When did Prince have best sound on his guitar.
so not the best solo but the best sound he used ?
My favorite sound is from the early days
before Purple Rain .
his sound was simple yet very effective
with nice distortion and
fat bass tones and middle tones.
He didn't use wah wah yet
Over the year Prince's guitar sounded started to become too much unnatural for my taste with reaching peak during Rave Era
Now days his sound is great also.
whats your favorite era when it comes to his guitar sound???

Ok, I can kind of see where you're going w/ this & I some what agree w/ u.... however the Purple House performance was impressive to me. listening to it thru headphones is spectacular! The Gold era was great guitar too, geez, The Undertaker, Poorgoo.

The early days, where his tone was Bambi-esque; raw/distorted, unprocessed, and dirty
The tone that was all featured in Let's Go Crazy was truely original as well.

the wah pedal is exceptional, it's when he hits the flanger, whammy, and God knows what else things go unnatural and plastic. & heck, that's probably what he was going for.

Endorphinmachine
Gold
Let's Go Crazy
Peach

"While My Guitar Gently Weeps" was played in tribute by fellow inductee Prince, along with Tom Petty, Jeff Lynne, and Dhani Harrison. Prince was Totally
Awesome.
[Edited 1/28/10 19:06pm]

The Small Club show. Perfection.

I think his guitar tones are nice on Musicology. Very solid. Also some really great guitar sounds during the 0+> album. I liked the loud dirty sounds of his guitar on the undertaker video as well.
[Edited 1/28/10 20:06pm]

gamera said:

Sign O the Times/Lovesexy area... with the cloud guitar...

saafiir said:

Yeah really he has great guitar sounds all through his career. I can only name current favorites in an effort to be concise.
[Edited 1/28/10 23:34pm]

Dirty Mind, Controversy, 1999, definitely.

1993-1995

I do have a soft spot for the symbol guitar. Yeah it was corny, but it just sounded BIG! Really raw sounding, it had a harsh yet rounded sound to it somehow. So for me, 94-96 guitar playing.

Erik

I loved the guitar sound on rebirth of the flesh

symbol guitar

thebanishedone said:

Before Purple Rain YES!!!

Endorphinmachine

I Hate U

Gold

Purple Rain

Crimson And Clover

The Undertaker (album) - it is probably the dirtiest a guitar sound can get. Bass up, higher frequencies down and not too much gain, but loads of compression. Absolutely sexy.

I really do't know how to discern these things, I have loved it all...

I just listened to "Fascination," From, "The Truth," I Love this song and Prince's guitar playing does sound so sweet and clear, but he's not really here it's just the stereo. I thought I'd throw a little Karen Carpenter into my reply.

he gets al zonified during purple rain

Dave1992 said:

This one would seem to be doubletracked with a synthesizer. The video would suggest that as well.

he has no distinct or constant guitar tone
you can clearly listen and tell guitar tone is not his specialty

Yeah, it's pretty basic.

The most distinctive tones he has had were those on the 80-82 records when he was using his cheap telecaster copy and not too many effects. The other period when he was going for something a little bit different in my view was the SOTT tour stuff. That might have something to do also with the way the concert movie was mixed though.

novabrkr said:

It is, but I am still talking about the guitar sound without the synths.

I loved the guitar parts on KISS. I simply loved them.


Then, of course scattered throughout albums like , Lotusflow3r and even TRC.


When Prince wants to you get really interesting stuff

prince has really really bad guitar sound ... like sludge .. clean is ok usually but all the way back to lets go crazy it has been the drums and keys that made prince sound bearable when he hits that over effected distortion ... i agree with whomever said it was over processed ... all of his sounds for that matter have been over processed since lovesexy .. too much modern computer sounds that dont compare at all to the raw analog experiments he used to come up with

TrevorAyer interesting observation
give us more insight
on what did you mean when you wrote:
too much modern computer sounds that dont compare at all to the raw analog experiments he used to come up with

squirrelgrease said:

Dave1992 said:

Well, "doubletracking" means that the same lines are duplicated by another instrument, usually rendering the actual sound of the individual instruments more or less indistinguishable from each other. This is the case especially when they are caked in reverb and modulation effects. In other words the sounds mesh up together and it's hard to tell which one is which.

Not all guitar parts of "Gold" are done that way this of course - but at least the "ecstatic" bends during the solo starting at 5:20 are (I just checked this in order to refresh my memory). Essentially, it seems to me that it's the sound of the solo synthesizer that actually dominates the mix during those, not the guitar. The technique is very heavily used also at around 5:40 too.

novabrkr said:

All true, but in this case they definitely are distinguishable. It's actually the "standard" sound of the golden Symbol guitar; - like on I Hate U (especially the nearly "attacking" sustain), but with a little less bass and distortion.

He used the same technique on Emancipation quite often, too.

TrevorAyer said:

Musicology has some pretty good analogue-sh-for-prince sounding tones throughout. Also, his band sounds very very organic in the 'One Night Alone' tour as well as the 'Musicology' tour.

thoughts remix/extended: something happened lovesexy and beyond in which it became clear that instead of experimenting with his own sounds by putting drums thru guitar effects or keyboards thru different amps mixing drum machines with live drums and using real acoustic pianos and guitar ... his sound changed to a more preprogrammed computer based sound .. u can hear the very very flat drum sounds all over rave and the high sessions and even the tones of a lot of lovesexy great songs like alphabet street but its still a pretty cheezy drum sound as opposed to what is on something like 1999 or his earlier stuff where he was using more live drums.

i personally am a fan of live instrumentation but prince gets really caught up in stock sounds ... i think it makes it easier for him to put together a song quickly .. however i agree .. the sounds of rainbow children where very nice too bad some of the lyrics were painful .. musicology i liked reflection but the drum loops didnt really feel organic to me. an album like the truth is completely ruined by an acoustic guitar that does not sound like an acoustic guitar ... it sounds like a cheap thin piece of plastic with strings on it ..

when i say analog i refer to what used to be common practice to record on 24 inch analog tape .. its like a cassette but wider and tape speed is much faster so u dont get tape hiss .. around lovesexy digital everything was coming out and prince clearly hopped on ... digital tends to make music sound more thin analog adds a warm fat sound ... it took many years to improve digital but this explains why a bootleg song taped from a tape of a tape adds so much bass and fatness but when u get the cd it sounds much thinner unless it was mastered from a tape .. i think it also explains the thinness of a lot of prince records between lovesxy and rainbow ... and the stock digital sounds for bass keyboards are all over batman rave internet era music ..

part of it is the nature of the business .. people listening to music on such stupid things as ipods with speakers the size of a fingernail ... or the mp3 itself looses a lot of frequencies .. prince has always had an affection for a thin bad sounding keyboard .. altho sometimes he gets it right with say a billy jack bitch but usually its some fruitcake sound celine dion would drool over.

this is a guitar thread so i will stop but theres ur response