It's okay. Mostly it's just way too loud and there's way too much compression, but the loudness war was on at that time so it's no surprise...

mushmackalenta said:

squirrelgrease said:

Compared to Prince's 80s CD catalog, Crystal Ball is an audio production masterpiece. The older tracks on CB may have had to undergo extensive work to get anything at all, considering the reported state of The Vault's contents.

Prince's re-recording of past works may not be all about lyrical content. It's reasonable to speculate that his tapes are dust.

I don't get why his tapes would be dust.

I've got tapes I've had since about 1985, that still play and sound fine.

Also for instance The Beach Smile Sessions have have just come out, they would have been far older. Did prince use a shity kind of tape or something or just store them in a damp garage.

Many bands that recorded in the mid-to-late 80s have had similar problems with their 2-track master mixdown tapes delaminating. The tapes in question would be professional quality and not consumer grade, and they were manufactured during a specific time-frame. As stated above, baking the tapes prior to the point of no return is usually essential, but can then only be played once or twice.

So, of course Hendrix, The Beatles and the Beach Boys luckily never used the problematic tapes. Unfortunately, Prince's heyday seems to have coincided with these dramatic half-life mag reels.

^ Well fuck.