SchlomoThaHomo said:

I like that the interviewer didn't shy away from questions about sound quality issues with SOTT SD, even mentioning specific songs like Wally. If it's true that every song was released in the best quality available, I'd be surprised that the Wally master, the Wally multitracks, and any and all mixdown cassettes were all damaged to the extent that they were only able to salvage a final version that has tape garble noises.

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Which is stupid anyway, since there currently is technology that can help improve such deficiencies.

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While Howe isn't always exactly forthcoming, at least he acknowledges some of the issues when presented to him, instead of pretending like they don't exist. Though I'm not sure if I'm buying that there's not a better sounding Wally in the vault somewhere, just as I'm not sure I buy that Wouldn't You Love To Love Me from Originals sounds the way it does because it's from a 16 track recording, as he once stated.

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They should follow the example from the movie industry, where specialist releases often offer tons of technical info, e.g. https://www.blu-ray.com/m...94/#Review:

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Supervised by by director Wes Anderson, this digital transfer was created on a DFT SCANITY film scanner at 2K resolution from the original camera negative. Thousands of instances of dirt, debris, scratches, splices, warps, jitter, and flicker were manually removed using MTI's DRS and Pixel Farm's PFClean, while Image System's DVNR was used for small dirt, grain, and noise reduction.

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I love that shit. It tells me the source, it tells me what they've done to improve the picture quality, it tells me the end result was approved by the director. And sure, in this case Prince isn't around, so give us the "raw" source you used as a guide. You could put those on a bonus CD, or perhaps as a digital-only release (kinda like TR&AR released a "deluxe" edition of their score for Mank).

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Instead we get vague answers and a bunch of "trust us" bullshit, or outright lies (still waiting for anyone involved to admit the released "Rebirth Of The Flesh" was an amateurish Frankensteined mix where they were even so incompetent they didn't notice they'd included the same line twice). Making one or two mistakes: shit happens. Releasing an entire concert recording at the wrong speed: sheesh! Making custom mixes that show the preferences of the mixer who disregards Prince's style: seriously???

funkbabyandthebabysitters said:

Lol this is in associated artists now? Weeeeeeird policy.

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Amazed they didn't move it to the "fan content" forum (since the interview is at a fan site, basically) and really buried it. Heaven forbids the first bit of actual news in months is promoted in any way. Meanwhile the Org homepage is littered with outdated "news".

olb99 said:

I'm a native French speaker and I tend to agree with Bart here. See my reply above. They're currently working on two projects = it doesn't mean they will be released in 2021. I expect them to work on multiple projects all the time. Yes, they will eventually be released, but not necessarily in the next 12 months. About associated artists: they're seriously discussing it. They have no concrete plan. And they will have to convince the guys that want to make money out of all this that this is a good idea. It could happen in 2021 (not likely) or much, much later.

[Edited 1/1/21 1:22am]

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Exactamundo. They've likely been working on Parade repeatedly and yet it hasn't been released. They've likely worked on a proper PR SDE: hasn't yet been released. Howe has said repeatedly they're working on the oldest tapes first, yet there have been no SDEs of For You/Prince/Dirty Mind/Controversy.

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What this article does tell us that the reason we didn't get X or Y on SOTT SDE is because they were deliberately excluded because they were considered for future projects, and yet I wouldn't take that as any guarantee such projects will definitely get released: I can imagine that down the line the sales figures will not be good enough to justify a full-on release and that some things will get a digital-only release, merely to recoup the already made investments (since Howe has said in the past that outtakes get remastered along the way, and not so much as part of a set) (plus pulling a tape at Iron Mountain comes with a cost, as well as it digitization and indexing of contents, including photographing the tape box etc.) (plus they seem to have a permanent presence at Iron Mountain to avoid unreleased music leaking).

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At some point they're going to try to guesstimate the profits of an associate artists release (e.g. The Time box set or Sheila E box set) and I hope they'll take jump and give us those two box sets including a fuckton of bonus stuf (including concert videos, there is at least one official Sheila E. one that is only available as a bootleg rip from the LaserDisc). I'd also love a box set of all the "minor" PPR releases plus bonus tracks, e.g. Taja Sevelle, Three O'Clock, Dale Bozzio,..., but then the question is: what about the Mavis Staples and George Clinton releases? Should those be released separately, or perhaps a box set per artist?

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And at the same time I can look at all the stuff I propose in the previous paragraph and realize that these are more or less pipe dreams: I cannot see them getting all of this out unless some multi-millionaire gives them a bunch of money and tells them: "release all that shit with tons of bonus material, I'm paying for the costs, I just want to have all this in my collection in pristine sound and picture quality and I'm doing the fans a favor since you can now sell these box set at a discount price and use the profits for the next big release".

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I'm also thinking that Sony/Legacy is desiring to get some unreleased stuff out there. What about a collection of highlights from the final tour, or a full concert (e.g. the final one or the two PP premiere ones). We might be getting CB98 "soon" but honestly I don't give a shit about that unless it comes with a bonus set of CDs which feature the songs from that set un-segued and properly mastered and with additional tracks (and even then it is a fairly garbage collection of outtakes that would make far more sense as vault tracks for the SDEs of the albums from their era).

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And all of that needs to be balanced with "cannot flood the market" and the higher luxury prices of SDEs etc.

BartVanHemelen said:

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And at the same time I can look at all the stuff I propose in the previous paragraph and realize that these are more or less pipe dreams: I cannot see them getting all of this out unless some multi-millionaire gives them a bunch of money and tells them: "release all that shit with tons of bonus material, I'm paying for the costs, I just want to have all this in my collection in pristine sound and picture quality and I'm doing the fans a favor since you can now sell these box set at a discount price and use the profits for the next big release".

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This is not completely impossible. One of the archiving projects I'm working on (~15000 tapes, ~20000 hours of audio/video) has only been possible because wealthy sponsors donated millions to the project. And when I say millions, I actually mean >10 millions, which sounds a bit crazy retrospectively...

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Do we know any rich Prince fan outside Questlove?

Romeoblu said:

olb99 said:

BartVanHemelen said:

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And at the same time I can look at all the stuff I propose in the previous paragraph and realize that these are more or less pipe dreams: I cannot see them getting all of this out unless some multi-millionaire gives them a bunch of money and tells them: "release all that shit with tons of bonus material, I'm paying for the costs, I just want to have all this in my collection in pristine sound and picture quality and I'm doing the fans a favor since you can now sell these box set at a discount price and use the profits for the next big release".

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This is not completely impossible.

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True, but it hasn't happened yet even though we're nearing the fifth anniversary of Prince's death. I'd assume such a person would have contacted them already, considering that the Estate et al are in dire need of lotsa money with that massive tax bill coming (among other thnings). I've put that in there because I truly think they really need such a large donation.

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If the rumors are true and we're getting a D&P SDE this year, I wouldn't be surprised if those sales figures might disappoint. I'm thinking they're holding back the Parade one because it's kinda like a sure shot, and they're holding back the PR SDE because it would be too soon, so this year they're gonna take a risk and go with a post-1980s album, kinda dipping their toes in the water to see if that one sells.

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But honestly I'm not gonna pony up €150 for one of the weakest WBR albums. So they'll need to convince me with lotsa bonus for a decent price, whereas I think they want to continue to premium pricing for such a set. But if that fails...

Nice, but nothing concrete (or my French is slipping)
Would be real cool if they did a Remastered/Expanded The Time and start froim there for associated artsts releases.

BartVanHemelen said:

olb99 said:

I'm a native French speaker and I tend to agree with Bart here. See my reply above. They're currently working on two projects = it doesn't mean they will be released in 2021. I expect them to work on multiple projects all the time. Yes, they will eventually be released, but not necessarily in the next 12 months. About associated artists: they're seriously discussing it. They have no concrete plan. And they will have to convince the guys that want to make money out of all this that this is a good idea. It could happen in 2021 (not likely) or much, much later.

[Edited 1/1/21 1:22am]

.

Exactamundo. They've likely been working on Parade repeatedly and yet it hasn't been released. They've likely worked on a proper PR SDE: hasn't yet been released. Howe has said repeatedly they're working on the oldest tapes first, yet there have been no SDEs of For You/Prince/Dirty Mind/Controversy.

.

What this article does tell us that the reason we didn't get X or Y on SOTT SDE is because they were deliberately excluded because they were considered for future projects, and yet I wouldn't take that as any guarantee such projects will definitely get released: I can imagine that down the line the sales figures will not be good enough to justify a full-on release and that some things will get a digital-only release, merely to recoup the already made investments (since Howe has said in the past that outtakes get remastered along the way, and not so much as part of a set) (plus pulling a tape at Iron Mountain comes with a cost, as well as it digitization and indexing of contents, including photographing the tape box etc.) (plus they seem to have a permanent presence at Iron Mountain to avoid unreleased music leaking).

.

At some point they're going to try to guesstimate the profits of an associate artists release (e.g. The Time box set or Sheila E box set) and I hope they'll take jump and give us those two box sets including a fuckton of bonus stuf (including concert videos, there is at least one official Sheila E. one that is only available as a bootleg rip from the LaserDisc). I'd also love a box set of all the "minor" PPR releases plus bonus tracks, e.g. Taja Sevelle, Three O'Clock, Dale Bozzio,..., but then the question is: what about the Mavis Staples and George Clinton releases? Should those be released separately, or perhaps a box set per artist?

.

And at the same time I can look at all the stuff I propose in the previous paragraph and realize that these are more or less pipe dreams: I cannot see them getting all of this out unless some multi-millionaire gives them a bunch of money and tells them: "release all that shit with tons of bonus material, I'm paying for the costs, I just want to have all this in my collection in pristine sound and picture quality and I'm doing the fans a favor since you can now sell these box set at a discount price and use the profits for the next big release".

.

I'm also thinking that Sony/Legacy is desiring to get some unreleased stuff out there. What about a collection of highlights from the final tour, or a full concert (e.g. the final one or the two PP premiere ones). We might be getting CB98 "soon" but honestly I don't give a shit about that unless it comes with a bonus set of CDs which feature the songs from that set un-segued and properly mastered and with additional tracks (and even then it is a fairly garbage collection of outtakes that would make far more sense as vault tracks for the SDEs of the albums from their era).

.

And all of that needs to be balanced with "cannot flood the market" and the higher luxury prices of SDEs etc.

Great post man!

JoeyCococo said:

Mike Howe keeps saying he can't say particulars due to NDAs What is so hard to understand....have you never signed an NDA at your workplace??

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It's very easy to understand. It just makes his interviews quite boring for fans such as us.