I've done a quick search in previous threads, but can't find any reference to a 3-disk bootleg called Dreams. It consists of 1982-1997 studio outtakes, and contains 56 tracks. Anyone have further info on it? Is it a true bootleg?

Poiple said:

It is indeed. What you want to know?

O+>

owen said:

Well, in one place it states it is studio outtakes, another says it is live concerts. I'm not a huge fan of live concert boots since the sound quality can vary wildly. Is it a soundboard boot? Thanks for the info.

Dreams


3 CD

Label : Thunderball

Catalogue : #TB 023-024-025

Disc Length : 73:31 / 73:35 / 72:59

Source : Studio Outtakes

Sound Quality : VG+ / EX+

Year Of Release : 1998


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Disc 1

1. Prologue 2. Baby Go Go 3. Vibrator 4. Do Yourself A Favor 5. Vibrator (Dialogue) 6. Witness 4 The Prosecution 7. Old Friends 4 Sale 8. Girl O' My Dreams 9. Can't Stop This Feeling I Got 10. We Can Funk 11. Movie Star 12. Crystal Ball 13. The Ball 14. Rebirth Of The Flesh 15. Wonderful Ass 16. Little Girl Wendy's Parade 17. Others Here With Us

Disc 2

1. Good Man 2. Your Love Is So Hard 3. 100 MPH 4. Crucial 5. Turn It Up 6. Turn It Up (Extended Portion) 7. Feel U Up 8. Irresistible Bitch 9. Chocolate 10. Can I Play With U? 11. Moonbeam Levels 12. Heaven 13. No Call U 14. Alphabet St. 15. Baby You're A Trip 16. Eternity

Disc 3

1. Mad Sex 2. Da Bang 3. 2morrow 4. Snowman 5. It Takes 3 6. Days Of Wild 7. Head (Remix) 8. Pop Life (Remix) 9. Love Machine 10. The Max (instrumental) 11. Soul Psychodelicide 12. Player 13. She Gave Her Angels 14. The Rest Of My Life 15. Make Believe 16. I'll Do Anything 17. Don't Talk 2 Strangers 18. My Little Pill 19. Empty Room 20. There Is Lonely 21. Be My Mirror 22. Wow 23. Epilogue




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©TheDataBank.org

Dewrede said:

Man, I always forget about thedatabank.org. Thanks.
[Edited 5/14/10 10:31am]

A great set at the time! It should be noted that many of these songs have been released in much higher quality since then.

But that was a golden age - H20, Dreams, Cosmos, Deposition... it seemed like every month a new 3 disc set was coming out!

billymeade said:

I have found all 3 disks in MP3 format, but I don't know what the bitrate is. Source is SDB (whatever that may be), sound quality is rated as A+. Listening now--so far, pretty good quality. Some songs better than others.

Just get The Work.

The Work is lame and obsolete.

Work It 2.0 Updated is THE choice.

ivault wat?

^iVault is a Revelations 2.1 rip off adding the snippets and some Rosie Gaines tunes.

And in fucking mp3. Forget it.

my understanding is that it's an ever evolving package. they take from different releases and try to keep the best ones.

I only know of one version of it.

If they upgraded it I don't care: it's mp3.

billymeade said:

Yeah, this was a golden time for boots, the production values of these and other releases at the time was really amazing, and really put even Prince's official releases to shame sometimes!

Moonraker/Thunderballs 3CD releases were great, and The Work was comprehensive, but rehash for me, I never bought it because I had all the previous ones, and now it's been succeeded itself.

vitriol said:

FLAC may sound better, but I can fit more mp3s on my laptop!

Dauphin said:

But if they were mp3s first, FLAC won't change a thing of course.

Only a bunch of tracks (mainly those only released on P's websites and a few others) come from mp3.

You can always degrade lossless to mp3 but not the other way round. So even if I were interested in filling a certain device to the max I'd still get the lossless thing and degrade it myself.
[Edited 5/14/10 13:42pm]
[Edited 5/14/10 13:42pm]

I understand audio compression, but I don't understand why I'd download 250MB just so I can compress it to 60MB when somebody has done it for me already.


Having a "Highest Quality" version of the iVault sounds like an awesome idea, though! Is that what Work it 2.0 is?

^Exactly. More or less it comprises all the circulating studio stuff (normally) in the best quality that's available.

Only a bunch of things -released afterwards- are real improvements over it: FBG's 'Box O'Chocolates' and Pure Funk's '30 Years Of Unreleased Funk Vols. 1, 2 & 3'.

And, of course, even if it's a compilation of live and rehearsal takes, no unreleased stuff collection is complete without 4DaFunk's 'Playtime'. It contains all the songs that were only performed live or in rehearsal and of which no studio version exists/circulates.
[Edited 5/14/10 14:00pm]

(Post quoted by mistake. BTW, how can I delete a post???)
[Edited 5/14/10 14:01pm]

Dauphin said:

I always wonder if the person who made the FLAC files doesn't understand the compression thing, rips the CD and uploads it as FLAC, not knowing that perhaps a lot of the songs were originally MP3 to WMA to begin with.

Sometimes you just have to go through the bullshit to get what you want.

Poiple said:

thedatabank.org is no longer online. It's in-progress replacement is TheDigitalGarden that Luv4U posted above. MikeyB71 posted a link to the still online predecessor of TheDatabank which also comes in handy.

TheDatabank is available offline as a download.

Well, I've downloaded all 3 disks and listened to all, and I must say the quality is.....meh (downloaded as MP3). I'm not sure how the rater gave the quality an A+, but then again, I'm not that familiar with how boots SHOULD sound. I know the quality ranges widely (one of my buddies had tons of Grateful Dead boots that always sounded like you were listening to them underwater), and maybe I'm subconsciously comparing boot sound quality to studio recorded stuff (which I know is unfair). The first disk is pretty decent quality, but the second two I would give a B or B-. But, they are boots after all.

BTW--this was the first time I was exposed to Others Here With Us. What a dark, chilling, un-P-like (to me) song.

Poiple said:

Yeah, mostly all hodge-podge collections of studio tracks will be hit and miss. Thaere are so many variables as to how the songs were sourced. Dreams is a really otdated bootleg. Studio bootlegs can be surpassed by the appearance of lower generation tapes on a regular basis, while soundboard live shows rarely need to be upgraded. Work It 2.0, Box O Chocolates and the 30 Years Of Unreleased Funk series as mentioned above are the one to have and are readily available in Flac.

Poiple said:

Soundboard.

MikeyB71 said:

I've checked this site out--very comprehensive and lots of good info. I am just really beginning to understand a little bit about flac files, and I think they are generally superior to other file types unless, like Ernest said, they were created from poor quality files to begin with. I have been obsessed in the past few weeks with trying to find P boots, but I want to make sure I can get the highest quality files available. Is it safe to say that most of the boots out there are available as flac, or are they few and far between? I'm sure they are becoming more available, but does anyone know if most boots are available in flac?

vitriol recommended Work It 2.0 and 30 Years of Unreleased Funk. grease said they are readily available in flac, so I'll definitely be looking for those. Anyone know how many disks these collections contain? If I'm not mistaken, I think Work It contains 30 disks or so? Or, maybe I should just check out the angelfire site recommended by MikeyB71 and thedigitalgarden site mentioned by luv4u.....

Poiple said:

30 Years of Unreleased Funk has some great copies of stuff, and some never heard before. There is some more hissy stuff on there, but that's mainly the "I'll Do Anything" stuff.

There's a rawer version of "Computer Blue" that is amazing.

The angelfire site doesn't seem to be updated with the 30 Years information. I think there are 3 volumes, and each volume has 2-3 disks.

Check out http://www.flickr.com/gro...cans/pool/ for scans.




There's more info inside the covers, but these are the back scans for the sake of track listing.

ernestsewell said:

Thanks, Ernest. Definitely will check these out. Looks like I'm gonna have to clear some stuff off my iPod and invest in another external hard drive.....