if they released limited edition vinyl or cd copies of the DF or camille albums (im less interested in crystal ball), i would be first in line. if theres a way to make this happen, we should do it. a petition?

Kares said:

databank said:

.

1- A historical/documentation approach that treats the material as historical archives that need to be preserved and studied.

.

.

Apologies for changing the subject a bit, but this point above is the key – or it should've been the key to approach the vault from the moment it was opened.
I've stressed this point over and over, many times, to several people involved, to no avail. It's "funny" (no, it's sad, really) that some of us mere fans understand the importance of this systematic approach better than apparently the Estate and Comerica do.

.

What I've always suggested to certain people is first and foremost:

.

1. Catalog everything. Create a comprehensive catalog that lists EVERY SINGLE BIT OF RECORDING found, all the analog tapes, cassettes, CDRs, DATs, DASH tapes, hard drives etc, etc.

.

2. Study and research that catalog, identify all the different compositions, their writers, dates of compositions (as much as possible) and recordings, edit out the duplicates, identify different versions of the same compositions etc. Assign ID codes (opus numbers) to each composition and build a list of ALL Prince compositions/lyrics, make it as comprehensive as possible, but leave room for new discoveries/corrections in the future.

.

3. Publish this comprehensive catalog of Prince's works. (I mean a book with the catalog/list itself, not the recordings.) This will already bring in a lot of money from the sales of the book, but what's more important: it will create awareness of the true depths of Prince's creativity and genius. Today, even a lot of the most dedicated fans doubt that the Vault contains a significant amount of material we haven't even heard about – even though I have already proved with my calculation of the number of tapes that were stored inside Paisley (see the link in my signature) that the sheer number of material is beyond our dreams.

A published catalog of Prince's works would result in even more academic studies, tons of more articles and a significantly raised awareness about Prince as a great composer and musician. A published catalog would also mean people can identify his songs/compositions by their opus numbers, just as we use the Köchel numbers for Mozart's, or the BWV-numbers for JSBach's compositions. People would be surprised and amazed to see that often, Prince's albums (such as Graffiti Bridge, for example) contain songs that are quite far apart from each other on his chronological catalog, proving that his released output is only a tip of the iceberg and there's a vast catalog worthy of exploration for both academics and the public.

.

4. Create a release strategy that simultaneously satisfies the needs for a constant and strong revenue stream (the commercial recordings) and the artistic need to share musically valuable material with little commercial appeal (the more experimental and live recordings).
I would've also designed a series with consistent, easily identifiable packaging designs and graphic elements (at least something as basic as the 'FZ'-logo on all of the official Zappa-releases). Whatever packaging for different price points (Super Deluxe, Deluxe, Standard) is decided, stick to it... (Altgough this could even be corrected after the first couple of releases, like the Jethro Tull Deluxe series found its now standard format only after the first 2 or 3 releases, so they had to go back to the first issues and bring them out again in the new format.)
Also: make sure the all the official releases are numbered (see the Frank Zappa releases or the Neil Young Archive Series etc) so fans can see how the ones they bought fit into the entire official catalog and what additional releases they'll need to buy to complete their collections.
.

etc. (The rest, concerning how the reissues should be compiled, produced and issued, is more detailed with many technical details so I don't want to put it here, I'm already off topic enough.)

.

[Edited 8/13/20 5:38am]

We totally agree

Somehow I suspect their logic is they don't want to reveal their assets, kind of a marketing approach à la "we won't tell you what we have so we can keep surprising you with every new release". Now IDK, but i fail to understand why M. Howe keep saying he's buried under non-disclosure agreements. What is there to disclose that could harm the estate?

Kares said:

ufoclub said:

Some items like the "Computer Blue" full length 12" mix (I think we can assume that's what Prince considered it) were actually worked over and mixed in great detail. I doubt they were recreating a cassette mixdown of that one. Maybe someone in the know (or rather in the employ) can clarify, but I suspect that one had a proper master tape.

.

I'm pretty sure there's a proper (1/2", 2-track) master tape for the full Computer Blue as editing is almost always done on the 2-track master. (I doubt Prince made the mistake of chopping up the 2" multitrack again, as he did with LRC.) So there must've been at least 2 (1/2") reels of the full Computer Blue master (a master and a slave) and one of them must've been edited down to the album version.

.

The Vault disc of Purple Rain Deluxe contains a cassette-sourced copy though, there were no remixing involved when Warners put that together. Those vault tracks are all cassette-sourced.

.

I don'tr emelber the LRC story, what happened??

mediumdry said:

databank said:

1- Release what Prince left as is.

2- Release what we think Prince would have done/wanted.

3- Release what we think will please the hardcore fans the most.

4- Release what we think will please the largest possible base of listeners.

.

Option 3 and 4 are commercial determinations about material that they have after options 1 and 2 have been considered...

.

Option 1 then means to release the multitrack recordings, as stems or multitracks, along with whatever mix instructions were left. Every mix will change what is there... Option 2 probably means to not release anything anymore.

.

Now, I am all for releasing the entire vault, either as a subscription or however.. releasing (select?) multitracks for musicians and other artists to pour over would be a great way to enhance his status as multi-instrumentalist extraordinair.

.

In the end, it all comes down to money. This was true for Prince (Diamonds & Pearls, and his "embrace" of rap wasn't all for creative purposes, along with all the promotion), it's going to be true for the estate. As much as I despise it, a move like the Jackson estate did, with contemporary artists re-imagining songs, while at the same time releasing the original songs might be a way to get new ears listening to Prince tracks and hope that some will stay around. The tracks should be clearly separated though.

.

The estate seems to be trying to figure it out. I am happy they are releasing things as they are trying though. The releases appear to be getting consistently better. I do fear the problem with Sony/WB though, with regards to remasters/superdeluxes. I hope the two labels are willing and able to cooperate.

What you propose is everything BUT option 1, it's more like option 0 in the sense that instead of preserving it intact, it would open the door to desacralizing the material. And there's no such thing as "mix instructions" because 1/ Prince didn't leave any such things and 2/ Most people would simply be incapable of following them. Being a professional engineer required years of training, and just because anyone is capable of tinkering with Audacity doesn't mean averyone is capable of creating a professional mix.

Now it would indeed be an alternate option to the list I proposed, the reason why I didn't mention it because, as Bonatoc said, it simply ain't gonna happen. At least not in the foreseeable future (and just because Ben Goans did it as an experiment with one album, and Bowie with one single, doesn't mean it can psosibly be considered an industry standard). Now I cannot tell what the music industry will look like in a century, by then you'll probably be able to download the music straight into your brain and mix it with your thoughts (keep an eye on Neuralink's announcement next August 28 for more on that), but it's unlikely any such pracice will become common in our lifetime, so there's no point discussing it really.

VaultCurator said:

mbdtyler said:

Speaking of that song, is there a version that doesn't abruptly cut off at the end of the word "repetition" and allows the synth to fade out naturally?

Hi there, According to Prince Vault (http://princevault.com/index.php?title=Joy_In_Repetition) the cassette version is 3 seconds longer and doesn't end abruptly in the same way it does on CD.

Yes, and a rip is doing the rounds.

Kares said:

VaultCurator said:

mbdtyler said: Hi there, According to Prince Vault (http://princevault.com/index.php?title=Joy_In_Repetition) the cassette version is 3 seconds longer and doesn't end abruptly in the same way it does on CD. As for an unsegued version, I think the fact that Girl O' My Dreams, Can't Stop This Feeling I Got, We Can Funk and Data Bank were also omitted from SOTT:SD heavily implies that Grafitti Bridge Super Deluxe is in the works. I reckon this is where Joy In Repetition Unsegued will eventually show up.

.
Frankly I find it hard to believe that there would be many more Super Deluxe box sets apart from 'Parade', 'Diamonds And Pearls', 'Batman' and perhaps 'ATWIAD'.

.
Of course I'd love to see a 'Lovesexy Super Deluxe' and a lot more, but my prediction is that maybe a third of Prince albums would get the "Deluxe" treatment (1 or 2 bonus discs but no books and box sets) and the rest would be just remastered reissues with some bonus tracks, but I'm afraid the Estate will not be able to continue with the elaborate super deluxe boxes for albums that weren't amongst Prince's biggest sellers.

.

Maybe they'll turn their attention to live sets and vault-only compilations later – these will be far cheaper to produce than these massive box sets.

I'm not so certain because we'd have to know what sells better today. It's possible that these super deluxe boxsets, in limited edition, generate more income than cheaper CDs that won't sell much anyway (because some fans may be happy to simply stream Originals while they may be excited by a luxury product with liner notes and exclusive photos).

It's also possible that piling up an album remaster, the associated non-album tracks, outtakes and live shows is more attractive and creates more buzz than just a solo compilation of outtakes or a live show.

Now would this be the best model for each and every one of the 39 studio albums? Probably not. Some later albums' recording sessions were terribly intertwined while some others were very project-focused, and it's also debatable whether CD-era albums deserve a remaster (I was kind of baffled when some artists released a remaster of a 1996 album in 2004 or stuff like that).

But in the end I don't really see why they wouldn't go on releasing one such boxset a year as long as people buy them. At least it seems to be the plan if M. Howe is to be believed.

Poplife88 said:

I was really hoping that original version of Joy In Rep was going to be on here. But makes sense that it will probably show up on GB SE.

I can see them doing limited SE runs the less-popular (US) albums like GB and Lovesexy. But I do think they will happen eventually.

My wish-list albums that I don't think will ever see the light of day are the Paisley acts like The Family, Jill Jones, and Madhouse.

They're going to have to tackle the side projects sooner or later, in one form or another. But obviously it's not on their priority list.

databank said:

Poplife88 said:

I was really hoping that original version of Joy In Rep was going to be on here. But makes sense that it will probably show up on GB SE.

I can see them doing limited SE runs the less-popular (US) albums like GB and Lovesexy. But I do think they will happen eventually.

My wish-list albums that I don't think will ever see the light of day are the Paisley acts like The Family, Jill Jones, and Madhouse.

They're going to have to tackle the side projects sooner or later, in one form or another. But obviously it's not on their priority list.

I'd at least like to have them on streaming in the meantime. And turn up the bass on the Time albums already!

databank said:

Kares said:

.

Apologies for changing the subject a bit, but this point above is the key – or it should've been the key to approach the vault from the moment it was opened.
I've stressed this point over and over, many times, to several people involved, to no avail. It's "funny" (no, it's sad, really) that some of us mere fans understand the importance of this systematic approach better than apparently the Estate and Comerica do.

.

What I've always suggested to certain people is first and foremost:

.

1. Catalog everything. Create a comprehensive catalog that lists EVERY SINGLE BIT OF RECORDING found, all the analog tapes, cassettes, CDRs, DATs, DASH tapes, hard drives etc, etc.

.

2. Study and research that catalog, identify all the different compositions, their writers, dates of compositions (as much as possible) and recordings, edit out the duplicates, identify different versions of the same compositions etc. Assign ID codes (opus numbers) to each composition and build a list of ALL Prince compositions/lyrics, make it as comprehensive as possible, but leave room for new discoveries/corrections in the future.

.

3. Publish this comprehensive catalog of Prince's works. (I mean a book with the catalog/list itself, not the recordings.) This will already bring in a lot of money from the sales of the book, but what's more important: it will create awareness of the true depths of Prince's creativity and genius. Today, even a lot of the most dedicated fans doubt that the Vault contains a significant amount of material we haven't even heard about – even though I have already proved with my calculation of the number of tapes that were stored inside Paisley (see the link in my signature) that the sheer number of material is beyond our dreams.

A published catalog of Prince's works would result in even more academic studies, tons of more articles and a significantly raised awareness about Prince as a great composer and musician. A published catalog would also mean people can identify his songs/compositions by their opus numbers, just as we use the Köchel numbers for Mozart's, or the BWV-numbers for JSBach's compositions. People would be surprised and amazed to see that often, Prince's albums (such as Graffiti Bridge, for example) contain songs that are quite far apart from each other on his chronological catalog, proving that his released output is only a tip of the iceberg and there's a vast catalog worthy of exploration for both academics and the public.

.

4. Create a release strategy that simultaneously satisfies the needs for a constant and strong revenue stream (the commercial recordings) and the artistic need to share musically valuable material with little commercial appeal (the more experimental and live recordings).
I would've also designed a series with consistent, easily identifiable packaging designs and graphic elements (at least something as basic as the 'FZ'-logo on all of the official Zappa-releases). Whatever packaging for different price points (Super Deluxe, Deluxe, Standard) is decided, stick to it... (Altgough this could even be corrected after the first couple of releases, like the Jethro Tull Deluxe series found its now standard format only after the first 2 or 3 releases, so they had to go back to the first issues and bring them out again in the new format.)
Also: make sure the all the official releases are numbered (see the Frank Zappa releases or the Neil Young Archive Series etc) so fans can see how the ones they bought fit into the entire official catalog and what additional releases they'll need to buy to complete their collections.
.

etc. (The rest, concerning how the reissues should be compiled, produced and issued, is more detailed with many technical details so I don't want to put it here, I'm already off topic enough.)

.

[Edited 8/13/20 5:38am]

We totally agree

Somehow I suspect their logic is they don't want to reveal their assets, kind of a marketing approach à la "we won't tell you what we have so we can keep surprising you with every new release". Now IDK, but i fail to understand why M. Howe keep saying he's buried under non-disclosure agreements. What is there to disclose that could harm the estate?

.

It's them (Comerica and the Estate) being shortsighted, and putting their shortterm business interests above the desired goal of letting the world know the depths of Prince's talent and legacy. Besides, they're even wrong from a shortterm financial perspective too, as I'm sure my approach would result in greater financial success too.

.

databank said:

Kares said:

.

I'm pretty sure there's a proper (1/2", 2-track) master tape for the full Computer Blue as editing is almost always done on the 2-track master. (I doubt Prince made the mistake of chopping up the 2" multitrack again, as he did with LRC.) So there must've been at least 2 (1/2") reels of the full Computer Blue master (a master and a slave) and one of them must've been edited down to the album version.

.

The Vault disc of Purple Rain Deluxe contains a cassette-sourced copy though, there were no remixing involved when Warners put that together. Those vault tracks are all cassette-sourced.

.

I don'tr emelber the LRC story, what happened??

.
It's in Duane's book: editing LRC for the album was performed on the 2" multitrack tape (a really stupid move, imo) as opposed to editing the 1/2" mixdown tape, as usual. So they literally chopped up the 2" multitrack into a lot of small parts – and when P decided he wanted to release the original version too, they had to put the puzzle back together (I bet they used quite lot of adhesive tape for that ) to reassemble the original multitrack before they could create a new mix off it.

.

[Edited 8/19/20 11:32am]

Kares said:

databank said:

I don'tr emelber the LRC story, what happened??

.
It's in Duane's book: editing LRC for the album was performed on the 2" multitrack tape (a really stupid move, imo) as opposed to editing the 1/2" mixdown tape, as usual. So they literally chopped up the 2" multitrack into a lot of small parts – and when P decided he wanted to release the original version too, they had to put the puzzle back together (I bet they used quite lot of adhesive tape for that ) to reassemble the original multitrack before they could create a new mix off it.

.

[Edited 8/19/20 11:32am]

I'd completely forgotten that, thx for the reminder.

I'm waiting for the new book to reread the first book in its extended rerelease

databank said:

mediumdry said:

.

Option 3 and 4 are commercial determinations about material that they have after options 1 and 2 have been considered...

.

Option 1 then means to release the multitrack recordings, as stems or multitracks, along with whatever mix instructions were left. Every mix will change what is there... Option 2 probably means to not release anything anymore.

.

Now, I am all for releasing the entire vault, either as a subscription or however.. releasing (select?) multitracks for musicians and other artists to pour over would be a great way to enhance his status as multi-instrumentalist extraordinair.

.

In the end, it all comes down to money. This was true for Prince (Diamonds & Pearls, and his "embrace" of rap wasn't all for creative purposes, along with all the promotion), it's going to be true for the estate. As much as I despise it, a move like the Jackson estate did, with contemporary artists re-imagining songs, while at the same time releasing the original songs might be a way to get new ears listening to Prince tracks and hope that some will stay around. The tracks should be clearly separated though.

.

The estate seems to be trying to figure it out. I am happy they are releasing things as they are trying though. The releases appear to be getting consistently better. I do fear the problem with Sony/WB though, with regards to remasters/superdeluxes. I hope the two labels are willing and able to cooperate.

What you propose is everything BUT option 1, it's more like option 0 in the sense that instead of preserving it intact, it would open the door to desacralizing the material. And there's no such thing as "mix instructions" because 1/ Prince didn't leave any such things and 2/ Most people would simply be incapable of following them. Being a professional engineer required years of training, and just because anyone is capable of tinkering with Audacity doesn't mean averyone is capable of creating a professional mix.

Now it would indeed be an alternate option to the list I proposed, the reason why I didn't mention it because, as Bonatoc said, it simply ain't gonna happen. At least not in the foreseeable future (and just because Ben Goans did it as an experiment with one album, and Bowie with one single, doesn't mean it can psosibly be considered an industry standard). Now I cannot tell what the music industry will look like in a century, by then you'll probably be able to download the music straight into your brain and mix it with your thoughts (keep an eye on Neuralink's announcement next August 28 for more on that), but it's unlikely any such pracice will become common in our lifetime, so there's no point discussing it really.

.

To put my comment plainer.. it's not possible to release what Prince left, as is. A lot of tracks apparently have no mixes other than some old cassettes. Which means that they will always need to do work on it and won't be able to recreate the original mixes (see the tracks they mixed again, 100mph being the worst example, keeping in takes/tracks/instrumentation that were muted (for good reasons, imo) in all mixes I've ever heard)

.

I also know you don't want people to be able to mix themselves, we disagree, but that particular discussion is not going anywhere anymore

.

TLDR; only releasing things as Prince left them means you won't be able to release a whole lot of music.

databank said:

mediumdry said:

.

Option 3 and 4 are commercial determinations about material that they have after options 1 and 2 have been considered...

.

Option 1 then means to release the multitrack recordings, as stems or multitracks, along with whatever mix instructions were left. Every mix will change what is there... Option 2 probably means to not release anything anymore.

.

Now, I am all for releasing the entire vault, either as a subscription or however.. releasing (select?) multitracks for musicians and other artists to pour over would be a great way to enhance his status as multi-instrumentalist extraordinair.

.

In the end, it all comes down to money. This was true for Prince (Diamonds & Pearls, and his "embrace" of rap wasn't all for creative purposes, along with all the promotion), it's going to be true for the estate. As much as I despise it, a move like the Jackson estate did, with contemporary artists re-imagining songs, while at the same time releasing the original songs might be a way to get new ears listening to Prince tracks and hope that some will stay around. The tracks should be clearly separated though.

.

The estate seems to be trying to figure it out. I am happy they are releasing things as they are trying though. The releases appear to be getting consistently better. I do fear the problem with Sony/WB though, with regards to remasters/superdeluxes. I hope the two labels are willing and able to cooperate.

What you propose is everything BUT option 1, it's more like option 0 in the sense that instead of preserving it intact, it would open the door to desacralizing the material. And there's no such thing as "mix instructions" because 1/ Prince didn't leave any such things and 2/ Most people would simply be incapable of following them. Being a professional engineer required years of training, and just because anyone is capable of tinkering with Audacity doesn't mean averyone is capable of creating a professional mix.

Now it would indeed be an alternate option to the list I proposed, the reason why I didn't mention it because, as Bonatoc said, it simply ain't gonna happen. At least not in the foreseeable future (and just because Ben Goans did it as an experiment with one album, and Bowie with one single, doesn't mean it can psosibly be considered an industry standard). Now I cannot tell what the music industry will look like in a century, by then you'll probably be able to download the music straight into your brain and mix it with your thoughts (keep an eye on Neuralink's announcement next August 28 for more on that), but it's unlikely any such pracice will become common in our lifetime, so there's no point discussing it really.

.

As for the "there's no such thing as "mix instructions" because 1/ Prince didn't leave any such things" bit:

in several (or many) cases there should be mix instructions, as it's standard practice to take notes or photos of gear settings during mixing exactly for the purpose of making it easier to recreate it later if needed. I think think the Originals booklet has a couple of these gear settings photos included.

.

Kares said:

databank said:

Kares said:

.

As for the "there's no such thing as "mix instructions" because 1/ Prince didn't leave any such things" bit:

in several (or many) cases there should be mix instructions, as it's standard practice to take notes or photos of gear settings during mixing exactly for the purpose of making it easier to recreate it later if needed. I think think the Originals booklet has a couple of these gear settings photos included.

.

Ah interesting, my bad. Apparently not enough though according to Bolas who had to ask former ingeneers.

.
Oh sure, it's quite possible that much of the unreleased stuff don't have any mixing notes, if they never even attempted to do proper mixes for them.

mediumdry said:

Kares said: