Now. Let us resume business as usual...

I'd rather let Prince produce my personal music that I write than give up my Box O' Chocolates...

..."Without offering none better"

That's the point. It's so easy to just talk and so hard to do the work...
[Edited 3/29/10 3:22am]

gamera said:

Jesus Christ.

Go read again your first response to me and what it was supposed to be a response to. You were already attacking me after I had simply stated that the post-processing is not necessary. I listed out several post-production processes that should be avoided. It's pretty obvious that whoever did it on this one wasn't aware of some very basic aspects of what you can do to improve the sound of low-quality audio. Would it be somehow better not to speak about it openly? What was your response? Just a bunch of assertions that enforced the negative tone of what I had stated. The negative expressions that you attributed to my words far exceed what I had originally stated.

So instead of swearing your thankfulness and trying to look like the good guy here, how about exercising some logic while answering to other people's responses?
[Edited 3/29/10 3:46am]

vitriol said:

Why would "doing the work" be required? Uploading some raw audio files to the internet is not that hard to do. Nobody forces you to apply the boosts and the other things they are these days doing to this material.

So, yes. On my behalf: thank you for sharing the files too. The boosting on these ones is just excessive and less would have been better. That's all.
[Edited 3/29/10 3:59am]

Joyinrepatition said:

THIS is why we had to WAIT sooo long for the CLEAR sounding tracks!
Flac to MP3

Just promise, you only use that for getting it on your Ipod crappy thing! and don't spread the mp3's around!

lotusflower said:

The most of people can't tell any difference between FLAC and 320kbps mp3's (unless you have some amazing stereo system).

zaza said:

They don't? And they are music lovers? (RIP PURPLE RAIN in FLAC and in Mp3 and listen to it!)

I'm not being a jerk, but that really is (ONE of) the way we keep getting those lousy tapes over the years, and it's not that hard to PLAY FLAC files, or to get a Mp3 player that plays flac... is it?

I'm just saying... mp3 for personal use is okay, don't spread them around
[Edited 3/29/10 4:51am]

C'mon!

DEGRADING stuff by turning it to mp3 can only be seen as a recommendation in the org of all places.

yeah... i think that moderators should delete the info on how to convert to mp3

novabrkr said:

This post shows, in the first place, your absolute lack of knowledge about bootlegging issues.

First of all, by "doing the work" I meant, being able to track down such lo-gen files and manage to put them at the free disposal of all users (which, reading many reactions here, I think shouldn't have been done).

About the second part of your unnecessary rant, I can only say you don't seem to know too much what you're talking about as well.

I happened to have heard some of these files when they were raw and I can assure that what's been done to them has vastly improved the quality without being excesive at all.

And, just for the record, virtually none of the process you mention have been done to the raw stuff.

So now you know,Mr.cleva cleva.

vitriol said:

Thank you for coming forward and being open about your involvement in this. No, I don't consider tracking down files to be a part of "post-production process". But perhaps in your world of associative logic it is.

Would you like to explain something though? First, how is this possible?



How can it not be excessive when the improvements are "vast"?



No high and low frequency boosting? I find that hard to believe. Perhaps you'd like to enlighten me how 80s recordings transferred from tapes have so much bass and high-end then?

Looks like a great bootleg.

Funny...I mentioned the flaws in the audio tinkering and got a lambasting too. Did it ever cross somebody's mind that there may be someone who could sort out the audio properly? I'm sure there are some people on here who have studio quality equipment who could have done a much better job.

^^^You misunderstood me. I just said that I 'happened to have listened to some of these files in the raw'. I am by no means involved in the tweaking or the release.

You ask how can an improvement be vast without being excessive? So for you ANY degree of improvement is excessive?

As far as I know, background noise has been manually removed (not through an automatic process), and the panning has been worked on (which is not the same as enhancing the stereo image). High, middle and low ends have been boosted but to a point (that is, NOT IN EXCESS), just making them better while trying to retain their original feel.

Other processes have been run, including peak clipping correction. But you still hear that.

But, most of all, I want to underline that I'm not involved with this in any manner whatsoever. I've already stated more than once that if this stuff were mine I wouldn't most probably share it in the open, using it to trade in private for more high quality stuff instead.
[Edited 3/29/10 6:28am]

Mong said:

Of course, EVERYTHING can be done better than how's been done (in any aspect of life), but the main problem here is that all you 'studio gurus' don't know where to look when it comes to finding sources like these. You just let others 'do the work' while you sit back and relax waiting for the time the stuff is out and then say it's not good enough for your godly ears.

Do get your lazy asses off the chair, go out, guess where stuff like this can be found, get it, tweak it, get the owner of the stuff to agree that it'll be a free release for everybody, AND THEN TALK!

vitriol said:

Okay. Thanks for clearing it up.

That does however invalidate all your claims about knowing what has been done to these tracks. It also makes your claims about knowing how hard it must have been to track down this material invalid - this material could have been just as well downloaded from the net. Many of these tracks already existed in enough high quality already. A bit too big a coincidence, perhaps?




Yes, and that could be one of the biggest flaws here. The artifacts do not sound pleasant at all.



"Witness 4 The Prosecution" and "We Can Funk" have always had mismatched stereo images. When the high-end and low-end has been boosted that will always emphasize this problem. The same goes for the hokey reverberation that's present on both of those tracks.




Jesus Christ. There is more treble boost on this one than on the new Rihanna record. The music from 1980s does not sound like this.




Some of it seems to work quite well, alright. I was fooled for the first couple of listens too.


_____

Okay, let's attempt to pull some strings together here. This is not a new bootleg release done by those "close to the source" as claimed by some of the first reports. I just noticed that some of the torrent descriptions state this by the makers themselves too, so the hyping seems to have come mostly from the fans (this is how I was myself informed about it).

However they also make the claim that the tracks have been made from low-generation source tapes that are not circulating. That could be true, but it could be a lie as well. I've never heard "Wonderful Ass" as such a high quality version, but the rest seem to be more or less just EQ jobs. You can achieve this type of shit in a couple of hours. It is not "near CD-quality" by any standards, as claimed by some even on other sites. It seems to be all about those boosts - and to my ears they don't sound good at all. When I removed the highs and the lows with basic EQ plugins, the rather typical bootleg sonic imprint surfaced immediately.

I'm not entirely sure about the claims of "Movie Star", "Starfish and Coffee" and "The Ballad of Dorothy Parker" being from different tapes either. They could be just as well from the official releases again with some boosted frequencies. As you may have noticed, the sound quality of the source on those is a whole lot better than on the rest. There exists outtake versions of some of the released tracks, but they have the typical bootleg sonic imprint. These just sound very close to the original CDs, just with emphasis.

What could be a dead giveaway is how "Movie Star" seques into a much lower quality version of "A Place In Heaven". They originally sequed into each other as well, but you'd think they would be of the same quality here as well. It's very much possible that something else explains the sound quality variation, but there's just too much to doubt about this compilation when you start putting things together.

Contrary to what others have stated about the brickwall limiting on this thing, I don't think it's overdone. However, just a small amount of compression / limiting will tend to completely change the sound of the drums on source material that is of such low quality originally.

As for the amount of work that we should be grateful for: well, those who like these works can be thankful for the work. I personally really dislike the sound, so I won't congratulate them on that. I'm happy about "Wonderful Ass" though. This whole thing just smells really fishy to me, sorry.
[Edited 3/29/10 9:01am]

vitriol said:

Nothing worse than trying to de-noise tracks. It's an amateurish job that's been done on these tracks.

Mars23 said:

wait a sec. is this the ripped off version of the release prince was planning???

because, whoever the UTTER FUCKING CUNT was who stole these songs and released them 'unofficially' before prince could should totally step off. like, as in, step off the planet. thieving bag of scum

Most likely not, XxAxX.

They would seem to be just a bunch of amateurish remasters of circulating bootleg tracks and a few album cuts. They make the claim that the material is freshly sourced, but there's very little to my ears that would corroborate this.

If someone can point me to a decent quality version of "Wonderful Ass" that's come out recently, then it's game over for these guys. I know that there's been a newer version of "All Day All Night" released after The Work -compilation and that's also been revamped for this one.I might be wrong, of course. So pardon me if I'm simply spreading lies and rumours.
[Edited 3/29/10 10:55am]

lotusflower said:

The fact of the matter is...an iPod won't play flac files. They have to be converted to wav or aiff or ma4 or mp3 or something in order to play them.

Wav and aiff files are huge. Put those on your iPod and you severely limit the amount of music you can store. ma4 and mp3 files simply make sense for portable music.

I don't know anyone who would convert files to ma4 or mp3 and disseminate them that way (unless they originated in those formats - like the tracks from the NPGMC). In fact, the site I download from most often doesn't allow mp3.

Okay, found it. Wasn't too hard at all. I just wasn't aware "Wonderful Ass" had a better version out there too.

As for this "Box O' Chocolates" -collection, I call bullshit. There's nothing else that's new on this one than some asshat's misuse of mastering plugins.

Sorry, just had to do it. I feel better now though.
[Edited 3/29/10 10:58am]

You ain't got a fucking clue of what you're talking about.

So I better not waste more time on you. Think what you want and enjoy your mistakes. They're the only thing you've got.

Pitiful.

These tracks are nothing else than home-made remasters of random tracks. Had it been distributed as such, it would have been okay. As such, they're more or less a hoax.

novabrkr said:

The only bullshit I'm smelling is coming from your posts. It's quite funny actually as to how far off the mark you are regarding your so called 'theories' on where these came from and what was done to them. Feel free to continue your amateurish guess work though, I know the guys at FBG are finding it highly amusing.

Fortunately 99% of the people who posted in this thread seem to agree that this is a fantastic release. To the 1% who feel it's not up to their exacting standards, well, you didn't buy it and you don't have to listen to it - I guess you should just stick to listening to the previously released versions of these tracks.

novabrkr said:

You couldn't be more wrong if you tried. You're talking like your an expert yet you speculate on everything without having a single 'fact' to hand. You know nothing of the sources used and it's amazing to hear you rant on as if you know everything there is to know of this releases. The fact is, you don't and why you feel the need to attack it with such venom when it is clearly better than previous outtakes is beyond me. What's so hard to understand that previous sets used poorer generation tapes? New stuff surfaces all the time. Just try and enjoy it rather than tear it to shreds to create your own misery.

Get me a better version of 'Wonderful Ass' then we'll talk.

Oh, and the fact you mention the 'Bright Eyes' set as a good example, one of the worst and most amateurish compilations ever made, by the single worst 'label' out there just shows you up even more....

Okay, the silliness continues.

There is nothing on that thing that would prove those tracks are from new sources. It is up to you folks who keep spreading this bullshit to prove that they are authentic. They're the same stuff that's out there, just with EQ and some additional tinkering.

Believe what you want. You're just fooling yourselves.

novabrkr said:

Easily done but I doubt they'll show you just to appease your dumb ass.

novabrkr said:

Jesus, you really are clueless aren't you?