Just a question about whether its worth getting this massive collection of material really. I'm currently getting volume 1, its got a few rebels tracks i dont currently have, which drew me to getting it. I know later in the collection there are a few lauded tracks, like rebirth of the flesh is on one of them somewhere and ive got a feeling the studio versions of electric intercourse are lurking around somewhere in it all too, ive only got the live version atm. This is what's drawn me to finally go for it and start downloading after months of deliberation.

Curious to know about sound quality as well, i imagine it varies throughout cos theres hundreds of tracks, but if anyone could shed any light on this i'd be grateful.

It's called 'work it' where im downloading it from, i think its the same as 'the work' but im not totally sure so if anyone could help me out on this i'd be grateful too.

I've been getting into The Work recently..YOU HAVE TO OWN IT!

just starting out, im really looking forward to it. Everywhere i try and look for some info into it seems to be in such a mess, so i'm hoping i can get some insight on here

TomDLP said:

IIRC, 'Work It' doesn't include any live versions of unreleased material, so no Electric Intercourse - there is no studio version circulating, only the August '83 live version and the rehersal for the show, there's some fan-tweaked versions, but they're still live.

As for sound quality, it's about the best there is. 'Work It' is like a fan-tweaked version of 'The Work'. Personally, I'd get the whole of 'Work It' over the 'The Work', so get all the volumes, and have fun

thanks for the advice. I've found a fairly easy and quick way to get The Work so i can push on with that instead of endlessly copying and pasting links into firefox to get Work It but i'll see what I think of it, from what i've read Work It seems to have a slight edge on sound quality

TomDLP said:

I think this is true, but both are great sets, you can't go wrong with either really

[Snip - luv4u]

I have the full set of Work It. It's pretty amazing to have all that stuff...but there is a lot to wade through and weed out. I mean...seriously...some of the tracks are nothing more than Prince hitting a single beat on a drum. Do you really want to put that on your iPod?

And some of the associated artist stuff you'll just listen to once for the sake of saying you heard it, then put it in the archives.

I spent a looooot of time downloading and converting that stuff - to listen to relatively little of it.

Genesia said:

yeah i can see i'm gonna have 'fun' deciding what's worth keeping and what's not, 9 instrumentals one after the other, with some less than 30 seconds in length comes to mind, lol

TomDLP said:

Keep looking. Some of them are 8 seconds long.

There are some jems on there!!!

I can put "Donna" on repeat for hours!

NouveauDance said:

I don't know why you edited that, I was just recommending a freeware program.

How does it compare with ivault?

CallMeCarrie said:

yeah that's a good one, i've just heard 'I Miss You' for the first time as well, that's pretty cool

TomDLP said:

I agree! And they fit nicely together.

wasitgood4u said:

iVault is lossy and a low bitrate. Work It 2.0 is lossless Flac. Many of the tracks on iVault and The Work will be better sourced and at least better quality on Work It 2.0.

squirrelgrease said:

Thanks. So the tracks are more or less the same, but the quality's better? Is that right? Is there a quick way to convert Flacs to a listenable medium?

wasitgood4u said:

The songs are going to be more or less the same because all of the sets are pretty comprehensive. Work It is more current than iVault, so there may be a few songs that are not available on the latter. Plus the best sources at the time of release are claimed to be used for Work It 2.0.

The following are not intended for use on any Prince related music...

DVD Video Soft makes an easy to use free program called Free Audio Converter: http://www.dvdvideosoft.c...verter.htm

Otherwise dBpoweramp (also free): http://www.dbpoweramp.com/download.htm

Thanks

Genesia said:

Totally agree! There's always so much talk of the Vault, but if this collection is any indication of what is in there then I wouldn't be too upset if it never saw the light of day. Yeah there are some really good tracks, most of which have been floating around for many years though. For the most part it's easy to see why Prince picked the tracks that he did for the albums, and shelved the rest.

The Work is comprehensive and while not all tracks are great it shows P at work over many years... Again, considering the amount of music he has put out over 32 years, it really is amazing how much great music he has put out! And he still puts out good music!

Genesia said:

Aren't those the samples from the NPGMC site? It's not like every era has that, just tucked in at the end.

I mean, they were trying to be inclusive and include EVERYTHING I suppose, but yeah those are unnecessary. I guess since post-Warners the leaks have dried up, stuff like this becomes filler.