So I'm reading about poorly mastered CDs here the other night and I read that SOTT was supposedly mastered from a cassette! Is this true? Is this a skewed truth, as to say the CDs are mastered from the Cassette master? That would make some sense, since each side of the tape corresponds with a specific disc, but is it true? Anyone want to clarify or confirm this interesting little nugget?

Also, I'd read some years back about a mastering error in the second version of the 1999 CD, as in the version with DMSR. Is there actually an error? For years I thought it was the sound at the end of the "you think you're special" comment in Something In The Water (Does Not Compute), but when I purchased a vinyl copy I found it was still there.

Any other CD mastering errors anyone can think of? I got one, why does the Black Album sound like crap? Probably because it was mastered from the same versions used in 1987, right? Or is it just that Warners didn't care? They don't seem to care now, that's for sure.

hey yo i dont know much about prince mastering issues but when cd's came out they really sounded bad ... the record company was just trying to make a quick buck selling the same old musice ... i know that the beatles cds sounded horrible which is why they just released the remaster ... a lot of cds back then were mastered right from a cassette as apparently the record companies couldnt be bothered to do a better job .. thus the hendrix family was really upset as that is one example i know for sure was taken from a cassette ... i only bought lps or cassettes up until chaos thats when i bought a cd ... but the fact is a lot of the original recordings are done on thick analog tape as opposed to the digital mess we have now .. a cassette is a smaller version of what is in the recording studio ... still the record companies tried to convince us that cds sounded better ... of course it wasnt till 20 years later that they actually did sound good ... i wonder what prince is waiting for as far as remastering and all that ... so many bands make money on the special edition remasters he could really blow us away with 1999 - lovesexy remasters including a bonus disk of b-sides demos and outtakes

www.trevorayer.org

Read this thread:
http://prince.org/msg/7/309365

-maTrevorAyer said:

I agree re-masters of the albums would be good but the old Cd's sound pretty awesome! I've had more problems with later material like Crystal Ball & Emancipation being mastered too loud and distorting. I really don't think any of Prince's material was ever mastered from a cassettte, mastered from tape yes but it would be a supreme reel to reel surely.
A warner brothers box set For you- The gold experience (re titled as a Prince album) would be amazing! If Prince hadn't fallen out with WB we would already have these. We will see

P.s the beatles cd.s sound amazing and the re-masters hardly sound any different!

aiden said:

We've discussed this in the past. Read the link I posted above.

I highly suggest that you check out the SHM re-issues of Prince's WB albums. They are great. Not sure if they are remastered, but they sound better than any of the previous issues of Prince's cds.

daPrettyman said:

In which, I posted:




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[Edited 11/18/09 7:56am]

I don't know, but of all my officially released Prince disks, SOTT has the worst sound quality of them all. Even For You sounds better. It is too bad since most fans and orgers would place sign as their 1st or 2nd favorite album (it is my second).

Darwintheorgangrinder said:

I agree. However, you must remember that SOTT was one of his first albums that he released that was initially issued on cd. That would also explain the poor sound quality.

I never understood why WB didn't remaster the album when they issued it on cd. They remastered ATWIAD. The original release of ATWIAD sounded horrible compared to the cd that is out now.

The SHM issue of the cd does sound better (to me at least).