Not counting horn boosted classics like Sexy MF and Girls and Boys,9 times out of 10 I'll take synth over horns when it comes to concerts but sometimes I think just the opposite.Songs like Delerious still sound pretty good on brass but sounds best with keyboards to me. The versions of Head on the Parade and Lovesexy tours are prime examples of horns replacing synths that arguably sound better.

What do you think? What songs do you like better played by a horn section?

sitruk7 said:

I'm going to go with synths every single time, unless it's that cheap Casio Emancipation-era synth. You just can't do a Prince classic justice with horns, IMO.

Any songs from Parade & Sign 'O' The Times perform live should have a live horn section & keyboard synths co-existing.

Everything else, stick with the keyboard synths only. Beside, the real Prince song are from synths anyway.

Axchi696 said:

God, I'm glad I'm not the only who absolutely HATES the sounds of the synthesizers used during the "Emancipation" era (and even some tracks later on). Some songs "Musicology" suffered from the "Emancipation" sound that brought me back to one of Prince's darkest periods, musically (I was just not feeling that album when it came out; I was disappointed that I only like a HANDFUL of tracks from 36 of 'em!!!; give me 36 songs just 10 years prior & I'd have been diggin' damn near 30 of'em!!).

Nearly all of them, so long as the horns have the beautiful feel as on D'Angelo's Voodoo.

I'm just saying synths playing horn lines though. Synths have their own place.

alexnvrmnd said:

Emancipation makes, just about, a decent single CD. I agree about the sounds. Horrible instrumentation on Emancipation.

It was bad enough when he started using horns on the records, it took a long time for me to adjust to that. Songs that came out after "Purple Rain" with horns sound OK because I'm used to hearing them that way and have learned to live with "second rate Prince" but anything by the "old Prince" sounds fucked up with horns.

1999 is another song that I really,really don't care for on the horns!

Ive written many times about the horns killing Prince's funky sound.. overkill on them horns! I found this article on the internet, pretty cool. The Synth horns to me ARE Prince. Without them it's James Brown or everyone else from that generation..



The Instrumentation

A multi-instrumentalist who played all the instruments in his early albums, Prince’s classic signature sound is inseparable from three foundational elements: the Linn drum machine, synth horns, and electric guitar. His use of strings later on would also become part of his signature sound.

Unlike previous drum machines that used synthesized sounds, the Linn machine pioneered the use of sampled sounds of drums. The early machines were handmade by Roger Linn and were quite expensive and difficult to work with. On the cutting edge, Prince was among the first artists to use the Linn, when he produced 1999 and in his subsequent work. The most famous sounds of the Linn used by Prince were the hand clap (“DMSR” and “1999” for example) and the rim shot (“Let’s Go Crazy” and “When Doves Cry”).

Influenced by 70s funk, Prince incorporated horn lines into his compositions, but used keyboard synths instead. By layering the synth lines on top of each other, he created an orchestral wall of horn hits and lead lines. Synth horns figured prominently in “I Wanna Be Your Lover” as well as “DMSR” and “1999.” After touring with Sheila E.’s band during the Purple Rain tour, he began to use more live horns by Eddie M. and later Eric Leeds, but he still didn’t abandon the thick funk of synth horns on songs like “Around the World in a Day” (the horn lines that follow “I think I wanna dance…”) or the fan favorite “Six” by Madhouse.

Of course any conversation about Prince’s instrumentation is incomplete without talking about his guitar playing. In the funk and R & B tradition, Prince’s music often used prominent rhythm guitar parts to drive the beat. “Kiss” features some of his best rhythm guitar--in fact the rhythm guitar is the main driving force in the song's sparse arrangement. Or he would play phrases that featured a quick succession of notes tightly strummed, often called “chicken scratch,” as in “Erotic City” or at the ending of “I Wonder U.” Among rock fans, it's his rock guitar solo-ing (probably first introduced to the masses in "Let's Go Crazy") for which he is best known. Nothing compares to watcing Prince play live--the emotion, the facial expressions, the body movements that accompany the long sustains, the distortion and the feedback are truly moving. On record, by mixing the guitar levels down (in the introduction to "When Doves Cry" for example) he could sneak in some blues and rock into a funk or dance track, and make it work.

As Prince's collaboration with Revolution-members Wendy and Lisa grew, strings were added. The arrangement at the end of "Purple Rain" signaled the beginning of this trend, which would continue in the interlude of "The Ladder" in Around the World in a Day, and reach full expression in the Parade album. Conducted by Clare Fischer, the strings on "Venus de Milo" create a lush full sound. What was more striking however were the string arrangements for two Prince protégé acts, The Family and Jill Jones, where the strings seem to cut across the melodies in dramatic sweeps. So the penultimate Prince song could conceivably combine funk grooves, electronic rhtyhm tracks, rock guitar, and classical violin flourishes

Very interesting article DMSR.

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DMSR said:

I agree and that was a great article.