From the newly released interview:

There was some concern about the conditi... the vault— have any been irreparably damaged?

Certain things happen with age, but Iron Mountain is probably one of the best in the world at restoration, so they basically have any machine that was ever invented for recording, and they have proprietary ways of being able to restore tape. So we haven’t run across any real issues in terms of the condition of material.

http://variety.com/2018/music/news/prince-album-of-previously-unreleased-material-coming-in-september-exclusive-1202783507/amp/

Well, to be technical, he doesn't exactly say there are no problems with the tapes themselves.

The way I read it is that they've had no problems BECAUSE *IM has such great equipment and proprietary ways of restoration*.

If you think they've thoroughly checked every recording by now...

BartVanHemelen said:

If you think they've thoroughly checked every recording by now...

That.. and it's not like they'd come and say half of it is fucked up and unusable either.

BartVanHemelen said:

If you think they've thoroughly checked every recording by now...

Do you think they would check the old material first Einstein?

SuperFurryAnimal said:

BartVanHemelen said:

If you think they've thoroughly checked every recording by now...

Do you think they would check the old material first Einstein?

Why would they do that?
I think they would do the most logical thing first and that is to check the most damaged ones first, like the water damaged tapes and the tapes stored at moist and moldy spots in the vault.

JorisE73 said:

SuperFurryAnimal said:

Do you think they would check the old material first Einstein?

Why would they do that?
I think they would do the most logical thing first and that is to check the most damaged ones first, like the water damaged tapes and the tapes stored at moist and moldy spots in the vault.

They would leave them for last.

SuperFurryAnimal said:

JorisE73 said:

Why would they do that?
I think they would do the most logical thing first and that is to check the most damaged ones first, like the water damaged tapes and the tapes stored at moist and moldy spots in the vault.

They would leave them for last.

Well, then for the next logical thing: the tapes that would be most valuable and make the most money 1984 to 1988.

JorisE73 said:

SuperFurryAnimal said:

They would leave them for last.

Well, then for the next logical thing: the tapes that would be most valuable and make the most money 1984 to 1988.

They would go back to oldest stuff because tape can degrade and that can be unseen to the naked eye. If there was damage yea but the first step would be to preserve what they got. That has been done even if they haven't looked through all the footage and transfer it yet.

It was always my understanding in the mid 90s Prince was taking songs and configuring albums from the vault material. Example when people are reviewing the Vault pictures there are many songs we know. So why are there a ton we have on bootleg that are not there? It is like those were moved likely and he had some system to shift tapes once songs configured onto an album.

Didnt look damaged saw some with some old water wear on the covers but nothing like some were saying it could have been years ago

jtfolden said:

It was actually stated how they planned on handling this in court filings... Material will be digitized on an "as-needed" basis, meaning; it will get processed as they pull it for use/release. (Unless something has changed since then...) It was suggested it would be too expensive to go through and digitize everything upfront.

I remember reading that too, not sure if anything changed either.

paisleypark4 said:

Didnt look damaged saw some with some old water wear on the covers but nothing like some were saying it could have been years ago

It was known back in the '90s that some of of the older tapes were showing issues, like getting "gummed up". They they even bought an oven to "bake the tapes" and transfer to digital and Prince decided against it at the last minute for fear it would leads to more leaks.

Yeah color me not surprised at all.

BartVanHemelen said:

If you think they've thoroughly checked every recording by now...

Exactly.

Impossible job !

Even if they put 10 people a day, for the last two years on it all,

they wouldn't be able to check it all (thoroughly).

That would make 10 people X 8 hours a day = 80 hours a day.

And that by let's say 280 working days a year = 22400 hours a year.

Looks a lot, but it surely isn't (enough).

-

Impossible to check it all in such a short time span.

Remember, video, rehearsals, recordings, versions, etc... nearly 40 years of material !

O_o

BartVanHemelen said:

If you think they've thoroughly checked every recording by now...

Uh... Big Data gets debunked.

Again, not the best conditions in PP,
but judging from the pics so far,
we're far from apocalyptic visions of The Second Flood
soaking cardboards of tapes floating adrift in bleeding roses stained waters of Lake Minnetonka.


As in "Angels In America": "it's messy. Not dirty."

[Edited 4/25/18 18:24pm]

bonatoc said:

BartVanHemelen said:

If you think they've thoroughly checked every recording by now...

Uh... Big Data gets debunked.

Again, not the best conditions in PP,
but judging from the pics so far,
we're far from apocalyptic visions of The Second Flood
soaking cardboards of tapes floating adrift in bleeding roses stained waters of Lake Minnetonka.


As in "Angels In America": "it's messy. Not dirty."

[Edited 4/25/18 18:24pm]

Thank you for that very interesting debunked article.

Fun read by the way too.

Vannormal said:

bonatoc said:

Uh... Big Data gets debunked.

Again, not the best conditions in PP,
but judging from the pics so far,
we're far from apocalyptic visions of The Second Flood
soaking cardboards of tapes floating adrift in bleeding roses stained waters of Lake Minnetonka.


As in "Angels In America": "it's messy. Not dirty."

[Edited 4/25/18 18:24pm]

Thank you for that very interesting debunked article.

Fun read by the way too.

Well I'm not certain of course, but I think mathematical rules apply.

If they thought the proportion of poor condition tapes was above alarming, they would not come out with such statements.

They're doing miracles with 50's, 60's tapes found in some dusty attic,
and this is no dusty attic. Or flooded basement.

OK maybe the vault is a little le bordel, but who doesn't like zat?

[Edited 4/27/18 1:19am]

bonatoc said:

OK maybe the vault is a little le bordel, but who doesn't like zat?

Well it happens I lived for 17 years next to/surrounded by several brothels (in Ghent, Belgium).

Ladies are always nice and friendly to me when I talked to them in the streets (or while shopping).

One even once asked me while waiting in a bakery on a saturday morning why I never pay a visit ? After I told her i'm gay, she rushed out the bakery, and yelled to the others in the street : "Forget it, he's Gay!" I kid you not.

Vannormal said:

bonatoc said:

OK maybe the vault is a little le bordel, but who doesn't like zat?

Well it happens I lived for 17 years next to/surrounded by several brothels (in Ghent, Belgium).

Ladies are always nice and friendly to me when I talked to them in the streets (or while shopping).

One even once asked me while waiting in a bakery on a saturday morning why I never pay a visit ?
After I told her i'm gay, she rushed out the bakery, and yelled to the others in the street : "Forget it, he's Gay!" I kid you not.