blackbob said:

.

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still reading it...yes it has some good info in it...worth getting if your a big fan...i am up to parade...stories about how unique he is when it come to his recording technique..he really does try and do it all..when he was making parade..lisa coleman says that he recorded the drum track to the first 4 songs on parade in one sequence..she was in the next room or something...he pressed the record button himself then she said you could hear him tripping over wires and things as he ran over to the drum kit to record the drum track...amazing stuff...

This is all recycled from DMSR though.

Sweet Jebus, how many more times do I have to read how Prince records his vocals? It seems to be in every. bloody. chapter of this book.

Oh look, he's misspelled Gary Numan as "Gary Newman" -- in a section that talks about how Numan influenced Prince "but nobody knows Numan" -- way to make a point, dude.

I'm now reading the D&P chapter, most of which looks familiar to me.

Again: the basic idea of this book seems to be "compile all the info on Prince's studio habits in one place", which is a good idea. But then he needs to structure it, and not just seperate info by album. It would have been far better if he'd had combined several of these sources into chapters on a particular facet of Prince's studio habits, e.g. how he records vocals all on his own. I'd also have loved a chapter that details the coming and going of engineers, i.e. who worked where (which studios) during what time? Also a chapter on how Prince's studios evolved. And most of all, some background on which of his habits are so out of the ordinary and why they're considered so.

This book deperately lacks structure. And original insight: far too much is rehashed from what has trickled out over the years.

The structure that's in place (each album = a chapter) is simply ridiculous. Reading the Graffiti Bridge chapter you wouldn't know that plenty of that album is actually coming from recordings that were years old, for instance. I'd have much preferred it if we'd have gotten detailed information on particular tracks, but the best thing you can do with this book is use it as the source for another, decent book -- or even better: a Wiki.

Maybe he pulls out a rabbit in the remaining few percent of the book, but I very much doubt that.

I went ahead and finally bought it because it looks like the physical book is not showing available anymore, even though my order hasn't been canceled. That's what happened with the other publisher and it eventually got canceled. A lot in the book is recycled, but he even pulls from stuff that was only published on websites. Can't believe he got Prince's dad's name wrong though. I'm sure I've forgotten some stuff that I've already read in DMSR and other books, but here's what I seen that I think is new in this book so far ... Prince wrote When You Were Mine in a hotel room in Orlando when the band was out visiting Disney World ... lots of details on the equipment he used to track Dirty Mind at home ... Matt Fink composed Dirty Mind on the ARP Omni ... Matt recorded Prince's live drums just before Matt laid down the synth for Dirty Mind ... Ross Palone from Sunset Sound talking about technical details of the Controversy recording setup in Studio B ... Prince tuned his own drums ... he recorded his Controversy drum tracks rock solid in the pocket without a click track ... punching in and out on his own guitar overdubs in the control room ... maybe I should stop here because I can say without a doubt the book is worth buying, and I'm still on the Controversy chapter. I have read just about everything in the past 25 years that has been available about Prince working in the studio and there is definitely some new stuff here. I will always want to read more, so this doesn't mean don't write the next book! I would love to read more about the recording of the associate projects, which I don't think is covered in this book at all. For example ... I realized sometime in the past year or two while listening that some of Mazarati's album was recorded with a DMX instead of the LM-1. And that some of Sheila's tracks were recorded with an LM-2. Sherilyn Fenn talked about seeing Prince record Jungle Love using Coke bottles in the studio and then seeing him track a bunch of other instruments on it. There is so much cool stuff to cover. But for those that are waiting to hear, this book is worth buying.

I went ahead and finally bought it because it looks like the physical book is not showing available anymore, even though my order hasn't been canceled. That's what happened with the other publisher and it eventually got canceled. A lot in the book is recycled, but he even pulls from stuff that was only published on websites. Can't believe he got Prince's dad's name wrong though. I'm sure I've forgotten some stuff that I've already read in DMSR and other books, but here's what I seen that I think is new in this book so far ... Prince wrote When You Were Mine in a hotel room in Orlando when the band was out visiting Disney World ... lots of details on the equipment he used to track Dirty Mind at home ... Matt Fink composed Dirty Mind on the ARP Omni ... Matt recorded Prince's live drums just before Matt laid down the synth for Dirty Mind ... Ross Palone from Sunset Sound talking about technical details of the Controversy recording setup in Studio B ... Prince tuned his own drums ... he recorded his Controversy drum tracks rock solid in the pocket without a click track ... punching in and out on his own guitar overdubs in the control room ... maybe I should stop here because I can say without a doubt the book is worth buying, and I'm still on the Controversy chapter. I have read just about everything in the past 25 years that has been available about Prince working in the studio and there is definitely some new stuff here. I will always want to read more, so this doesn't mean don't write the next book! I would love to read more about the recording of the associate projects, which I don't think is covered in this book at all. For example ... I realized sometime in the past year or two while listening that some of Mazarati's album was recorded with a DMX instead of the LM-1. And that some of Sheila's tracks were recorded with an LM-2. Sherilyn Fenn talked about seeing Prince record Jungle Love using Coke bottles in the studio and then seeing him track a bunch of other instruments on it. There is so much cool stuff to cover. But for those that are waiting to hear, this book is worth buying.

wahclavinet said:

I went ahead and finally bought it because it looks like the physical book is not showing available anymore, even though my order hasn't been canceled. That's what happened with the other publisher and it eventually got canceled. A lot in the book is recycled, but he even pulls from stuff that was only published on websites. Can't believe he got Prince's dad's name wrong though. I'm sure I've forgotten some stuff that I've already read in DMSR and other books, but here's what I seen that I think is new in this book so far ... Prince wrote When You Were Mine in a hotel room in Orlando when the band was out visiting Disney World ... lots of details on the equipment he used to track Dirty Mind at home ... Matt Fink composed Dirty Mind on the ARP Omni ... Matt recorded Prince's live drums just before Matt laid down the synth for Dirty Mind ... Ross Palone from Sunset Sound talking about technical details of the Controversy recording setup in Studio B ... Prince tuned his own drums ... he recorded his Controversy drum tracks rock solid in the pocket without a click track ... punching in and out on his own guitar overdubs in the control room ... maybe I should stop here because I can say without a doubt the book is worth buying, and I'm still on the Controversy chapter. I have read just about everything in the past 25 years that has been available about Prince working in the studio and there is definitely some new stuff here. I will always want to read more, so this doesn't mean don't write the next book! I would love to read more about the recording of the associate projects, which I don't think is covered in this book at all. For example ... I realized sometime in the past year or two while listening that some of Mazarati's album was recorded with a DMX instead of the LM-1. And that some of Sheila's tracks were recorded with an LM-2. Sherilyn Fenn talked about seeing Prince record Jungle Love using Coke bottles in the studio and then seeing him track a bunch of other instruments on it. There is so much cool stuff to cover. But for those that are waiting to hear, this book is worth buying.

That's some great info, there. Especially the bit about P recording his drums without a click. The only time I knew he did this, the first four songs on Parade, his tempo flagged a bit (on New Position). It's inspiring to hear that those rock-solid beats on Controversy and Sexuality were clickless.

[EDIT: Not that there's anything 'wrong' with using a click - you guys know what I mean... ]

[Edited 6/11/11 14:24pm]

murph said:

BartVanHemelen said:

FYI: 52% into the book and just started on the Parade chapter.

Which claims early on that there are rumors that Prince bought "Kiss" from Mazarati (i.e. they wrote it), but that this isn't true. I'm sorry, but what kind of dumbass fam did this guy talk to? The demo for "Kiss" has been circulating for ages, and the history of "Kiss" (Mazarati recording the track, David Z making it into the funk classic we know it as,...) was documented long ago and appears in plenty of books and magazines. I've never heard anyone claim that Mazarati wrote it.

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[Edited 5/11/11 4:23am]

There's actually a story I heard from Shock G. during an interview with him...He told me one of Prince's band members (I'll leave out the name) said that "kiss" was one of the rare instances where he didn't write the song...He continues to tell me the story of how Prince met up with one of the members of Mazarati with a paper bag of money to buy "Kiss"...The demo we hear is Prince breaking down the actual track...Now I don't believe the story....But it is interesting...

[Edited 6/2/11 21:44pm]

I doubt he really came up with "paperbag full of money".

Prince wrote 'Kiss', the words and original (blues) composition, but Daviz Z from Mazarati re-arranged the original version by Prince into what was released on 'Parade'. (see also the credits given to David Z for arrnaging Kiss in Parade's liner notes) Legally, this means that Prince is the author of the original version of the song including the lyrics, but David Z is the author of the released arrangement. So yeah Prince may have paid David a bunch of money for the rights to use that arrangement. However, it's more likely that they signed an agreement on it and Prince wrote him a cheque, than that he came in with a paper bag full of money.

here is from David himself

http://www.youtube.com/wa...re=related

note his comments on Prince saying "I'm taking this back, this is too good for you guys" and then WB records not wanting to put this song out at first!

And also, that Prince took out several parts of Mazarati's arrangement. Basically, they co-wrote it.

Eye struggle 2 read the Daily Star!!!!!!!.......So no 2 ur question.

To add to my earlier post, the Lovesexy and Batman chapters are full of original stuff ... a few small examples are how the repeating part of the beginning part of Batdance came about with the Publison Infernal Machine (I first read about this machine in a David Z/Sheila E interview from 1987 or so) ... how Sheena Easton was around at PP to co-write The Arms of Orion and her explaining to Prince what Orion was ... the exact track numbers on the 24 track machine that Prince always used for certain instruments for every song ... how Prince owned about 6 or 7 LM-1s and none were available at PP because all the working ones were out on the road, so they had to rent an LM-2 to use on Scandalous ... Again, the book is definitely worth reading! Let's not get hung up on the Kiss-Mazarati mistake (it wasn't as "off" in the book as I expected it to be, though it was not fully accurate). Anyone want to revive the discussion about Prince working in the studio and the rest of this book? Madhouseman, we love hearing the little snippets of your book in progress!

Thanks for the updates all.

wahclavinet said:

To add to my earlier post, the Lovesexy and Batman chapters are full of original stuff ... a few small examples are how the repeating part of the beginning part of Batdance came about with the Publison Infernal Machine (I first read about this machine in a David Z/Sheila E interview from 1987 or so) ... how Sheena Easton was around at PP to co-write The Arms of Orion and her explaining to Prince what Orion was ... the exact track numbers on the 24 track machine that Prince always used for certain instruments for every song ... how Prince owned about 6 or 7 LM-1s and none were available at PP because all the working ones were out on the road, so they had to rent an LM-2 to use on Scandalous ... Again, the book is definitely worth reading! Let's not get hung up on the Kiss-Mazarati mistake (it wasn't as "off" in the book as I expected it to be, though it was not fully accurate). Anyone want to revive the discussion about Prince working in the studio and the rest of this book? Madhouseman, we love hearing the little snippets of your book in progress!

yes i agree..the further i have got in the book...the more i find stuff i have never heard before...the odd mistake here and there but its worth getting for a big prince fan who is interested in his recording history...amazon have it on kindle for about a fiver...you can download the kindle software for pc easily enough...you dont need a kindle ...

.

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BartVanHemelen said:

wahclavinet said:

Actually the name on his birth certificate is Prince Roger Nelson, even though he was named for his dad's "Prince Rogers Trio". Usually the media gets this wrong, but you can see the birth certificate in Jon Bream's classic book.

No, his name is "Rogers". "Roger" was an error and this has been corrected.

Has been corrected where? What is on his legal birth certificate is his legal name. And it says "Roger" so that's what it is unless he legally changed it. And he could have changed it to anything.

But he was born Prince Roger Nelson

FunkiestOne said:

BartVanHemelen said:

No, his name is "Rogers". "Roger" was an error and this has been corrected.

Has been corrected where? What is on his legal birth certificate is his legal name. And it says "Roger" so that's what it is unless he legally changed it. And he could have changed it to anything.

But he was born Prince Roger Nelson

The Library Of Congress and Internal Revenue Service would tend to disagree.

This thread has finally perked my interest in buying this, but it's only the Kindle edition that's available - no physical release? Oh the humanity!

NouveauDance said:

This thread has finally perked my interest in buying this, but it's only the Kindle edition that's available - no physical release? Oh the humanity!

i am reading it on my android phone mainly...its worth getting..

.

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wahclavinet said:

I went ahead and finally bought it because it looks like the physical book is not showing available anymore, even though my order hasn't been canceled. That's what happened with the other publisher and it eventually got canceled. A lot in the book is recycled, but he even pulls from stuff that was only published on websites. Can't believe he got Prince's dad's name wrong though. I'm sure I've forgotten some stuff that I've already read in DMSR and other books, but here's what I seen that I think is new in this book so far ... Prince wrote When You Were Mine in a hotel room in Orlando when the band was out visiting Disney World ... lots of details on the equipment he used to track Dirty Mind at home ... Matt Fink composed Dirty Mind on the ARP Omni ... Matt recorded Prince's live drums just before Matt laid down the synth for Dirty Mind ... Ross Palone from Sunset Sound talking about technical details of the Controversy recording setup in Studio B ... Prince tuned his own drums ... he recorded his Controversy drum tracks rock solid in the pocket without a click track ... punching in and out on his own guitar overdubs in the control room ... maybe I should stop here because I can say without a doubt the book is worth buying, and I'm still on the Controversy chapter. I have read just about everything in the past 25 years that has been available about Prince working in the studio and there is definitely some new stuff here. I will always want to read more, so this doesn't mean don't write the next book! I would love to read more about the recording of the associate projects, which I don't think is covered in this book at all. For example ... I realized sometime in the past year or two while listening that some of Mazarati's album was recorded with a DMX instead of the LM-1. And that some of Sheila's tracks were recorded with an LM-2. Sherilyn Fenn talked about seeing Prince record Jungle Love using Coke bottles in the studio and then seeing him track a bunch of other instruments on it. There is so much cool stuff to cover. But for those that are waiting to hear, this book is worth buying.

Where did Sherilyn Fenn discuss that? Sounds like an interesting interview/story, but I'm trying to understand how he used coke bottles to record it.

Regarding the physical copies of the book coming out, Jake told me (on June 3) that they should be out in a few weeks. I am looking forward to reading it as well.

madhouseman said:

Regarding the physical copies of the book coming out, Jake told me (on June 3) that they should be out in a few weeks. I am looking forward to reading it as well.

madhouseman said:

Where did Sherilyn Fenn discuss that? Sounds like an interesting interview/story, but I'm trying to understand how he used coke bottles to record it.

http://prince.org/msg/7/325132

squirrelgrease said:

madhouseman said:

Regarding the physical copies of the book coming out, Jake told me (on June 3) that they should be out in a few weeks. I am looking forward to reading it as well.

Double

madhouseman said:

wahclavinet said:

I went ahead and finally bought it because it looks like the physical book is not showing available anymore, even though my order hasn't been canceled. That's what happened with the other publisher and it eventually got canceled. A lot in the book is recycled, but he even pulls from stuff that was only published on websites. Can't believe he got Prince's dad's name wrong though. I'm sure I've forgotten some stuff that I've already read in DMSR and other books, but here's what I seen that I think is new in this book so far ... Prince wrote When You Were Mine in a hotel room in Orlando when the band was out visiting Disney World ... lots of details on the equipment he used to track Dirty Mind at home ... Matt Fink composed Dirty Mind on the ARP Omni ... Matt recorded Prince's live drums just before Matt laid down the synth for Dirty Mind ... Ross Palone from Sunset Sound talking about technical details of the Controversy recording setup in Studio B ... Prince tuned his own drums ... he recorded his Controversy drum tracks rock solid in the pocket without a click track ... punching in and out on his own guitar overdubs in the control room ... maybe I should stop here because I can say without a doubt the book is worth buying, and I'm still on the Controversy chapter. I have read just about everything in the past 25 years that has been available about Prince working in the studio and there is definitely some new stuff here. I will always want to read more, so this doesn't mean don't write the next book! I would love to read more about the recording of the associate projects, which I don't think is covered in this book at all. For example ... I realized sometime in the past year or two while listening that some of Mazarati's album was recorded with a DMX instead of the LM-1. And that some of Sheila's tracks were recorded with an LM-2. Sherilyn Fenn talked about seeing Prince record Jungle Love using Coke bottles in the studio and then seeing him track a bunch of other instruments on it. There is so much cool stuff to cover. But for those that are waiting to hear, this book is worth buying.

Where did Sherilyn Fenn discuss that? Sounds like an interesting interview/story, but I'm trying to understand how he used coke bottles to record it.

In Jungle Love it's a single Coke bottle. I used to think it was a high cowbell, but listening to it now it's obvious that it's a glass soda bottle filled with water to make it high-pitched. I wouldn't have guessed it until Sherilyn told the story of sitting in on that session. If you listen to Jungle Love right from the beginning after the groove comes in, the only drums & percussion besides the Linn (and maybe live crash cymbal) is a tambourine and the soda bottle. A set of Coke bottles were used instead of agogo bells on Cool in '81, which was probably influenced by MJ using Coke bottles on Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough in '79.

NouveauDance said:

squirrelgrease said:

Double

lets hope he fixes the glaring mistakes in it because it would be not a bad book at all if a bit more care was taken about factual errors..

.

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wahclavinet said:

I went ahead and

Look at your keyboard, there's an ENTER button. Hit that every once in a while when you're typing.

here's what I seen that I think is new in this book so far ... Prince wrote When You Were Mine in a hotel room in Orlando when the band was out visiting Disney World ... lots of details on the equipment he used to track Dirty Mind at home ... Matt Fink composed Dirty Mind on the ARP Omni ... Matt recorded Prince's live drums just before Matt laid down the synth for Dirty Mind ... Ross Palone from Sunset Sound talking about technical details of the Controversy recording setup in Studio B ... Prince tuned his own drums ... he recorded his Controversy drum tracks rock solid in the pocket without a click track ... punching in and out on his own guitar overdubs in the control room ...

I'm pretty sure plenty of that has been published before. If the author was honest, he would provide adequate credit to his sources. (Which would also make it possible to verify his quotes.)

maybe I should stop here because I can say without a doubt the book is worth buying,

Except... It isn't a book. It's the rough draft of a book, and it needs TONS of work. It's a nice compilation, but the way he quotes reviews is horrible and makes pages virtually unreadable. I can't help but feel that this guy cares little about Prince, and that this was just another book about an artist's studio habits he could publish because he had plenty of source material.

The structure of the book is deeply flawed, lots of information is just repeated over and over again, quotes go from superficial to very technical, there's a bunch of factual errors, and in the end I still had no real clue whether some of Prince's studio habits are so extrordinary, because there's little or no context. You'd think that a guy who's written two dozen books like this would write a chapter on what makes Prince so out there, but there's nothing like that.

Also, the omission of side projects is a real shame, same for the lack of in-depth discussion of tracks (with a few exceptions). Why not include a timeline, or an overview of Prince's studio personnel, the studios he used, the hardware,...

Quite frankly I cannot imagine this to ever be published as an "actual" book, since it is IMHO way to flimsy -- and just nowhere near a good, worthwhile book.

BartVanHemelen said:

I'm pretty sure plenty of that has been published before. If the author was honest, he would provide adequate credit to his sources. (Which would also make it possible to verify his quotes.)

Except... It isn't a book. It's the rough draft of a book, and it needs TONS of work. It's a nice compilation, but the way he quotes reviews is horrible and makes pages virtually unreadable.

The structure of the book is deeply flawed ...

Also, the omission of side projects is a real shame, same for the lack of in-depth discussion of tracks (with a few exceptions).

It is true that the book is inexcusably inconsistent and unprofessional because of all the errors. The names of the equipment are misspelled so frequently that it's almost comical, but since I am familiar with all the gear they talked about, I knew what they meant in every case except one that had me scratching my head.

FYI, I looked over the credits at the beginning and he does specifically list which engineers he talked to for the book as well as Matt Fink. These seem accurate because those of us that have read just about everything out there know what is new, and I can tell that there is original interview material from just about all of the people he listed.

I understand why people are critical about the book, but here's my bottom line. There is nothing I'm more interested in reading than details of Prince working in the studio. If there is a new book that has new information in it about Prince working in the studio, I'm interested. If it was all recycled like I was afraid it was after reading the sample chapter, I wouldn't be interested. But I've learned a bunch of things from this book and really enjoyed reading it. I'm glad it's out. And I hope there will be more in-depth books to come.

wahclavinet said:

BartVanHemelen said:

The structure of the book is deeply flawed ...

Also, the omission of side projects is a real shame, same for the lack of in-depth discussion of tracks (with a few exceptions).

It is true that the book is inexcusably inconsistent and unprofessional because of all the errors. The names of the equipment are misspelled so frequently that it's almost comical, but since I am familiar with all the gear they talked about, I knew what they meant in every case except one that had me scratching my head.

FYI, I looked over the credits at the beginning and he does specifically list which engineers he talked to for the book as well as Matt Fink. These seem accurate because those of us that have read just about everything out there know what is new, and I can tell that there is original interview material from just about all of the people he listed.

I understand why people are critical about the book, but here's my bottom line. There is nothing I'm more interested in reading than details of Prince working in the studio. If there is a new book that has new information in it about Prince working in the studio, I'm interested. If it was all recycled like I was afraid it was after reading the sample chapter, I wouldn't be interested. But I've learned a bunch of things from this book and really enjoyed reading it. I'm glad it's out. And I hope there will be more in-depth books to come.

.

.

yes...i agree...for all its many flaws...i still learned more from this book about prince in the actual studio than any other book i have read....

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wahclavinet said:

BartVanHemelen said:

The structure of the book is deeply flawed ...

Also, the omission of side projects is a real shame, same for the lack of in-depth discussion of tracks (with a few exceptions).

It is true that the book is inexcusably inconsistent and unprofessional because of all the errors.

The errors are just a symptom.

FYI, I looked over the credits at the beginning and he does specifically list which engineers he talked to for the book as well as Matt Fink.

I quoted that in this thread. Please note that he only talked to Eddie Miller, the rest of the interviews he got from other books and mags, online interviews etcetera. Also, this is NOT proper credit: he should provide a source for each quote.

These seem accurate because those of us that have read just about everything out there know what is new, and I can tell that there is original interview material from just about all of the people he listed.

Then it should be easy to give an example.

BartVanHemelen said:

Please note that he only talked to Eddie Miller, the rest of the interviews he got from other books and mags, online interviews etcetera.

Where do you get this from? The distinction below with Eddie Miller is about the photos, not that others didn't give interviews. Here's what I see in the Acknowledgements:

I want to dearly thank the producers and engineers who contributed their time and memories to assisting the reconstruction of the recording of this majestic catalog of beautiful music, thank you for your contributions both to that legacy, and to this book’s study of it, specifically Susan Rogers, David Leonard, Michael Koppelman, Sylvia Massey, Ross Pallone, Steve Fontano, Chuck Zwicky, and an EXTRA SPECIAL THANK YOU to Eddie Miller for your interviews/pics.

Equally, I want to give MANY THANKS to Matt ‘Dr’ Fink for devoting the extensive lengths of time you did to fleshing out the aforementioned catalog from a band member’s intimate perspective.

wahclavinet said:

BartVanHemelen said:

Please note that he only talked to Eddie Miller, the rest of the interviews he got from other books and mags, online interviews etcetera.

Where do you get this from? The distinction below with Eddie Miller is about the photos, not that others didn't give interviews. Here's what I see in the Acknowledgements:

I want to dearly thank the producers and engineers who contributed their time and memories

Translation: "I copied those stories from elsewhere." Look at where I talked about "IWTBYL" and how someone pointed out that this came from a housequake interview from Jan 2006. I bet most quotes (except for the Miller ones) can be traced back to other books, websites, articles, etcetera.

an EXTRA SPECIAL THANK YOU to Eddie Miller for your interviews/pics.

Translation: "The only engineer I actually talked to."

The dude couldn't even be arsed to give his opinion on Prince's music and always simply quotes reviews from Rolling Stone etcetera.

I've spoken to Jake and he indicated that he's spoken to a few others as well. I don't remember who, but I seem to recall several that he spoke to. I think he did his research, but I wish there was information about his outside projects like Madhouse and The Time. Personally, I was hoping that this would be a kick ass book so I wouldn't have to keep working on mine! lol

BartVanHemelen said:

wahclavinet said:

BartVanHemelen said:

Translation: "I copied those stories from elsewhere." Look at where I talked about "IWTBYL" and how someone pointed out that this came from a housequake interview from Jan 2006. I bet most quotes (except for the Miller ones) can be traced back to other books, websites, articles, etcetera.

an EXTRA SPECIAL THANK YOU to Eddie Miller for your interviews/pics.

Translation: "The only engineer I actually talked to."

The dude couldn't even be arsed to give his opinion on Prince's music and always simply quotes reviews from Rolling Stone etcetera.