I don't know how to describe it. It's got a very "mall" sound to it and I love the electric sitar on "Somebody's Somebody" and "I Can't Make U Love Me". Can it be described as a '90s R&B sound?

Rahsaan Patterson and D'Angelo (who clearly got a mention in a song) have a lot of the sound but are there any albums that sound like they were mixed at the same studio as Emancipation?

I'd recommend surgery

If it's more Emancipation you want then I would recommend going down the bootleg route.

This release http://main.thedigitalgar...apter.html contains many outtakes and alternate versions of songs from the Emancipation sessions. Sound quality is excellent, and it can be easily found online to download for free.

FrankCapraMoment said:

I don't know how to describe it. It's got a very "mall" sound to it and I love the electric sitar on "Somebody's Somebody" and "I Can't Make U Love Me". Can it be described as a '90s R&B sound?

Rahsaan Patterson and D'Angelo (who clearly got a mention in a song) have a lot of the sound but are there any albums that sound like they were mixed at the same studio as Emancipation?

Newpower Soul, Come 2 My House (with Chaka Khan), GCS 2000 (with Graham Central Station), Rave Un2 The Joy Fantastic, The Chocolate Invasion and The Slaughterhouse have a very similar sound to Emancipation, as well as some of the material on Crystal Ball and The Truth.

eating your own shit

OMG @ some of these replies!

databank is on the money - all these projects are post Emancipation, 1997-2000 and share a somewhat similar production style - clean and crisp, synth-heavy, drum programming etc. Being as diplomatic as possible here you understand, ahem.

databank said:

Newpower Soul, Come 2 My House (with Chaka Khan), GCS 2000 (with Graham Central Station), Rave Un2 The Joy Fantastic, The Chocolate Invasion and The Slaughterhouse have a very similar sound to Emancipation, as well as some of the material on Crystal Ball and The Truth.

Why couldn't anyone else answer like this without being so disrespecful.

[Edited 12/7/11 4:31am]

FrankCapraMoment said:

I don't know how to describe it. It's got a very "mall" sound to it and I love the electric sitar on "Somebody's Somebody" and "I Can't Make U Love Me". Can it be described as a '90s R&B sound?

Rahsaan Patterson and D'Angelo (who clearly got a mention in a song) have a lot of the sound but are there any albums that sound like they were mixed at the same studio as Emancipation?

I like it a lot too. Very clean, crisp production. Definitely "of it's time". Even if I had no idea when it came out, I'd date it as being '96-'97 because of the production sound and the way it's mixed.

What essentially happened in '95-'96 is that most of the production chain started becoming digital and more people were mixing "in the box" and recording to reel-to-reel tapes was rapidly becoming a thing of the past.

Hip-Hop is actually the best genre to listen to, to notice this. Because you can even listen to tracks done by the same artists and producers done in '94/'95 and then compare them to ones done in '96 and you'll immediately hear the difference in the mix. That "clean" production is mostly the absence of analog warmth. Compare the mixes on Tupac's "Me Against The World" mostly recorded in 1994, to the ones on "All Eyez On Me", recorded in late '95. Or compare Notorious BIG's debut, "Ready To Die" from '94, with his second album, "Life After Death" from '97. There's many of the same producers and mix engineers on both but it's very clear the earlier stuff is done almost entirely using analog gear and the latter stuff is almost all digitial.

Obviously with Prince it's very possible too. "Emancipation" is mixed radically differently to even the albums that directly preceded it like "The Gold Experience" and "Come". Part of that is Kirky J's co-production involvement for sure but part of it is the switch to more digital gear and processing also.

As far as mixing, there's an alternative-rock artist called Paul Westerberg, whose 1996 album entitled "Eventually" was mixed at Paisley Park that same year (and also has Michael Bland playing drums on some songs). But it's a different genre of music so it's not going to sound anything like Emancipation.

New Zealand singer Annie Crummer had a track called "U Soul Me" that was also mixed at Paisley Park in 1996.

But as mentioned, if you're looking for other material with the Emancipation sound, you'll want that "Secret Chapter" boot with outtakes, and the New Power Soul album.

^ "analog warmth" - it sounds as lovely as it 'sounds'