.

Being discussed here http://prince.org/msg/7/448386