There is truth to this. Was this a rush job or just shoddy manufacturing.

Since Prince only has a production and distribution deal,less quality control?

mikek1 said:

Uhh, how about TURN DOWNN THE VOLUME? Just a bit picky aren't we, I mean dang nothing else going on??
Beside, I likes my levels HIGH!

joseph8 said:

*IDIOT ALERT*
Turning it down doesn't solve the problem asshole!

mikek1 said:

wow, your use of such language is real mature.

minneapolisgenius said:

nonsense

toddband45 said:

He's exaggerating a bit. he says he likes all the songs, so obviously he's been abvle to listen to it, just doesn't sound as good as he'd like.

NDRU said:

Yes. Thankyou for a mature comment.

minneapolisgenius said:

CoCo-Sign.

mikek1 said:

i love this album

mikek1 said:

You mean like this one of yours?:

mikek1 said:

interesting

Dewrede said:

mikek 1, you are correct.
I aint getting into all the details. Clearly, some don't understand what the actual issue is. Cant believe its down to P, somebody must turn the levels up to 11 during the final stages, to make it 'loud'. Strange thing is that te amo seems to be spot-on. Original must have been finished at a less harsh level before final mastering.

bonedaddy said:

yes that's what happens; it's not Prince himself, it's the record labels and mastering engineers. Prince doesn't give any guidance to how it should be done. It's well known after finishing a project he is done with it so doesn't pay attention to how it's mastered.

That's what's happening with nearly all records today and it's completely stupid and pointless.

mikek1 said:

I mean you could create your own versions using a wave editor. I'm not sure of the technical jargon so I'll just say it as best I can - you need to lower the wave volume enough to make sure the peaks no longer hit the top or bottom of the wav (i.e. make sure that nothing is going into the very high and low registers). It won't get rid of the clipping, but it'll make it less noticeable when you crank the volume up.

OK, I know that technically isn't remastering, but it should make it sound better.

AsylumUtopia said:

you would think the idiot record companies and mastering engineers would do that in the first place.

mikek1 said:

This is part of why I think the music may be recorded too loudly, not mastered that way, and why Prince may be to blame, not entirely the mastering folks.

A lot of music is still recorded on analog and mastered digitally. Analog clipping is not totally unpleasant (kind of a buzz or distortion) but digital clipping is literally unlistenable. I don't think any professional release has digital clipping, it's just too painfully obvious, and it would also be visually obvious to someone using digital equipment to master it.

But I do hear analog clipping, particularly on Prince's rock music, not so much on the R&B stuff. This is why I think it may also be on purpose--pushing the levels on the rock stuff during the recording.

I've noticed that Prince's music is recorded at high volumes for years. It provides a sharper attack or accent. You know he always does it loud.

JonnyApplesauce said:

Me too.

I'm pretty unlistenable too.

I think 3121 is just great. Another work of art. But, I am really interested in the variances in production. I think it should be expected that the production won't always be the same with his albums. His life, his sound, everything, has been ever changing. I am sure there a lot of different reasons why.....
I also have to say that there is a depth to COME that I always noticed, too. And other albums, like 1999-Lovesexy---and Around the World IAD sound sooo UNDER produced or just different somehow than later albums.

NDRU said:

sorry you're wrong. It's the mastering. The way it was recorded was fine.

MANY releases have SERIOUS clipping. You should listen to californication on a good stereo and you will be baffled to how a record company could release it. Even John said the cd of By the way DID NOT sound like how the master tape was; this is becuase of the mastering process.

http://www.austin360.com/...cover.html

you might find this article interesting

snigger said:

yes more people need to read about this; IT'S VERY IMPORTANT!

We as fans and consumers should demand this madness stops!!

mikek1 said:

I don't doubt that mastering often has bad effects on the music, and most music today is over processed, too noisy, etc.

But how do you know it was recorded fine?

I aint trying to be funny, but we are talking about Prince.No musician with ears would record like that, I would say he has a good ear for music.There is no way he would do that, I don't doubt he pushes his equipment, but someone's fucking it up further down the line by trying to get more from it. It aint about being louder, its about the sound quality/clarity becoming fucked up (not the technical term) I believe he's recording digitally, and he's recording on the edge (perfection, possibly) then as soon as someone touches anything, it's fucked ever so slightly, and becomes more apparent on certain tracks. didn't seem to happen on the old stuff, where analogue was transfered to cd.
Just shows that he probably doesnt ever listen to an off-the-shelf cd of his own work.

mikek1 said:

mmm I don't have that problem. Maybe you need a better system???

AsylumUtopia said:

I don't think that would work. If you have music in a wave editor where the original sound already goes beyond the top or bottom limit, it's like a curve with a flat line. If you reduce that down, the peaks are not suddenly going to occur, they're long gone, all you would do is bring the flat line down to a lower decibel, the clipping would still be in the same place.

I don't know, I heard somewhere that Prince still prefers analogue to digital recording, it may be that the engineers of today can't handle the subtleties of analogue and when they convert it to digital you get the peaks going beyond the digital level, thinking that's the way the artist wants it they just leave it.

Or they're being ordered to crank it to the highest level they can get and be consistent through the CD, somethings got to give in the process for the more subtle songs to be at a decent volume. Te Amo being okay on 3121 can be explained by the fact it never really hits loud decibels, it's a relatively quiet song.

Imagine a quiet guitar with a really loud drum beat that goes off the graph - you'd have to reduce the drum down and the guitar would also reduce to the point you couldn't hear it - so they have to leave some clipping/flat lining in for a decent CD volume. Or an album with a few quiet songs next to some really loud drum and bass songs, it must be hard to keep the levels consistent. Perhaps one of the problems is simply that Prince's albums have such a variety of sound and instruments it becomes almost impossible to equalise them all at a similar level thoughout an album.

snigger said:

it's indeed interesting.

that's a thing I do not understand - there are millions and millions of dollars spent on the production process, and then - clipping all around. hell what are they thinking?

here is some more for those who are interested, I think its worth the time:
http://www.cdmasteringser...death.htm (the dynamic death)
http://www.stylusmagazine...orever.htm

metalorange said:

Hm, I just opened te amo in SoundForge and it seems to clip damn often! I then openend The Dance, went through the beginning, and could not make out clipping. Strange.

Does anyone else have the impression of being Fury a bit too low in volume compared to the rest?

SenseOfDoubt said:[quote]

metalorange said:

Hm, I just opened te amo in SoundForge and it seems to clip damn often! I then openend The Dance, went through the beginning, and could not make out clipping. Strange.

Does anyone else have the impression of being Fury a bit too low in volume compared to the rest?[/quote]

It sounds better than the rest apart from the guitar being mixed in the background.